IV 
PREFACE. 
series, and amongst these, the ^ Researches in the Silurian Region,^ 
by R. I. Murchison, Esq., Pres. G.S., stands justly pre-eminent. 
Independently of its great geological interest, this work is en- 
riched by a series of beautiful plates illustrative of the Fauna of the 
Silurian rocks, the descriptions of which have been prepared by 
different naturalists ; the Polyparia having been defined and ar- 
ranged by Mr* Lonsdale ; the Crinoidea by Professor Phillips ; the 
Testacea by Mr. J. De C. Sowerby, &c. Previous however to the 
appearance of Mr. Murchison’s work. Prof. Phillips had published 
the ^ Illustrations of the Fossils occurring in the Mountain Lime- 
stone’; and these two works were partly instrumental to the more 
correct determination of the age of the Devonian rocks, which, 
upon zoological evidence alone, Mr. Lonsdale had suggested to be 
of an intermediate character ; his observations, together with the 
geological researches of Sedgwick and Murchison, were embodied in 
a memoir published in the Transactions of the Geological Society 
of London, vol. v. 2nd series. 
Numerous additions have been subsequently made to the fossils 
of this group by the publication of Prof. Phillips’s work, entitled 
‘The Palaeozoic Fossils of Devon, Cornwall, &c.,’ 1841, forming 
part of the Ordnance Survey of those counties under the direction 
of Sir H. T. de la Beche. 
From the New Red Sandstone a few forms have been described 
by Mr. Strickland and Mr. Murchison in the Geological Transac- 
tions, vol. V. 2nd series, and Sir Philip Egerton has identified some 
of the continental Triassic fishes as also occurring in this country. 
But few" fossils from the Magnesian Limestone have recently 
been figured, although Prof. Phillips enumerates more than 100 
species ; a fine series of wLich has been collected by Mr. W. King 
of New"castle. The collections of Mr. Bunbury (London) and 
Messrs. Walton and Joyce (Bath) are particularly rich in the fossils 
of the Oolitic group : the former is engaged in a strict comparison 
of the species found in this country and on the Continent, and the 
latter are about to publish some general observations on the more 
interesting forms in their possession. Of these fossils betw^een 200 
and .SOO new species remain unfigured, few of them having been 
described by British authors since the 2nd edition of Prof. Phillips’s 
‘ Illustrations of the Geology of Yorkshire.’ A considerable num- 
ber w ill how ever be found in this Catalogue as having been iden- 
tified wdth those figured in the works of Goldfuss and Roemer, 
