One of the results of the Danmark Expedition has been a very considerable and important extension of onr knowledge with regard to the marine, Jurassic and Cretaceous deposits of East Greenland and thus of the Arctic zone as a whole. The Expedition brought home a very complete material of these deposits, from regions whose geological structure had hitherto been quite unknown or only very imperfectly studied. This material was intrusted to me for investigation by the Committee for the Danmark Expedition, and as it proved to have come from deposits which were almost all younger than the Jurassic deposits investigated by the Danish expeditions of 1891-92 and 1900, in regions of East Greenland somewhat further south, and as no material for comparison existed in Copenhagen, the Committee voted me the necessary hinds for a journey to Munich. Here Professor Rothpletz with the greatest willingness permitted me to use the rich collections of the Pakeontological Museum there for comparison, and 1 would express my best thanks to him here for this permission. - On the return journey from Munich I made a short stay at Gottingen, where the well-known expert on the Jurassic deposits of the Arctic regions, Professor Pomi*kckj, was so kind as to look through a part of my material, especially the Ammonites. For the suggestions and information Prof. Pompkckj gave me on this occasion I am extremely indebted to him. As, further, a number of species occurred in the material, which had earlier been described by Tullbkho and Lunbobkn from the Jurassic deposits of Nova Zemhln and Spitzbergen, I desired to compare my material with theirs and journeyed to Stockholm on my return from Germany. For the friendly permission given me there to make the comparison, it is a pleasant duty to tender my best thanks to Professor G. Holm, the Director of the Zoopabontological Department of the Riksinuseum.

Палеонтология обособилась, как самостоятельная научная дисциплина, в начале прошлого века. Почти одновременно ископаемые остатки животных и растений были оценены с двух точек зрения. С одной стороны, как документы, характеризующие пласты земной коры, напр., позволяющие различать эти пласты по относительному их возрасту, — в этом смысле окаменелости являются документами истории земли. С другой стороны, изучение окаменелостей показало, что в различные геологические эпохи жили различные Фауны и Флоры; что, следовательно, окаменелые остатки являются документами истории жизни на земле. Совершенно ясно, что лишь в этом последнем случае ископаемые имеют самодовлеющее значение, служа для восстановления истории жизни, составляющей предмет изучения палеонтологии; тогда как в первом случае они играют служебную роль при решении вопросов другой науки (исторической геологии, или стратиграфии).