M. Blainville on Ichthyolttes. 111 
confusion which we have already sufficiently noticed, the leading 
character is the ambitious desire of creating new species and genera ; 
apparently, with the design of rivaling Cuvier in his own peculiar 
walk, and for the sake of displaying his profound knowledge of 
Greek. As this language constitutes rather a novel science in France, 
we must excuse Monsieur Blainville for his wish to prove that he is 
actually the possessor of a Greek Lexicon. 
Whether the strata of Glaris are to be considered as most antique 
or very antique, or antique, or whether they are most ancient or 
very ancient, or ancient, to which of these two sets, in short, of 
positive, comparative, and superlative entities they belong, Monsieur 
Blainville has not told us, and we cannot guess, But we must try if 
we can Conjecture to what rank they belong in the vulgar language. 
We sincerely wish that geologists would use the same words as other 
people, to express such ideas as they happen to possess, If matters 
proceed much further in this way, what with German nomenclatures 
and French nomenclatures, books on geology will become as intelli- 
gible as the treatises for digesting sol with luna under the red dragon 
per ‘‘ pemset remsen ame muc senvu saltrafi,” 
Scheuchzer, as well as Ebel and many others, have examined this 
place, and many collections have been formed fromit. It is situated 
to the south-east of Glaris, in a small valley, at a distance of about 
five miles, in « part of the mountains called the Plattenberg. The 
including rock is a blackish fissile schist, containing some mica, and 
interstratified with thin lamin of limestone. It is, as he says, the 
Grauwacké schiefer of the Germans, and, what is worse, the Phyllade 
pailletée of Brongniart, as if one hard name was not enough. The 
specimens here are very imperfect, being only the impressions of the 
fragments of skeletons; one side of which has formed a sort of bas- 
relief in the schist, while the other is very ill-defined. 
_ Now Haller, a name not to be spoken of lightly, even by Monsieur 
Blainville, mentions the impressions of ferns as being found in the 
same places; but this he thinks improbable, because Brongniart 
found none in the collections which he examined, and chooses to call 
it a transition rock. Here the question of the geological nature of 
this deposit becomes inost important. Our author, making up his 
mind that it is a marine formation, determines that all his specimens 
are sea-fishes, We have abundance of respect for Brongniart, but 
have also good reasons for not giving implicit credence to his geolo- 
gical opinions. Cuvier thinks it is marine, because it contains the 
remains of a tortoise, and because that tortoise must have ‘been a 
marine one. We should be very glad to know whence this necessity 
arises: there was formerly the same compulsion on all the Lacerte, 
the crocodiles, to helong to fresh-water ; but, unluckily, Lieutenant 
Kotzebue finds that there are sea crocodiles in the Pellew islands. 
Here then we have a contest of evidence: the ferns which Haller 
saw, against the tortoise that must have lived in the sea; and, further, 
