> The primary divisions of the geologic timescale—the eons, eras and periods—were largely defined by the work of British geologists in the nineteenth century, and the names of the Paleozoic Periods more strongly reflect that geographic influence: Cambrian, from the Latin name for Wales; Devonian for the county of cream teas; Carboniferous for the coal measures of northern England. But the finer subdivisions—the epochs and ages—reveal the subsequent, wholly international nature of the time-mapping project: the Jiangshanian and Guzhangian of the Cambrian; the Eifelian and Pragian of the Devonian; the Moscovian and Bashkirian in the Carboniferous. The ICS is like a temporal counterpart to the United Nations—a parliament of the past, whose jurisdiction is geologic time. Source: [[Reference Notes/Books/Timefulness|Timefulness]]