Hommage de J. Lambert
à Victor Auguste Gauthier
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VICTOR-AUGUSTE GAUTHIER 1837-1911. Obituary
Born in Tonnerre (Yonne) on 5 March 1837, the fourth child
of a modest winegrower, Victor-Auguste Gauthier gradually rose through his
intelligence and his work and, as a son of his works, he had acquired,
twenty years ago, a deserved scientific reputation. He felt an attraction
for the natural sciences which study further developed, but called by his
functions to spend most of his life in the provinces, he had understood
early on the need to specialise and, soon giving up work on general
palaeontology, he devoted himself exclusively to the study of Echinids. He
became the correspondent, then the collaborator and friend of Cotteau,
while, through his marriage, family relations established a sincere and
lasting friendship between Peron and himself.
He was brought up at the college of Tonnerre, then
successively as a tutor at the colleges of Sens and Orléans, soon
graduated in literature and, after a brilliant competition, was awarded
the agrégé de grammaire, and we see him as a teacher at the colleges of
Pau, Puy, Moulins, and finally, on 7 January 1864, in Marseille. It is in
this city that he devoted himself for nineteen years to the study of
Echinids and collected an important series of species from Provence.
His first works were collaborations. He began by describing
two species, which were not figured and of which only one could be
maintained, in the "Essai de Géologie et de Paléontologie Aveyronnaise" by
Reynès, then, with Peron and under the direction of Cotteau, he undertook
the "Description des Echinides fossiles de l'Algérie", a considerable work,
The first two fascicles of which were published first in the Annales des
Sciences géologiques (1873) and in the Bibliothèque des Hautes études
(1875), but were later reworked (1883-84) to form part of the first volume
of this great work, which is a particular credit to French science. For
eighteen years, from 1873 to 1891, Gauthier worked tirelessly on the
descriptions of these Echinids and enabled us to become familiar with this
very interesting part of the Algerian fossil fauna. It is important to
recall what was, in the common work, the part of each one. Peron provided
most of the material, wrote the stratigraphic notes and collaborated with
Gauthier on some species descriptions. Cotteau had kept the high direction
and his opinion predominated in the delicate questions of establishment or
interpretation of genera and species as in those of general
classification. Gauthier deserves the credit for the detailed study of all
these species and their careful description.
As the publication of this great work progressed, the
author's knowledge became more extensive and he ventured to give us alone
a few short notes, the first on the Echinids living in the vicinity of
Marseilles, another very interesting one on the Echinids of the
Bouches-du-Rhône department, a prodrome of a more important work which has
not been published; But, as a confidant of the thoughts of my learned
friend and purchaser of his beautiful collection, I hope to be able one
day to complete his work on this point, and to include the rather numerous
species whose names he has only indicated. In the course of this work Gauthier was appointed, on 7 August 1883, professor at the Lycée Michelet, in Vanves, and was soon promoted to the rank of Officer of Public Instruction. He has since published various notes in our Bulletin, notably from 1898 to 1903 his "Contributions à l'étude des Echinides fossiles". From 1888 to 1895, he had published in the Annuaire géologique universel a series of articles in which he gave precious analyses of the main works published at that time on Echinoderms. Then in 1889 he published his "Echinides fossiles de la Tunisie", an important work, for which his studies on the Echinides of Algeria had prepared him marvellously.En collaboration avec Cotteau d'abord (1895), puis seul (1902),
Gauthier described the curious Echinids brought back from
Persia by J. de Morgan. In collaboration with our colleague the engineer
R. Fourtau, he published, in 1899, the Revision of the Fossil Echinids of
Egypt, soon followed by two notes on the same subject, and had thus well
deserved the honour of being appointed member of the Egyptian Institute.
The work of Gauthier, without reaching the extent of that
of Cotteau or Loriol, was thus still important.
Among the most interesting types of Echinids that Gauthier
has made known to us, we must mention : Galeropygus Jolyi from the
Cenomanian of the Charentes, Noetlingia Monteili from the Cretaceous of
Central Africa, Entomaster Rousseli from the Senonian of Algeria,
Rachiosoma Peroni and Lambertiaster Auberti from the Cretaceous of Tunisia,
Megapneustes grandis from the Eocene of Egypt, Vologesia Tataosi, Stenonia
Morgani, Opissaster Douvillei, Iraniaster Douvillei from the Senonian of
Louristan and especially Cionobrissus Morgani from the Upper Eocene of
Persia.
