Retrospective Criticism. 467 
tain limestone is placed on the same parallel, and, by a double blunder, is 
described ‘ as the lowest sepulchre of vertebrated animals.’ * 
“In one page, orthoceratites are brought near the order of corals ; 
another, a coral is figured as an encrinite; in a third, the Sines 
caryophyllia (the characteristic fossil of the middle oolite) i is figured as a 
fossil of the inferior system; in a fourth, a caryophyllia of the» mountain 
limestone is figured among the organic remains of the cornbrash; and, 
lastly, the celebrated lily encrinite (a characteristic fossil of the muschel- 
kalk, a formation unknown in England,) is introduced and figured among 
the fossils of the lower oolitic system. + 
“Errors like these are, above every thing, calculated to mislead men 
who are unpractised in geology; and they do not terminate here. But I 
have no right to detain you with a longer enumeration. { I have stated 
«* New System, p. 175. 177. 187. 
“< + Ibid., p. 149. 176. 251. 256, 257. 
“« + For the purpose of illustrating the organic remains of the successive 
mineral strata, there are, at the end of the ‘ New System,’ five plates, 
representing groups of fossils, with their generic and specific names. Had 
the figures been well selected, they might have been of great use; as it 1s, 
they can only be the means of disseminating error. 
“ Plate I. professes to represent the ‘ Shells of the Mountain Limestone.’ 
Of its thirteen figures, three or four are well chosen; none of the rest 
ought to have appeared. One of them is wrong named; and a recent 
nerita, with all its fresh markings, has unaccountably found its place among 
these old fossils. 
“ Plate II. ‘ Shells of the Lias.’ In this plate, of twelve species, we 
are astonished to find a transition orthoceratite, the Prodtctus scéticus of 
the mountain limestone, and a scaphite of the green sand, placed side by 
side with the Grypheea incirva, Plagiéstoma gigas, and some other true lias 
fossils ! 
“ Plate III. ‘ Shells of the Under Oolite” Thirteen species; and a 
more uncharacteristic assemblage was, perhaps, never before brought to- 
gether. A tertiary mya and a nummulite have here found their way, for 
the first time, among the shells of the under oolite. Two or three of the 
other species ought to have appeared, if at all, in the next plate. 
“ Plate IV. ‘ Shells of the Cornbrash and Upper Oolites.’ Here the 
confusion is still greater; for, of twelve species, seven are positively mis- 
placed, the others are ill selected, and one of them is wrong named. “The 
mineral conchologist is confounded at the sight of the well-known turrilites 
and hamites of the green sand group, of the turritellae and superb Rostellaria 
macroéptera of the London clay, jostled in among the fossils of the oolites. 
Had the author drawn out by lot, from all the fossils in Mr. Sowerby’s 
work, the species which were to decorate this plate, chance might have 
given him a more illustrative series. 
“ Plate V. ‘ Shells of the Chalk and superior Strata.” Among the 
nineteen figures of this plate, no attempt is made to separate the shells of 
the chalk from those of the over-lying tertiary deposits, although the two 
groups have not, perhaps, one species in common. In Plate I. two fresh- 
water shells were introduced, which were not characteristic: here fresh- 
water shells are characteristic, but are omitted altogether ; and the Pécten 
quinquecostatus is the characteristic fossil of the green sand. 
* One who was even moderately acquainted with the characteristic forms 
of organic remains could never have been led into such a complication of 
errors ; and they are the more discreditable, as the greater part of them 
might have been avoided by the mere exercise of the humblest duty of a 
compiler.” 
