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PLATE I.
FOSSIL FRUIT FROM THE LOWER CHALK OF ROCHESTER, KENT.
In the National Collection, British Museum.
< . Ns
THE GEOLOGIST;
A POPULAR ILLUSTRATED
MONTHLY MAGAZINE = @
OF
GHOLOGY.
EDITED BY S. J. MACKIE, F.GS., F.S.A.
LONDON:
LOVELL REEVE & CO., 5, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN. PARIS: J. ROTHSCHILD. BERLIN: ASHER & CO.
1862.
re |
PRINTED BY JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR, LITTLE QUEEN STREET,
LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS.
PREFACE.
—__$——_
Frw people know the cost, time, toil, trouble, and determination necessary to establish a magazine. This cost, toil, and trouble have been borne by me, and that too through a period of my life when of all others I was least able to sustain it. Five volumes com- pleted, however, show what determination, perseverance, and tena- city have accomplished, and to what result we have attained. It is true our price is higher, but may we not fairly ask, Is not our quality better? Special scientific periodicals cannot be increased in circulation like ordinary periodicals by advertisements. There are but so many geologists, and advertisements do not increase their number. ‘They may increase the casual sale, but not the permanent purchasers ; and commercially ‘The Geologist’ must be maintained remunerative to ensure its permanency. I have two reasons in re- ferring to this topic at the present time,—/rst, to enjoy the grati- fication I always look forward to at this congenial season of sincerely thanking my many good friends; and secondly, that it may be distinctly known that I take the warmest interest in the profitable continuance of this Magazine; the increased success of which will yield a corresponding benefit to myself as well as to the publisher. Not the least gratifying fact is the good opinion held of this
Magazine abroad. From America, France, Switzerland, Austria,
aay PREFACE.
Prussia, Italy, and Germany, we have received many complimentary, opinions, but these expressions will be to us only the incentive to do
better work to more richly deserve them., For contributions to the
present volume our best thanks must be offered to Sir Roderick Murchison, Mr. C. Carter Blake, Mr. Pengelly, Mr. J. Elliott, Mr S. P. Woodward, Mr. Andrew Taylor, Dr. Rubidge, Professor T. Rupert Jones, Mr. W. Murray, the Rev. 8. Lucas, Count Marschall Director Haidinger, Professor King, Professor Huxley, Professo1 Busk, Professors Dana and Siliman, Mr. Du Noyer, Mr. Guppy Mr. Wyatt, Dr. Wilkins, Mr. James Plant, Mr. Bensted, Mr. Johi
Taylor, Dr. Gibb, Rev. Hugh Mitchell, Professor Ansted, Professo Harkness, Mr. Charles Moore, Mr. Wynne, Mr. Sorby, Mr. David son, Mr. C. B. Rose, Rev. J. Crompton, and Mr. W. Bollaert.
Ss. J. MACKIE.
———OEE—————————E——————— OOO
ERRATUM. In the references to the Plates in this number of the ‘Geologist,’ for Plate XIII. read Plate XIV., and for Plate XIV. read Plate XIII.
THE GEOLOGIST.
JANUARY 1862.
SOME FOSSIL FRUITS FROM THE CHALK.
WE are not ashamed to confess our ignorance when we meet with anything we do not understand. On the contrary, we regard such confessions as one of the roads to knowledge ; and we always wished it to be one of the features of this magazine that matters not under- stood should be brought before the world in its pages. We set the example ourselves in the most prominent part of our journal—its opening pages.
Hew things are so little understood as fossil vegetables, and least of all are fossil fruits.
Some new species from the lower chalk of Rochester have just
Fig. 1.
been added to the national collection in the British Museum, and we lay our drawings of them before our readers with the frank VOL. V. B
2 THE GEOLOGIST.
admission that we do not know what they are, and we ask as frankly for information or suggestions.
Some indeed, such as the coffee-like berries, fio like fruits, and nipadites of the London Clay, carry in themselves the palpable evidence of the classes to which they belong; but there are many specimens from other rocks remaining undescribed in many a col- lector’s cabinet from the want of the ability to give anything lke a reasonable suggestion as to what they were, and often, indeed, from the sheer incapacity to assign to them even any probable affinities.
And there they will lie and rot, possibly, if their owners are not bold enough to confess their ignorance and ask for information. For them our pages offer a means of inquiry which they do not possess for us. Anonymously they can ask their questions; openly we must ask ours. These chalk fruits puzzle us, we confess it. Not because we could not soon find some fruits like them in outward form and shape, but because we really do not understand their mode of pre- servation. Any one can see from our drawings (Plate I., and wood- cut, fig. 1) that, flattened as they now are, such flattening is due to pressure in the substance of the rock, and that originally they were round inform. As they are preserved, they are roundish lumps of chalk enveloped in a dark brown ochreous skin.
A superficial observer might look upon this ochreous skin as the real rind of the fruit, but these fruit-masses are perforated by large teredines (see woodcut, fig. 1), as if the central part of the fruit had been of a solid nut-like character, such as we see in the vegetable ivory.
And yet, if this were so,—and teredines bore we know only in hard substances,—how is it that the central solid part has all rotted away, and its place been supplanted with the same soft calcareous chalk as the stratum in which the fossils were imbedded, while the more tender skin only is preserved ?
In the same beds of chalk with the fruits, there are not <aneommdile to be met with fragments of fossil wood, reduced likewise to thin skin-like ochreous layers, and bored too, through and through, by teredos. These not only show the rotting away of the solid fibrous wood, but also its reduction to the film-like state in which we see it spread on the surface of the chalk. But these wood-fragments might have lain on the still, slowly accumulating surface of the cretaceous ocean-bottom, and have rotted down to their last pellicle in the ponderous lapse of time. Not so the fruits: they, if solid,
MACKIE—FOSSIL FRUITS FROM THE CHALK. 3
have been hollowed out to their shells and then filled in. Whether these fruits and other vegetable remains in the chalk be so rare as has been thought, I somewhat doubt. Ihave myself collected frag- ments of fossils from the lower chalk of Dover and of Maidstone, which I believe, since I have seen these specimens, to have been fruits like them—and some few of these I think are still in the Folkestone collection—but in all cases the specimens seem to have suffered much _ decomposition from long-continued immersion before they were com- pletely imbedded.
Here then, at the very outset, we are met with a difficulty which must be surmounted before we can compare with any usefulness these relies of the arborescent vegetation of the far-distant Cretaceous age with the fruits of any living class of trees. There are some in the botanical collection in Kew Gardens which present many points of similarity, but we should by no means be inclined to say of identity. The greatest mischief to fossil botany has arisen from the fact that many, if not most of our fossil species, have been named and described by men who were not botanists ; and as so little is known of the vege- table remains preserved in the English chalk, we refrain from giving, and should hesitate long before we assigned, botanical characters to any new form from that formation, especially when so vaguely pre- served as those before us.
We would however suggest that the film-like character of the ochreous envelopes of these fossils may be thus explained :—Sup- posing the fruits to have been solid nuts contained in a husk like the nipadites,—and in the cases of the British Museum there are fine spe- cimens of nipadites from the middle eocene of Brussels, well riddled with teredines; the same is well known to be the case with the nipadites and other nut-like fruits of the London clay,—while the nuts were in the earliest stage of decay, a film of sulphuret of iron was deposited in the empty interspace between the nut and its outer husk, forming thus, when solidified, a thin metallic paper-like pellicle or case, having on its interior surface the impression of the exterior surface of the kernel, and on its exterior surface that of the interior of the husk. The fruit and husk might both then wholly decay away, and leave this metallic shell to be imbedded and filled in by the na- tural deposition of the cretaceous mud. Thus it will be desirable in searching for further specimens to look carefully for, and to preserve any fragments of real wood or black charcoal, however small, which may be attached to the inside or outside of the ochreous film, as in these fragments we might get some traces of structure to aid us.
4, THE GEOLOGIST.
That something like this has taken place seems indicated by the film-like character of such specimens of wood as those we have referred to, in which cases the sulphuret of iron was probably de- posited in the fine parting between the wood and the bark. More- over, the casts of the teredo-holes are covered over with the same film of red oxide of iron, which has resulted from the decomposition at a subsequent period of the sulphuret.
Although we attempt not then to determine their family or genera, we are not doing bad service to science in drawing attention to these fossil cretaceous fruits. The very knowledge of their existence will stimulate other observers to seek for more illustrative examples. What one is defective in, another may possess, and so from one to the other we may gain a general knowledge of the whole organism long before any perfect specimen has been brought to light.
In the present case we submit our plates and figures of these fruits, and leave the honour of naming them open to him who can really tell us What they are. }
ON THE INAPPLICABILITY OF THE NEW TERM “DYAS” TO THE \“ PERMIAN” ‘GROUP {ORs ROGKS: AS PROPOSED BY DR. GEILNITZ.
COMMUNICATED BY
Sir Roprrtck Impry Murcuison, F.R.S., D.C.L., LL.D., 2re., Director-General of the Geological Survey of Britain.
In the year 1859, M. Marcou proposed to substitute the word “ Dyas” for “ Permian,” and summed up his views by saying that he regarded “ the New Red Sandstone, comprising the Dyas and Trias, as a great geologic period, equal in time and space to the Paleozoic epoch or the Greyw acke (Silurian and Devonian), the Carboniferous (Mountain-limestone and Coal), the Mesozoic (Jurassic and Creta- ceous), the Tertiary (Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene), and the recent deposits (Quaternary and later)” !!*
As that author, who had not been in Russia, criticized the labours and inductions of my associates De Verneuil and Von Keyserling, and myself, in having proposed the word “ Permian”’ for tracts in which he surmised that we had commingled with our Permian deposits much red rock of the age of the Trias, I briefly defended the views
* See ‘ Dyas et Trias de Marcou,’ Bibliothéque Universelle de Genéve, 1859.
