84 Reviews — MurclmorCs " Siluria,^^ 



names, and of some of the accepted zoological views, in this Edition ; 

 but evidently great care has been taken in the laborious task of col- 

 lating books, figures, and fossils ; and Sir Roderick, as in former 

 Editions, has been careful to secure the same painstaking and con- 

 scientious work in the paLoeontology as he himself has bestowed in 

 the history and physical geology of these the oldest rocks of the 

 British Isles. 



We have space for but few remarks on points which are of interest to 

 palaeontologists. The Table opens with '' Plantee," but we expect that 

 the Sfongaria given under that head will prove to be casts of isolated 

 septa of Orthoceras. Actinophyllum is like a radiating burrow-mark ; 

 and occurs also in the Lower Greensand of the Isle of Wight (Mr. 

 Beckles' Collection). There is some confusion in applying the term 

 Salterella to the tube-like fossils at p. 166, if the latter be dae either 

 to Annelids or Crustacea (as seems to be indicated) ; for Mr. Billings 

 gave the name to a Pteropod. As for "Annelids," "Annelid-mark- 

 ings," and "Fucoids," we are glad to see an inclination to refer 

 some of them to the trails and burrows of Crustacea (p. 166 and p. 

 201) ; and in this respect a reference to Dr. Dawson's llusophycus 

 (allied to some forms of Bilohites), and his opinion as to its being the 

 mark of a burrow-chamber of a Trilobite would have been interest- 

 ing to Silurian students. 



The old fossil fish (the earliest Vertebrate) discovered by Mr. 

 Lee at Leintwardine, in the Lower Ludlow formation, is alluded 

 to at pages 126, 133, and 477, as a Pteraspis ; it was referred to 

 in 1864 by Mr. E. E. Lankester (Brit. Assoc. Report) as Scaphaspis 

 Zudensis, whilst Pteraspis truncatus (figured at p. 240) is also a 

 Scaphaspis, and Pt. Banhsii is a Cyathaspis according to the same 

 authority. Inadvertently this oldest species of Fish, and the refer- 

 ence to Mr. Salter's original description of it as Pteraspis Ludensis, 

 in the " Annals Nat. Hist." of July, 1859, have been omitted in the 

 Table at p. 536 — an important but evidently accidental omission. 



Recurring to the body of the work, with chapter xi. we enter on 

 the Devonian rocks and Old Red Sandstone. Mr. Geikie's clear 

 explanation of the structure of the Lower and Upper Old Red be- 

 tween the Cheviots and the Grampians is the first new point of 

 interest in this chapter; a succinct re-written account of the Old 

 Red Sandstone of Korth-eastern Scotland follows ; and the good 

 palasontological reasons for excluding the Telerpeton, Staganolepis, and 

 Ryperodapedon of Elgin from the Old Red category are fairly stated. 

 Of so great importance is this matter to geologists in general that 

 we here reprint the supplemental Notice (dated Oct. 30th, 1867) 

 issued with the New Edition of " Siluria ": — 



" The reader of this edition will find that a very important change 

 has been made in my views as given in former editions, respecting 

 the age of the Upper Sandstones of Elgin and Ross-shire, which I 

 have hitherto classed with the Devonian or Old Red Sandstone. My 

 previous conclusion was founded entirely on the strong natural evi- 

 dence presented to mo by the conformable superposition of those 

 beds to the strata of the inferior and unequivocal Old Red Sandstone 



