252 
Mr. C. Lapwortli on the Geological 
(b) Palceontological Difficulties. 
The palaeontological difficulties and misconceptions, though 
not so glaring as the geological, were nevertheless of such a 
nature as almost of themselves to prevent any one but a con¬ 
firmed Graptolithologist placing the slightest reliance upon 
the typical Graptolite as a geological index of the systematic 
place of its containing stratum. 
The title of Graptolithus was originally founded by Lin¬ 
naeus to include a group of natural objects which were re¬ 
garded by him as resembling, but not being, actual fossils. 
Only one of the forms ultimately described by him as belong¬ 
ing to this family was actually a true Graptolite, as we now 
understand the term ; and this did not make its appearance in 
his 1 Systema ’ till it reached the twelfth edition. Their 
proper position in the animal world still remains unsettled 
after half a century of controversy. Relegated in turn to the 
Cephalopoda, Polyzoa, Actinozoa, and Ilydrozoa, they are 
now doubtfully classed by the greatest of our modern autho¬ 
rities near the family of the Plumularidge among the Hydroida, 
in the immediate neighbourhood of the humble Rhizopoda. 
The figures and descriptions of Linnaeus and Hisinger* (who 
subsequently named four of the most common Scandinavian 
forms) were so imperfect that those palaeontologists who relied 
upon them, and who attempted to compare them with similar 
extra-Scandinavian forms, fell into innumerable errors. 
Linnteus’s original “ Graptolithus scalar is” ^ a true mono- 
graptid, has not only been confounded with several Mono- 
graptidae of different species, but all the more common forms 
of the genus Glimacograptus , Hall, have been in turn referred 
to it. This general reference was considered to be so well 
founded by those who had most carefully studied the subject, 
that Linnaeus’ original specific name scalaris J is admitted by 
Hall to have actually formed the foundation of his generic 
term. 
Linnaeus’second species, u Graptolithus Sagittarius ” which 
was founded not upon a true Graptolite, but upon a well- 
marked fragment of Lcpidodendron , was erroneously identi¬ 
fied by Hisinger with a well-marked species of Monograptus. 
The specific name, thus interpreted, was subsequently applied 
to at least half a dozen different species of Monograptidae. 
From 1840 to 1873 it was the general practice to refer to this 
species every fragment of the numerous genera belonging to 
* * Letbaea Suecica,’ 1839, and Supplement, 1840. 
t Linnaeus, ‘SkSnska Resa,’ p. 147. 
f Hall, Grapt. Quebec Group, p. 112, &c. 
