I.—A Retrospect of Palæontology in the Last Forty Years
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THE GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. NEW SERIES. DECADE V. VOL. I. No. II. — FEBRUARY, 1904. AETICLBS. I.—A EBTROSPECT OF PALAEONTOLOGY IN THE LAST FORTY YEARS.1 (PART II.) N any retrospect of scientific progress there are always special points, 'golden milestones,' along the road by which we travel, Iwhich mark unusual stages in our journey. Zittel, in his "History of Geology and Palaeontology," fixes the 'heroic period ' from 1790 to 1820, when the great masters of our science, Werner, Pallas, Saussure, Huttoti, Playfair, William Smith, Leopold von Buch, Alexander von Humboldt, Alex. Brongniart, and Cuvier ai'ose and laid the foundations of Geology. The more recent development from 1820 to the close of the century may seem like an unbroken line of advance in geology and palaeontology ; but such is not the case. Special events of scientific interest from time to time, like the arrival of reinforcements, have given us fresh support and encouragement. The establishment of Geological Surveys in this country, in America, and on the Continent added an enormous onward impulse to such investigations, as did also the meetings of the Geological Society of London and its publi- cations. The establishment of the British Association in 1830, and the increasing tendency to teach Natural Science in our great Universities, have stimulated and encouraged a very large number of ardent workers to enter the geological field. Nor must we forget the interest which the writings of Sedgwick, Buckland, Murchison, Lyell, Phillips, Forbes, Eamsay, Geikie, and many others, produced in the minds of students who came under their influence. But the most powerful and wide - spreading impulse given to geological and paleeontological investigations was undoubtedly due to the publication by Charles Darwin of his " Origin of Species," and the revolution caused by the introduction of the doctrine of ' the variation of species,' which the older naturalists had never admitted, having always treated them as permanent and immutable ideas. Only those of us who have lived through the period between 1858 and 1878 can fully realize the vast and radical change in the current 1 Part I, of " A Retrospect of Geology," appeared in our January number, 1904, pp. 1-6.—EDIT. GEOL. MAG. DECADE T.—VOL. I.—NO. II. 4 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Nagoya University - CBO, on 17 Jun 2018 at 01:30:58, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S001675680011934X 50 A Retrospect of Palceontology for Forty Years. of scientific thought which was brought about in the minds of men by Darwin's teaching. In making a retrospect of the work recorded in this journal from 1864 to the present time, the evolution of geological and paleeontological ideas is most marked, and it is no small gratification to feel that the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE has been enabled to incorporate in its pages so much valuable material in aid of the progress of both these sciences. As has been stated in the earlier part of this Retrospect, the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE has had the satisfaction of publishing articles from a large number of early and celebrated geologists, many of whom alas are now no longer with us. FOSSIL PLANTS.—We record with pleasure the name of Professor John Phillips, who, in 1865, described an interesting specimen of fossil wood bored by Teredo and enclosed in flint, from the Chalk of Winchester, preserved in the Oxford Museum. Professor E. W. Claypole, of Ohio, described and figured the oldest known tree, Glyptodendron Eatonense, from the Upper Silurian, Eaton, Ohio, U.S.A. No fewer than eighteen valuable contributions on Palseo- botany (from 1865 to 1885) have been made by our old colleague, William Carruthei's, on Carboniferous plants ; Mesozoic Cycadean stems and fruits ; on the petrified forest near Cairo ; and the plants of the Brazilian Coal-beds ; nor must we omit to mention his admirable lecture at the Royal Institution " On the Cryptogamic Forests of the Coal Period" (1869, pp. 289-300). Another distinguished botanist, Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, wrote in 1872 on the Coniferse from Solenhofen, and on fossil wood from the Eocene of Heine Buy and the Isle of Thanet. In 1868 George Maw described some flower- like forms from the leaf-bed of the Lower Bagshot, Studland Bay. Professor H. A. Nicholson recorded the existence of plants in the Skiddaw Slates. Dr. 0. Feistmantel contributed notes on the Fossil Flora of Eastern Australia and Tasmania, dealing with those from the Tertiary, Secondary, Carboniferous, and Devonian formations. Walter Keeping described some early plant-remains from the Silurian of Central Wales, in which he endeavoured to dis- criminate between tracks and markings made by annelids and other animals and those left on these old rocks by seaweeds and