Pakeozoic Rocks of Great Britain. 113 



fessor would succeed in establishing his nomenclature. Set- 

 ting aside all personal claims, and looking solely at the merits 

 of the case, he believed that the proportion of distinct species 

 in the Cambrian and Silurian systems would prove to be as 

 great as in other parallel cases. 



Professor Phillips stated, that it was more than thirty years 

 since he first met Professor Sedgwick on one of his geological 

 excursions ; and after so many years of labour, he was gratified 

 to see that he had obtained a form of sound classification of 

 the oldest fossiliferous rocks of the British Isles. He believed 

 that if Sir R. Murchison were present he would put aside all 

 points of difference, and also congratulate him on having pre- 

 sented so good a view of the subject. As the development 

 of our types was looked upon as the pattern for other countries, 

 it would be unfortunate if we allowed it to be supposed that 

 there was no basis for our classification, whereas no difference 

 of opinion existed as to the main facts, viz., that the Cambrian 

 rocks contained a large series of characteristic forms of life, and 

 that the Silurian also contained a distinct series ; the question 

 was, where to draw the line between them. A classification 

 taken from the Malvern country alone would be incomplete, 

 as regarded both the series of strata and the forms of life. It 

 was extremely difficult to apply the doctrine of the succes- 

 sion of life on the globe to minute cases, since the sets of 

 fossils from adjacent quarries might differ, being determined 

 by local circumstances. The term " system'' of rocks as now 

 employed, had no such distinct character as when it was first 

 used by Mr Conybeare, whose systems were distinguished by 

 conformity and mineral character, as well as by fossils. He 

 wished not to express a positive opinion or to adopt arrange- 

 ments which he regarded only as provisional ; there had 

 arisen before him a vision of a classification founded entirely 

 on the succession of life, and he looked forward to the time 

 when the nomenclature should express, not the local mineral 

 changes,but those phenomena of organic life which extended 

 over much wider areas. 



Mr Strickland argued, that there had been no period at 

 which organic life was absent from the globe, and no such 

 thing as an entirely new creation ; but that the changes in 



VOL. IiVI. NO. CXI.—JANUARY 1854. H 



