83 



different specific names ; thius considerably interfering with a nice 

 discrimination of the groups. 



PalcBozoic Fossils, — Before I quit the subject of the older British 

 rocks, it is my duty specially to call your notice to a memoir just 

 published in your Transactions, because, although inserted by order 

 of the Council,and throwing great lighton British palaeozoic remains, 

 it has not yet been sufficiently alluded to from this Chair. It is the 

 work of MM. de Verneuil, and D'Archiac on the Fauna of the 

 Palaeozoic Rocks. In the first instance this memoir was designed to 

 consist simply of a description, by M. E. de Verneuil, of the organic 

 remains of the Rhenish provinces explored by Professor Sedgwick 

 and myself, and of which you have now our published views. M. 

 De Verneuil, who combines the attainments of a good conchologist 

 with those of a geologist, had accompanied us during a part of our 

 survey of that region, and approving the general classification, had 

 kindly offered to illustrate our views by the use of the very fine fossils 

 from the Rhine and the Eifel Avhich his cabinet contained. While' 

 instituting the comparisons necessary to prove, by evidences indepen- 

 dent of those in England, that the Devonian is a true intermediary 

 type, the subject became enlarged in his hands, and he was so fortu- 

 nate as to procure the assistance of his friend the Vicomte D'Archiac. 

 By combining researches and making a variety of comparisons, their 

 work soon acquired great value, not merely as regards an accvirate 

 description of beautiful organic remains, admirably lithographed, 

 but as containing also a general tabular list of the fossils of the De- 

 vonian system in Europe, as compared witli the species of the Silurian 

 and Carboniferous deposits in the Rhenish provinces. 



This table, enriched as it has been up to the moment of publica- 

 tion by additions drawn from recent researches in Russia, must be 

 considered a standard acquisition, the intrinsic merit of which can 

 only be estimated by those who are aware of the labour and range of 

 study which its preparation required. Nor are the general views of 

 the authors, which are embodied in their preface, less worthy of 

 consideration, for they exhibit an intimate acquaintance with fossil 

 zoology and its relations to each great system of the palaeozoic rocks ; 

 whilst it must be satisfactory to British geologists, that the induc- 

 tions of these foreign naturalists are in harmony with those of Mr. 

 Phillips, drawn from his own observations upon the fossils of De- 

 von and Coi-nwall. As this is the first occasion on which French 

 geologists have presented to us a memoir illustrating the writings 

 of our own countrymen, I am confident you will unite with me 

 in thanking them most cordially for their liberal and enlightened 

 assistance. Whilst considering the palaeozoic classification established 

 in Great Britain, I have, therefore, thought it not irrelevant thus to 

 allude to the labours of foreign geologists which support it ; and I 

 have the pleasure of acquainting you, that in addition to their 

 claims upon us, MM. D'Archiac and de Verneuil have, during the 

 last summer, explored parts of Normandy and Brittany, where they 

 have clearly recognised in that obscure tract, the same palaeozoic 

 divisions as exist in the Rhenish provinces and the British Isles. 