MURCHISON—ON THE NEW TERM DYAS. D
I had further sustained by personal examination of the rocks of Permian age in various other countries of Europe.*
Tt was, indeed, evident that M. Marcou’s proposed union of the so- called Dyas and Trias in one natural group could not for a moment be maintained, since there is no conclusion on which geologists and paleontologists are more agreed, than that the series composed of Roth-liegende, Kupfer-Schiefer, Zechstein, etc., forms the uppermost Paleozoic group, and is entirely distinct in all its fossils, animal and vegetable, from the overlying Trias, which forms the true base of the Mesozoic or Secondary rocks.
Owing to such a manifest confusion respecting the true paleonto- logical value of the proposed “ Dyas,” we should probably never have heard more of the word, had not my distinguished friend, Dr. Geinitz, of Dresden, recently issued the first volume of his valuable pale- ontological work, entitled ‘ Dyas, oder die Zechstein-Formation und das Rothliegende.’*t In borrowing the term “ Dyas’’ from Marcou, Dr. Geinitz shows, however, that that author had been entirely mis- taken in grouping the deposits so named with the Trias or the Lower Secondary rocks, and necessarily agrees with me in considering the group to be of Paleozoic age.
As there is no one of my younger contemporaries for whom I have a greater respect as a man of science, or more regard as a friend, than Dr. @einitz, it is painful, in vindicating the propriety and use- fulness of the word “ Permian,” to be under the necessity of pointing out the misuse and inapplicability of the word “ Dyas.”
The term “ Permian” was proposed twenty years ago for the adoption of geologists, without any reference whatever to the litho- logical or mineral divisions of the group; for I well knew that a cer- tain order of mineral succession of this group prevailed in one tract, which could not be followed out in another. After surveys, during the summers of 1840 and 1841, of extensive regions in Russia in Hurope, in which fossil shells of the age of the Zechstein of Germany, aud the Magnesian Limestone of England, were found to occur in several courses of limestone, interpolated in one great series of red sandstones, marls, pebble- beds, copper-ores, gypsum, etc., and seeing that these varied strata occupied an infinitely larger super ficial area than their equivalents in Germany and other parts of Europe, I sug- gested to my associates, when we were at Moscow in October, 1851, that we should employ the term “ Permian,” as derived from the vast government of that name, over which and several adjacent govern- ments we had traced these deposits.
In a letter addressed to the late venerable Dr. Fischer von Wald- heim, then the leading naturalist of Moscow, I therefore proposed the term “ Permian,’’t to represent by one unambiguous geographical
* See ‘American Journal of Science and Arts,’ 2nd ser. vol. xxviii. p. 256,— the work of M. Marcou having attracted more attention in America than in England.
+ Leipzig, 1861.
ft See Leonhard’s ‘ Jahrbuch’ of 1842, p.92; and the ‘Philosophical Magazine,’
6 THE GEOLOGIST.
term a varied mineral group, which neither in Germany nor else- where had then received one collective name* adopted by geolo- gists, albeit 1t was characterized by one typical group only of animal and vegetable remains. As the subdivisions of this group in Ger- many consisted, in ascending order, of Rothliegende, with its over- lying strata of Weissliegende, Kupfer-Schiefer, and Lower and Up- per Zechstein, and in England of Lower Red Sandstone and Magne- sian Limestone, with other accompanying sands, marls, etc., so well described by Sedgwick,t the name of “ Permian’”—purposely de- signed to comprehend these various strata—was readily adopted, and has since been generally used. Even Geinitz himself, as well as his
associate Gutbier, published a work under the name of the ‘ Per- _mische System in Sachsen.’f Naumann has also used the term in reference to the group in other parts of Saxony; whilst Géppert has clearly shown that the rich Permian Flora is peculiar and charac- teristic of this supra-carboniferous deposit. In England, France, and America no other term in reference to this group has been used for the last fifteen years.
The chief reason assigned by Geinitz for the substitution of the word “ Dyas”’ is, that in parts of Germany the group is divided into two essential parts only—the Rothhegende below, and the Zech- stein above, the latter being separated abruptly from all overlying deposits. ®
Now, not doubting that this arrangement suits certain localities, I affirm that it is entirely inapplicable to many other tracts. For, in other regions besides Russia, the series of sands, pebbles, marls, gypseous, cupriferous, and caleareous deposits form but one great series. In short, the Permian deposits are for ever varying. Thus, in one district they constitute a Monas only, in others a Di yas, 10 a third a Trias, and in a fourth a Tetras.§
In this way many of the natural sections of the north of Germany differ essentially from those of Saxony; whilst those of Silesia differ still more from each other in their mineral subdivisions, as explained
vol. Xix. P. 418, “Sketch of some of the Principal Results of a Geological Survey of Russia.”
* Tt is true that the term Pénéen was formerly proposed by my eminent friend, M. d@Omalius d’Halloy; but as that name, meaning sterile, was taken from an insulated mass of conglomerate near Malmédy in Belgium, in which nothing organic was ever discovered, it was manifest that it could not be con- tinued in use as applied to a group which was rich in animal and vegetable pro- ductions.
+ Trans. Geol. Soc. London, New Series, vol. iii. p. 37.
t I may here note that the great Damuda formation of Bengal, with its fossil Flora and animal remains, including Saurians and Labyrinthodonts, described by Professor Huxley, has recently been referred (at least provisionally) to the Per- mian age, by Dr. Oldham, the Superintendent of the Geological Survey of India. In fact, Dr. Oldham actually cites the plant Teniopteris, of the “ Permian beds of Geinitz and Gutbier in Saxony,” in justification of his opinion. See ‘Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India,’ vol. iii. p. 204.
§ See ‘Siluria,’ 2nd edit., 1859, and ‘ Russia in Europe and the Ural Moun- tains,’ 1845.
MURCHISON—ON THE NEW TERM DYAS, 7
in ‘ Siluria,’ 2nd edition, particularly at p. 342. Near the northern extremity of the Thtiringerwald, for example, and especially in the environs of Hisenach, an enormous thickness of the Rothliegende, in itself exhibiting at least two great and distinct parts, is surmounted by the Zechstein, thus being even so far tripartite, whilst the Zech- stein is seen to pass upwards to the east of the town, by nodular limestones, into greenish and red sandy marl and shale, the “ Lower Bunter Schiefer”’ of the German geologists. The same ascending order is seen around the copper-mining tract near Reichelsdorf, as well as 1n numerous sections on the banks of the Fulda, between Rotheburg and Altmorschen, where the Zechstein crops out as a calcareous band in the middle of escarpments of red, white, and green sandstone.*
But in showing that in many parts of Germany, as well as in England, the Zechstein has a natural, conformable, and unbroken cover of red rock, I never proposed to abstract from the Trias any portion of the Bunter Sandstein or true base of the group, as re- lated to the Muschelkalk by natural connection or by fossils. I simply classed as Permian a peculiar thin red band (Bunter Schiefer), into which I have in many localities traced an upward passage from the Zechstein, and in which no triassic shell or plant has ever been detected.
On my own part, I long ago expressed my dislike to the term Trias ; for, in common with many practical geologists who had sur- veyed various countries where that group abounds, I knew that in numerous tracts the deposits of this age are frequently not divisible into three parts. In central Germany, where the Muschelkalk forms the central band of the group, with its subjacent Bunter Sandstein and the overlying Keuper, the name was indeed well used by Al- berti, who first proposed it; but when the same group is followed to the west, the lower of the three divisions, even in Germany, is seen to expand into two bands, which are laid down as separate depo- sits on the geological maps of Ludwig and other authors. In these countries, therefore, the Trias of Alberti’s tract has already become a Tetras. In Britain it parts entirely with its ceutral or calcareous baud, the Muschelkalk, and is no longer a Trias; but, consisting simply of Bunter Sandstein below, and Keuper above, it is therefore a Dyas; though here again the Geological Surveyors have divided the group into four and even into five parts, as the group is laid down upon the map—No. 62, ‘ Geographical Survey of Great Britain.’
The order of succession in the Permian group ali along the western - side of the Pennine chain or geographical axis of England proves the impossibility of applying to it the word “ Dyas;”’ for over wide
* On two occasions (1853-4) Professor Morris accompanied me, and traced with me these relations of the strata ; subsequently, when Mr. Rupert Jones (1857) was my companion, we saw other sections clearly exhibiting this upward transition which I have described. Since then, Professor Ramsay, when at Hisenach, con- vinced himself of the accuracy of the fact that the Zechstein passes up conform- ably into an overlying red cover. My note-books contains many additional evidences, which I have not thought it necessary to repeat.
8 THE GEOLOGIST.
areas in Shropshire and Staffordshire it is one great red arenaceous series, with a few subordinate courses of calcareous conglomerate. Following it to the north, Mr. Binney has demonstrated that the fossils of the Zechstein show themselves in the heart of red marls which occupy on the whole a superior part of such a red series; and in tracing these rocks northwards he has demonstrated that there are, besides, two great underlying masses, first of conglomerates and breccias, and next of soft red sandstones, the latter attaining, as he believes, a thickness of not less than 2000 feet. Here then the Per- mian may be considered a Trias. Professor Harkness, in a memoir he is preparing, estimates the thickness of these Lower Sandstones and
conglomerates to the N.E. of West Ormside, in Cumberland, at 4000.
to 5000 feet, and shows that they are surmounted by marl-slates bearing plants, thin-bedded red sandstone, grey shale, and sandstone and limestone, the latter—the representative of the Magnesian Limestone—being covered by red argillaceous shale.* Now in all these cases the Permian is a series divisible into three or more parts. But when we follow the same group into Scotland, it there parts with its calcareous feature, and, becoming one red sandstone of vast thick- ness, 1s again a Monas.
