126 Mr. Weaver on the Oldei' Stratified 



mark of Mr. Miirchison, that my conclusions were not found- 

 ed upon mere lists of fossils, but upon their matrices forming 

 regular intercalated beds in a decided transition country in the 

 south of Ireland ; relative position having, in all cases, been 

 the primary consideration, both there and in the other native 

 and foreign localities referred to. 



No doubt all this does not exactly correspond with the re- 

 lations so ably developed in the Silurian System; but it tends 

 to bear me out in my argument that, in widely extended, or 

 distant separated, lands of protozoic origin, the relations, 

 tliough akin, may not in all cases be precisely alike. If fur- 

 ther proof were wanting, we have only to step across the Irish 

 Channel, and enter Devon and Cornwall, where the relations, 

 be it observed, appear to me to be much more nearly allied 

 to the South of Ireland than with the districts described in the 

 Silurian region. But the affinities are, perhaps, still stronger 

 between the South of Ireland and the transition tracts border- 

 ing upon the Rhine, than with any of the English districts men- 

 tioned, if we may judge by what is already known of those 

 tracts. 



M^ith one observation of Mr. Murchison I fully concur. 

 " The only effective remedy," he remarks, "for the scepticism 

 engendered by loose comparisons is to publish monographs, 

 with figures of all the remains found in each group of depo- 

 sits, the stratigraphical limits of which have been precisely 

 defined by competent observers," p. 580. 



If Mr. Murchison and Prof. Sedgwick will do this, both 

 with respect to the Devonian and Cornubian, and Cambrian 

 protozoic departments, geology cannot fail to derive great ad- 

 vantage from their united scientific labours ; and if some 

 other zealous, active, and competent geologists will undertake 

 and execute the same task in those quarters of Ireland not yet 

 described, and complete the views in those that have not been 

 minutely explored, we may hope eventually to see a constella- 

 tion of Cambrian, Silurian, Devonian, and Hibernian Stars, 

 shedding, so far at least, a clear and steady light upon the 

 protozoic regions of our geological world. 



The subject of MetamorpJiism having been touched upon 

 in a preceding part of this paper, I am led, in conclusion, to 

 advert to the ingenious speculations of Professor Babbage* 

 and Sir John F. W. Herschelf, concerning the subteri*aneous 



• Proceedings of Geo). See, vol. ii. pp. 72 — 76., March, 1834; and the 

 Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, by Professor Babbage. 



t Proceedings of Gecl. Soc, vol. ii, pp. 548— 55L, May, 1837. Ibid, 

 pp. 596—598., January, 1838. Ibid. pp. 645—648., February, 1838. 



