On the Geology of the Falkland Islands

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Abstract
The Falkland Islands being a British colony, and the most southern point at which palæozoic fossils have hitherto been discovered, I am induced to lay a short account of the geological structure of these islands before the Society. They stretch from 51° to 52° 30′ south, and extend about 130 miles in longitude. My examination was confined to the eastern island; but I have received, through the kindness of Captain Sulivan and Mr. Kent, numerous specimens from the western island, together with copious notes, sufficient to show the almost perfect uniformity of the whole group. The low land consists of pale brown and bluish clay-slate, including subordinate layers of hard, yellowish, sometimes micaceous, sandstone: in the clay-slate organic remains are exceedingly rare, whilst in some of the layers of sandstone they are extremely numerous, the same species being generally grouped together. Messrs. Morris and Sharpe have kindly undertaken to describe these fossils in a separate notice : they consist (as I am informed by them) of three new species of Orthis, which have a Silurian character ; three of Spirifer, which rather resemble Devonian forms, and approach closely to someof the Australian species described by Messrs. G. B. Sowerby and J. Morris ; one species both of Atrgpa and Chonetes, the latter approaching very closely some of the varieties of C. sarcinulata of Europe ; an Orbicula and an Avicula, the species not determinable ; and lastly, a fragment of a Trilobite and numerous traces of Crinoidea, apparently related to

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