GERVAIS, Paul (1816-1879), an eminent paleontologist, was born September 26, 1816, at Paris, where he obtained the diplomas of doctor of science and of medicine, and in 1835, as assistant to De Blainville in the laboratory of comparative anatomy at the Museum of Natural History, commenced palaeontological research. In 1841 he obtained the chair of zoology and comparative anatomy at the Faculty of Sciences in Montpellier, of which he was in 1856 appointed dean. In 1848-52 appeared his important work Zoologie et Paléontologie Françaises, supplementary to the palaeontological publications of G. Cuvier and De Blainville; of this a second and greatly improved edition was issued in 1859. In 1865 he accepted the professorship of zoology at the Sorbonne, vacant through the death of Gratiolet; this post he left in 1868 for the chair of comparative anatomy at the Paris Museum of Natural History, the anatomical collections of which he greatly enriched by his exertions. He was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, in the place of Coste, January 26, 1874. Gervais was remarkable for the disinterestedness with which he devoted himself to the cause of science. He died February 10, 1879, in the sixty-third year of his age....

GERVAISE of Canterbury, born about 1150, was one of the monks of the priory of Christ Church, Canterbury, and witnessed the burning of the cathedral in 1174. His earliest known literary effort was a Tractatus de Combustione et Reparatione Dordbornensis Ecclesioe, being an account of that conflagration and of the subsequent process of rebuilding, written probably about 1184. This was followed about 1194 by Imaginationes de discordiis inter monachos Caηtuarieηses et Archiepiscopum Baldewinum, a detailed relation of clerical disputes which had occurred during the episcopate of Baldwin from 1185 to 1190. Gervaise’s Chronica de tempore regum Anglioe, Stephani, Hennci II., et Ricardi I., brings the history down to the death of the last named (1199); but his Vitce Dοrοbοrnensium Archi-episcοpοrum closes with that of Reginald Fitz-Joceline(1191). These works, which are all of them characterized by laboriousness and trustworthiness, are reprinted in Twysden’s Historice Aηglicαηce Scriptores (vol. x.). In the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, there is an unpublished MS., also by Gervaise, containing a work entitled Mappa Mundi, and also an English chronicle from the fabulous ages to the death of Richard. The year of the death of Gervaise is not recorded, but the fact that he does not appear to have accomplished any part of his promised chronicle of the reign of John may fairly be taken to imply that he did not live long after 1200. See Wright, Bio-graρhia Britannica (1846).