VI 



Mnrchison 251 



many miles to the north. No hunter could have followed 

 the scent of the fox better than he did the outcrop of 

 the fossiliferous strata, which he saw to come out regu- 

 larly from under the lowest members of the Old Eed 

 Sandstone. Directed to the Wye by Buckland, he had 

 the good-fortune to come at once upon some of the few 

 natural sections where the order of the higher Transi- 

 tion rocks of Britain, and their relations to the overlying 

 formations, can be distinctly seen. He pursued the chase 

 northwards until he lost the old rocks under the Triassic 

 plains of Cheshire. " For a first survey," he writes, " I 

 had got the upper grauwacke, so called, into my hands, 

 for I had seen it in several situations far from each other, 

 all along the South Welsh frontier, and in Shropshire and 

 Herefordshire, rising out gradually and conformably from 

 beneath the lowest member of the Old Eed Sandstone. 

 Moreover, I had ascertained that its different beds were 

 characterized by peculiar fossils, ... a new step in British 

 geology. In summing up what I saw and realized in 

 about four months of travelling, I may say that it was 

 the most fruitful year of my life, for in it I laid the 

 foundation of my Silurian system. I was then thirty- 

 nine years old, and few could excel me in bodily and 

 mental activity." 1 



Not only did the work of these four momentous months 

 mark a new step in British geology. It began the lifting 

 of the veil from the Transition rocks of the whole globe. It 

 was the first successful foray into these hitherto intract- 

 able masses, and prepared the way for all that has since 

 been done in deciphering the history of the most ancient 



1 Op. dt. pp. 183, 192. 



