130 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



and specifically, in fossil contents, are the result of one com- 

 mon agency — the extraordinary difference being derived from 

 local causes only — and yet they are considered members of 

 one system, classified under one appellation, and considered 

 as typical of one age ; and to these a title of general import 

 has been applied, without reference to country or language. 

 In what a degree does this contrast with the establishment 

 of a system, upon the examination of a single district of 

 country. 



A transatlantic Geologist, in speaking of this same subject, 

 and after stating that particular rocks of his district range 

 with Mr. Murchison's Silurian group, continues: We do 

 not, however, see any propriety in applying a local term to 

 a class of strata abundant in every quarter of the globe ; we 

 have the same right to our Nerepsis, Mispeck^ and Quaco rocks, 

 as our contemporaries across the Atlantic have to their Ludloiv, 

 Wenlock, and Caradoc rocks. It is high time a better nomen- 

 clature was introduced into the science J' 



Whilst noticing this subject, the evil of which is not con- 

 fined to the appellation which we have quoted above (on the 

 ground of its novelty, and the recent establishment of the 

 system), it occurs to us, that although this fault originated 

 with an institution, which, from its position and influence, 

 should rank as the tribunal before which all geological ques- 

 tions should be maturely weighed and decided upon, its 

 members have not all been parties to the like innovations. 

 On the occasion of Professor Sedgwick submitting his elabo- 

 rate paper on the stratified rocks of the English series, inferior 

 to the old red sandstone, in which he described the Cumbrian 

 rocks of the neighbourhood of Kendal and Kirby Lonsdale, 

 he admitted, amongst other statements in his recapitulation 

 of the constituents of the district, that "a second band 

 existed (among the Cumbrian rocks), of calcareous slates, 

 with lower Silurian fossils f and an interesting and highly 



