Born in Leith, Scotland, in 1774, Robert Jameson was a pillar of the scientific establishment at the University of Edinburgh for over fifty years, and was one of Scotland's most important mineralogists and natural historians. Kept by W. D. Wilson, a student at the University of Edinburgh, this volume includes notes of lectures on zoology and meteorology delivered by Robert Jameson in 1822-1823. Wilson wrote that he omitted the introductory lectures, and added: "I do not mean to fill this book with copious Notes; -- I shall put down merely a few of the general facts, -- and any thing of interest not to be found in the text books of the class."

An evolutionist before Darwin, an embryologist, paleontologist, and comparative anatomist, Étienne Geoffroy Saint Hilaire was a Professor of Vertebrate Zoology at the Musée National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris for the half century following the Reign of Terror. Following in the footsteps of Lamarck, Geoffroy held tenaciously to a belief in the underlying unity of organismal design, to the great change of being, and the possibility of the transmutation of species in time, amassing evidence for his claims through research in comparative anatomy, paleontology, and embryology. The Geoffroy Collection is comprised of 0.75 linear feet of lecture notes and correspondence relating to Geoffroy's diverse interests in natural history, Egypt, comparative anatomy, analogies, paleontology, and embryology, and it is particularly rich for his studies of teratology. All items are in French.