|
This large accumulation of well-localized material has been examined by geologists interested in Girvan stratigraphy and even Lapworth's studies, as he acknowledges, were partly dependent on the identification of fossils discovered by Mrs. Gray. Portions of the collections have also been systematically described by T. Davidson and F.R.C. Reed, who, although not primarily concerned with the geology of the district (which neither ever visited), were responsible for naming nearly all of the brachiopods recovered by the Gray family. By 1883, Davidson had identified 12 genera, 50 species and four varities of Caradoc brachiopods and in 1917 Reed emended and enlarged this list to include 75 species and 19 varities, distributed among 45 genera. Yet, weighty as these contributors are, they are strictly systematic and are even misleading in some respects. for Davidson, with as much evidence befor him as Nicholson & Etheridge (1878-80) had in their faunal researches, did not, like them, recognize the strong American affinities of the fauna, while Reed's studies perpetuated some of the
...
This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
