II._WORK. , 

 INTRODUCTION. 



IN order to understand rightly, and to place Professor Lapworth's 

 geological work, or at least the first part of it, it is necessary to 

 appreciate the level which knowledge had reached at the time his 

 work began. 



The geology of the greater part of England and a considerable 

 part of Scotland had been mapped and described. The Geological 

 Society had been publishing for sixty years, and several other 

 societies and journals were making known the results of geological 

 investigation. The series of rocks down to the base of the 

 Carboniferous were fairly understood and consistently mapped, 

 their succession and faunas were known in outline, and correlation 

 was in a fairly satisfactory state. In some cases at home and 

 abroad detailed zoning of the strata had been carried out. 



But the knowledge of the older Palaeozoic rocks, in spite of 

 the labours of Sedgwick, Murchison, Hicks, Harkness, Nicholson, 

 and many others, was in a much less satisfactory condition. Neither 

 subdivision and correlation, nor mapping, was reliable, and there 

 remained much to be done in the collection of the faunas in an 

 accurate, detailed fashion. Trilobites and brachiopods had been 

 mainly used for correlation, but had led to contradictions and 

 inconsistencies. The graptolites, which Lapworth was to make 

 so important, were almost neglected, and even their keenest 

 students Nicholson, Carruthers, and Hopkinson had not full 

 confidence in their value. Nor even was the classification of them 

 then in use the best possible, for it was founded on imperfect and 

 imperfectly known specimens, leading to uncertainty and indefinite- 

 ness in the identification of species, and even of genera and families. 



A. THE SOUTHERN UPLANDS. 



The Southern Uplands, in the centre of which, at Galashiels, 

 Lapworth settled down from 1864 till 1875, was known to be 

 made up of rocks of greywacke type, somewhat similar to those of 

 the Lake District and Wales, but singularly barren of fossils. They 

 were known to dip steadily, but not very regularly, from south to 



