Chap. XIV.] 
SILURIAN IN SCANDINAVIA. 
345 
CHAPTER XIV. 
GENERAL VIEW OF THE SILURIAN, DEVONIAN, AND CARBONIFEROUS 
ROCKS OF SCANDINAVIA AND RUSSIA. 
Completing in the last Chapter a notice of the Palaeozoic rocks, in ascend- 
ing order, by a sketch of the Permian deposits, special references were 
made to Russia, whence the name * Permian ' was taken, and to Germany, 
where the different strata of the group had been so long studied. Let us 
now endeavour to delineate in broad outline the Continental equivalents 
of the Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous rocks of Britain. 
Throughout large portions of Western Europe (that is, Germany, 
France, Spain, and Portugal) these Palaeozoic deposits have been, in some 
tracts, so much metamorphosed and crystallized, in others so penetrated 
by igneous rocks, and even so dislocated, that, notwithstanding the re- 
searches of many good geologists and mineralogists, the task of reducing 
them to a normal order of succession is far from being completed. Defer- 
ring, therefore, such explanation of these complicated regions as may be 
practicable, let us first take a view of the succession of primeval life in 
Scandinavia and Russia-in-Europe, where, on the contrary, the series of 
the older fossil-bearing sediments is exhibited, over very wide areas, in 
clear and symmetrical order, and for the most part uninterrupted by the 
intrusion of igneous rocks *. 
In Scandinavia and Lapland, ancient crystalline rocks occupying the chief 
mass of that territory, and consisting to a great extent of granite and gneiss, 
with many varieties of schistose and quartzose strata, often metalliferous, in 
* The limits of this work do not permit any labours of many of my cotemporaries. 
attempt to delineate the mineral composition of In the work ' Kussia and the Ural Mountains,' 
the Ural Mountains, except to indicate by the way references are given to the authors, both anterior 
how clearly they exhibit the metamorphism of the and cotemporary, who have illustrated the older 
Palaeozoic deposits of Eussia-in-Europe. An ac- sedimentary deposits and their fossils in the Eus- 
quaintance with many of their natural produc- sian Empire. Special allusion is there made to 
tions must be sought in the works of other authors, the first (and a very able) attempt at the construc- 
from the time of Pallas to the days of the great tion of a geological map of Eussia by the late 
traveller Humboldt, who explored these regions Hon. W. Fox Strangways (Earl of Ilchester), and 
accompanied by his friends Gustaf Eose and to his original sketch of the environs of St. Peters- 
Ehrenberg, and extended the lights of science to burg, in Trans. Geol. Soc. Lond. 1st ser. vol. v. p. 
the frontiers of China. Besides the ' Eeise nach 392. Eeferences are of course also made to the 
dem Ural, dem Altai,' &c, of those authors, the original work of Pander on the fossils of the same 
reader will find a great body of information in district, and to Eichwald's ' Systeme Silurien de 
the ' Archiv fur wissenschaftliche Kunde von l'Esthonie.' Since the publication of our work, 
Eussland,' conducted by M. Adolf Ermann, the ex- my friends and self have been gratified by seeing 
plorer of North-eastern Siberia and Kamtschatka. it translated (1849) into the Eussian language by 
Among the authors who have written on the mi- Colonel Osersky, who has added some important 
neral structure of Siberia, Helmersen and Hoff- data from his own observation and other sources, 
mann also stand out conspicuously, as will be including corrections of our general geological 
seen by those who consult their publications in map. Several communications of value on the 
the ' Annuaire des Mines de Eussie.' The splen- geology and fossils of Eussia, by Helmersen and 
did work also of M. Pierre de Tchihatchef, others, are to be found in the Bulletin Soc. Imp. 
on the Altai Mountains, and many others would Naturalistes de Moscou, and other serial works ; 
have to be noticed ; but as this volume is chiefly and M. Eichwald's ' Letheea Eossica' forms, as far 
an outline of the nature and succession of the as it has been published, a useful compendium of 
older sediments, I cannot here expatiate upon the Eussian Palaeontology. 
