coiE&iEaiEsiFOiN'DDiEiBrciE. 431 



ON THE TERM NEOCOMIAJNT. 



Sir, — When my article on the use of the term Neocomian 

 appeared in this Magazine, I felt conscious that I had provoked 

 a formidable antagonist, and when I saw Prof. Judd's long letter in 

 the July Number, I felt like the captain of a frigate about to receive 

 the broadside of a three-decker ; but it seems to me that the utmost 

 damage I have received is a few shot through my sails, and that the 

 hull of my little vessel is left perfectly water-tight. 



A large part of Prof. Judd's letter is devoted to showing that I was 

 mistaken in ci'editing him with being the first to apply the term 

 Neocomian to British strata, and he says that the author who had the 

 chief honour (as he esteems it) of introducing that term was the late 

 Mr. E. A. Godwin-Austen. Well, this is perfectly true. I admit that 

 Godwin-Austen was the first to use the term ; in 1843 he employed 

 it for what we now call the Atherfield Clay of Surrey, and in 1856 

 he speaks of the " Lower Greensand or Neocomian group ; " but in 

 the first paper (Proc. Geol. Soc. vol. iv.) he correlated the Surrey 

 clay with the argile ostreenne of the Vassy section, and in the 

 second he makes the Lower Greensand of North Wilts correspond 

 with the Urgonien of D'Orbigny. Now subsequent researches proved 

 these correlations to be erroneous. Eenevier and Marcou, writing in 

 1856 and 1858, showed that the English Lower Greensand was not 

 the equivalent of the Neocomien or of the Urgonien, but of the 

 Rhodanien and Aptien ; consequently the use of the term in England, 

 having originated in a mistake, ought to have been abandoned. 



So indeed it might have been but for the intervention of Prof. 

 Judd, who is certainly responsible for its revival in 1864, and for 

 urging its more extended application in 1870. His article " On the 

 use of the term Neocomian" (Geol. Mag. Vol. VII. p. 220) was 

 written with the special object of recommending the adoption of the 

 term for the whole series of beds between the Gault and the 

 Jurassic strata, and of raising this series to the rank of an in- 

 dependent system. I maintain therefore that if Prof. Judd had not. 

 introduced this name for the second time, it is highly probable that 

 it would never have found a place in British nomenclature. 



Prof. Judd next refers to Godwin-Austen's arguments for the 

 Necomian age of the Lower Greensand fossils. I repeat that by the 

 increase of our knowledge these arguments have been shown 

 to be fallacious ; of course the fossils of the Lower Greensand 

 resemble those of the Urgonien more than those of the Gault 

 and Chalk ! if it were otherwise, we should class the Lower Green- 

 sand with the Upper and not with the Lower Cretaceous rocks. 

 If Prof. Judd cannot formulate a better reply to the arguments 

 adduced by me on p. 318 of this Magazine, I think I may look upon 

 my case as proved. 



I am told that " scientific names go through a struggle for 

 existence," and that the fittest survive ; maybe they do, but in my 

 opinion the name Neocomian is not yet out of the struggle, and has 

 not yet definitely found its proper place. Surely, Sir, geology is a 



