ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OP THE PRESIDENT. I 89 



I have thus referred to some of the chief European localities and 

 systems to show the importance and development of the continental 

 Devonian rocks with their enormous fauna, as compared with the 

 clearly determined but comparatively poor British series, our whole 

 fauna only numbering 550 species at most. Unless some reference 

 had been made to the American and European Devonians no force 

 could have been given to the system; and its geographically dis- 

 jointed state (even on the continent) tends to detract from the original 

 unity of the whole, but at the same time to show that it was, 

 and has been, one of the most extensive systems on the two conti- 

 nents, and even in the British Islands could we but uncover the 

 extensive area between Belgium, the Boulonnais, and Devon and 

 Cornwall, now deeply buried under the Secondary and Tertiary 

 systems. 



I cannot pass over the Devonian formation of North America 

 and the Canadas, either physically or palaeontologically, for we know, 

 through the labours and researches of Hall, Bigsby, Newberry, 

 Meek, Shumard, Wlnchell, Dawson, and others, how great and widely 

 extended is the Devonian system in North America/and how persistent 

 are the conditions and successions ; the state of New York and the 

 Canadas, with the Gaspe region in the east, have as yet exhibited 

 the Devonian rocks in greatest development, all the three great 

 horizons being present. The Hamilton and Upper Helderberg 

 groups, with the Catskill, Chemung, and Portage groups above, 

 occur in the States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, and 

 Michigan in full development. In Iowa and Tennessee the Upper 

 Devonian only is present. In New- York State the 11 recognized 

 divisions make up a mass of limestones, sandstones, shales, flag- 

 stones, and conglomerates upwards of 8000 feet in thickness. In 

 Pennsylvania the Devonians are 12,000 feet thick. The great 

 Middle or Hamilton group is developed in 6 of the 8 States, the 

 Lower or Helderberg in -1. Principal Dawson, in his ; Acadia,' has 

 shown that the Devonians of the St.-John"s area, New Brunswick, 

 exhibit peculiar features different from those of the Western States 

 before mentioned, but nevertheless are divisible into three stages 

 or horizons*. 



The above generalizations relative to the development and dis- 

 tribution of the European and American Devonians are given to 

 show their great value and extent as compared with the really 

 or comparatively poor fauna of the British Islands. That the whole 

 formation or system once extended universally over the area thus 

 roughly traced there cannot be any doubt, nor that probably during 

 one general age one or other of its three divisions may have occurred 

 homotaxially ; but as a whole it occupied all that time or epoch 

 extending from the close of the Upper Ludlow to the base of the 

 Carboniferous. In North Devon its upper member passes insensibly 

 and conformably into the Carboniferous, which is itself in an abnormal 

 condition. 



The Scotch and Irish beds of this age differ from all others, the 

 * ' Acadia,' 2nd ed. pp. 503-505. 



