Excerpt from Catalogue of the Fossil Sponges in the Geological Department of the British Museum: Natural History; With Description of New and Litlle-Known Species; Illustrated by 38 Lithographic Plates In submitting the accompanying Monograph to the scientific public, I feel assured that the careful and conscientious manner in which Dr. Hinde has performed the very arduous task entrusted to him will meet with the well-earned recognition of all those who consult this work. The earlier methods of classification of both the recent and fossil Spongidæ by their external form and habit of growth having been thoroughly tested and proved to be unreliable, the only sure method to be pursued - that of classifying them according to their intimate microscopic structure - has been adopted by Dr. Hinde, who, himself a pupil of the distinguished palæontologist Prof Dr. Karl Zittel of Munich (one of our highest authorities in this class of organisms), has followed patiently the careful methods of research set forth in the 'Beitrage zur Systematik der fossilen Spongien' and other of Zittel's works. It is no small gratification to know that the determination of this very difficult group of fossil organisms has now been so far completed, and that the types of those species not heretofore described are now all carefully figured in the Plates accompanying this Monograph, and the original specimens are preserved in the British Museum of Natural History. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.