38 
PRE-CARBONIFEROUS FLOOR OF THE MIDLANDS. 
“British and Garden Botany” contains an immense amount 
of interesting information, but is not a good working book. 
When a fair acquaintance with British plants has been 
obtained, if the student wishes to go further and examine the 
plants of gardens or of the world, the number of species is 
so large that no one book has yet attempted to describe them 
all. Loudon’s “ Encyclopaedia of Plants ” gives descriptions 
of nearly 20,000 species, and woodcuts of 10,000, and is an 
invaluable work; while Le Maout and Decaisne’s “Descriptive 
and Analytical Botany,” edited by Dr. Hooker, gives an 
excellent account of the 800 orders of known plants arranged 
according to the most modern system of classification. The 
price of the first is about two guineas and of the second 30s. 
If to these the student adds Sachs’s “ Text-book of Botany,” 
price about 30s., he will have, in addition to the works 
previously recommended, a Botanical Library sufficient for 
most amateurs. 
ON THE PRE-CARBONIFEROUS FLOOR OF 
THE MIDLANDS. 
BY W. JEROME HARRISON, F.G.S. 
The researches of British geologists, continued without 
intermission since the beginning of the present century, have 
at last rendered possible the study of the physiography of the 
Midlands during the geological ages which are past. 
The completion of the one-inch geological map of England 
by the Government Survey during the year 1883 marks an 
epoch in the history of geology; but, in the case of amateur 
geologists, it is certain that the publication of these maps, 
furnishing—as they are supposed to do—a “ royal road” to 
the study of the rocks of any district, has led them to take too 
many things for granted, and to suppose that finality in things 
geological has been attained. 
In this paper I propose to consider what is known of the 
Pre-Carboniferous strata—the Arcluean, Cambrian, Silurian, 
and Devonian Formations—of the Midlands ; to detail some 
startling discoveries which have been made within the last 
two or three years with regard to them, and to point out 
their bearing upon palseo-physiography and upon certain 
geological problems of high interest. 
Methods of Investigation .—Fortunately for local geologists 
the rocks of the British Isles have, perhaps, been more 
crumpled up, broken, eroded, and disturbed than any other 
