Paleozoic Fossils. 523 
with those of a geologist, had accompanied us during a part of our 
survey of that region, and approving the general classification, had 
kindly offered to illustrate our views by the use of the very fine fossils 
from the Rhine and the Eifel which his cabinet contained. While 
instituting the comparisons necessary to prove, by evidences indepen- 
dent of those in England, that the Devonian is a true intermediary 
type, the subject became enlarged in his hands, and he was so fortu- 
nate as to procure the assistance of his friend the Vicomte D’ Archiac. 
By combining researches and making a variety of comparisons, their 
work soon acquired great value, not merely as regards an accurate 
description of beautiful organic remains, admirably lithographed, 
but as containing also a general tabular list of the fossils of the De- 
yonian system in Europe, as compared with the species of the Silurian 
and Carboniferous deposits in the Rhenish provinces. 
This table, enriched as it has been up to the moment of publica- 
tion by additions drawn from recent researches in Russia, must be 
considered a standard acquisition, the intrinsic merit of which can 
only be estimated by those who are aware of the labour and range of 
study which its preparation required. Nor are the general views of 
the authors, which are embodied in their preface, less worthy of 
consideration, for they exhibit an intimate acquaintance with fossil 
zoology and its relations to each great system of the paleozoic rocks ; 
whilst it must be satisfactory to British geologists, that the indue- 
tions of these foreign naturalists are in harmony with those of Mr. 
Phillips, drawn from his own observations upon the fossils of De- 
von and Cornwall. As this is the first occasion on which French 
geologists have presented to us a memoir illustrating the writings 
of our own countrymen, I am confident you will unite with me 
in thanking them most cordially for their liberal and enlightened 
assistance. Whilst considering the palzozoic classification established 
in Great Britain, I have, therefore, thought it not irrelevant thus to 
allude to the labours of foreign geologists which support it; and I 
have the pleasure of acquainting you, that in addition to their 
claims upon us, MM. D’Archiac and de Verneuil have, during the 
last summer, explored parts of Normandy and Brittany, where they 
have clearly recognised in that obscure tract, the same paleozoic 
divisions as exist in the Rhenish provinces and the British Isles. 
I cannot take leave of the paleozoic rocks of our own 
islands without communicating to the Society a fact, which minute 
as it may seem to be, is of interest in regulating our views re- 
specting the development of animal life. The Rev. P. B. Brodie, to 
whose researches in the secondary rocks I shall presently allude, 
informs me, that he lately discovered in the Silurian limestone on 
the west flank of May Hill, Gloucestershire, two palates of fishes. 
Now as the rock in question is of the age of the Wenlock lime- 
stone, we learn that fishes existed in the inferior as well as in 
the superior member of the Upper Silurian rocks, in which they 
had previously been noticed. No trace, however, of Vertebrata has 
yet been discovered in the widely extended and enormously thick 
Lower Silurian deposits. 
2N2 
