FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS. 



In Europe, the British Islands contain twenty-seven out of thirty-three species ; of the six not 

 found there, five are in North-west Europe, and another is French. 



This order is but small ; this, however, is not for want of due search, for their size and beauty 

 render them attractive to collectors. 



THE PRIMORDIAL STAGE. Waiting for the results of the investigations now taking place in 

 Canada as to the exact relations of the Quebec Group with the Primordial Stage, it will be better 

 not to dwell long on this part of the Silurian epoch, especially as the present ideas on these rela- 

 tions do not give entire content. The very name has ceased to be appropriate. 



The ' Thesaurus ' amply manifests the great extent, or even the universality, of the numerous 

 correspondences and the organic riches of the Primordial of BarrandC) the Taconic stage of Prof. 

 Emmons. It is indissolubly Silurian by almost every possible tie by facies, materials, strati- 

 graphy, and organic contents, according to De Verneuil, Hall, Murchison, Logan, Billings, &c. 



The mineral characters of this stage are exceedingly diversified, and indicate the complicated 

 nature of the processes then in full operation. It presents the alum-slates of Sweden, the soft blue 

 clays of Russia, the clayey schists and conglomerates of Bohemia, the arenaceous and metamor- 

 phosed schists of Britain, the displaced schists, limestones, and conglomerates of Quebec, the soft 

 calcareous sandstones of Central North America, among other varieties of composition and of 

 stratigraphy. 



The Primordial Stage did not start forth, Pallas-like, at once, in full maturity. The quantity, 

 variety, and high rank of its fauna shut us up from any other conclusion than that it is only part, 

 and a rich part, of an already established flora and fauna, lying undetected at present, and perhaps 

 for ever, but which may be any day discovered in some of the many countries not yet examined. 

 The Eozoon of Canada &c. belongs to an anterior and unconformable deposit. 



Excepting the four orders Echinodermata, Coelenterata, Monomyaria, and Dimyaria, all the 

 others are in great force, those of high organization in particular. Crustaceans of very large size 

 were numerous in Canada, and seem to have overspread large districts with their coprolites. 



TABLE M. Primordial Life, as known in 1868. 



The Table M contains all the Primordial life known in the present year, the western and 

 eastern hemisphere being taken separately. 



The Primordial fauna of North-east America greatly exceeds in number that of Europe (as 

 597 to 375 species). We see it in every order except the Annelida, a portion of our classification 

 exceedingly faulty. This excess on the part of America is very strong in Amorphozoa, Trilobita, 

 Brachiopoda, Polyzoa, Gasteropoda, and Cephalopoda, and it leads to the suggestion that organic 

 existences may have begun earlier in the west than in the east, as M. Barrande is inclined to 

 believe. In Bohemia, the best-examined country in Europe, the Primordial contains only twenty- 

 eight Trilobite species, instead of the affluence of the Quebec group of North America, no Gastero- 

 pod, and no Cephalopod, although ten species of Orthoceras start into existence immediately after 

 its termination that is, in D. d. 1, the earliest bed of M. Barrande's second fauna. Neither Cyrto- 



