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formations in which animals or vegetables appear." (Murchison, Silurian System, p. 11).
Without entering into the delicate question of apportioning the honors due to each of these great English geologists (see American Journal of Science, Vol. xxxix, p. 167, 1890), it may be said that in this early usage of the terms, the distinction between Protozoic and Palæozoic was ideal—and in later developments, Palæozoic has been retained for that lower great division of the scale containing distinct remains of organisms, with the Cambrian system at the bottom. To show the connection with the older nomenclature, it may be noted that Palæozoic is equivalent to Primary fossiliferous, and in this system Azoic was applied to the Primitive rocks of the Lehmann system.
John Phillips, in 1841, proposed to extend the method of classification to the whole geological series, and as his scheme was apparently the first complete classification constructed on this basis, it is offered as it appeared in "Palæozoic fossils of Devon and Cornwall," London, 1841, p. 160 (see also Penny Cyclopædia, articles Geology, Palæozoic Rocks, Saliferous system, etc).
| Proposed titles depending on the series of Organic Affinities. | Ordinary title. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cainozoic strata | Upper | = | Pliocene Tertiaries. | ||
| Middle | = | Miocene Tertiaries. | |||
| Lower | = | Eocene Tertiaries. | |||
| Mesozoic strata | Upper | = | Cretaceous system. | ||
| Middle | = | Oölitic system. | |||
| Lower | = | New Red formation. | |||
| Palæozoic strata | Upper? | Magnesian limestone formation | |||
| Carboniferous system. | |||||
| Middle? | Eifel and South Devon. | ||||
| Lower | = | Transition strata. | |||
| Primary srata. | |||||
(The terms are founded on the verb. ζαω or ζωω—to live, combined with καινος recent, μεςος medial or middle, and παλαιος ancient).