OP ARTS AND SCIENCES. 245 



region wherein the classification had been elaborated, and where every 

 one mi'dit cfo and see the truthfulness of it, was the best."* 



" The word Cambrian was first used in print in the year 1836 



It originated in the following mannei' On sending a copy of my 



new classification to M. Elie de Beaumont, that eminent geologist, wish- 

 ing to mark strata separated by lines of dislocation by separate names, 

 suggested the propriety of further distinguishing those last-mentioned 

 unconformable and inferior rocks by the term Hercynian, as taken 

 from the Ilartz mountain in Germany, where, as he then believed, the 

 oldest slaty group would prove to be of higher antiquity than the strata 

 to which I had applied the word Silurian. Unwilling that the name 

 for these infra-Silurian rocks should be taken from a foreign country, 

 in which no precise paliEOzoic horizon had then been fixed, I at once 

 urged Professor Sedgwick to apply to his slaty rocks, which were 

 confidently believed to be inferior to my own, some term on the same 

 geographical principle by which I had been governed in proposing 

 Silurian. 



" I even ventured to suggest the word Snowdonian, because I knew 

 that my friend then considered the northwestern portion of the Welsh 

 chain to be made up of the oldest fossiliferous masses ; but preferring 

 a more comprehensive geographical name, he took that of Cambrian. 

 With this arrangement we both felt certain that no anomaly could be 

 introduced into the lower palaeozoic classification, as the relations and 

 fossil contents of mineral masses, w'hich were contiguous, must be 

 eventually cleared up without fear of error or the introduction of theo- 

 retical views." t 



Accoi'ding to these quotations, Elie de Beaumont was the inspirer 

 of the geographic names in ian to designate stratigraphic groups. 

 This is only a partial truth. De Beaumont only proposed two geo- 

 graphic names, the Ores Vosgiea in 18il, and the Cumbrien (from 

 Cumberland) in 1847. The last was an endeavor to make Murchison 

 and Sedgwick harmonize, and to designate the strata containing the 

 second fauna. Neither of the adversaries accepted this transaction. 

 But de Beaumont had been struck with the success of the names 

 Portlandien, Kinimeridien^ Corallien, and Oxfordien^ proposed and 



* Life of Sir Roderick I. Jliirchison, vol. i. p. 227 (London, 1875). 



t "On tlie Me.aning originally attached to the term 'Cambrian System,' and 

 on the Evidence since obtained of its being geologically synonymous with the 

 previously established term 'Lower Silurian.' " By Sir Roderick I. Murchison. 

 In the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. iii. pp. 

 106, 1G7 (1847). 



