550.1 ' 261 



A New Scheme of Geological Arrangement 

 and Nomenclature 



Paet IV 



IN my previous paper I ventured to criticise the current nomen- 

 clature and arrangement of the later Tertiary beds as in- 

 consequent and misleading. I will now proceed to a more difficult 

 and hazardous duty — namely, that of proposing a scheme of my 

 own. 



It will be understood that at present we are dealing with the 

 latest beds only, inclusive of those now being deposited, that our 

 geographical horizon is limited to the Archipelago of the British 

 Isles and the surrounding seas, and that, consistently with the 

 views I have previously maintained, I propose to treat the land 

 and its fresh waters in one category and the seas in another. 



In accordance with the views of some other students, and 

 notably those recently propounded by Dr Hicks, I have always 

 maintained that if we start with to-day and march backwards in 

 surveying the land surfaces of those islands, we shall not arrive at a 

 really substantial halting-place in our geological journey until we 

 reach the base of the so-called Forest Bed. From the base of the 

 Forest Bed until the very latest deposits of silt and mud, of blown 

 sand, of humus or of bog, there has been one continuous stream of 

 unbroken animal and vegetable life in these islands. During this 

 long period some animals and plants have disappeared and become 

 extinct, others have been introduced, and the general facies of the 

 animal and vegetable life has changed considerably, but this has 

 been for the most part a gradual and gentle process. It has not 

 involved a general destruction of all life here, as the older theologians 

 thought, nor the equally fantastic notion of the migration of its 

 animals and plants en masse goodness knows how and goodness 

 knows whither, and their re-migration back again in the same 

 condition after a long geological interval, as the wilder Glacial 

 men have urged. The evidence seems to me to be complete and 

 very decisive on this point, and I am very glad it was so strongly 

 emphasised by the President of the Geological Society in his recent 

 address. 



