196 J.P. Lesley on the Coal-measures of Cape Breton. 
ble between different coal-beds. 3. That these are attributable 
rather to difference of station and conditions of preservation, 
than to lapse of time; that is, if we could take the beds, each 
one in its whole extent, and its fossils in their original condition, 
there would, after all, be no differences observable between dif 
ferent seams. 4, That groups or assemblages of species in the 
Lower, Middle, and Upper Coal-measures may nevertheless be 
distinguished; that is, while each and every species may be 
found occasionally in all parts of the column from bottom to 
top, yet this happens in such a manner as to group some of them 
more abundantly, or in certain peculiar proportions in the Lower, 
others in the Middle, and others in the Upper portions of it. 
5. That, after all, however, these groups are not persistent, but 
differ at different localities, and are as worthless as the specific 
forms themselves for the identification of a single bed in more 
than one place.—Is it possible that all this has been made out, 
or can be made out, except in a country of horizontal Coal-meas- 
ures, well opened for study, where the stratification can be estab- 
lished beforehand, and the range of the fossils be made certain? 
n conclusion, I would say, that the want of clearly defined 
and applied names is a drawback to such a discussion. ‘I'he dis- 
cussion is, in fact, initially one of names, viz: how far down the 
name Carboniferous must be carried; what are the Lower Coal- _ 
measures, &c. But, in the end, it is a question of vital importance 
to the value of the paleontological imprimatur upon stratigraph- 
ical and structural deductions from field work. Is the discovery 
of specific forms to keep all our geological niveaux in a pel 
petual mirage-flicker? Are we never to know, from day to day, 
whether we are at work in Devonian or Carboniferous, in Trias, 
or Lias? Why not at once obey the marriage law of the weaker 
sex, and give up our names for our lords? Let geology forget 
the virgin nomenclature of her youth, and rewrite her cS 
with such titles for her chapters as these: ‘The Spiriferiferous 
formation; The Lepidodendriferous formation; The Lower The 
ont; The Middle Baculite; The Upper Pterodactylian for 
mation. Why has this not already been done? Simply be — 
cause it cannot be done. No paleontologist has yet been bold 
enough even to propose it. Yet, as I believe, the 26,000 feetot 
Coal-measures in the British Provinces will be found to be one of 
* 
al aa i 
Nova Scotia will take in all that part of the Paleozoic colum 
_ which has furnished goal, and that is from the top downws 