I have entered into this explanation because my friend Dr. Gei- nitz has seized upon one illustration in my work ‘Siluria’ which shows that in certain tracts, where the Zechstein or Magnesian Limestone is subordinate to an enveloping series of sandstones, the Permian of my classification is there as much a tripartite Paleozoic group as the Trias of Central Germany is a triple formation of Meso- zoic age. Unless, therefore, the data to which my associates and self have appealed, in the work on ‘ Russia and the Ural Mountains,’ and which I have further developed in Memoirs read before the Geological Society, and in my two editions of ‘ Siluria,’ be shown to be inaccurate, I hold to the opinion that there are tracts in which the Zechstein is simply a fossiliferous zone in a great sandstone series, to which no division by numerals can be logically applied. Even if I do not appeal to the natural evidences in England, Russia, and parts of Germany, but refer to those tracts where the Zechstein or Magnesian Limestone has no natural red cover, I may well ask, does not the word ‘‘ Permian,” in the sense in which it was origi- nally adopted, serve for every tract wherein the uppermost paleo- zoic fossil animals and plants are found, whether the strata of which the group is composed form, as in Russia and Silesia, one great series of alternations of plant-bearing sandstones and marls in parts con- taining bands of fossiliferous limestone, or whether, as in other tracts, the Zechstein stands alone (as near Saalfeld), or in others, again, where the group is tripartite, and even quadripartite? Quite
* The red clay or argillaceous shale which covers the limestone is surmounted at Hilton, in Cumberland, by five hundred feet of red sandstone, which, though perfectly conformable to the subjacent Permian rocks, he considers to belong to the Bunter Sandsteim of the Trias. Here, then, as in Germany, the limestone may have a red cover, and yet the Bunter Sandstein be intact.
=
eS oe
MURCHISON—ON THE NEW TERM DYAS. 9
irrespective, however, of the question of whether there are or are not localities in Germany where the Zechstein passes upwards into a red rock, which forms no true part of the Bunter Sandstein of the Trias, we have only to look to the environs of Dresden, on the one hand, and to Lower Silesia on the other, to see the inapplicability of the word “ Dyas”’ to this group.
Near the capital of Saxony, Dr. Geinitz himself pointed out to me that the Rothliegende is there divided into two very dissimilar parts; and these, if added to the limestone which is there inter- polated, or to the true Zechstein of other places, constitute a Trias. Again, Beyrich, in his Map of Lower Silesia,* has divided the vast Rothliegende of those mountains into Lower and Upper, the two embracing eight subdivisions according to that author.
In repeating, then, that the word “ Permian” was not originally proposed with the view of affixing to this natural group any number of component parts, but simply as a convenient short term to define the Uppermost Paleozoic group, I refer all geologists to the very words I used in the year 1841, when the name was first suggested. In speaking of the structure of Russia, I thus wrote :—“‘ The Car- boniferous system is surmounted to the east of the Volga by a vast series of beds of marls, schists, limestones, sandstones, and conglo- merates, to which I propose to give the name of ‘ Permian System,’ because, although this series represents as a whole the Lower New Red Sandstone (Rothe-todte-legende) and the Magnesian Limestone or Zechstein, yet it cannot be classed exactly, whether by the suc- cession of the strata or their contents, with either of the German or . British subdivisions of this age.’ +
After pointing to the governments of Russia over which such Permian rocks ranged, I added:—“ Of the fossils of this system, some undescribed species of Producti might seem to connect the Permian with the Carboniferous era; and other shells, together with fishes and saurians, link it more closely to the period of the Zech- stein, whilst its peculiar plants appear to constitute a Flora of a type intermediate between the epochs of the New Red Sandstone or Trias and the Coal-measures. Hence it is that I have ventured to consider this series as worthy of being regarded as a system.” ¢
In subsequent years, having personally examined this group in the typical tracts of Germany as well as of Britain, I felt more than ever assured that, from the great local variations of mineral succes- sion of the group, the word “ Permian,’ which might apply to any number of mineral subdivisions, was the most comprehensive and best term which could be used, the more so as it was in harmony with the principle on which the term Silurian had been adopted.
Apart from the question of the substitution of the new word
* See also ‘Siluria,’ 2nd edit. p. 348.
+ Phil. Mag. xix. p. 419.
{ In my last edition of ‘ Siluria’ I have spoken of the Permian as the upper- most Paleozoic group, but have not deemed it a system by comparison with the vast deposits of Carboniferous, Devonian, and Silurian age.
Vio. Vv. C
10 THE GEOLOGIST.
““Dyas”’ for the older name “ Permian,” I take this opportunity of expressing my regret that some German geologists are returning to the use of the term “ Grauwacke Formation,” as if years of hard labour had not been successfully bestowed in elaborating and esta- blishing the different Paleozoic groups, all of which, even including the Lower Carboniferous deposits, were formerly confusedly grouped under the one lithological term of the “ Grauwacke Formation.”
Respecting as I do the labours of the German geologists who have distinguished themselves in describing the order of the strata and the fossil contents of the group under consideration, I claim no otber merit on this point for my colleagues De Verneuil and Von Keyserling, and myself, than that of having propounded twenty years ago the name of “ Permian”’ to embrace in one natural series those sub-formations for which no collective name had been adopted. Independently therefore of the reasons above given, which show the inapplicability of the word “ Dyas,” I trust that, in accordance with those rules of priority which guide naturalists, the word “ Permian” will be maintained in geological classification.
London: Belgrave Square. Noy. 30, 1861.
CEOCRAPHICAL THE GBOHOGHEH, AND CHRONOLOGICAL DISTRI- BUTION OF THE DEVONIAN FOSSILS OF DEVON AND CORNWALL.
By W. Preneetty, F.G.S.
The limestones, slates, and associated sandstones of North and South Devon and Cornwall have, as is well known, caused much perplexity as to their real place in the chronological series of the geologist. Thanks, however, to the labours of Professor Sedgwick, Sir R. I. Murchison, Mr. Lonsdale, and others, the problem is now generally admitted to be solved; the rocks in question are the re- presentatives or equivalents of the Old Red Sandstone of Scotland and elsewhere; they belong to what is known as the Devonian age of the world. Some little difficulty, however, exists—or rather once existed—in the way of the full acceptance of this chronology. The rocks of Devonshire are crowded with the remains of invertebrate animals, especially shells, corals, and sponges; whilst the supposed contemporary deposits in Scotland and the adjacent islets are so rich in fossil fish that, in the language of the late Hugh Miller, “Orkney, were the trade once opened up, could supply with ich- thyolites, by the ton and the shipload, the museums of the world.’’* But the fossils characteristic of either of these districts are not found in the other ; there are no organic links connecting the two localities. ww
* € Footprints of the Creator,’ p. 2.
PENGELLY—FOSSILS OF DEVON AND CORNWALL. 11
Scotland does not yield the mollusks or zoophytes of Devonshire, nor is there recorded in the latter district: more than the faintest trace of the ichthyolitic wealth of the North. Though this fact may still have difficulties connected with it, they have ceased to be chronological, for Sir R. I. Murchison tells us “that the same fossil fishes, of species well known in the middle and upper portions of the Old Red of Scotland, and which in large tracts of Russia lie alone in sandstone, are in many other places found intermixed, in the same bed, with those shells that characterize the group in its slaty and calcareous form in Devonshire, the Rhenish country, and the Boulonnais. This phenomenon, first brought to lght in the work on Russia, by myself and colleagues, demonstrates more than any other the identity of deposits of this age, so different in lithological aspect, in Devonshire on the one hand, and central England and Scotland on the other. The fact of this intermixture completely puts an end to all dispute respecting the identification of the central and upper masses at least of the Old Red of Scotland with the cal- careous deposits of Devonshire and the Eifel.”*
In a paper “On the Slate Rocks of Devon and Cornwall,” read before the Geological Society of London in 1851, Professor Sedgwick stated his views respecting the division of these rocks into three groups, as follows :—
“The first and oldest of these groups may be conveniently called the Plymouth group, using these words in an extended sense, so as to include all the limestones of South Devon, and the red sandstones superior to the Plymouth limestones. The equivalent to this group in North Devon includes, I think, the Ilfracombe and Linton lime- stones, as well as the red sandstones of the north coast.
“The second group includes the slates expanded from Dartmouth to the metamorphic group of Start Point and Bolt Head, and is, so far as I know, without fossils; it may be called the Dartmouth group, and its equivalent in North Devon is found in the slates of Morte Bay, which end with beds of purple and greenish sand-rock and coarse greywacke. It ranges nearly east and west across the county.
“The third group is not, I think, found in South Devon; but in North Devon it is well defined, commencing on a base line of sand- stone beds, which range nearly east and west from Bag gey Point (on the western coast) to “Marwood (which is a few miles north of Barn- staple), and thence towards the eastern side of the county. ‘This group is continued in ascending order to the slates on the north shore of Barnstaple Bay; but its very highest beds are seen on the south shore of the bay, dipping under the base of the culm measures.
“The equivalent of this third and highest Devonian group is found to the south of the great culm-trough, in a group, near the top of which appear the limestone-bands and fossiliferous slates of Pether- win. It may be called the Barnstaple or Petherwin group.’ +
a * ‘Siluria,’ 3rd edition, p. 382.
¢*
7 Quarterly Journal Geol. Soc. vol. vin. p. 3.
12 THE GEOLOGIST.
Professor Sedgwick, in the same paper, recognizes the Plymouth group in the slates of ‘Looe, Polperro, and Fowey, in Cornwall.*
Accepting, at least provisionally, t this chronology, we have, when considered chronologically as well as geographically, what, as a mat- ter of convenience, may be called five fossiliferous areas; namely, a deposit of the age of the Plymouth group in each of the districts, South Devon, North Devon, and Cornwall; and one of the Barn staple age in each of the two latter. To avoid repetition, they will be spoken of throughout this paper as Lower South Devon, Lower North Devon, Lower Cornwall, Upper North Devon, and Upper Cornwall, The terms “Upper’’ and “ Lower” are to be understood as applied relatively to the rocks of Devon and Cornwall only, and not as embodying or implying any opinion respecting the co-ordina- tion of these rocks with deposits of the Devonian age elsewhere.
