650 
goen, one of the highest beds of the country, in an intermediate 
position between the upper and lower Silurian rocks, constituting 
a passage from the one to the other. 
The last memoir which has been read before us on the British 
Palzeozoic rocks, relates to their development in a part of West- 
moreland, and is from the pen of Mr. D. Sharpe; and I rejoice to 
see so clear and systematic a workman enlisted in the survey of the 
older rocks. Agreeing on some essential points with Professor 
Sedgwick and Mr. James Marshall, particularly in reference to the 
superior and inferior limits of the Upper Silurian group, this author, 
who had previously made himself acquainted with the best types of 
the Silurian rocks, conveys to us additional details of this interesting 
tract, in which he has distinguished upon a map the Upper Ludlow 
rocks, as characterized by many fossils, from an inferior slaty for- 
mation which lies between them and calcareous bands charged with 
Lower Silurian fossils, Dividing this intermediate formation into 
three sub-groups (by only mineral characters however), he gives to 
the whole the local name of “ Windermere Rocks,’—a term which 
T understand he only uses until by the discovery of fossil evidences 
he may be able to refer these beds to their proper Silurian equiva- 
lent. If I were allowed to judge from the experience of one visit 
to a part of the country described by Mr. Sharpe, in which I 
found Orthoceratites in mountains marked by him as “ Winder- 
mere Rocks,” and also from his own showing, that these rocks are 
included between types of the higher portions of the Upper and 
Lower Silurian strata, such intermediate formation must be on the 
parallel of the Wenlock strata, which in many parts of the Silurian 
region, as well as in the North of England—(i. e. wherever the 
subdividing limestone and fossils are suppressed) can only be recog- 
‘nized under the general term of lower members of the ‘ Upper Silu- 
rian Rocks,’ As Mr, Sharpe proposes to revisit the country, and 
to extend his researches from Westmoreland into Laneashire and 
Furness, he will have ample opportunity of confirming or rejecting 
my surmise. In regard to that portion of the memoir which points 
out the existence of many faults and anticlinal lines, I am not pre- 
pared to say to what extent they accord with the previous obser- 
vations of the great geologist of the lake country, Professor Sedg- 
wick, or of his precursor, Jonathan Otley. 
I would now speak of a work which has recently appeared, entitled 
‘The Old Red Sandstone, or New Walks in an Old Field. From 
a pretty accurate acquaintance with the tracts from which Mr. Miller 
has taken his title, I can assure you that the walks of this author 
had been little trodden, and that his claims to originality are very 
just. It is impossible to peruse his pages without delight in tracing 
how the strong mind of Mr. Miller has enabled him to rise step by 
step from the stone quarry of his, and 1 may add my own, native 
county Ross-shire, to a place in literature and science which few 
reach, even with all the support derived from an expensive education; 
or without admiring the ability with which this unassisted observer 
first succeeded in putting together the dislocated fragments of the 
