442 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



quartzites containing numerous " bilobites," similar to those 

 which in the North of Portugal, and in parts of France, are 

 found at the base of the Ordovician system. It is unneces- 

 sary here to enter into the controversy concerning these 

 forms. Nathorst has given strong reasons for believing 

 them to be the tracks of animals ; but Delgado strongly 

 opposes this view and maintains them to be algae (16). 



In the neighbourhood of Portalegre there is found also 

 a small patch of schists containing Monograptus and some 

 casts of bivalves (15). The relations of these to the sur- 

 rounding beds are unknown ; but if the graptolites are 

 correctly referred to the genus Monograptus, they must 

 certainly belong to the Silurian. 



So far then as they are known, the Lower Palaeozoic 

 rocks of Portugal do not favour very strongly the view that 

 there was any very marked difference in Older Palaeozoic 

 times between the faunas of Northern and Southern Europe. 

 Nevertheless, P/acoparia, Calymene Tristci7ii, and Acidas- 

 pis Buchi, which are characteristic fossils in France and the 

 Spanish Peninsula, are by no means common in Britain, 

 although they have been found there. In short, we have 

 no sufficient data as yet to show how far the fauna of 

 Southern Europe resembled or differed from that of the 

 North. 



Upper Palceozoic. — There is only one locality in the 

 whole of Portugal where the Devonian has yet been 

 recognised, and this is near the Ordovician quartzites of 

 Portalegre. A band of schists was discovered by Delgado 

 containing Phacops latifrons, Cryp/urus, and broad-winged 

 Spirifers (15). 



The Lower Carboniferous on the other hand occupies a 

 wide area in the South of Portugal, where it forms the 

 greater part of the hilly region on the northern borders of 

 the province of Algarve. Like all the other Palaeozoic 

 rocks of Portugal, they have never been studied in detail, 

 but they consist of schists and grauwackes, without either 

 quartzites or limestones, and they contain Posidonomya 

 (like Becker i and Pargai), and Goniatites [cf. crenistrid) 

 {15). Hence it appears that the Lower Carboniferous 



