Item 0025 - Letter, 25 September 1878

Jean Albert Gaudry was born on September 15, 1827, in St Germain-en-Laye, Île-de-France, France.

He was a French geologist, paleontologist, and author. He studied at the Collège Stanislas de Paris. In 1852, he made explorations in Cyprus and Greece where he investigated the rich deposit of fossil Vertebrata and brought to light a remarkable mammalian fauna of the Miocene age. He published an account of the geology of the island of Cyprus in Mémoires de la Société géologique de France (1862). In 1853, while still in Cyprus, he became an assistant to Alcide d'Orbigny, a French naturalist, the first to hold the chair of paleontology at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. In 1872, Gaudry succeeded to this important post. In 1882, he was elected member of the French Academy of Sciences. In 1895, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society of London. Gaudry was one of the first scientists to invent a phylogenetic tree for fossil forms in 1866. In 1900, he presided over the meetings of the 8th International Congress of Geology held in Paris. He was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1900. Because of his spiritual beliefs, he rejected the idea of natural selection and struggle for existence. He was a notable proponent of theistic evolution. In his book "Essai de paléontologie philosophique" (1896), he considered evolution to be a divine plan guided by God.

In 1856, he married Jeanne Elisabeth Hittorf (1832–1889) and in 1893, he married Valérie Adèle Tyrbas de Chamberet (1838–1901). He died on November 27, 1908, in Paris, Île-de-France, France.