56 Occurrence of Valuta Lambert i on the Sujfblk Coast, 



to examination, in conjunction with those inferences which we 

 draw from our knowledge of zoology and general physics, 

 that the geologist finds the materials on which he speculates 

 as to the changes and revolutions to which the surface of this 

 planet has been exposed, and by which he chronicles the lapse 

 of ages since the period when matter was first endowed with 

 the principle of life. A careful consideration of the present 

 condition of human knowledge, and especially of those de- 

 partments of research to which our attention is directed, with 

 a view of elucidating many geological phenomena, would seem 

 rather to indicate a narrowing of the boundaries of legitimate 

 induction than an extension of generalisations. 



Facts which bear upon any one subject cannot long accu- 

 mulate without giving rise to numerous theoretical suggestions, 

 and their reciprocal beneficial relation to each other is no 

 longer a matter of dispute. Theory is often the great incen- 

 tive to observation, the main stimulus to exertion, and the 

 more widely those who are engaged in the prosecution of the 

 same object differ amongst themselves as to the nature of 

 their present conclusions, the greater, perhaps, would be the 

 reliance which we should feel disposed to place in any points 

 of common agreement that may hereafter be attained. 



But, although the progress of modern discovery may have 

 a tendency to shake our confidence in some of the inferences 

 which have been based upon the study of organic remains ; 

 and though the practical geologist may, perhaps, find that the 

 recognition of contemporaneous rocks through the medium of 

 their embedded fossils is open to wider limits of error than 

 he had previously supposed ; still, the zoologist must always 

 find a source of never failing interest in the examination of 

 these records of remote eras, and in the new structures and 

 new types of form which are there presented to his view. 



The early readers of this Magazine will doubtless remember 

 a series of highly interesting essays which appeared in its 

 pages upon Fossil Zoology and Botany, in connexion with 

 some general views on Geology, written by a most active and 

 enterprising member of the Geological Society of London, 

 Mr. Richard Cowling Taylor. In now taking up a depart- 

 ment in natural history, the importance and interest of which 

 have been so ably illustrated in those papers, my intention is 

 occasionally to notice such fossils contained in my own col- 

 lection, or the cabinets of others, as appear to me worthy of 

 observation, either from their novelty as specimens, or from 

 their suggesting any new considerations in a geological or 

 zoological point of view. 



The Voluta Lamberti of the crag {Jig. 7.)? one of the most 



