2 C. Lapworth — Classification of the Lower Palceozoic Mocks. 



determine the limits and sequence of their larger subdivisions, and 

 to Murchison and his followers the honour of having been the first to 

 assign them their distinctive fossils. Sedgwick worked out single- 

 handed the true stratigraphical arrangement of the rocks of the Lower 

 Palaeozoics of Wales, from the Bangor Beds to the summit of the Bala 

 Series, and divided them into several successive groups, the propriety 

 and convenience of which subsequent research has served only to 

 make more distinctly apparent. The unavoidable — but none the 

 less vital — defect in his earlier work lay in his not publishing the 

 characteristic fossils of these subdivisions, until after the appearance 

 of the great work of his rival, in which the most conspicuous forms 

 appear as characteristic of the subdivisions of a supposed overlying 

 system. Murchison's work, on the other hand, depended not only 

 upon mineralogical characters and sequence of formations, but also 

 upon palasontological peculiarities. He failed signally, however, in 

 strictly and correctly defining his lower groups, and in correlating 

 some of his most typical beds, with the result of greatly confusing 

 his lists of characteristic fossils. 



The rigid conservatism of Murchison in his old age, and his 

 systematic disregard of the facts and arguments adduced in support 

 of the Cambrian System, brought about its inevitable re-action after 

 his death. The campaign against the Murchisonian nomenclature, so 

 brilliantly opened by Professor Sterry Hunt, in his masterly paper 

 on the " History of the Names Cambrian and Silurian in Geology," 

 has since assumed extraordinary proportions. The Cambridge School, 

 headed by Professor Hughes, the present talented occupant of the 

 Woodwardian Chair, supported by several earnest and industrious 

 adherents, has revived the claims of Sedgwick in all their entirety ; 

 and presses them on the attention of geologists with an energy and 

 persistence that threatens to lead to the formation of a body of 

 workers, determined to force from posterity, in honour of the memory 

 of Sedgwick, the rights he demanded, but of which during his life- 

 time he was so unfairly deprived. 



But, on the other hand, the Murchisonian nomenclature is embodied 

 in the maps and publications of the National Survey. It is embalmed 

 in the classic memoirs of the illustrious Barrande, and in the numerous 

 works of the best-known geologists of Europe and America. It is 

 still held, almost in its widest sense, by the more influential officers 

 of the Geological Survey, and is taught to their students and sub- 

 ordinates with that complacent pride which has naturally been engen- 

 dered by a quarter of a century of uninterrupted success. Even yet, 

 its advocates have such an unfaltering faith in its intrinsic propriety 

 and consequent impregnability, that the fact of the daily increasing 

 number and ability of their opponents is either contemptuously 

 ignored, or, at most, is deemed unworthy of a more respectful 

 recognition than a passing smile. 



The utter impossibility of reconciling the antagonistic claims of 

 these opposing schools has led, of late years, to the formation of a 

 third party, in which the best-known names are those of the late 

 Sir Charles Lyell, and of Dr. Henry Hicks. These concede the 