Had existing materials warranted, it would have been desirable to have made a further division, nainely, one having reference to the mineral character of the deposits, as well as to time and place; for it is certain, as might have been expected, that in the same area some fossils are peculiar to the argillaceous beds, and others are found only in the calcareous strata; thus, for example, I learn from Mr. Godwin-Austen that he has found the remarkable coral Plewro- dictyum problematicum in the slates, but not in the limestones, at Oewell, in South Devon. My own experience is in harmony with this. 1 have found specimens of the same fossil in the slates at Tor- quay, and hundreds of them occur in rocks of the same character at Looe, in Cornwall, but not a trace of 1t in limestone anywhere. The two species of sponges belonging to the genus Steganodictyum of Professor M‘Coy occur in the slates along the entire coast of Cornwall, from Fowey Harbour to the Rame Head; at Bedruthen Steps in the north of the same county; and at Mudstone Bay, near Brixham, in South Devon; but have never been met with in eal- careous strata. At present, however, it would be premature to at- tempt a division of this kind.
My present object is to give some account of the amount and character of the Devonian population of the five areas as above defined, when the census was last taken. The inquiry as to cha- racter goes no ees than to ascertain to what extent they were a migratory or colonizing race.
Having spent a considerable portion of the leisure I have been able to command during the last twenty years in collecting and studying the fossils of the districts under consideration, especially along the entire line of coast extending from Polperro in Cornwall to Torbay in Devonshire, and also at South Petherwin, I have natu- rally been led to pay some attention to their distribution in time and space; and several concurring circumstances have recently brought the subjects more prominently before me. Amongst other things I may mention a passage in the recent address of Professor
* Quarterly Journal Geol. Soc. vol. viil. p. 14.
PENGELLY—FOSSILS OF DEVON AND CORNWALL. 13
Phillips, as President of the Geological Society of London, and also one in Professor Haughton’s Appendix to the ‘ Voyage of the Fox in the Arctic Seas.’ Professor Phillips, when discussing the influ- ence of ancient currents of the sea, remarks that “only a small pro- portion of the fossils of North Devon occur in South Devon;’’* and Professor Haughton says, “I do not believe in the lapse of a long interval of time between the Silurian and Carboniferous deposits,— in fact in a Devonian period.
“The same blending of corals has been found in Ireland, the Bas Boulonnais, and in Devonshire, where Silurian and Carboniferous forms are of common occurrence in the same localities.” +
It should be remembered that the statement with which we have here to deal is, “that the blending of Silurian and Carboniferous corals” (the word is not fossils) “is of common occurrence in Devon- shire.”
I have consulted such registers as I have been able to command, and have thrown so much of their contents as bear on the questions before us in the following tabular form; for which, of course, no higher value is claimed than attaches to the original documents.
he materials have been mainly derived from Professor Morris’s ‘Catalogue of British Fossils,’ published in 1854, in which are embodied the results of the labours of Mr. Lonsdale, Professors Phillips and M‘Coy, and Messrs. Edwards and Haime. The liberties taken with the ‘ Catalogue’ have been but few; such, for example, as the removal of the Devonian Stromatopores from the class Zoophyta to Amorphozoa, Spheronites tessellatus from Echinodermata also to Amorphozoa, and the addition of a few localities to those already registered.
I have great pleasure in acknowledging the prompt and kind assist- ance of Mr. Salter, of the Geological Museum, Jermyn Street, Lon- don, in certain matters on which I consulted him.
Every geologist is, of course, aware of the numerous and elaborate tables and ratios introduced by Professor Phillips in his ‘ Paleozoic Fossils of Devon and Cornwall,’ when discussing questions akin to those under consideration. In the preparation of this paper the author has in no way made use of the valuable data these tables contain.
It appears from the three left-hand columns of figures, headed “Totals,” Table I., that, taken together, the five areas have yielded three hundred and forty-seven species, belonging to ninety-seven genera and forty-nine families, of nine classes of animals; namely, three classes of the sub-kingdom Radiata, one of Articulata, and five of Mollusca; hence fifteen of the twenty-four classes into which the existing animal kingdom is commonly divided are totally unrepre- sented in the series, as is the entire vegetable kingdom also. It may be as well to state here that, in conformity with Morris’s
* Quarterly Journal Geol. Soc. vol. xvi. p. xl. + ‘ Voyage of the Fox,’ Appendix No. iv. p. 387.
THE GEOLOGIST.
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PENGELLY—FOSSILS OF DEVON AND CORNWALL. 1s
‘ Catalogue,’ the Heteropodous Mollusca are, in Table I., included in the class Gasteropoda.
It is scarcely necessary to remark that the fossils of Devon and Cornwall do not fully represent the organisms of the Devonian age, as seven other classes—Pisces, Pteropoda, Cirrepedia, and Annelida, amongst animals, and Cellulares, Monocotyledones, and Polycotyle- dones amongst plants—have been found in rocks of this age else- where; and of these the two first and the fifth have been met with in other British localities. The reptiles Steganolepis and Telerpeton, of the Elgin Sandstone, are not enumerated here, as some doubt attaches to the question of their chronology, if indeed they are not certainly Triassic. The single articulated class, Crustacea, is by no means rich in any way; with one exception, all its gencra are Tri- lobites, and commonly contain but one species each. The most important class numerically is Brachiopoda, to which one hundred and eight species belong, that is, thirty-one per cent. of the entire series. The families and genera of Cephalopoda are richer in species than those of any other class, averaging sixteen for each family, and ten for each genus.
The most striking fact in this connection is the specific abundance of Brachiopoda and Cephalopoda, and the paucity of the classes Lamellibranchiata and Gasteropoda, as compared with the numerical rank of the same classes in the existing Fauna. This fact will, perhaps, be most strikingly exhibited by the following table, which has been thus computed: in the left-hand column the aggregate number of the species of fossil mollusea found in Devon and Corn- wall has been put = one thousand, and the numbers belonging to each class computed to this; the right-hand column has been formed on the same principle, and is based on the data given by Forbes and Hanley in their ‘ History of British Mollusca.’
TABLE II. | Devonian Mollusea of | Devon and Existing British Cornwall. Mollusca. | BSE OZU AS ya ons vos ger vccots cokes 42 | 72 IpraehiopoOda.. sa... fee ees 410°5 15°5 Wamellibranchiataz:2). /c5.263. 60% 186 859°5 GaSbenOpoda nec nice. ala saccwe cones 179 521°5 BPA OOM Ay ccs teuglelas ies sien os | 182°5 315 1,000 1,000
It appears, then, that within existing British seas the Lamelli- branchiates are about twenty-four times more numerous specifically, than the Brachiopods, whilst within, what may be called, the same area, the latter were to the former, during the Devonian period,
16 THE GEOLOGIST.
somewhat more than as two to one; that is, they were then fifty times more abundant than at present in comparison with the other great class of Acephala. In like manner it is seen that, relatively to the Gasteropoda, the Cephalopoda were, in this early age of our planet, seventeen times more numerous than now. It may he added that, within the district under notice, the registered species of Devonian Bracl uopoda absolutely, and in a high ratio, exceed those belonging to the same classes within existing “British seas; and the fact is the same for the world at large.
The five columns of Table I., headed “ Peculiar to,’ and distin- guished by the initials of the five areas respectively, show the number of fossil species which, so far as England is concerned, are peculiar to each; from which it appears that the fossils of Devon and Corn- wall have a very limited and unequal distribution. Two hundred and ninety-seven species, that is, eighty-five per cent. of the whole, are peculiar to one or other of the areas, whilst no more than fifty species, or scarcely fifteen per cent. of the entire series, are distri- buted amongst them. Lower South Devon monopolizes no fewer than one hundred and ninety-one species in this way, or, in other words, fully sixty-four per cent. of the two hundred and ninety-seven, species thus limited, or fifty-five per cent. of all the known Devo- nians of the two counties are restricted to this single area. Lower North Devon, on the other hand, appears to be equally remarkable for its fossil poverty.
It is unnecessary to say that five areas taken two, three, four, and five together are capable of making twenty-six different combinations, namely, ten two together, ten three together, five four together, and one five together. The ten combinations, however, headed “‘ Common to,’ in Table I., are all that are required to show the distribution of the fifty species not confined to one single area. Nota single species of this ancient Fauna is common to the five areas, and only one, the coral Cyathophyllum celticum, is found in each of four of them. The well-known coral /avosites cervicornis is the only fossil found in each of the three contemporary deposits of Lower South and North Devon and Cornwall. Of two areas only, Upper North Devon and Upper Cornwall have the greatest, and Lower South Devon and Lower Cornwall the least, number in common; in the former a total of seventeen, and in the latter of eight species only. Dissimilar as are the organic distributions i these two pairs of areas, they are pro- bably just what might have been expected. In each pair the two areas are pretty closely connected geographically, and are supposed to be contemporary, as their names imply ; but in the former the mineral character is much the same in each area, and we have a ereater organic similarity than ordinary ; in the latter the deposits are very unlike—Lower South Devon being rich in limestone as well as slate, whilst in Lower Cornwail the fossiliferous beds are all but exclusiv ely argillaceous—and there are very few organic remains in common ; a marked instance, probably, of the influence of the mineral character of the ancient sea-bottom on organic existence. Though
PENGELLY—FOSSILS OF DEVON AND CORNWALL. 17
less varied, the fossils are frequently as numerous individually in the slate as in the limestone.
