Notices respecting New Books. 4-37 



importance of this subject, I have sought the means of placing it in 

 a clear and correct light ; and am not without hopes, that whether 

 my views be received or rejected, my statements will be found un- 

 prejudiced, and, though incomplete, correct. 



" I shall now endeavour to investigate some of the general laws, 

 respecting the relation of fossils to the strata, which are either 

 already recognised and admitted among geologists, or unfolded in 

 the following pages. The inquiry naturally divides itself into two 

 parts, according as the strata are considered, with respect to their 

 chemical and mineralogical composition, or their relative antiquity. 

 Considering rocks as definite chemical compounds, (an assumption 

 sufficiently exact in a limited district,) we may inquire if fossils of 

 the same kind belong to strata of the same character. 



" A decisive answer in the affirmative will suggest itself to him 

 who observes the agreement in this respect, between the transition 

 limestone and the mountain limestone, in their bivalve shells and 

 trilobites, between this latter rock and the oolites in their Astreae, 

 Turbinoliae, and Milleporae, and between the oolites and the chalk, 

 in some of their Echini and Terebratulae. But this analogy vanishes 

 altogether when we attempt to extend it to a considerable series of 

 fossils ; no other strata than the limestones exhibit it in a striking 

 degree, and few tribes of organic remains can be quoted in illustra- 

 tion, except the Radiaria. On the contrary, the shells of the moun- 

 tain limestone, oolite, and chalk, are all entirely distinct from one 

 another, and immediately suggest the second inquiry, to which we 

 now proceed. What is the relation between the species of fossils, 

 and the antiquity of their enveloping strata ? That such a connec- 

 tion between the age of a rock and its organic contents does cer- 

 tainly exist, and may plainly be recognised, will appear from a few- 

 facts which any one may verify by examining a good collection of 

 Yorkshire fossils, or a sufficient suite of specimens from the same 

 strata in other parts of England. The mountain limestone of the 

 north-western dales of Yorkshire, abounds with Crinoidea, Products?, 

 Spirifera?, and Bellerophontes, of which no single individual has ever 

 been found in the strata of the eastern part of the county, which on 

 the other hand, contain Echini, Trigonise, Cucullseae, Rostellarise, and 

 Ammonites, to which there is nothing similar in the west. The par- 

 tition between these groups of strata and their fossils is made by the 

 red sandstone stratum, which in Yorkshire at least has never yielded 

 one single organic fossil. The same observation has been made in 

 other parts of England. Again, in the eastern part of Yorkshire 

 itself, a complete partition of the same kind is made by the blue 

 clays of the vale of Pickering, between the chalk on the south and 

 the oolitic rocks on the north ; both full of fossils, and those en- 

 tirely different. 



" I am sure that these assertions will not be disputed by any 

 person at all acquainted with geological phenomena, or accustomed 

 to distinguish the characters of fossils. The consequence flowing 

 from them is of the highest importance and interest ; for since it 

 thus appears, that a few shells brought from a quarry, are data suf- 

 ficjent to determine the geological relations of the rock, we are 



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