310 Notice of the " Silurian System of 



plane may be said to hover over the peninsula, and any cause 

 which should lower it even a little would plunge a great part 

 of the country under a mantle of frost. Nay, so nice is the 

 adjustment, that even the convexity of the rocky contour has 

 its counterpart in the fall of the snow line near the coast, 

 and in the general depression towards the north. The inci- 

 dence of this remark will presently be more fully perceived. 



Notice of the " Silurian System of Central Bohemia, by 

 Joachim Barrande"* Communicated by James NlCOL, 

 F.R.S.E., Regius Professor of Natural History, University 

 of Aberdeen. 



Some time ago the introductory portions of this volume 

 were noticed by us in the Edinburgh New Philosophical 

 Journal, vol. 1. (January 1851), p. 107, from a copy kindly for- 

 warded by the author. In this notice an account was given 

 of some of the more important geological results at which M. 

 Barrande had arrived by his long and laborious researches. 

 Referring the reader to this article, we now proceed to the 

 more immediate subject of this volume, which contains a 

 highly interesting account of his investigations into the struc- 

 ture of those singular crustaceans — the Trilobites — which 

 form a large portion of the ancient fauna of Bohemia, and also 

 of many districts of our own county. To shew the extent of 

 these researches we may mention that they occupy more 

 than 800 quarto pages, and are illustrated by above fifty 

 plates, full of very beautifully executed figures. In collecting 

 the materials for this curious history, M. Barrande was assist- 

 ed by numerous workmen, trained under his own eye, to 

 seek out and bring together the shattered fragments of or- 

 ganic beings buried in these old strata. He pays a well- 

 merited compliment to the zeal, skill, and intelligence of the 

 humble Bohemian peasants employed in this minute and 

 laborious research, who, he says, have improvised a nomen- 



* SyBteme Silurien da Centre do la Bohcme, par Joachim Barrand<\ Vol i., 

 with vol. of plates. Prague and Paris. 