It must be understood that any one of the ten columns just noticed shows, not the ¢otal number of species common to the areas the initials of which stand at its head, but simply the number at once common and restricted to them collectively ; thus the second of these columns, headed L. 8. D., L. C., shows that five species are common and restricted to Lower South Devon and Lower Cornwall, but in the third column we find one species common to them and also to Lower North Devon, in the fourth one common to them and to Upper North Devon, and in the eighth one found in each of them and also in Upper North Devon and Upper Cornwall; hence there are eight species common to the two areas instanced, five of which are restricted to them collectively, and three not. The same expla- nation applies to the other areas. The total number of species found in any area will be ascertained by adding the figures in all the columns marked “ Peculiar to’? and ‘‘Common to,” at the heads of which the initials of the area are found; thus, for example, a total of forty-seven species of Zoophyta occurs in Lower South Devon, of which forty are not found elsewhere in Devon and Cornwall. More- over, as the column marked “Species”’ shows that the two counties have yielded forty-nine species belonging to this class, it 1s evident that two of the total number have not been met with in Lower South Devon; and so on for the other classes and areas, as is shown in the five columns headed “ Totals,” and distinguished by the initials of the areas. Ranged according to their peculiar specific fossil wealth the areas stand, in descending order, thus :—Lower South Devon, Upper North Devon, Upper Cornwall, Lower Cornwall, and Lower North Devon; the order is the same when the fotal number of species found in them is considered, with the single exception that, in that case, Lower North Devon and Lower Cornwall are equal. 7 "OF the three hundred and forty-seven species, sixty-seven are met with in various parts of continental Europe, and seven in North America ; six of the latter being included in the European sixty-seven, and one of the six is also found in New South Wales; thus making a total of sixty-eight species common to Devon and Cornwall and districts beyond the British Isles.*
Comparatively few of the Devonian fossils of Devon and Cornwall appear to have been derived from the Silurian Fauna; eight species only—just enough to suggest a problem or two—are referable to that earlier period; namely, three Corals, two Brachiopods, two Lamellibranchiates—one from each of the sections Monomyaria and Dimyaria—and one Cephalopod. The three corals are Favosites fibrosa, Eimmonsia hemispherica, and Chonophyllum perfoliatwm. The first has been found in Lower Silurian rocks at Landovery, in the upper
* See in Table I. the columns headed Eu. (continental Europe), Eu. Am. (Europe and America), Am, (America), Eu. Am. Au. (Europe, America,and Australia.) VOL. V. D
18 THE GEOLOGIST.
deposits of the same system in various parts of the typical Silurian country, in eight counties of Ireland, in Russia, and in three North American localities. During the Devonian era it existed in several parts of Devonshire, in France, and Germany. Apparently confined to Britain during the earliest stage of its existence, it became more adapted to the world, or the world to it, during the Upper Silurian age, when it reached the maximum of its migratory powers (by no means an ordinary one), and visited many distant parts then; declining in vigour, or satiated with travel, it retired within the European borders during the Devonian period, and there received its dismissal from the stage of life. Hmmonsia hemispherica seems not to have begun life quite so early as its friend which we have just dismissed ; its origin dates in Upper Silurian times, when it seems to have been confined to the area of modern America, ranging from the State of Ohio to Tennessee ; having outlived the Silurian period, it sent colonies to Spain and Britain, and greatly extended its range in America. Chonophyllum perfoliatum differs from the two former in having always lived within narrow geographical limits ; it occurs in Upper Silurian rocks at Wenlock, and in Devonian beds at Rams- ley, near Newton Abbott; but its appearance elsewhere is not re- corded.
The wide geographical range of the two first of these corals would seem to imply hardy plastic constitutions, fitting them for distant travel and existence under varied circumstances; there is therefore nothing surprising in their extended vertical range; the second, however, seems to have disappeared when at the very zenith of its widely extended power.
The very limited distribution in space of the last of the trio would scarcely suggest the thought that such an organism would be likely to be capable of enduring thermal and other physical changes such as, there are reasons for believing, considerable lapses of time imtro- duce into any given area, changes probably not dissimilar to those experienced in passing to a distant locality in any one and the same period. On the other hand, the well-known fossil coral Favosites Goldfusst occurs in Devonian rocks in Devonshire, at Nehou and Visé in France, at Millar in Spain, in the Oural in Russia, in the States of Ohio and Kentucky in North America, and in New South Wales; it was the most decided cosmopolite of the Fauna to which it belonged, the greatest traveller of its day, the earliest Devonian that cireumnayvigated the globe, the prototype of the Drake of a Jater age. lt seems to have successfully struggled with the varying con- ditions consequent upon change of place, and might have been ex- pected to be just as capable of contending with such as depend on lapses of time ; nevertheless, the facts do not harmonize with such conclusions. Chonophyllum perfoiiatum formed part of the Silurian and Devonian Faunas, but was confined to the British area; Fuvosites Goldfussi was at home in every part of the world, yet it commenced and terminated its career within the Devonian period.
The rocks of Devon and Cornwall have fifty-eight species of fossils
PENGELLY—FOSSILS OF DEVON AND CORNWALL. 19
in common with those of the Carboniferous group, namely, six Echi- noderms, one Crustacean, six Bryozoons, twenty-four Brachiopods, four Lamellibranchiates, ten Gasteropods, and seven Cephalopods, but no corals or sponges ; so that it cannot be said that “there is a blending of Silurian and Carboniferous corals in Devonshire,” what- ever there may be elsewhere ; for though, as has been stated, three Silurian corals have been found, not one referable to the Carboniferous Fauna has been met with there. This assertion is made on the au- thority of Messrs. Edwards and Haime, who, in their monograph on ‘The British Fossil Corals from the Mountain Limestone,’ state that “seventy-six species have already been found in the deposits apper- taiaing to this geological division, and the presence of none of these corals has as yet been satisfactorily proved in beds belonging to any , other period.”* Again, in their monograph on ‘ British Devons+rejom1 Fossil Corals,’ they say,—‘“ Three of these Devonian fossils exist also in the Silurian rocks, but all the others appear to be peculiar to the Devonian period.”’+ This was the language, in 1853, of the zoophytologists selected by the Palzontographical Society to prepare a@ monograph on this branch of paleontology, who were thoroughly acquainted with the literature of the subject, and who had had access to almost every public and private museum and collection in the United Kingdom.
The fifty-eight species which passed from the Devonian to the Carboniterous period are found in the three principal fossiliferous
deposits of Devon and Cornwall, as exhibited in the following table :—
TABLE III.
Totals L.S.D. U.N.D U.C
Welnmoderniatay coc. ss... 0 secon ee: 6 3 2 I ( CIHTIS TE SG Be ae 1 I wee sit 1B) OVAGE 8 ek Sar SS 6 3 2 2 PT AUMOPONA aap, os aa s co tone ieee ays 24, 15 8 7 Lamellibranchiata ................ 4 2 ae 2 GASECMOPOUA... ... cweeceses entices 10 6 3 3 Weplaloponey sie o.e sae vee oe vee oes 7 + 2 3 58 34 17 18
It is, perhaps, worthy of remark that the five areas have a smaller number of organic forms in common with one another—closely con- nected as they are both in space and time—than they have, as a whole, with Devonian deposits in continental Europe and elsewhere beyond the British Isles, or with the Carboniferous rocks of Ireland and central and northern England.
* Monograph of British Fossil Corals,’ by Messrs. Edwards and Haime, p. 150. + Ibid. p. 212. -
20 THE GEOLOGIST.
Table I., to which attention has so frequently been directed, repre- sents, so far as is at present known, the absolute distribution of the fossils in the two counties in which they occur; but, for purposes of geological chronology, it is probably of greater importance to ascer- tain their relative distribution, which may differ widely from that shown by the figures, since the various classes of animals represented in the fossil series were not equally rich in species, and perhaps differed much in, what may be called, their distributivity.
The relative distribution is exhibited in Table 1V., which has been calculated from the data contained in Table I., thus: the total num- ber of species in each class is put = 1000, and the figures in the other columns equated to this.
ftanged in descending order, according to their relative specific _-prevalence in each era, the classes stand thus :*+—
Lower South Devon: Zoophyta, Amorphozoa, Crustacea, Gastero- pada, Brachiopoda, Bryozoa, Cephalopoda, Echinodermata, and La- mellibranchiata.
Lower North Devon: Bryozoa, Brachiopoda, Zoophyta, and La- mellibranchiata.
Lower Cornwall: Amorphozoa, Crustacea, Zoophyta, Echinoder- mata, Brachiopoda, and Gasteropoda.
Upper North Devon: Lamellibranchiata, Echinodermata, Bryozoa, Brachiopoda, Gasteropoda, Cephaloda, Crustacea, and Zoophyta.
Upper Cornwall: Cephalopoda, Lamellibranchiata, Gasteropoda, Brachiopoda, Bryozoa, Crustacea, Echinodermata, and Zoophyta.
Both relatively and absolutely each class has its maximum specific development in South Devon, with the exception of Lamellibranchiata only, which has its greatest specific variety in Upper North Devon.t
South Devon is the only area in which each of the nine classes oc- curs; Lower Cornwall and Lower North Devon are each poor in classes as well as species, the latter yielding representatives of four classes only.
When ranged in descending order, so as to show, relatively, the transmission of species from the Devonian to the Carboniferous era, the classes stand thus:—Bryozoa, Echinodermata, Brachiopoda, Gasteropoda, Cephalopoda, Crustacea, and Lamellibranchiata. And when similarly arranged for the species derived from the Silurian Fauna, they take the following order :—Zoophyta, Lamellibranchiata, Cephalopoda, and Brachiopoda.
The class Amorphozoa is the only one in the Devonian Fauna which does not contain either Silurian or Carboniferous species.
From Table _V. it appears that fifty-six genera are peculiar to one or other of the three areas Lower South Devon, Upper North Devon, and Upper Cornwall ; and that, of these, forty-six, or very nearly one- half the total ninety-seven, are restricted to Lower South Devon. No genus is confined to Lower North Devon or Lower Cornwall.
* See in Table IV. the columns headed “ Totals.” t See in Tables I. and IV. the columns headed “ Totals.”’ + See in Table LV. the columns headed “ Silurian” and ‘‘ Carboniferous.”
21
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22 THE GEOLOGIST.
The fifty-six genera thus limited are generally poor in species, the aggregate number belonging to them being no more than ninety-two ; that is, fifty-eight per cent. of all the genera contain no more than twenty-six per cent. of the total number of species. Forty-one of these fifty-six genera contain each but a single species in the British Devonian deposits. The only genera thus limited that can be said to be rich in species are Stromatopora, Acervularia, and Clymenia. The first, a genus of Amorphozoons, contains five species, all limited to South Devon; the second, a group of corals belonging to the great Paleozoic family Cyathophyllide, contains five species, all peculiar to South Devon; and the last, a genus of Cephalopod mollusks belonging to the family Nautilide, contains eleven species, all found at South Petherwin, not one being met with elsewhere in Britain. With the single exception of Cyrtoceras rusticum, found at South Petherwin— and this probably a synonym for Orthoceras arcuatum—the genus Cyrtoceras is restricted to South Devon, where it is represented by twelve species.
