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I. On some Points in Ancient Physical Geography, illustrated by Fossils from a Pebble - Bed at Budleigh Salterton, Devonshire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

J. W. Salter
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Extract

The contents of a Geological Journal form as miscellaneous a series as can well be imagined. In its pages all kinds of subjects meet the eye together: the analysis of an obscure mineral on one page; the correction of a stratigraphical error on another: here is a fresh reading of an old text; and there an uninviting catalogue with synonyms. Occasionally the Journal looks like the note-book of a naturalist; and the affinities of a genus, the migrations of species, and the ‘theory of descent with modification,’ are discussed with zealous care: and then, again, we get back to the old times and old subjects of geological thought; and Werner and Berzelius, and their followers, have it for a season all their own way. There is nothing to complain of in all this: it is just what it ought to be; for it shows how wide our subject-matter is. ‘The earth andall that is therein’ — that is surely wide enough; nor will pen, pencil, or graver, till the end of time, have done with it. It is not one of the least of the charms of our comprehensive science, that every one may add something to its stores. A sea-side walk, with a hammer in the pocket, may discover a new world by accident; for, as Darwin, Lyell, and Ramsay have told us, the unrepresented past tunes have been far greater than those of which we have a geological record, and fragments of the missing pages may turn up at any time.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , July 1864 , pp. 5 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1864

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References

page 7 note * Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xii. p. 44, & c.

page 8 note * I do not know that the Welsh marine area extended so far south as in this sketch. Mr. Godwin-Austen draws the harrier along the line of the Bristol Channel (Quart Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xii. pl. 1); but the Llandeilo and Caradoe rocks of South Wales were certainly accumulated in tolerably deep water (the Caradoe especially so); so that the north shore of the barrier was probably further to the south than his sketch would lead us to suppose. The correction is comparatively trifling; the main point is the existence of this barrier-line of old land separating the northern from the southern sea.

page 9 note * A different conclusion might be drawn from the lists given by Prof Sedgwick and M'Coy (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. viii. p. 13); but all the specimens that I have seen are of species distinct from the British; and some, at least, unnoticed by M'Coy, are true French species—Calymene Tristani, for example.

page 9 note † This specimen is now in the British Museum, having been presented to the Geological Department by the discoverer.