jSJeu: South Wales. 
1 53 
request respecting certain of them in the following memorandum :—“Wc 
should like to have the localities of the above numbers, and of the following 
corals and shells, viz. : — 
Massive Favorites, 2,983, 3,526, 3,540. 
Cylindrical one, 2,507. 
Flat one, 3,602. 
Syringopora —large, 3,540. 
New genus, allied to Favosites, 3,616. 
Now genus, 3,597. 
New genera, 3,553, 3,562, 3,588. 
Heliolites, 3618." 
The localities were supplied by me. 
In the same Memo, he says: — “Mr. Lonsdale is examining a few of the 
corals. Tf he should be able to throw any light on which is Devonian, &c., I 
am sure Sir Roderick will send you the information." This was done, so far 
as was possible, as T find several references to them, and to the endeavours of 
Messrs. Salter and Lonsdale, in various letters from Sir Roderick, who, inde¬ 
pendently of his private correspondence, made public mention of them in 
“ Siluricty" 4th Ed., pp. 18, 462, 276. Murchison further says, in one of his 
letters tome, that, had 1 sent niv fossils to what he considered their “proper 
destiny" — the School of Mines — they would have been officially described 
long before. 
Writing on November 16, 1853, he says : — “ I am always glad to receive 
your instructive letters, and was much pleased to find that you have been 
throwing so much important light on the auriferous phenomena of Australia. 
I will not fail to profit by your discoveries in the golden chapter of my forth¬ 
coming “ Siluria I have long been anxious of having your I’aheozoic 
fossils properly named and compared before my final chapter is printed." 
The above extracts are here introduced to show* that no possible purposed 
neglect occasioned the disappointment as to my earlier description of the 
Palaeozoic collections made and forwarded by me to Europe. I may add 
further, that acting on a suggestion of Mr. Salter that I should apply to Prof, 
M'Cov, “ who is well qualified," I did so, feeling that as I had been 
indebted to him for the description of the Carboniferous Fossils from the first 
contribution to Cambridge, it would have been gratifying to me to have 
placed in his hands the Middle Lower Palaeozoics of the second contribution. 
The learned Professor, in reply, stated that his engagements of a public 
character were too onerous to allow him time to devote to more private work 
of the kind, and courteously declined. 
In this ext remity I consulted Prof. T. Rupert .Tones, who recommended me 
to seek aid from Prof. Do IConinck, of Liege, who — after some delay on my 
part, occasioned by circumstances which did not originate in any want of 
continued zeal, but over which I had no control — has most ably, indcfatigably, 
and willingly accomplished it, to his own reputation as I hope and believe, 
and certainly with much honorable acknowledgment of myself. 
1 had myself begun the work in a small way by making drawings to scale 
of more than 1,200 individual specimens collected by me from the Car¬ 
boniferous beds, chiefly between the years 1813 and 1847, and including many 
described by Prof. M'Coy and De Koninck, and which were shown to the 
former in the year 1860. 
They were never published, and it was the feeling that it was a work beyond 
my own powers to do justice to it, coupled with want of pecuniary means and 
of leisure from my parochial duties, that- induced me to look to professional 
