18 
SILUEIA. 
[Chap. L 
mountains of the world, and that the Upper Punjaub of Hindostan con- 
tains a limestone charged with well-known Carboniferous fossils, reposing, 
as in England, upon a red sandstone *. It is also certain that the moun- 
tain-chains of China are composed, to a great extent, of these older rocks"; 
for M. C. Skatschkof, Director of the Eussian Observatory at Pekin, when 
preparing an account of the rich coal-fields (partially described by his 
countryman Kovanko) near that city, recognized, in the Jermyn Street 
Museum, certain Silurian Graptolites and Orthoceratites, Devonian Spi- 
rifers, and Carboniferous Producti as all being forms which he had 
seen in the rocks around the Chinese metropolis. Again, Devonian fossils 
of the very same species as those of England and the Continent have 
been given to me by Mr. W. Lockhart f , some from the interior province of 
Szechuan, and others from Kwangsi. Other fossils, identified by de 
Koninck as Devonian forms, were brought by M, Itier from the Yuennan 
province, one hundred leagues north of Canton J. 
In Australia, where, not long since, reference could be made only to 
rocks of the Carboniferous and Devonian age §, we hear of many Silu- 
rian fossils, both in New South Wales and in Yictoria ||, like those 
of the British Isles In Yictoria, indeed, numerous species of Lower 
Silurian fossils have already been recognized by Mr. Selwyn and Pro- 
fessor M'Coy in those slaty rocks which bear the chief auriferous quartz- 
veins. 
In South America, the lofty Cordilleras and plateaux, whose mineral 
characters have been so admirably described by Humboldt, were shown 
by Alcide d'Orbigny to consist in great part of such ancient sediments ; 
and more recently Mr. David Porbes ** described in considerable detail the 
true succession of these rocks, and brought home many characteristic Silurian 
fossils. Still more clearly has North America been found to contain a vast 
succession of these palaeozoic rocks, and especially of their lower members. 
Numerous geologists of the United States have demonstrated that their an- 
cient strata followed the same order on a very grand scale, and, in the western 
region, uninterruptedly, — doubtless due to their having been exempted 
in those tracts from the intrusion of igneous rocks. Spread out in enor- 
mous sheets over the southern districts of Upper Canada, the strata paral- 
* The Himalayan data are given by Col. K. Geol. Soc. vol. ix. p. 353 ; and de Koninck, Bull. 
Sfcrachey ; those of the Upper Punjaub, by Dr. A. Acad. Eoy. Sc. Belg. vol. xiii. pt. 2. p. 415. 
Fleming (Quart. Journ. G-eol. Soc. vol. vii. p. 292, § See Strzelecki's 'Australia,' FoS3. Fauna, 
ar.d vol. ix. p. 189) and by Mr. Theobald (Journ. Morris; M'Coy, Ann. Nat. Hist. 1847; Lonsdale, 
Bengal Asiatic Society, '1854, p. 651 &c). See Descrip. of the Corals, MS., sent to me whilst 
also an account of Carboniferous rocks and fossils the second edition was in preparation, 
discovered by Capt. Godwin- Austen in Thibet and || The numerous fossils found in the Victoria 
Kashmere, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxii. Colony are considered by Mr. Selwyn, the able 
p. 29 &c. Government Surveyor, to be either of Lower Silu- 
t See Proceedings of Roy. Geographical Soc, rian age, or belonging to the zone which I now 
President's Address, 1858, vol. ii. p. 306. term Llandovery Rooks (Edinb. New Phil. Journ. 
J See a description of the Chinese coal-field near n. s. vol. i. p. 171; and Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 
Pekin, by Kovanko, Ann. des Mines de Russie, vol. xiv. p. 533). 
An. 1838, p. 191. No geologist can peruse Mr. % Memoir by the Rev. W. B. Clarke, Quart. 
Fortune's lively description of the Bohea Moun- Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond. vol. viii. ; see also his 
tains without supposing that a fine primeval sue- collections sent to England, and those at the 
cession may there be lound. For the Chinese public Museum of Sydney. 
Devonian fossils, see Davidson, Quart. Journ. ** Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xvii. p. 7 &c. 
