Reviews—Daglish and Forster on the Permian Rocks. 31 
tion of his Monograph of Permian Fossils, proposed to arrange it and 
the sandstone beneath in six subdivisions, namely :— 
. Crystalline and Concretionary Limestone. 
. Brecciated and Pseudo-brecciated Limestone. 
. Fossiliferous Limestone. 
. Compact Limestone. 
. Marl-slate. 
. Lower Red Sandstone. 
Professor King based this arrangement on both geological and 
paleontological evidence, and showed good reasons for its adoption. 
In 1857 Mr. Howse, adopting in principle the classification of King, 
suggested the following improved arrangement :— 
Permian . 
O Ore Coto 
1. Upper Limestone. 
2. Middle Limestone (including Nos. 2 and 3 of King). 
3. Lower Limestone. 
4, Marl-slate. 
Carboniferous. Lower Red Sandstone. 
Permian . 
Since then the formation has been carefully examined by other 
geologists, British and Foreign, and their investigations have only 
helped to substantiate the views of King and Howse. In fact, it has 
been clearly shown that there is a regular sequence of beds to be 
observed in the Magnesian Limestone, and that it is not, as had been 
formerly supposed, one great calcareous deposit, with the same set 
of features throughout its whole mass. It has been shown that its 
upper portion is marked by characters which distinguish it not 
only from the rest of the deposit, but from every other rock in Eng- 
land; and that fully one half of the fossils occurring in it are 
peculiar, while the distribution of them all differs essentially from 
what obtains in the underlying beds. Also, that the middle portion 
differs in lithological aspect and in structure both from what is above 
and below it ; while out of about 100 species of fossils which it con- 
tains, 85 do not occur elsewhere. Also, that the lowest beds possess, 
as a group, characters which are absent in the upper sections, and 
that as to fossils, though only five species are peculiar, the grouping 
shows considerable peculiarities. Lastly, that the Marl-slate at the 
base of the Magnesian Limestone differs in lithology, structure, and 
fossils from everything above it;—it being a laminated calcareo- 
argillaceous deposit, with a fauna of 15 species and a flora of 3; and 
out of these 11 forms are special. 
We thus feel some surprise when we find that the authors do not 
adopt any such arrangement, but designate it as ‘speculative’ and 
regard it as ‘extremely hazardous.’ They state that, though certain 
well-marked lines of separation exist between different portions of 
the Magnesian Limestone, as Messrs. King and Howse have pointed 
out, there are yet other differences which these authors have not 
made use of. They moreover state that ‘most probably all the 
variations of lithological structure, running through all the stages 
of friable, earthy, crystalline, botryoidal, &c., are simply due to the 
effects of local action at the time of deposition,—rocks of the same 
stratigraphical position taking alternately any or all of the above 