As a naturalist, Gauthier mainly expressed his opinions in
his shortest and most recent notes, because in his major works he was
especially concerned with giving us very complete, detailed and precise
descriptions of all the species he studied. Each of his descriptions is
followed by a conscientious examination of the relations and differences
of the form studied with neighbouring species. With regard to Megapneustes Lorioli, Gauthier rightly remarked that the taxonomic value of the facioles was variable, excellent in recent species, when the organ is definitively fixed, and much less certain in the first forms with unstable fascioles of the Cretaceous and Eocene. He attaches some importance to the presence of tubercles in the interporal zones of the petals of some Spatangoida. After denying the generic value of the presence of the secondary tubercle rows in the Glyphostomata, he joined Pomel's contrary view to justify his genus Orthechinus. His work on apex modifications in Hemiaster is of considerable interest and ruined Pomel's artificial classification of Spatangoida into Spatangides and Progonasterides. In his work in collaboration with Cotteau, it is rather difficult to separate his personal views from those of the Master; these views appear more clearly in his critical note on the classification of the Echnidae by Pomel, a sober, impartial criticism, marked by common sense, one of the best that has been published and which is still reread today with fruit. He shows himself to be a convinced disciple of scientific traditionalism. Without denying the importance of the masticatory apparatus in Echinids, he prefers, in the order of the gradation of taxonomic characters, those derived from the relations of the periproct and the apex, or from the shape of the petals. And yet the last at least is not more absolute than that invoked by Pomel, for, if one can hesitate on the position of certain Conulus or Conoclypeus among the Gnathostomes, one will remain just as hesitant on the true character of the petals of Galeropygus Peroni or Clypeus Constantini. This search for the absolute in nomenclature, which seduces the best minds, is in reality rather disappointing, for in nature the richness of forms is such that the study of an isolated character leads fatally to the observation of progressive degradations and apparent links between the principal families. In such a way that the scientist who pursues this research on the study of a supposedly first-order character is insensibly led by a progressive evolution of his ideas to the diametrically opposed theories of transformism. Gauthier did not escape this and he, who then denied any relationship between the Palechinids and the Nearechinids, we shall see him, ten years later, searching everywhere for the form of passage from one type to another and imagining that he had found at least one in his Proholaster Auberti.
Gauthier appears to us above all as a powerful preparer of
material, a tireless describer of new species and forms, rarely concerned
with lifting the veil that obscures the question of origins. If he tackles
this question in his echinoids of Persia, it is very timidly and in a way
incidentally, on the occasion of the Iraniaster genus, stating as an axiom
this thought that a genus cannot appear all of a sudden, completely
isolated from the others. This is an opinion that stems more from faith in
a theory than from materially observed facts. In this order of ideas,
Gauthier thought it necessary to point out what he calls the affinities of
Iraniaster with Stenonia, while elsewhere he makes Schizaster descend from
Opissaster, Bothriolampas from Bothriopygus, Pliolampas from Echinanthus.
Let us leave him the responsibility for these opinions, but let us note
that his science and his talent were mainly manifested in the observation
of known species, the creation of new species and their description. In
this respect, he has acquired a just notoriety and his work, intact after
many years, will be imposed on future generations as it was on his
contemporaries.
Munier-Chalmas used to say that the value of a naturalist
can be recognized by the skill of the preparer. Nothing was more true as
far as Gauthier was concerned, one must see in his beautiful collection
with what care and what skill he knew how to free an Echinid from the most
rebellious gangues. Then one understands better the excellence of his
descriptions which are at the same time so complete, so exact, sober and
elegant. A passionate naturalist, a tireless worker, his depth of science was matched only by the extent of his modesty. In the midst of his collections and books, devoting his leisure time towards the end of his career to his favourite studies, surrounded by the affection of a few friends and the tenderness of a devoted companion, he seemed destined to live out his days happily in the retirement he had chosen for himself in Sens, He seemed to be able to contribute more than any other to the progress of Echinology and, without striving for honours, to attain an indisputable scientific fame, when illness disrupted his work, his life and even his feelings for those who had been dearest to him, so that we had, in a way, the pain of losing him twice. ________________
LIST OF SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS OF Victor Gauthier
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