Siluria The History of the Oldest Known Rocks Containing Organic Remains, with a Brief Sketch of the Distribution of Gold Over the Earth

About this book

A reprint of a classical work in the Cambridge Library Collection.

The Scottish geologist Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (1792-1871) first proposed the Silurian period after studying ancient rocks in Wales in the 1830s. Naming the sequence after the Silures, a Celtic tribe, he believed that the fossils representing the origins of life could be attributed to this period. This assertion sparked a heated dispute with his contemporary Adam Sedgwick, ultimately ruining their friendship.

First published in 1854, Siluria is a significant reworking of Murchison's earlier book, The Silurian System, which had appeared in 1839. Thorough in his approach, he combines his own findings with those of researchers around the world, touching also on the later Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian periods as well as questions of natural history. An important text in nineteenth-century geology and palaeontology, the work contains a valuable geological map of Wales along with detailed engravings of fossils, including crustaceans, cephalopods and fish.

Contents

Preface

1. Introduction
2. Base of the Silurian rocks
3. Lower Silurian rocks
4. Lower Silurian rocks (cont.)
5. Upper Silurian rocks
6. Upper Silurian rocks (cont.)
7. Silurian rocks of Britain
8. Organic remains of the lower Silurian rocks
9. Fossils of the upper Silurian rocks
10. The Devonian rocks, or old red sandstone
11. Carboniferous rocks
12. Permian rocks
13. General view of the Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous rocks of Scandinavia and Russia
14. Primeval succession in Germany and Belgium
15. Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous rocks of France, Spain, Portugal, and Sardinia
16. Succession of primeval rocks in America
17. On the original formation of gold
18. Conclusion

Appendix
Index
Plates

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