The jurassic system in great Britain

In England, in the sphere of Jurassic geology, we are wardens of a classic area, for our cliffs and quarries are the standards of comparison for the whole world. A German authority, Dr. Hans Salfeld, remarked after a brief study in 1914: ‘Research on the faunas and their succession shows that the English Upper Jurassic can be taken as the type of that of North-West Europe, in the most complete development anywhere yet known.’ He had studied only the Upper Jurassic, but the same could with equal truth be said of the Lower.
This is no mean heritage. In our Jurassic rocks all the principles of stratigraphy are illustrated perhaps more clearly than in any other part of the geological record. Palaeontologically, too, the system contains an unequalled wealth of materials; and for the evolutionist, the ecologist and the palaeogeo-grapher no more favourable field exists <...>