THE OLD RED SANDSTONE. 



INTEREST ATTACHED TO THE SYSTEM FEOM THE LABOURS OF AGASSIZ, 

 HUGH MILLER, AND OTHERS ITS POSITION IN WORLD-HISTORY 

 NATURE OF ITS STRATA HOW FORMED LOWER, MIDDLE, AND 

 UPPER FORMATIONS TERRAQUEOUS ASPECTS OF THE PERIOD ITS 

 FLORA AND FAUNA GIGANTIC CRUSTACEA VARIED AND ABUN- 

 DANT FISH-REMAINS GEOGRAPHICAL OR EXTERNAL CONDITIONS 

 OF THE OLD RED ERA ECONOMIC PRODUCTS DERIVED FROM THE 

 SYSTEM GENERAL REVIEW. , 



THERE is the ring of antiquity in the very title of our sub- 

 ject, and yet old as the Old Red Sandstone may be, it is 

 younger by unnumbered ages than the Laurentian, the 

 Cambrian, and the Silurian. These earlier sediments were 

 converted into hard and crystalline strata, and upheaved 

 into dry land, long before it was deposited, and in many 

 instances they formed the hills and precipices from which 

 its materials were derived. Its place in the earth's chrono- 

 logy will be seen at a glance from the accompanying tabu- 

 lation but its interest as a formation arises less from its 

 antiquity than from the fact of its being the first in which 

 vertebrate remains decidedly occur, and from the circum- 

 stance that its history has been rendered classical by the 

 labours of some of our leading geologists. Hugh Miller's 

 * Old Red Sandstone,' Agassiz' Monograph of its fossil 

 fishes, the investigations of De la Beche, Murchison, Pan- 

 der, Huxley, the American States surveyors, and others, 

 have all contributed to this result; and during the last 



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