168 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Jail. 7, 



they may belong, bears the most positive Palaeozoic stamp, and that 

 the species are in many cases the same that lived in the Carboniferous 

 era, and some even in the Devonian. 



Having sent my plate of Nova-Scotian species to Prof, de Koninck, 

 he wrote back : — " It is to be remarked that all this little fauna 

 completely recalls that of the Carboniferous limestone of Vise in 

 Belgium ; " and this urges me to remind the Society that it has 

 been already shown by several palaeontologists that there exists a 

 great general similarity in the Carboniferous fauna in almost every 

 portion of the globe where the rocks of that period have been dis- 

 covered ; and I have myself been able to confirm and extend this 

 fact by the lengthened examination I have made of the Bracliiopoda 

 of that period from Europe and from many distant regions. It 

 would, however, be hazardous in the extreme to affirm that the 

 species found in one particular bed or at one horizon of the Carbo- 

 niferous period of Nova Scotia were strictly contemporaneous with 

 the same rock or forms found, for instance, at Yise in Belgium or 

 elsewhere. They may, perhaps, have been so, but we have no direct 

 means of arming at so positive a conclusion ; but, from the differ- 

 ence in the size of the specimens, we may say, for example, that the 

 Carboniferous sea of the Punjaub, where many of the same species 

 are found, was much more favourable to the development of the 

 species than was that of Nova Scotia, where, as a general rule, the 

 shells were all very much smaller ; and I quite coincide with Prof. 

 Huxley when he asserts that the term " contemporaneous " cannot 

 always be made use of in its absolute or literal meaning. For in- 

 stance, it is highly probable that in some portion of the world the 

 Lower Carboniferous animals may have continued to exist unmo- 

 lested, and to have been gradually imbedded, up to the time when 

 the Permian era commenced ; and by this means some of the species 

 of the older formation may have been transferred to the newer ; and 

 all this whilst in other parts of the world the Middle and Upper 

 Carboniferous sediment was being deposited. Two series of Carbo- 

 niferous strata containing the same animals may, therefore, not be 

 strictly contemporaneous, although they may both belong to the 

 Lower Carboniferous series : the term should therefore be made use 

 of in its widest and most general acceptation. 



At pages 220-222 of his < Travels/ Sir C. Lyell gives a list, with 

 and Avithout names, of sixteen species of Lower Carboniferous Bra- 

 chiopods as having been found in Nova Scotia, namely, Terehratula 

 elongata, T. sufflata, Spirifer cjlaber, Sp. cristatus i ?, Sp. minimus, JSp. 

 ocioplicatus, Producta Martini, P. concinna, P. Lyelli, P. Scotica, P. 

 spinosa, P. antiquata, and four undetermined. But as several of the 

 designations enumerated are synonyms, the number of determined 

 species would be reduced to five ; and, even of these, three names 

 will require to be altered. 



The study I have made of Dr. Dawson's and Sir C. Lyell's specimens 

 has, however, enabled me to determine fourteen species, or in reality 

 nine more than had been recorded by M. de Yerneuil, and it is pro- 



