Devon and Cor?wall, Belgium, the Eifel, %c. 293 



I ma}' here appropriately advert to the remarks made by 

 Capt. Portlock, R,E., late President of the Geol. Soc. of 

 Dublin, on Mr. Griffith's arrangement of the strata in the 

 south of Ireland, as well deserving of the attention of the 

 latter*. He observes, that Mr. Griffith's transference of 

 those strata which were formerly designated as of the transi- 

 tion epoch to the old red sandstone, must be considered as 

 springing from the generalizations in Devonshire of Professor 

 Sedgwick and Mr. Murchison. To those generalizations I 

 have objected in the paper referred to above in the Lond. 

 and Edin. Phil. Mag. for August 1839; and I have already 

 stated that Mr. Austen started similar objections in the same 

 month. But we may proceed a step further, and show that 

 evidence is not wanting to prove that the older stratified rocks 

 of Devon and Cornwall belong to an ancient transition series. 

 The genus Clijmenia, discovered and determined by Count 

 Miinster in the Fichtelgebirge, occurs also in Cornwall and 

 Devon according to the observations of Mr. Ansted, Professor 

 Sedgwick, Mr. Murchison, Mr. De la Beche, and Professor 

 Phillips. In the Fichtelgebirge the Clymenia? are accom- 

 panied by Goniatites also, and Count Munster enumerates 

 fourteen species of the former and tv/enty-six species of the 

 latter, together with one hundred and eighteen species of 

 other fossils; namel}', Trilohites 14 species, Serpula 1, Bel- 

 lerophon 3, Orthoceras 22, Gasteropoda 31, Conchifera 43 

 (among which are species of Ortliis and Terebratula, but no 

 Spirifera, according to M. Von Buchf), C7'inoidea 4. This 

 tract is referred by Count Miinster to an ancient transition 

 series, the Clymenice being confined to it, and not occurring 

 in the upper strata of the country, namely, in the carbonife- 

 rous limestonei- Von Buch also considers this tract and the 

 environs of Prague as belonging to the more ancient strata of 

 the transition epoch, and as being perhaps the oldest of that 

 class to be found in Germany §. And M. Bey rich makes the 

 general observation, that Clymenice appear restricted to the 

 older transition strata, not having hitherto been met with 



* See pp. 25 to 27 of the President's Address, February 14, 1839, in 

 Journal of Geol. Soc. of Dublin, vol. ii. To Capt. Portlock we are in- 

 debted for the discovery of a small transition district in the county of Ty- 

 rone, which embodies several fossils common both to the Silurian region 

 and to certain transition tracts in North America, Ihid. pp. 28, 29. 



+ Bidletln de la Societe Geologique de France — Seance de Mars, 1836. 

 Tome vii. p. 156. 



X Bayreuth, 1832; and A^inales des Scie7ices Naturelles. Seconde serie. 

 Tome ii. 1834. 



§ Bulletin de la Societe Geologique de France — Seance de Mars, 1836. 

 Tome vii. 



