INTRODUCTION.

XV

Fortunately, this proposition was rejected. I say fortunately, because when wehad, in the way above mentioned, arranged the whole series of the older Palaeozoic fossils in the Cambridge Museum geologically—putting to the best of our power everyspecies (as well as every duplicate) in its proper physical group—Professor M c Coy saw inthe successive groups of fossils no proof of that blending of the older and newer types whichhad been very confidently affirmed, and was virtually assumed in the Silurian nomenclature*.On the contrary, resting on the whole evidence of the Cambridge fossils, and before he hadseen any part of the Silurian country, he asserted his conviction that there must have beensome false grouping, or physical mistake, in the interpretation of the “Lower Silurian”sections, which could only be settled in the field. “ If the present interpretation of the fieldsections in Siluria be right, I will,” he said, “ abandon Palaeontology.”

We have since then, by short excursions made in three successive summers, put theprevious opinion to the test; and have found that the supposed blending of the mostcharacteristic Cambrian and Silurian types was a mistake arising out of a positive mis-interpretation of the sections; and that under the name Caradoc group, two unconnectedand often unconformable groups had been improperly confounded. On the contrary, bymaking a break in the Palaeozoic series, where nature herself had made it, and by cuttingoff the May Hill sandstone from the Caradoc group, and by placing it at the base of the“Silurian Systemt,” we could bring the physical and fossil evidence of the whole LowerPalaeozoic series into a good harmony and accordance.

Having, in these prefatory remarks, told nearly all that I am called upon to tell,of the personal labours of Professor M°Coy during the progress of this work; I mightgo on at once to the corrected Tabular View of the whole British Palaeozoic Series, andthe short comment I have to make upon it. But I cannot do so without a few partingwords of truth and good-will, which would not perhaps have been written had my friendbeen still amongst us; but which I may give with less reserve, now that he is so farremoved from us, that I am deprived of his ever-ready help, and that we are never, I fear,to meet again.

From his childhood he was a lover of natural history; and being destined for themedical profession, he was, in early life, initiated in the studies of human and comparativeanatomy, which he united to that literary training, which marks the education of an English gentleman. Hence his knowledge, as he advanced in life, was never exclusively concen-trated on minute and unconnected facts; but was at once extensive and solid, well-grounded

* When M. Barrande first communicated his account of the Bohemian fossils to the Geological Society of London , itappeared that the whole series might naturally be separated into two divisions in conformity with the order of superposition;and that between the upper and lower division there was but a very small percentage of common species. In commentingupon this statement, I heard it affirmed, by one of the most distinguished members of the Society , that taking the Silurian rocks of England collectively, there were more than sixty per cent, of species common to the upper and lower divisions 1The statement was not contradicted; and at the time was, no doubt, believed by many who were present.

The results alluded to above are described in the Journal of the Geological Society of London for 1852; and inthe “ Philosophical Magazine” for October, November, and December, 1854. Taylor and Francis , London .