PROOFS, ILLUSTRATIONS, AUTHORITIES, ETC. V 



from the oolite and the chalk, which cannot be distinguished from 

 each other in any constant manner. Edward Forbes declares ex- 

 pressly that he has found the Terebratula caput-serpentis of the 

 white chalk, of the upper tertiary strata, and of the present seas ; 

 and the Echinocyamus pusillus in the eocene, miocene, pliocene 

 strata, and living, perfectly identical. Ehrenberg mentions even 

 after the exclusion of all the tertiary strata erroneously joined to the 

 chalk a still very considerable number of infusoria and foraminifera 

 as occurring in the chalk, in the tertiary formations, and living ; 

 and D'Orbigny, in agreement with this, declares that he cannot dis- 

 tinguish the Dentalina communis and Rotalina umbilicata of the 

 Paris white chalk, either from the tertiary or from the living species 

 of the Mediterranean ; and in regard to the latter especially, that 

 after the most minute comparison he cannot find any distinction. 

 He himself quotes five cephalopods and three foraminifera in the 

 green sand (guult) and in the chalk. Agassiz himself cites Lamma 

 elegans in calcaire grossier, Middle Tertiary, Molasse, and Upper 

 Tertiary, and Cytherea leonina in the Middle Tertiary and Molasse. 

 That a great number of tertiary specimens pass into the present 

 creation, is not only admitted by all palaeontologists, with two or 

 three exceptions, but has also been specially proved by us in our 

 review of Agassiz' s memoir, ' Sur les especes reput^es identiques ;' 

 and among other things, by showing partly that the specific distinc- 

 tions which Agassiz adduced between specimens of certain species 

 from the two positions, and partly that the identity of geological 

 position which he assumed for the genuine Cyprina Islandica in 



Sicily as quaternary instead of tertiary, did not exist K. 



Owen has recognised, in the English (newer pliocence) tertiary 

 strata, forty species of mammalia, thirty of which still exist." 

 Bronn on F alceontological Statics, translated in Quar. Jour. 

 a. S., Nov. 1849. 



Dr. Mantell concludes " that throughout all geological time the 

 changes on the earth's surface, and the appearance and extinction of 

 peculiar types of animals and plants have been governed by the 

 same physical and organic laws ; that the paroxysmal terrestrial dis- 

 turbances, though apparently in the earlier ages involving larger 

 areas, and operating with greater energy than the volcanic and the 

 subterranean action of modern times, did not affect the established 

 order of organic life upon the surface of the globe, and that, through- 

 out the innumerable ages indicated by the sedimentary formations, 

 there was at no period a greater anomaly in the assemblage of cer- 

 tain types of the animal and vegetable kingdoms than exists at the 

 present time." President's (De la Beche] Address, 1848. 



" Mr. Davidson communicated [to the Geological Society of France] 

 a detailed memoir of the Brachiopods of the Upper Silurian System 

 of England, the result of his labours in the districts where these 

 rocks are found, and among local collections. He considers it as 

 now recognised that many species have lived through the Silurian 

 system, and have even been perpetuated beyond it Respect- 



