Excerpt from The Geological Magazine, Vol. 6: Or, Monthly Journal of Geology; With Which Is Incorporated, "the Geologist;"
Sedgwick worked out single-handed the true stratigraphical arrangement of the rocks of the Lower Pal?ozoics of Wales, from the Bangor Beds to the summit of the Bala Series, and divided them into several successive groups, the propriety and convenience of which subsequent research has served only to make more distinctly apparent. The unavoidable - but none the less vital - defect in his earlier work lay in his not publishing the characteristic fossils of these subdivisions, until after the appearance of the great work of his rival, in which the most conspicuous forms appear as characteristic of the subdivisions of a supposed overlying system. Murchison"s work, on the other hand, depended not only upon mineralogical characters and sequence of formations, but also upon pal?ontological peculiarities. He failed signally, however, in strictly and correctly defining his lower groups, and in correlating some of his most typical beds, with the result of greatly confusing his lists of characteristic fossils.
The rigid conservatism of Murchison in his old age, and his systematic disregard of the facts and arguments adduced in support of the Cambrian System, brought about its inevitable re-action after his death. The campaign against the Murchisonian nomenclature, so brilliantly opened by Professor Sterry Hunt, in his masterly paper on the "History of the Names Cambrian and Silurian in Geology," has since assumed extraordinary proportions. The Cambridge School, headed by Professor Hughes, the present talented occupant of the Woodwardian Chair, supported by several earnest and industrious adherents, has revived the claims of Sedgwick in all their entirety; and presses them on the attention of geologists with an energy and persistence that threatens to lead to the formation of a body of workers, determined to force from posterity, in honour of the memory of Sedgwick, the rights he demanded, but of which during his lifetime he was so unfairly deprived.
But, on the other hand, the Murchisonian nomenclature is embodied in the maps and publications of the National Survey. It is embalmed in the classic memoirs of the illustrious Barrande, and in the numerous works of the best-known geologists of Europe and America. It is still held, almost in its widest sense, by the more influential officers of the Geological Survey, and is taught to their students and subordinates with that complacent pride which has naturally been engendered by a quarter of a century of uninterrupted success. Even yet, its advocates have such an unfaltering faith in its intrinsic propriety and consequent impregnability, that the fact of the daily increasing number and ability of their opponents is either contemptuously ignored, or, at most, is deemed unworthy of a more respectful recognition than a passing smile.
The utter impossibility of reconciling the antagonistic claims of these opposing schools has led, of late years, to the formation of a third party, in which the best-known names are those of the late Sir Charles Lyell, and of Dr. Henry Hicks.
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