M. Barrande and Darwinism

Abstract

IN the article in NATURE (vol. ix. p. 228) on M. Barrande's “Trilobites,” published in 1871, several statements are made which require not only considerable modification as to the facts then known, but which are entirely misleading when made to appear to represent the state of our knowledge of these acts at the present time. M. Barrande is well known to be a determined opponent to the theory of evolution, and doubtless this strong bias has prevented him from seeing and accepting many facts which would otherwise, to so keen and careful an observer, have seemed inconsistent with such strong views. The list of fossils given by him from the Cambrian formation, and which is reproduced in NATURE, is most incomplete and inaccurate when made to refer to the Cambrian fauna of this country, as will be evident at once by referring to p. 249 of the same work, where a list of fossils discovered by me in the “Harlech or Superior Longmynd” group of Wales is given, and which includes several trilobites; and yet in the above-mentioned article it is stated “that no trace of a trilobite has been found in the Cambrian formation.” Surely no English geologist will be bold enough to deny to the name Cambrian its right to these Harlech and Longmynd rocks, whatever else it may not be entitled to. Nor, indeed, did Sir R. Murchison and the Geological Survey ever attempt such a breach, and I cannot believe that M. Barrande has realised what such an assumption means, or what it would lead to; nor can I believe that it is possible for him to have followers in this country in such a “violation of historic truth,” and, as observed by Prof. Sterry Hunt (in the Canadian Naturalist, vol. vi. p. 448), for no other reason than “that the primordial fauna has now been shown by Hicks to extend towards their base.” Surely this country, which has not only given to scientific nomenclature the name Cambrian, but which has given to all other countries the groundwork upon which to build up theirs, should have a right to explain the succession in its own way, and especially when it is proved that its succession of these rocks is clearer and more natural than has been hitherto found to be the case in any other country. Indeed it is quite clear that M. Barrande has not yet succeeded, in Bohemia, in reaching this early fauna, and it is evident also that his first zone of life is only equal in order of appearance to the latter part of our second zone, and hence the mistake to attempt to correlate our fauna with his zone.