The distribution of the ninety-seven genera of fossils found in the two counties is exhibited in the following table :—
TABLE V. l PECULIAR TO | Torats. | : Be | Z | | a | | sila] a A lA | A > Belew ec || Spain ie tele n) St o i S a) a sida (5 |) |) aoe Amorphozoa ......... Ape ea Lae | “Zoopliyta {3s3. sc. 5. ss 20 || 14 Ue ee 3 Echinodermata ...... 6 2 3 3 |... ] ee Crastacea.....0)..... SN iisaae oie | OL a eam ee | BTVOZORE. So. cese kod (pape) 1). 5 pT pa | os | 2 Brachiopoda ......... 16 || 6 | se | as |p RO) aa So Lamellibranchiata...|_ 17 2 3) 1] ND ee oe ic Aa Gasteropoda ......... \4 (fe |r eee sarees Westies [Bee ge Danse |= Vite ee Cephalopoda ......... Bypee joe fee foe | Py 4]. | we | E 97 || 46 7/3 83 8 | 8 | 34 | 33 | 56 a1 | 7 = |
Every genus of the classes Amorphozoa, Zoophyta, and Brachiopoda occurs in South Devon, and with the exception of Cephalopoda it contains a greater number of genera in each class than either of the other areas. All the genera of Cephalopoda appear at South Petherwin.
PENGELLY—FOSSILS OF DEVON AND CORNWALL. 23
The genera found in the two counties were not all confined to the Devonian period. The following table shows their Chronological dis- tribution so far as the Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous deposits of Britain are concerned.
TABLE VI. = 3 ComMMON TO el g . = a 5 Ze Sipe 3 a Ss, Sr eh og > == aa 5S = oS A | a Se ioe | a6 = J Sse lelors) |) ese E Se iS 3 92 | RAM | 8A a = = S) S) Amorphozoa ......... 4 3 1 sts ZOOPLA ose eaie mdse: 20 10 5) 3 2 Echinodermata ..,... 6 2 oe 3 ll @rustaced oe. ea: 8 i 5 eed 2 IBGVOZ0N. ke. s eos ff ee 5 2 Brachiopoda ..,...... 16 3 2 8 3 Lamellibranchiata...| 17 2 1 9 5 Gasteropoda ......... 14 2 11 1 Cephalopoda......... 5 iL 2 2 Botalsin s:.chzs2 97 24 14 Al 18
From which it appears that twenty-four genera,—about one-fourth of the whole series,—are peculiar to Devonian deposits, fourteen common and restricted to the Silurian and Devonian, forty-one com- mon to all three, and eighteen common and restricted to the Devonian and Carboniferous; hence a total of fifty-five Devonian genera occur in the preceding, and fifty-nine in the succeeding period. Some of the genera occur in Neozoic deposits, and a few in the existing Fauna.
When the numbers of species contained in each of the forty-one genera of the fourth column (Table VI.) are tabulated in parallel columns for the three periods, the figures present themselves in four different principal forms of succession, as may be illustrated by taking the genera Favosites, Cyathophyllum, Loxonema, and Orthoceras.
Sil. Dev. Carb.
HAV OSIECSH cs. ces .cs +++ c0 8 5 1 a descending-descending series. Cyathophyllum ......... 9 14 8 ascending-descending. Moonee ore fee 2 8 14 ascending-ascending. DEtMOCENIS AF carats aie bora 55 12 385 descending-ascending.
The first kind shows that the maximum specific development occurs im the Silurian era, the second in the Devonian, and the third in the Carboniferous ; the fourth kind may perhaps be regarded as a sort
24, THE GEOLOGIST.
of irregularity, possibly arising from the imperfection of the geolo- gical record. There are eighteen instances of this in the series.
There is a fifth form of successional order which may be illustrated by the figures connected with the genus Alveolites, which stand thus :—Sil. 4, Dev. 4, and Carb. 2, thus giving no maximum in any one period. ‘There are three instances of this.
The genera of the Devoniau period are, as a whole, comparatively poor in species, and but few of those common to it and either the Carboniferous or Silurian, or both, have their maximum specific de- velopment during Devonian times.
The following table exhibits, generally, the prominent facts of the kind just specified.
TABLE VII. GuNERA. Totals. Species in a | Specific. | PNET | Development in | Sil. | Dev.| Car. |} Sil. | Dev.| Car, || Sil. Dev. | Car. Peculiar to Devonian...... 24 Oe ae = Ba ere We Common to,— Silurian and Devonian .| 14 56: BOI cl 4cch. Seale 9 2 ee Silur., Dev., and Carb.| 41 || 386] 223) 510 || 9°4| 5-4) 12°4)) 13 2| 23 Devonian and Carb. ...| 18 Del AONE O FAs loo let Lah tio ee 2| 12 Totals ee 97 || 442|347/781|| 8 | 36| 13] 22] 6| 33
The “ Totals” in the left-hand column are the same as in Table VI. The three coluinns headed “Species in’ show the aggregate number of species found in each period belonging to the total number of genera on the same horizontal line in the column of “ Totals ;” thus three hundred and eighty-six species have been found in British Silurian rocks, two hundred and twenty-three in Devonian, and five hundred and ten in Carboniferous belonging to the forty-one genera common to the three periods, and so on. The three columns headed “‘Species+ Genera” show the average number of species per genus in each period and division, and are obtained by dividing the total number of species by the total number of genera in each (fractions being omitted except when considerable); thus the averages in the case of the forty-one genera common to the three periods are 9:4 Silurian, 5°4 Devonian, and 12-4 Carboniferous. The total averages at the bottom of these three columns are obtained thus :—Of the ninety-seven Devonian genera, fifty-five (= 14 + 41) are found in Silurian beds, and these have yielded an aggregate of four hundred and forty-two (= 56 + 386) species, giving an average of eight per genus, and so on for the other periods. The right-hand three columns show the number of genera, which in the various divisions have their maximum speeific development m each period; for example, of the forty-one genera common to the three periods, thirteen had their
PENGELLY—FOSSILS OF DEVON AND CORNWALL. 25
greatest number of species in Silurian, two in Devonian, and twenty-_ three in Carboniferous times; thus giving a total of thirty-eight, and, consequently, leaving three genera which had not a maximum specific development in any one period.
lt appears, then, that the genera found in the Devonian era, as represented in Devon and Cornwall, even when those peculiar to it are included, yield a less aggregate number of species, that the ave- rage number of species per genus is smaller, and that the genera haying their maximum specific development are fewer in Devonian than in either Silurian or Carboniferous times, and that in each of these particulars the Carboniferous surpasses the Silurian age.
Such appear to be the prominent facts in connexion with the sub- ject immediately before us. What is their interpretation? This is a problem more easily proposed than solved. Are we to believe that our knowledge of the geological record is too imperfect to warrant any important generalizations ? Do our museums fully represent the fossilized remains of bygone forms of life? Are all the extinct organ- isms which have been exhumed registered in the published lists? Is the record itself, inscribed on rocky tablets, so incomplete as to be altogether incapable of revealing to us the physical and organic his- tory” of our planet? Are the notions of biologists respecting specific distinctions, whatever they may be, sufficientl y mature and uniform to warrant our relying on them ? Something must doubtless be con- ceded on each of these points, but still there cannot but be a large outstanding quantity of fact incapable of being thus explained away. The problem demands some other solution.
Suppose it true that in some cases the organic dissimilarity which has been described was due to a difference in the mineral character of the ancient sea-bottom, such as was mentioned in the case of Lower South Devon and Lower Cornwall; still, when we have two areas, like Lower South and Lower North Devon, consisting of con- temporary, almost contiguous, and scarcely dissimilar deposits, one rich and the other poor in the variety of its organic remains, having together two hundred and four species with no more than eight in common, some other solution is obviously required. Was there a terrestrial barrier separating the two areas? Was the central dis- trict oceupied by dry land, stretching far both east and west, while the waves of the Devonian ocean rolled over the north and south of the county? for it need not be stated that the deposits we are con- sidering are eminently marine. It may be too muc} to answer this question with an unqualified negative; it is easier to determine, at jieast, some of the ancient oceanic areas than to say where lay the contemporary continents and islands. Nevertheless, the rocks now separating the areas in question, namely, the granites, the carboni- ferous beds, and the red conglomerates (or, more correctly, breccias), are unquestionably more modern than those now under notice; nor is the structure of the latter such as to imply the immediate proxi- mity of dry land in that quarter.
Besides, eight species actually did migrate from one area to the
VOL: v. E
3)
2G TILE GEOLOGIST.
other—eight proofs, then, that a passage did exist, unless we suppose that both areas were tenanted from some more distant centre or centres of organic dispersion. It may be asked, were not these eight remnants of an older—a Silurian—fauna, forms of life whose locali- zation had been determined by still earlier conditions ? Eight Silu- rian forms’ do make their appearance amongst the fossils of Devon and Cornwall—are not these the very organisms ? Now it so happens that they are not. The Silurians spoken of are Favosites jfibrosa, Emmonsia hemispherica, Chonophyllum perfoliatum, Atrypa aspera, A. reticulatus, Pterinea ventricosa, Clidophorus ovatus, and Ortho- ceras Sapien) whilst the species common to Lower North and South Devon are Fuvosites cervicornis, F. dubia, Fenestella arthritica, Stringocephalus Burtini, Spirifer aperturatus, ‘Sp. levicosta, Or this granulosa, and Chonetes sordida. In fact, there is not one Silurian form recorded amongst the Lower North Devon series. This solu- tion, therefore, does not seem available. Shall we hold with Professor Phillips that “this unegual diffusion of definite forms of life may often be ascribed to oceanic currents” ?* I cannot but think that fewer difficulties attach to this than to any other hypothesis which has been proposed ; it simply requires us to suppose that a persistent oceanic stream, flowing through central Devon, separated the con- temporary deposits of the north and south, and, by its thermal or other qualities, formed an ali but impeneti able barrier to the marine tribes. Moreover, whilst it would account for the limited organic distribution we are considering, it would not be out of keeping “with the facts that a comparatively great number of species were common to continental Europe and Devon and Cornwall; that of the fifty- eight species which passed over to the next succeeding Fauna, cne only occurs in the ecarboniferous shales of North Devon, whilst all the others are found in central and northern England, Treland, Bel- gium, Russia, and other distant localities ; and that a comparatively great number of forms are common to the upper areas of Cornwall and North Devon.
