crag been exposed to the weather for a long period after the ameliorated climate set in we should not have had this interesting record of ice-action, but an undecipherable heap of rock-fragments. The exceeding abundance of Diatomaceous remains is remarkable. In this respect the deposit is such as might, with some slight modification of external causes, be the equivalent of the famed Lough Mourne and Lough Island; Reavy strata in Ireland; the Raasay, Peterhead, and Mull beds in Scotland; and the Dolgelly earth in Wales. That they have not been detected in the English clays probably arises more from lack of examination than from any dearth of these organisms. Note.-Mr. J. Wallace Young, of this city, has directed my attention to the presence of titanic acid in the laminated clay, as well as in some of the adjacent rocks. The proportions varied from 94 per cent. in the clay to 2.93 per cent. in one specimen of felstone. In an examination I have just made of the upper leaf-bed I find it to contain 80 per cent. of titanic acid. IV.-ON SOME FOSSILS FOUND IN THE EOPHYTON SANDSTONE, AT LUGNÅS, IN SWEDEN.1 each other than Vestrogothia, with its unusually complete, undisturbed, and, in many natural sections, exposed series of strata. Its two lowest principal layers, consisting of sandstone and alum-slate, are to be referred to the Cambrian system, if that system, as proposed by Sir Charles Lyell, Salter, and others, be extended over the "Primordial zone," which is easily distinguished by its organic remains from the overlying Silurian deposits. This sandstone has long been known as the oldest stratum of Vestrogothia above the Fundamental Gneiss. Traces of seaweeds were found in it by our earlier geologists, and caused it to receive the name, still commonly used, of Fucoid sandstone. Deposits of the same period are distributed over large parts of Scandinavia; and Professor Angelin, who, like his predecessors, had found them to be the oldest portion of the whole "Transition formation" of Scandinavia, included them all in his regio Fucoidarum, no other Fossil having as yet been found in them. Norwegian authors have proposed the denomination "Sparagmite stage," for the rock prevailing in Norway, which has not as yet afforded any fossils, a term also adopted by Professor Torell. Until lately few additions had been made to our knowledge of the organic remains preserved in the deposits of the regio Fucoidarum. 1 Translated from the Ofversigt af Kongl. Vetenskaps Akademiens Förhandlingar, March 10, 1869. Beside the seaweeds, Annelid burrows were found in it several years ago, but nothing was known of the existence in it of any other fossils, and it was generally assumed that very few fossils were to be expected in a layer of an age so remote, and that the rock itself was not capable of preserving, in a sufficiently distinct condition, the remains of such organisms as might have been living at the time of its deposition. Accordingly, until late years, very little attention had been directed to the Fucoid sandstone of Vestrogothia, and I had therefore no great hope of any new discoveries until I succeeded two years ago in finding a Lingula. Some time afterwards Professor Torell published his excellent geognostical and paleontological description of all the coeval rocks of Sweden,' and of the remarkable discovery made by himself and Dr. J. A. Wallin of a comparatively highly organised plant, the Eophyton Linnæanum, Torell, in these oldest deposits. Since, through these important researches of Professor Torell, due attention has been drawn towards the oldest sandstone of Scandinavia, it becomes desirable to know with accuracy its age in relation to deposits in foreign countries and especially to the English formations, upon which the division into periods of the older Palæozoic time now in use has been founded. At present no certain conclusions can be drawn from the organic remains, these being still so imperfectly known. It is necessary, then, to rely chiefly on the stratification, which can be ascertained with facility and accuracy in Vestrogothia better than anywhere else. Sir R. Murchison, who places the "Primordial zone" in the Lower Silurian system, refers to that system not only the alum-slate of Vestrogothia, which apparently belongs to the Primordial zone, as defined by Barrande from its Trilobite fauna, but also its sandstone layer. Agreeing with Professor Torell, I believe, however, the latter to correspond with the "Longmynd group" of England, which is also considered by Sir R. Murchison as Cambrian, and, according to the classification of Sir Charles Lyell, forms the lower part of the Cambrian system of England. Like the Longmynd formation, the sandstone layer of Vestrogothia reposes on gneiss, which we have every reason to believe to be of Laurentian age. The alum-slate lying above the sandstone completely corresponds with the Lingula-flags, which in England overlie the Longmynd formation. In the alum-slate of Sweden, as in the Lingula-flags of England, two principal divisions are found, the well characterised faunas of which Professor Angelin was the first to distinguish as the regio Conocorypharum and regio Olenorum. The older of these regions, the regio Conocorypharum, is characterised chiefly by the genera Paradoxides and Conocoryphe (Conocephalites), while the genus Olenus appears later; thus it is distinctly equivalent to the "Lower Lingula flags" or "Menævian" group of England. The layers which lie above and below the sandstone layer of Vestrogothia being thus equivalent to those which bound the Longmynd 1 Bidrag till Sparagmitetagens geognosi och palæontologi. Lund, 1868. |