THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGA.ZINE 



NEW SERIES. DECADE II. VOL. III. 



No. IV.— APRIL, 1876. 



(D:RX(3rXisrjL.Xj j^xaTioxiiES. 



I. — A Comparison between the Oldest Fossiliferous Eocks 



OF Northern Europe. 



By G. LiNNARSSON, 



Palaeontologist to the Geological Survey of Sweden. 



IN a paper on "The Physical Conditions under which the Cambrian 

 and Lower Silurian Rocks were probably deposited over the 

 European Area," ^ Mr. Hicks has recently put forth some opinions 

 on the lowest fossiliferous rocks of Scandinavia and Russia, and 

 their relations, as to age and stratigraphical characters, to those of 

 Britain, which I think ought to be somewhat modified. The chief 

 assertions in Mr. Hicks's paper are, that at the Pre-Cambrian period 

 a large continent existed in Europe ; that a subsidence began in the 

 south-western part, and gradually extended to the nortb-eastern, 

 which was not submerged until the Tremadoc group had been de- 

 posited over the western areas ; and, finally, that the marine faunas 

 migrated from the south-west. In order to prove these generalizations, 

 Mr. Hicks makes a comparison between the most important Cambrian 

 districts of Europe. He thinks that the British Cambrian rocks are 

 the oldest, that the lowest Swedish beds are probably equivalent to 

 the British Menevian group, and that the Russian are not older than 

 the Arenig. Though the scantiness of the organic remains in some 

 instances makes it very difficult, or, indeed, impossible to parallelize 

 with certainty the oldest deposits of the various countries, it seems, 

 however, from the palaaontological facts already known, quite un- 

 questionable that the lowest rocks of Scandinavia and Russia are 

 older than Mr. Hicks has supposed them to be in comparison to 

 those of Britain. 



As to Scandinavia, its oldest fossiliferous rocks are : 1st, the 

 Eophyton Sandstone ; 2nd, the Fucoid Sandstone ; and 3rd, the 

 Paradoxides Schists, which together represent the Lower Cambrian 

 according to Mr. Hicks's classification, and contain each a peculiar 

 fauna. In the British Lower Cambrian Mr. Hicks also reckons 

 three faun^. Of these, however, the second and third are so nearly 

 related that, from a merely palseontological point of view, they 

 might well be united in one,^ and the rocks containing them together 



^ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxi. p. 552, seqq. 



2 Mr. Hicks has himself in several places pointed out the great resemblance 

 between the Trilobite fauna of the Harlech and the Menevian beds. 



DECADE II. — VOL. III. — NO, IV. 10 