Though, as we have seen, the test entireiy fails, at least so far as Devonshire is concerned, on which scepticism respecting the existence of a Devonian period has been founded, namely, “that the blending of Silurian and Carboniferous corals is of common occurrence,”’ yet if the word “ fossil” is substituted for “ coral,” a blending of the’ kind certainly does occur, and doubtless the fact is not without a meaning. Eight species from the preceding period, and fifty-eight from the suceeeding—a total of sixty-six—meet in Devon and Cornwall. Are they so many proofs that the rocks in which they were inhumed are not Devonian? It must be borne in mind that there are two hundred and eighty-one species that are neither Silurian nor Carbo- niferous, but of an intermediate character. The paleontological argument, then, stands thus:—There are sixty-six witnesses sup- posed to testify that the rocks are not Devonian, and two hundred and eighty-one—upwards of 4 to 1—which emphatically declare that
* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soe. vol. xvi. p. xl.
PENGELLY—FOSSILS OF DEVON AND CORNWALL. 27
they are. But the adverse witnesses are by no means agreed amongst themselves ; eight of them claim the rocks for the Silurian age, and fifty-eight for the Carboniferous. Is there no way of silencing, and yet satisfying, these doubtful characters? No method of so inter- preting their testimony but that of sacrificing the Devonian system altogether ? Are they not so many arguments in favour of the gradual passage of system into system? So many difficulties in the wav of a belief in catastrophes, by which I mean convulsion or other form of violence (call it what you please) which, from time to time, shook the very life out of the world, causing a series of universal and syn- chronous depopulations of our planet? May we not regard them as so many tints intermediate, both in place and quality, between the extreme bands of the rainbow, uniting them into one beautifully graduated chromatic spectrum, so softly blending as to render it im- possible to define the exact place of lines of demarcation, which, per- haps, have not, and never would have been supposed to have, an ex- istence, had not observers hastily generalized from the imperfect evidence obtained during a period of colour blindness?
May we not regard them as just sixty-six pages in the old parish register connecting three otherwise unconnected portions, and sliow- ing that the population was not, during their time, cut off sharply, universally, and at once, whether by pestilence, war, or famine; but that the old inhabitants gradually disappeared, and that many of them remained amongst the new comers, discharging their accus- tomed functions under the somewhat changed conditions ?
But if the Devonshire rocks were handed over to the Carboniferous or Silurian system, or divided between them, we should not be quit of the doctrine that some of the forms of one period have, at least in some instances, lived through it into the next; for the opponents of a Devonian period not only admit, but rest their case on the alleged fact that Silurian and Carboniferous forms are found blended together in Devonshire and elsewhere.
When, nearly a quarter of a century ago, Mr. Lonsdale first sug- gested that the fossils of South Devon, taken as a whole, exhibited a peculiar character intermediate to those of the Silurian and Carboni- ferous groups, he was perfectly aware that amongst them were forms referable to each of these Faunas; yet he made the suggestion, not- withstanding the existence of a physical objection, subsequently removed by Professor Sedgwick and Sir R. I. Murchison, who dis- covered that the culmiferous or anthracite shales of North Devon (superposed on the rocks we have been considering) “belonged to the coal, and not, as preceding observers had imagined, to the tran- sition (Silurian) period.”’*
And what has been the effect of the progress of discovery and nicer discrimination on this point? Has it increased or decreased the evidence in favour of a Devonian period? In 1846, Sir H. De la Beche, discussing this question, gave a total of a hundred and ninety species noticed in South Devon, which he thus disposed of: seventy-
* Lyell’s ‘ Manual,’ 5th edition, p. 424.
38 THE GEOLOGIST.
five Carboniferous forms, ten Silurian, eight common to-Silurian and Carboniferous, and ninety-seven—slightly more than half—peculiar to Devonshire.* At present (confining ourselves also to South Devon) the catalogue gives a total of two hundred and twenty-six, of which thirty-four are Carboniferous, six Silurian, and a hundred and eighty-six peculiar to the district; or putting the totais at each period = 1000, and equating the other numbers to this, the figures stand as in the following table, and show a decided advance Devonian-ward.
TABLE VIII. 1846. 1860 Silurian ee eens ase eee eee. 53 26°5 Warbomiferousi.-.. eee 395 | 150°5 Silurian and Carboniferous...... 42 0:0 Peculiates: Ma eee 510 | 823°0 1000 | 1000
Doubtless the fact that the Carboniferous forms so greatly out- number the Silurian has a meaning. Does not this greater organic affinity betoken a closer connection with the more modern than with the more ancient period? Is it not an intimation that the lowest beds of Devonshire do not constitute the basement of the Devonian system ?—that the county has an ample development of Upper and Middle, but not of Lower Devonian rocks ?-
Hitherto we have accepted the opinion of Professor Sedgwick re- specting the Petherwin and Barnstaple beds; namely, that they are strictly contemporary, and constitute the uppermost division of the Devonian system. It may, perhaps, be well, before closing this paper, to go somewhat fully into the arithmetic of the question.
A glance at Table IX. will show the number of fossil species and genera found in the two areas.
TABLE IX.
PETHERWIN. BARNSTAPLE.
Gen. | Spec. | Gen. | Spec.
POOPY TR ea \oe nn sesess cy 3 3 1 1 Echinodermata ......... 1 it 4 6 Chustidcea: is crit etcacace’ 2 2 1 1 Bryozoa . eh nici 2 2 3 3 Brachiopoda............ 7 20 8 26 Lamellibranchiata...... ff 14 8 21 Gasteropoda ............ 6 9 7 10 Cephalopoda... ......... 5 21 2 8
Motals. kegs tasdictics 33 72 34 76
* Memoirs Geol. Survey, vol. i. p. 96.
PENGELLY—FOSSILS OF DEVON AND CORNWALL. 29
Petherwin appears to have been richer than Barnstaple in Zoo- phyta and Cephalopoda, but poorer in Echinodermata and Lamelli- branchiata; whilst neither of the areas has yielded any fossil sponges.
Assuming the higher antiquity of the South Devon and contempo- rary beds—to which, probably, no geologist will object—it follows that the fossils common to it and Petherwin, or Barnstaple, or both, were contributions from it to them. Regarded thus, the populations of the two areas were made up as is shown below.
TABLE X. | | | PerHEeRwin. | BarNSTAPLE. STG TE eae ea i oe Sp. l Sp. 1 Trower Devomlanics,. 2:e60. 60000: esis ac eike New (peculiar) 2.5 seek sn osav' » 44 et! New (common)..........-+...+-- LD ee CarbonilerGus .......se00seceen Pt he eG
The term “ peculiar,” in the table, is meant to denote such species as, in England, are found in Petherwin or Barnstaple only; and “common” to mark those found in both, but not elsewhere in the British Isles; “carboniferous” is used to designate the species common to the deposits of that age and Petherwin, or Barnstaple, or both; exclusive of six found also in Lower Devonian deposits. It may be remarked here that no fossil occurring in South Devon, Pe- therwin and Barnstaple, appears to have been found in Carboniferous rocks.
The Carboniferous figures 138 and 16 in Table X. are not in addition to the previous numbers in the Table; the totals—72 and 76 respectively—are, of course, complete without them.
In order to show the relative value of the figures just given, the following Table has been calculated on the method of putting each total 72 and 76 equal to 1000, and equating the other figures in Table X. to it. 1t should be remembered, however, that whilst this furnishes better data for comparison, it considerably magnifies the facts.
TABLE XI.
PETHERWIN. BARNSTAPLE.
SVT Ce San eee alee ae Sp. 14 Sp. 13
Lower Devonian ................ e208 se AL iNew? (peculian)smeaty .55.5. 5h; ae GUT 21658 News (Common) ees is csaloc oi) LOT me lee: Carboniferaus 3) 23... seve sy toil aoe
The Silurian figures are, of course, quite valueless further than as
30 THE GEOLOGIST.
showing the very slender organic connection between the deposits under notice and those of the Silurian age. A glance at the Table shows that, of the two, Petherwin is the nearest to the Lower Devo- nian horizon, and the most remote from the Carboniferous; true, the majority in each case 1s but small—208 to 171, and 211 to 181—but it must be remembered that great ones were not expected; and that, feeble as they are individually, there is strength in the fact that their testimonies agree; if they mean anything, it is that the Barnstaple beds are somewhat more modern than those of Petherwin; a conclu- sion to which more than one eminent geologist has been led by other, and, perhaps, more reliable evidence.
The fossils of the two areas belong to forty-six genera, of which _ thirty-three are represented by the Petherwin, and thirty-four by the Barnstaple series, twenty-one are common to both; hence twelve are peculiar to Petherwin, and thirteen to Barnstaple. The South Devon and contemporary beds contain sixty-four genera, of which thirteen only occur in the deposits now under notice.
