THE 
AMERICAN GEOLOGIST 
Vol. II. OCTOBER, 1888. No. 4. 
Report of the Sub-Committee on the 
Upper Paleozoic (Devonic). 
HENEY S. WILLIAMS, 
EEPORTEP.. 
§ 1. The Name. 
The name "Devonian system" was first proposed by Sedgwick 
and Murchison, in 1839, in an article in the Transactions of the 
Geological Society (2d Series, 5th vol. pp. 688, etc., see p. 701, 
published in 1839, and read April 24th, 1838), entitled "On the 
Physical Structure of Devonshire and the Subdivisions and 
Geological Relations of the Older Stratified Deposits, etc." 
This system, as originally conceived, included a series of de- 
posits found in North and South Devonshire and Cornwall, 
which thoroughly covers the Devonian system as now understood. 
In 1841, Professor John Phillips published his "Figures and 
Descriptions of the Paleozoic Fossils of Cornwall, Devon and 
West Somerset," in which are represented some of the more 
characteristic fossils of the Devonian system, from the lower, 
Lynton zone to the higher transition rocks of the Carboniferous. 
The rocks and fossils thus described have become the typical 
representatives of the " Devonian system," and the works above 
alluded to are the classical authorities for this system as used by 
geologists throughout the world. 
It was not until about the year 1841, that the literature of 
American Geology began to show the effects of the masterly 
classification proposed by Murchison and Sedgwick, for the 
Paleozoic rocks of Great Britain. 
In the fifth annual report of the New York State Geological 
G 