other simple plants. Dr. Constantino Baron von Ettingshausen wrote on the Tertiary Floras of Australia and New Zealand, and J. S. Gardner on the Mesozoic Angiosperms and Flowering or Phanerogamous Plants, in which an exhaustive examination is made of the Oolitic, Cretaceous, and Tertiary Plants of the British Isles, as known to the author in 1886. Henry Woodward described some fragmentary Mesozoic plant-remains from South Australia. In later years A. C. Seward took up the subject of Fossil Botany, described the stems of Calamites undulatus, the leaves of Cyclopteris from the Coal-measures of Yorkshire, and wrote on the specific variation in Sigiltaria; E. A. Newell Arber followed and defined the Glossopteris flora, and discoursed on Homoeomorphy among Fossil Plants. Plant-remains from British Columbia and from Argentina have also been described. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Nagoya University - CBO, on 17 Jun 2018 at 01:30:58, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S001675680011934X A Retrospect of'Palaeontology for Forty Years. 51 FOKAMINIFERA.—Sir William Logan was the first to announce the discovery (November, 1864, p. 225) of the Foraminifer ' Eozoon ' in the Laurentian rocks of Canada, and Sir J. W. Dawson contributed "new facts" (in 1888), and "evidence for the animal nature of Eozoon Canadense" (in 1895). But the inorganic nature of this supposed most ancient fossil seems to be now very generally admitted, although Dr. Carpenter and Sir William Dawson long and valiantly laboured to maintain its integrity as one of the Protozoa. The Nestor of Palaeontology, Professor T. Eupert Jones, wrote on Foraminifera from the Bridlington Crag; Orbitoides from Malta and the West Indies; on Jurassic Foraminifera of Switzerland and the Chalk and Chalk Marl of South and South-East of England : in company with Professor W. K. Parker he elucidated those of the Chalk of Graveseud, and listed Eley's Foraminifera from the English Chalk ; whilst with C. D. Sherborn he described the Jurassic Microzoa of Wiltshire, etc. Dr. H. B. Brady enumerated and figured Involutina liassica from the Lias of England, and 8 species of Tertiary and Carboniferous Foraminifera from Sumatra. He reported upon some 28 species from the ' Chalk ' of the New Britain group, of which he observed : " After washing this Chalk it could not possibly be distinguished, by its organic remains, from a washed sample of ' Globigerina-Ooze' dredged in 1,500 to 2,500 fathoms in the South Pacific. May not the rock (he asks) be part of a recent sea-bottom disturbed by volcanic or other agency." He also wrote on those remarkable flask-shaped Foraminifera of the genus Layena, from the Upper Silurian of Malvern. A. Vaughan Jennings described the Orbitoidal Limestone of North Borneo. Professor W. J. Sollas defined two new species of the genus Webbina and other Foraminifera from the Cambridge Greensand, and Walter Keeping the zone of Nummulina elegans at White Cliff Bay, Isle of Wight. F. Chapman and C. D. Sherborn discoursed on the Foraminifera of the London Clay, and F. Chapman on Hyaline forms from the Gault, also upon Patellina and 23 other genera and species from the Tertiaries of Egypt. A. K. Coomaraswarny wrote on the Eadiolaria Spongodiscus and Dictyomitra from the Upper Gondwana series near Madras. PORIFBKA—SPONGES. — Dr. H. B. Holl contributed a carefully written article on Fossil Sponges, in which, after describing their various structures in considerable detail, he strongly advocated their minute microscopic examination and comparison with living forms, and said: "In conclusion, the Sponges appear to have endured through a long range of time, subject only to modifications which scarcely amount to specific distinctions." Dr. G. J. Hinde explained the structure of Archtsocyathus minganensis from the Palasozoic (Mingen) strata of Canada; Sponge-remains from the Chert and Siliceous Schists of Permo-Carboniferous age of Spitz- bergen; wrote on Stephanella sancta, a new genus of sponge from the Lower Silurian, Ottawa, Canada; and on Palmosaccus Dawsoni, a new Hexactinellid sponge from the Quebec group (Ordovician), Little Mitis, Canada. The discovery of this fossil Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Nagoya University - CBO, on 17 Jun 2018 at 01:30:58, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S001675680011934X 52 A lietrosjject of Palceontology for Forty Years. by Sir William Dawson made known an abundant sponge-fauna in rocks previously considered to be unfossiliferous. Professor Sollas figured and described a Vitreo-hexactinellid sponge from the Cambridge Coprolite-bed, which he named EubrocJius damns. Dr. G. J. Hinde (1886) showed that Eophyton? explanatum, Hicks, and Syalostelia fasciculus, described by Dr. Hicks as plants, were really sponges, and he illustrated their microscopic structure. GRAPTOLITES.—Among the authors who have contributed to the study of this group of organisms must be specially mentioned the names of Professor H.