REVIEWS — CANADIAN ORGANIC REMAINS. 43 



their utility, by remaining without befitting illustration. In our evi- 

 dence before the Committee of Inquiry, appointed by the House of 

 Assembly, in reference to the survey in the autumn of 1854, we were 

 happy in being able, in conjunction with Sir William Logan and Pro- 

 fessor Hall, to urge the earnest consideration of this subject upon the 

 attention of the Committee. The House having afPorded to Sir 

 William Logan the means to carry out his long cherished views in 

 regard to this matter, he set to work with his usual energy and discri- 

 mination, and subdivided the task amongst those best fitted for its 

 execution. One portion was put into the hands of Mr. Salter, of the 

 Geological Survey of the United Kingdom, a gentleman of the first 

 rank amongst English palaeontologists. Professor James Hall, the 

 distinguished author of the "Palaeontology of the State of New 

 York," took charge of another portion ; and in the person of a Cana- 

 dian naturalist of rising reputation, Mr. Billings, Sir William Logan 

 has found a most able coadjutor for the accomplishment of a third 

 portion of the work. The assistance of other palaeontologists will also 

 be called into request, as the occasion may arise for their more special 

 services ; and thus, indeed, in the Number or Decade before us, we find 

 a short but able notice (with illustrations) by Mr. T. R. Jones, of the 

 London Geological Society, on the Bivalve Entomostraca of the 

 Palaeozoic Rocks, a department of palaeontology which that gentleman 

 has made more especially his own. 



Mr. Billings having completed the first portion of the work allotted 

 to him, it has been thought advisable to issue this at once ; as, 

 although registered "Decade III.," the part in question is complete 

 within itself, and is altogether distinct from the first and second 

 decades, now on the eve of publication. It comprises, first, a preface 

 or introductory notice by Sir William Logan, in explanation of the 

 character of the work and the plan of publication ; secondly, a long 

 and very elaborate essay on the Cystideae of the Lower Silurian Rocks 

 of Canada, by E. Billings, Esq. ; thirdly, a paper on the Asteridae of 

 the same rocks, also by Mr. Billings ; fourthly, a paper on a new 

 genus (CycloL-ystoides) of Echinodermata, by Messrs. Salter and 

 Billings ; and, lastly, an article on the Bivalve Entomostraca of 

 Canada, by T. R. Jones, Esq., Assistant-Secretary to the Geological 

 Society of London : the whole illustrated by wood engravings, and by 

 eleven plates executed by some of the most eminent lithographers. 

 Of these plates, seven are in illustration of the memoir on the 



