334 Horner's Geological Address. 



and which fill up a blank in the series of Radiata. As these 

 fossils are now known to be by no means iinfrequent in the 

 British palaeozoic strata, though they have hitherto attracted 

 but little attention, the study of the paper, itself a model of 

 palseontological description, will well repay the attention of 

 geologists. They will find it at full length, translated by 

 Professor Ansted, in the last number of our Journal ; and I 

 may adduce it as an instance of the valuable assistance which 

 we afford to the geologists of this country, by devoting a por- 

 tion of our quarterly publication to original foreign memoirs ; 

 for how few there are who can have an opportunity of seeing 

 the " Transactions of the Berlin Academy," to say nothing 

 of those who do not read German ! 



M. Agassiz, that most indefatigable of living naturalists, 

 besides his important contributions during the last year in 

 that department in which he is universally acknowledged to 

 occupy the highest rank, has commenced a new series of es- 

 says under the title of " IconograpJiie des Coquilles Tertiaires 

 reputes identiques avec les especes vivantes, ou dans differens 

 terrains de Vepoque tertiaire.''* In the preface to the first part 

 he announces his views and object. He says that he has been 

 long convinced that the greater number of identifications of 

 tertiary shells with those of other tertiary epochs, or with 

 recent species, are incorrect. From his investigations he is 

 led to maintain, 1^^, That notable differences exist between 

 living and tertiary species ; and, 2dly, That in the tertiary 

 formations the different stages present distinct faunae. He 

 opposes classification founded on per-centages^ as purely arti- 

 ficial, and attributes the errors to the mistaking analogues 

 for true identifications. He holds that each geological epoch 

 is characterized by a distinct system of created beings (the 

 results of a new intervention of creative power), including 

 not only different species from those of the preceding system, 

 but also new types. At the same time he admits that the 

 " reiterated intervention of the created power" does not ne- 

 cessarily and absolutely imply a specific difference between 

 the beings of different deposites. He holds, however, the pro- 

 bability of such a difference existing; and his object in this 



