428 DEVONIAN STRATA. [Cn. XXVI, 



No less than 46 species of British Devouian corals are described in the 

 Monograph published in 1853 by Messrs. M. Edwards and Jules Haime 

 (Paleontographical Society), and only six of these occur in America ; a 

 fact, observes Prof. E. Forbes, which, when we call to mind the wide lati- 

 tudinal range of the Anthozoa, has an important bearing on the deter- 

 mination of the geography of the northern hemisphere during the Devo- 

 nian epoch. AVe must also remember that the corals of these ancient 

 reefs, whether American or European, however recent may be their aspect, 

 all belong to the Zoantharia rugosa^ a suborder which, as before stated 

 (p. 403, et seq), has no living representative. Hence great caution must 

 be used in admitting all inductions drawn from the presence and forms of 

 these zoophytes, respecting the prevalence of a warm or tropical climate 

 in high latitudes at the time when they flourished, — for such inductions, 

 says Prof E. Forbes, have been founded " on the mistaking of analogies 

 for affinities.'"^^ 



This calcareous division also contains GoniaiiteSy Spirifers, Pentre- 

 mites. and many other genera of Mollusca and Crinoidea, corresponding 

 to those which abound in the Devonian of Europe, and some few of the 

 forms are the same. But the difficulty of deciding on the exact parallehsm 

 of the New York subdivisions, as above enumerated, with the members 

 of the European Devonian, is very great, so few are the species in com- 

 mon. This difficulty will best be appreciated by consulting the critical 

 essay published by Mr. Hall in 1851, on the writings of European authors 

 on this interesting question. f Indeed we are scarcely as yet able to de- 

 cide on the parallelism of the principal groups even of the north and 

 south of Scotland, or on the agreement of these again with the Devonian 

 and Rhenish subdivisions. 



* Geol. Quart. Journ. vol. x. pi. Ix. 1854. 



f Report of Foster and Whitney on Geol. of Lake Superior, p. S02, Washing- 

 ton, 1851. 



