Silurian Fossils in the Curlew Mountains

Abstract

I BEG to state that the paragraph which occurs in NATURE, vol. xx. p. 641, that Silurian fossils have been found in beds amongst the Curlew Mountains “supposed to be old red sandstone”, is not quite correct. It was very well known in this office that the beds containing the fossils were of the Silurian formation—though erroneously included within the boundary line of the old red sandstone in the Survey Map, sheet 76. Since the map was engraved, the district to the north and east has been surveyed, and a large fault was discovered, ranging in the direction of the spot where the Silurian fossils have been found. The occurrence of this fault explains the presence of the beds with Silurian fossils within the area of the tract coloured as old red sandstone. There is, therefore, nothing in the announcement in your paper of the slightest novelty, and I have only to state that if the writer of the paragraph had communicated with myself previously to “rushing into print,” he would have received such information as would have prevented him giving publicity to a statement which however literally correct, is erroneous in essence.