WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
Essay on the Theory of the Earth cover

Essay on the Theory of the Earth

Chapter 86: TABULAR VIEW
Open in WeRead

About This Book

The essay assembles geological observations and fossil evidence to reconstruct Earth's successive changes, arguing that strata and petrified remains record numerous abrupt revolutions of the surface that caused mass extinctions and replacement of faunas. It examines how current agencies—erosion, slips, alluvial deposition, coastal cliffs, stalactites, lithophyte growths, incrustations, and volcanic activity—operate, and distinguishes their slow effects from the sudden events inferred in the rock record. It uses stratigraphic sequences and fossil assemblages to date relative episodes and to argue that many major revolutions preceded the appearance of existing life forms, offering a systematic account of Earth's physical and organic history.

TABULAR VIEW

OF

The Classes, Orders, or Families, of Animals, occurring in a Living and Fossil State, with their Geognostical Distribution.

Number of Genera which are found Number of Species.
Names of
Classes, Orders,
or Families.
In the living state only. Living, and Fossil. In the Fossil state only. In the Strata anterior to the Chalk. In the Strata of the Chalk. In the Strata posterior to the Chalk. Total number of Genera. In the living State. In the fossil State.
Polyparia, 23 30 52 47 19 36 105 527 414
Stellaridæ, 4 2 4 4 76 4
Echinidæ, 2 6 3 7 8 5 11 95 112
Annulosa, 2 1 1 1 2 3 17 29
Serpulacea, 2 3 1 3 3 3 6 36 69
Cirripeda, 8 2 1 2 10 50 17
Tubicolæ, 1 3 2 5 6 11 16
Pholadaria, 2 2 2 12 4
Bivalve shells, 18 61 24 44 25 51 103 1009 1104
Univalve shells, 33 87 28 27 16 93 148 1945 1544
Genera little known, 4 3 1 4 5
Crustacea, 21 5 5 2 9 28 54
Pisces, 54 6 11 2 55 60 183
Mammifera & Cetacea, 24 12 36 36 89
Aves,(a) 3 3 3 3
Reptilia, 4 4 3 2 4 8 23
Insecta, 14 14 14
Vegetabilia, 14 10 12 1 15 24

(a) The fossil remains of birds being very difficult to be recognized, the number of genera in that state is undoubtably much more considerable.

THE END.