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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2009
In the last number of the Geological Magazine Dr. J. W. Gregory has undertaken to give an opinion on the whole of the fossils described by me from the Morte Slates in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of May, 1896. He says he has been tempted to do this because someone had “recently read to the Geological Society of Cornwall” a paper in which he “assumes the Silurian age of the Morte Slates to be so well established that it may be accepted as the basis for future work.” Clearly this was too much for Dr. Gregory, and his righteous indignation compelled him at once to endeavour to put a stop to any such assumption. I do not, however, think that I shall have much difficulty in showing that Dr. Gregory's facts and conclusions are unreliable, and show a want of care and discrimination.
page 106 note 1 In my description of Strichlandinia lirata, from the Morte Slates, I stated that it “approaches most closely in its size and ornamentation the specimens in the Society's Museum and in the Jermyn Street Museum, from the lowest beds of Wenlock age at Marloes Bay, Pembrokeshire.” Last year I visited Marloes Bay, and collected several other fossils from these beds, and I am more than ever convinced that the fauna is the same as that I have described from the Morte Slates. A figure of S. lirata from Marloes Bay is given on plate xxii in the “Silurian System” (1839) as Spirifer ? liratus, afterwards altered to Stride, lirata. After examining the specimen figured in the “ Silurian System,” I am satisfied that it belongs to the same species as ours. It is important to note this, as it was the first specimen figured, and it is generally recognized as the type-specimen for the genus Stricklundinia.