48 REPORT—1845. 
the older palwozoic rocks belonged almost exclusively to the carboniferous or Devo- 
nian systems, and the country around Prague was the only one from which Silurian 
fossils had been derived. It was a question whether this was really a little island of 
Silurian rocks in situ, or whether it was only a part of the drift of that region, which 
often contained Silurian rocks derived from Scandinavia and Russia. In Mr. Oswald’s 
copious list of fossils were mentioued Jd/enus crassicauda, Spheronites, and other chas 
racteristic lower Silurian fossils, together with almost all the best-marked corals of 
Wenlock and Dudley, a remarkable and unexpected mixture of the fossils of two 
different members of the same series. 
’ 
Tabular view of Fossil Plants. By Professor Goreurt of Breslau. 
Communicated by Mr. Murcuison. 
Mr. Murchison announced the general results obtained by M. Gdppert from the 
formation of a tabular view of the fossil plants which had been discovered up to the 
present time all over the globe. Mr. Murchison stated, that Professor Goppert’s 
general résumé of the fossil flora of the globe would be borne out by detailed proofs 
about to be given in a general synopsis of well-known fossil species, animal and ve- 
getable, now preparing by Bronn, Géppert and Herman von Meyer, and in which 
these distinguished naturalists follow toa great extent the same plan as that published 
by Mr. Morris in his ‘Catalogue of British Fossils.’ The number of fossil plants known 
to M. Adolphe Brongniart in 1836, was 527. In the new list they amounted to 1792; 
and as in the $0,000 plants now known to exist in different parts of the globe, a large 
proportion consists of fucoids and fungi and other tribes, which would disappear in 
the process of fossilization, it would be seen that the total number of known fossil 
species bore a more considerable proportion to those now existing than was com- 
monly admitted. Their numerical distribution in the different rocks is stated by 
M. Géppert to be as follows :— 
Palzozcic*...... SL ecseivee aa ieee ae 
Carboniferous ....... Pe cane tte eaten Perea ORG 
Permiani ......seceees Swacdven vid sanceaeel Hepes (OG 
MPPIAUSIGro tacit venerencere teens esctes ARB A PE Ns 67 
Oolitic....... sete deans Pr fal a Oy wae Hey BR 731 
WeedldGH?: .cccocatcccurecatedees Le cetera LO 
GREUAGEOUS® 2 /Reccsccvesdiocsasscctivestetevnce ODE 
Tertiary ccvsctheccctscpicccsdctctosecvcsswneses WOE 
WITIRMOWINS veccccceccduasevsscccaserceccucdecwna'y LE 
a 
Total vrccveees Taste LFIZ 
From this table it appeared, that the carboniferous group contained more than 
half the known species of fossil plants, a remarkable circumstance when it was con- 
sidered that the great herbivorous land quadrupeds had no ascertained existence bes 
fore the tertiary period. 
On the Agency of Land Snails in forming holes and trackways in Compact 
Limestone. By Dr. Bucktann. 
This notice was a continuation of one made at the Plymouth meeting, in which 
the author ascribed certain perforations discovered by him on the under side of 
ledges of limestone rock at Tenby, Boulogne and Plymouth, to the agency of pro- 
jecting the acid secretions of land snails, which resorted to these rocks daily for 
‘shelter. The additional instances now described were discovered by Dr. Buckland 
* I beg to observe, that the plants here alluded to under the term paleozoic, are all (with 
the exception of a few fucoids) found in the rocks called Devonian, which lie immediately 
at the base of the carboniferous system; no well-characterized land plants having yet been 
observed in the Silurian or oldest palzeozoic rocks. Some, indeed, of the so-called palezozoic 
plants of M. Géppert may, I suspect, belong to what English geologists term the “ lower 
limestone (carboniferous) shale,’’ which has very generally been merged with the grauwacke 
of German geologists. I need scarcely remark, that the word “ palzozoic”’ is not here used 
according to the sense in which most modern geologists would employ it, viz. as embracing — 
the Silurian, Devonian, carboniferous and Permian deposits.—A. I. Murchison. 
