Dec. 27, 1888] 



NA TURE 



21 



to Olenellus, we find in various localities such characteristic 

 Lower Cambrian forms as Kutorgiiia, Mickwitzia (?), and 

 Acrothele. The strata of this Olenellus zone are succeeded 

 irregularly by (usually faulted against) the Shineton Shales of Dr. 

 Callaway, which are known to contain in their highest zones an 

 abundant fauna of Tremadoc (Upper Cambrian) age. No trace 

 of the intermediate or Paradoxides fauna has yet been detected. 



Although this discovery has been well known to my fellow- 

 workers among the Lower Paloeozoic rocks, I have refrained 

 from placing it upon record until my identifications had been 

 confirmed by foreign palseontologists familiar with the Olenellus 

 fauna abroad. As the specimens I exhibited at the London 

 meeting of the Geological Congress were unhesitatingly referred 

 to the typical Olenellus fauna both by Mr. Walcott and Dr. 

 Schmidt, there is no longer any excuse for withholding its pub- 

 lication. The necessary geological and palseontological details 

 will appear in due course, but as these new facts may, it is to be 

 hoped, lead geologists in the meantime to a renewed investigation 

 of the strata and fossils of the more ancient formations, it will 

 perhaps be of service to point out that the detection of this 

 lowest Cambrian fauna in beds superior to the Wrekin quartzite 

 opens out a fresh series of problems in British geology. Thus 

 the presence of Olenellus in these beds appears at first sight to 

 fix distinctly the pre-Cambrian age of the so-called Uriconian 

 rocks of the Wrekin and their British equivalents, and even to 

 render the pre-Cambrian age of the Longmyndian a matter of 



- - . D^y go 



the Torridon rocks of North- West Scotland, the schists of St. 

 Lo in France, the Sparagmites of Norway, &c. Again, if the 

 Wrekin quartzite is, as has been more than once suggested, the 

 extension of that of Nuneaton and Durness, then our so-called 

 Upper Cambrian of the Malverns, Central England, andNorth- 

 West Scotland maybe in reality a greatly attenuated representa- 

 tive of the Cambrian system in general, the British extension of 

 the remarkably attenuated Proterozoic formations of Western 

 Europe. If so, this attenuated Cambrian may eventually be 

 mapped as patches of an originally fairly continuous band, 

 ranging from Lapland, through Esthonia, Scania, Norway, 

 Scotland, Central England, France, and Spain, to the Island 

 of Sardinia. The Sardinian and Durness formations, on the 

 extreme south-east and north-west points of this line, would 

 agree in lithology, age, and fauna, both ranging from the base 

 of the Cambrian up to the lowest zones of the Ordovician. It 

 should be carefully borne in mind, however, that in the present 

 state of our knowledge these suggestions must be regarded 

 simply as constituting a provisional working hypothesis, of 

 service mainly as a stimulus to future discussion, investigation, 

 discovery, and correction. 



Grouping together, however, such facts as are already known, 

 and employing Mr. Walcott's nomenclature, we are now able 

 to parallel his American tables by the following European 

 equivalents : — 



Table I.— North- Western Europe. 



Table U.— British Islands. 



Table III.— Central and South- Western Europe. 



C. Lapworth. 



