Personal and Scientific News. 365 
them to paleontology. Three faunas are everywhere distin- 
guished. If the term Ordovician is adopted for the middle 
fauna, at once the Silurian and the Cambrian are defined. As 
a general term Mr. Marr recommended Barrandian for these 
three stages. 
Mr. Lapworth, who proposed the term Ordovician as a means 
of compromise between the two schools, referred the success 
of this term to its known correspondence with nature and 
with the truth, A table, drawn to a scale, of the geological for- 
mations of England shows the approximate equality of the 
primary, secondary and tertiary terranes. These divisions 
correspond to the principal divisions of life upon the globe, 
which are paleozoic, mesozoic and neozoic. Just as the meso- 
zoic period is divisible into two so the paleozoic period contains 
two natural divisions, the protozoic (Cambrian, Ordovician, Sil- 
urian) and the deutozoic (old Red, Carboniferous and Permian.) 
Mr. Walcott gave his observations on the stratigraphic suc- 
cession of Cambrian faunas in North America. The Cambrian 
presents three divisions; the Lower Cambrian, characterized by 
a new fauna of Olenellus^ containing 42 genera and 112 species, 
known only in Sweden, in Europe; the Middle Cambrian, char- 
acterized by Faradoxides; the Upper Cambrian, characterized 
by Dlkelocephalas or Olenus. These Cambrian beds are cov- 
ered by the Lower Silurian or Ordovician. 
Mr. T. Sterr}^ Hunt stated that the three divisions univer- 
sally adopted are those of Silurian, Ordovician and Cambrian, 
and he supported the proposition of Mr. Lapworth. to group 
them under the term protozoic. As to the cjuestion of the Ta- 
conic he admitted that the Taconic of the state of New York 
contains the second fauna, as newly recognized by Mr. Wal- 
cott, but the Taconian is below the primordial fauna, or the 
Cambrian, and corresponds to the Urschiefer. 
M. Torell proposed to apply the name Cambrian to the 
primordial fauna of Barrande and to the beds below, which are 
fossiliferous with OleneUus. A special name for the clastic 
lower beds would be convenient. He would preserve the names 
Lower Silurian and Upper Silurian for the beds above the 
Cambrian, rejecting the new term Ordovician. 
M. Gosselet remarked that the three English terms, cor- 
respond exactly to the three faunas of Barrande; the Cambrian 
has its own fauna; the Ordovician is more allied to the Silu- 
rian by its fauna. The Silurian cannot claijn for a moment 
the same independence. He rejected the terms protozoic and 
deutozoic, because of the importance of the Devonian which 
has had too great a development in the Ardennes. 
M. Dewakjue supported the opinion given by M. Gosselet 
and was in favor of the three successive terms, Silurian, Cam- 
brian and Taconic. 
