﻿20 G. A. Lehour — On the Terms " Bernician " and " Tuedian" 



The chief points insisted on by me were, — 1. The division of the 

 Carboniferous rocks into Upper and Lower only, — 2. The recogni- 

 tion of the Gannister Beds and Millstone Grit only as subordinate 

 members of the Coal-measures Group, — '6. The adoption of the names 

 Bernician and Tuedian for the two great series constituting the Lower 

 Carboniferous, and including all the rocks from the Yoredales to the 

 Upper Old Eed Conglomerate, both inclusive. The reasons for these 

 changes need not be repeated here. 



When, in the discussion which followed the reading of this paper, 

 Mr, Warrington Smyth condemned the coining of new names for 

 divisions of local value, I had little to say in answer to the charge, 

 since I was conscious of having a year before been guilty of pro- 

 posing the word " Bernician " at the Bristol Meeting of the British 

 Association and in the Geological Magazine. The words Coal- 

 measures, Gannister Beds, and Millstone Grit were as old as the 

 hills, and the only expressions that could be called in question were 

 " Bernician" and " Tuedian." Of these the latter was proposed in 

 1855 by Mr. George Tate, of Alnwick, who up to about ten years 

 ago was perhaps the only man who had studied the Calciferous Sand- 

 stone sei'ies south of Scotland. I therefore could only feel respons- 

 ible for the term " Bernician," and with an author's modesty I re- 

 frained from then giving that name all the praise which I felt it 

 deserved. I am now no longer in that embarrassing position, and 

 can now say (what I then thought) that the word is an excellent, 

 most appropriate, and convenient one, and that it is well fitted to 

 come into general use. 



The fact is that it turns out that I am not the originator of 

 " Bernician." Within the last few weeks I have discovered this, 

 and hasten to throw the responsibility of its creation on the shoulders 

 of one whose reputation is far better able to bear it. The term was 

 proposed in 1856 by the late Dr. S. P. Woodward, who, at p. 409 of 

 his " Manual of the Mullusca," thus defines the Carboniferous portion 

 of the geological column : 



, ., 1 ( 8. Bernician. Carboniferous Limestone (Shale and Coal). 

 iV. LbarDomierousj | g_ Demetian. Coal-measui-es (Millstone, Grit, Coal, etc.). 



Nothing more is said as to these terms, and except in the " Manual " 



they have not been reprinted anywhere to my knowledge until 1874, 



when Karl Mayer printed his table of sedimentary rocks, in which 



he characterizes the Carboniferous system as follows : 



III. Kohlen-Gebilde. 



r, TV i.- /TP- J J iocn\ f I- *• S. Etienner Schichten (Mayer, 1874). 

 B. Demetian (Woodward, 1859) { ^ ^_ stadtberger „ ,, 



A. Bernician (Woodward, 1859) •[ ^■ Jlberf elder „ 



^ i J-- Viseer ,, ,, 



The date 1859 is a mistake. It was on seeing this table a few- 

 days ago that my attention was drawn to Dr. Woodward's use of the 

 term Bernician. As no explanation of this term is given in the 

 Manual, in which, indeed, it appears but once, it is perhaps not 

 surprising that it should have escaped general attention. That Dr. 

 Woodward should have proposed it, that Dr. Karl Mayer should, 



