XXXU PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



settle the dubious question of the true age of the Lower Oolitic de- 

 posits in the North of England. 



"What a contrast is offered by this mass of willing though labo- 

 rious, and consentaneous though scattered efforts, all tending to en- 

 large knowledge and fortify the basis of theory, with the heap of 

 crude conjectures which formerly took the place now firmly held by 

 the true, however imperfect, natural history of the earth, which we 

 have founded on sections of the strata and classifications of organic 

 remains ! 



"When, seventy years ago, the author of the Map of the Strata of 

 England and Wales began to teach some practical knowledge of the 

 earth's structure to miners and farmers, to Boards of Agriculture and 

 Directors of Canals, the language he employed was worthy of the 

 simplicity of the man, the subject, and the auditors. The strata 

 were deposited in succession — the lowest first, the uppermost last. 

 Each stratum was in succession the bed of the sea ; it contained the 

 remains of the animals then living in the water ; these remains were 

 similar in different parts of the same stratum, but unlike in different 

 strata. Thus was formed the scale of geological time, marked by 

 stratification and confirmed by the fossils, which we now employ. 



§ Palceontologlcal Data. 



The communications made at our meetings so rarely touch on 

 theoretical subjects, that, but for the discussions which ensue, it might 

 seem as if we had ceasetl to doubt, or ceased to hope and aspire after 

 higher generalizations. In tracing the history of the strata, whether 

 in neighbouring or in distant localities, we employ, without fear, 

 the evidence of organic remains to determine the place of the rocks 

 which contain them in the general scale of strata. Even when com- 

 parisons are made between the groups of strata on opposite sides of 

 the Atlantic — as between the Trenton Limestone of New York and 

 that of Llandeilo in South Wales*, or between the Silurians of 

 Europe and their Arctic representatives in Prince Patrick's Landf, — 

 the affinity of the fossils is accepted as evidence of the approximate 

 contemporaneity of the rocks. 



But beyond the ranks of our Society, among those who do not 

 share our labours, are some who do not accept our conclusions. They 

 doubt the logical applicability of our methods of reasoning to areas 

 so wide, to conditions so dissimilar, and to times so remote. They 

 doubt if the facts of succession of organic remains in the earth are 

 sufficient, or sufficiently investigated, to justify the inferences com- 

 mon in our books regarding the succession of ancient life, in periods 

 of long duration, under quite different aspects of nature. 



Disbelief of this kind has in former times easily passed into hos- 

 tility— 



Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi ; 



but in these days it may often be removed by a better knowledge of 



* See Eogers's Geol. Map of N. America ; and Hall's Geology of New York, 

 t Haughton, Notice of Fossils found by M'Clintock, 



