/ 
AOA Murchison’s Siluria. 
having been assigned to the Devonian series. But since the 
opening out of the rich Silurian basin of Bohemia, which, in the 
hands of M. Barrande, has become the paleozoic centre of the 
continent, Thuringia and Saxony have been also found to con- — 
tain Silurian rocks. 38 
In Spain, several mountain chains have been shown by M. de 
Verneuil to consist of Silurian, followed by Devonian and Carbon- 
iferous rocks; whilst, in Portugal, Mr. Sharpe has described the 
first and last of these groups. Even Sardinia has exhibited, un- 
der the serntiny of General A. della Marmora, her Silurian and 
superjacent coal deposits. Again, as Devonian and Carboniferons 
strata overlie older rocks in North Africa, and Devonian fossils 
occur towards Central Africa* and at the Cape of Good Hope, 
there are already fair grounds for believing, that a similar order 
pervades the axial lines or ancient mountains of that vast con- 
tinent. 
In northwestern Asia, the chief features of which are de- 
scribed by Humboldt and Rose, my colleagues and myself have 
explained how the Silurian rocks of the Ural chain are succeeded 
by younger palzeozoic deposits, and Pierre de Tchihatcheff has 
indicated a great extension of similar formations over large tracts 
of Southern Siberia and the Altai mountains; whilst in north- 
eastern Siberia, Adolf Erman has traced such rocks even to the 
Sea of Ochotsk. 
upon a red sandstone.t There is, indeed, every reason to believe 
that the mountain-chains of Tartary and China are composed, to 
a great extent, of these older rocks; for whilst extensive coal- 
fields have been long worked in the environs of the capital, Pe- 
kin, Devonian fossils of the very same species as those of Eng- 
far to the south of Shangai. Other fossils, identified by de Ko- 
ninck as Devonian forms, were brought by M. Itier, from the 
Yuennan province, one hundred leagues north of Canton. 
* For North Africa, see Coquand, Bull. de la Soc. Géol. de France, 2nde Série, vol. 
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alayan data are described by Capt. R. Strachey; those of the Upper 
Punjaub, by Dr. A. Fleming. (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. vii, p. 292, and vol. 1%, 
p. 189. 
{ See a description of the Chinese coal-field near Pekin, by Kovanko, Ann. des 
Mines de Russie, An. 1838, p.191. No geologist can peruse Mr. Fortune’s lively de- 
