THE GEOLOGIST 



MAY, 1859. 



THE COMMON FOSSILS OF THE BEITISH ROCKS. 

 Bj S. J. Mackie, F.G.S., F.S.A., etc. 



{Continued from page 160.) 



Chap. 3 (continued). The Remnants of the First Life-World, and the 



Bottom-rocks. 



AVhat then was that old land like ? 



First, from the structural and physical characters of the primeval 

 rocks we may best gather some knowledge. 



In Europe, however, but few are the recognised remnants of those 

 primitive lands ; and those few, bare and bleak, return as yet no 

 definite answers to our inquiries. 



In the northern parts of Sweden and Norway are large tracts of 

 the oldest gneiss, and in Bohemia M. Barrande has described enormoua 

 masses of stratified rock, devoid of fossils, and apparently of Cambrian 

 age, as forming the natural base of his Silurian basin ; but in that 

 region, as also in Scandinavia, the earliest traces of animal life belong 

 to the Primordial Zone, or that of our Stiper-stones and Lingula-flags, 

 and we have no exact knowledge of the lowermost crystalline masses, 

 which are probably gneissic. 



In Central France there is also a large tract of the oldest gneiss, 

 covered only by a few patches of lacustrine coal, and which not 

 impossibly may never have been submerged, but may remain to this 



VOL. II. p 



