Page:The Geologist, volume 5.djvu/24

10 "Dyas" for the older name "Permian," I take this opportunity of expressing my regret that some German geologists are returning to the use of the term "Grauwacke Formation," as if years of hard labour had not been successfully bestowed in elaborating and establishing the different Palæozoic groups, all of which, even including the Lower Carboniferous deposits, were formerly confusedly grouped under the one lithological term of the "Grauwacke Formation."

Respecting as I do the labours of the German geologists who have distinguished themselves in describing the order of the strata and the fossil contents of the group under consideration, I claim no other merit on this point for my colleagues De Verneuil and Von Keyserling, and myself, than that of having propounded twenty years ago the name of "Permian" to embrace in one natural series those sub-formations for which no collective name had been adopted. Independently therefore of the reasons above given, which show the inapplicability of the word "Dyas," I trust that, in accordance with those rules of priority which guide naturalists, the word "Permian" will be maintained in geological classification.

2em 

The limestones, slates, and associated sandstones of North and South Devon and Cornwall have, as is well known, caused much perplexity as to their real place in the chronological series of the geologist. Thanks, however, to the labours of Professor Sedgwick, Sir R. I. Murchison, Mr. Lonsdale, and others, the problem is now generally admitted to be solved; the rocks in question are the representatives or equivalents of the Old Red Sandstone of Scotland and elsewhere; they belong to what is known as the Devonian age of the world. Some little difficulty, however, exists—or rather once existed—in the way of the full acceptance of this chronology. The rocks of Devonshire are crowded with the remains of invertebrate animals, especially shells, corals, and sponges; whilst the supposed contemporary deposits in Scotland and the adjacent islets are so rich in fossil fish that, in the language of the late Hugh Miller, "Orkney, were the trade once opened up, could supply with ichthyolites, by the ton and the shipload, the museums of the world." But the fossils characteristic of either of these districts are not found in the other; there are no organic links connecting the two localities.