Some of us are old enough for our geological infancy to have been nourished on books which were written at a time when the “Silurian System” was threatening to annex the whole of the Lower Palaeozoic Rocks. Most of us welcomed Lapworth's arrangement, which now seems to have won general approbation. In the interim, however, the following compromises were proposed:

Neither of them has been widely adopted. It is to be noted that De Lapparent's proposal of “Gotlandian” was made because he had already made use of “Silurian” as an inclusive designation. His selection of the term was of course founded upon the fact that the beds in question are finely developed in Gothland.