Taken as a whole, the forty-six genera above mentioned have a Carboniferous, rather than a Silurian, or even a Lower Devonian facies. They may be divided into, groups, namely, 1st, those characte- rized by a considerable maximum specific variety or development in some one period before or after Petherwin and Barnstaple times, that is, during the Silurian or Lower Devonian eras on the one side, or the Carbouiferous on the other; 2nd, those that are not thus dis- tinguished. For example, the rich genus Orthoceras had, in Britain, an almost equal number of species in Carboniferous and Upper Silurian times, when it was richest; hence it had no one period of maximum specific variety, and consequently belongs to the second of the groups just defined; as, of course, do also all ‘other genera simi- larly characterized, as well as those, such as Hallia, which seems never to have pads more che a very fom species at any one time.
The first of tl hich alone we have to consider here— contains thirty-one genera, of which six may be said to belong to the Past, and twenty- -five to the Future, the age of Petherwin and Barn- staple being the chronological stand- point.
The first, or “ Past’’ division, does not contain a number sufiici- ently great to be of service in this inquiry. The last, or “ Future, consists of two series, namely, Ist, those genera which are equally represented in the two sets of beds; ; and Ondly, t those that are not; evidently the last series alone can supply information on the question under consideration. It is made up of the fifteen genera named in the following table, in which the columns headed P., B., C., exhibit the number of species, belonging to each genus, which occur in the Petherwin, Barnstaple, and British Carboniferous beds respectively.
From the table we learn that nine of these genera are found in Barnstaple only, or are more largely represented there than in Pe- therwin ; and that nineteen species represent the ten genera found in the former area, and no more than ten the six genera of the latter. Hence, the genera tell us what the species had told us be-
9
PENGELLY—FOSSILS OF DEVON AND CORNWALL. | lL
fore, that the Barnstaple beds are somewhat more modern than those of Petherwin.
TABLE XII.
GENERA. 12 B. C.
PASTA LENA a sake Rain crs us 1 5) OyatWOerimMs’ is 065 asap) o selene 1 10 Rentremites: 2h .os2. cacseoscace ste 1 i GilaneconOmerss each ore Oe ao ] 5 enestella Wesel. 0. cess heen 1 beg 19 Chonetese ys 4052: Pea? ca 2 16 ESR MITCHUS Heirs, ess? ose tl. Saas ] 3 48 IM ICCCIYG) Re SE care COR 1 16 ACKAINUS UE epee ne, «cle gia ial rs 9 Wyprlcardidwtet he cee. ees it 1 9 IN icul eee te Narn ee 4 14 Sap euin lites: sedey.c oc Soostes . 2 15 oxi ema nto ecc hots a it 14 Macrocheilts) 2o.0.5..4.4.4<-508: rick 1 16 IN UMIINS eee ch cas BA eee haan ae ] hae 40 10 19 24.7
We are prepared, by even a slight acquaintance with the geogra- phical distribution of existing organisms, to find that deposits strictly contemporary, lithologically similar, and closely connected geographi- eally, have certain fossils peculiar to each; but, unless we recognize time as a factor, it will be difficult to explain the following striking results in Petherwin and Barnstaple. ‘Together they have yielded as many as one hundred and thirty-one species of fossils, yet have no more than seventeen in common; the fossils belong to forty-six genera, of which twenty-five are confined to one or other of the two areas, having amongst them the rich genus Clymenva, with its eleven species all closely restricted, in Britain, to Petherwin, yet occurring in continental Europe. The remaining twenty-one genera are re- presented by eighty-six species, but the representatives are rarely identical in the two areas, the peculiar being to the common as 69 to 17, that is,as 4 to 1. Contend that these beds are strictly centemporary, and the facts remain to puzzle; grant but the lapse of time, and, at least, part of the difficulty disappears, and thereby furnishes another argument in favour of the opinion now advocated.
Returning for a moment to Tables X. and XI., it will be seen that the Barnstaple have a smaller number of fossils in common with the Lower Devonian, and even the Petherwin beds, than with the Carbo- niferous ; hence they may be considered as belonging rather to the last than to the Devonian series, or, possibly, may have to be re- garded as “ passage beds”’ between them.
oe THE GEOLOGIST.
ON SOME POINTS IN THE STRUCTURE OF THE SKULL OF FOSSIL MUSK-DEER (Cuainotherium).
By Craries Carter Braxe, Esq.
While examining lately the magnificent collection of fossil musk- deer, from Auvergne, in the collection of the British Maseum, in the case devoted to the specimens collected by M. Bravard from the lacustrine calcareous marls of Puy-de-Déme, a singular anomaly in the structure of the crania of the genus ainotherium met my view. All the writers who have described the osteology of the skull of ~ Ruminants have noticed those singular deficiencies or lacune which exist at the points of junction of the various bones, and which have been variously described as “ lacrymal openings’’* or “ facial inter- spaces.’ + Their function has been unknown, and their presence, although constant in each individual species, is variable in species nearly allied to each other. In the Cainotherium commune, Bra- vard (Microtherium Renggeri), nearest allied to the Hyomoschus of the present day, ossification at this lacrymal point of intersection has extended to a much less degree than in its living analogue. The interspace in Cainotherium 1s longer in proportion to its breadth than the existing musk-deer (oschus chrysogaster). In the Dorcatherium Nauti, Kaup., on the contrary, not the slightest interspace is exhibited, and the lacrymal angle is definitively closed. In some of the speci- mens named Cainotherium in the British Museum, no interspace exists. These probably belong to a separate species,{ as De Blain- ville remarks on the typical Cainotherium commune, termed by him Anoplotheriwm laticurvatum, that it possesses “ des lacunes sous-laery- males assez grandes, en forme de longues virgules.”
It is most interesting to observe a similar anomalous diversity of structure exists in the recent species of ruminants most nearly allied to the Moschide and Microtheria.
I need only call attention to the fact that a large lacrymal opening is present in the Llama (Awchenia Llama), and none in the Vicuna (A. Vicuna); that in the yellow-bellied musk (A/oschus chrysogaster) a large, and in the small water-musk of Western Africa (Hyomoschus aquaticus) a small interspace exists; whilst in the nearly allied Meminna Indica, Pragulus Stanleyanus, and TL. pygmeus, ossification has extended over the whole point of junction of the lacrymal (73), frontal (11), nasal (15), maxillary (21), and premaxillary (22) bones.
The object of my present communication is to point out some of the reasons for this singular anomalous structure in the fossil and recent Moschide.
* Gray, ‘Catalogue of Mammalia’ in collection of British Museum, part 3.
+ Spencer Cobbold,‘‘ Ruminantia,” in Todd’s, ‘ Cyclopeedia of Anatomy and Physi- ology,’ p. 513.
t De Blainville, ‘“ Ostéographie,” Anoplotherium, p. 75.
BLAKE—ON SKULLS OF FOSSIL MUSK-DEER. 33
The functional interpretation of this singular diversity of organiza- tion in animals otherwise so nearly allied to each other, may not be manifestly apparent to the philosophical zoologist. It was satisfac- torily ascertained in the year 1836* by the observations of Messrs. Bennett, Owen, Ogilby, and Hodgson, that the suborbital sinus sub- served a purpose connected with the generative functions, being dilated and swollen at certain periods of the year. But the connec- tion of the development of the glandular structure of the carneous lacrymal sinus with the degree of ossification to which the cheek- bones extend is not obvious. If however we suppose that the large periodical swelling which, according to Mr. Hodgson, forms a huge lump of flesh bigger than, and lke in shape to, the yolk of an ege, increases periodically in its dimensions, its backward pres- sure towards the cheek-bone would be seriously impeded by a bony wall, such as we find in the Tragulus pygmeus or the Auchenia Vicuna. The aponeurotic fascia which fills the lacrymal interspace in the Hyomoschus aquaticus, or the Auchenia Huanaca, would, however, yield more easily, and thus those species would in certain seasons have a greater development of their suborbital sinuses.
Mr. Ogilbyt laid down the theory “as a general remark, which however he stated was not universal, that in intertropical animals the lacrymal sinus is larger than in more northern species, and in those whose range is limited to mountainous districts.” This incom- plete induction may be considered partially corroborated by the oste- ology of the Llamas: In the three varieties, Guanaco, Llama, and Alpaca, a more or less large “sublacrymal lacuna” is left. In the Vicufia, ossification has extended to such a degree as to close this completely up. How does this singular fact bear upon the theory that there is a relation between the gregarious habits of those ante- lopes and musk-deer which frequent the plains, and the presence of the lacrymal sinuses, and consequent non-ossification of the cheek- bones? The species of Auwchenia which has no lacuna, is confined to the most elevated table-lands of Bolivia and Northern Chile. The three varieties in which large lacune are exhibited, are found over the whole Andian range, the Guanaco supporting life alike under the tropical sky of New Granada, or the frozen steppes of Patagonia. Tn this species we find a large development of the lacrymal inter- space. But both the Guanaco and Vicufia are gregarious. It is therefore quite clear that the development of the lacrymal sinus, or the degree to which the lacrymal and other cheek-bones are ossified, have no reference whatever to the gregarious or solitary habits of the species. This was sufficiently proved by the table which was sub- mitted by Professor Owen to the Zoological Society (Proceedings, 1836, p. 36), in which it was conclusively shown that no constancy or correlation existed with respect to the presence or absence of the suborbital sinuses. And the facial interspace seems an equally in-
* Proc. Zool. Soc. 1836, p. 34. + Proc. Zool. Soc. 1836, p. 38.
MOT: Vs FE
34 THE GEOLOGIST.
constant character in the antelopes, as differentiating various sub- genera or natural groups.
‘If any philosophical thinker can explain what is the vera causa which has provided for the Cainotherium and Guanaco deep pre- orbital interspaces, whilst in their congeners the Dorcatherium and Vicufia, no such interspace exists, a character originally pointed out by Dr. Ag E. Gray, and which according to my experience is the sole specific difference which ean be demionseeacd: such explanation will be of great benefit to zoological science. The above observations are made solely with a view of suggesting further inquiry on this most interesting topic. I trust that some of those writers who have so carefully studied the osteology of Ruminantia, may be led to re- consider the gees aoe and to make further observations on the func- tion of the facial interspaces in both recent and fossil ruminants.
It has been suggested to me, that the two holes in the Aerothe- rium skull, as they are undoubtedly asymmetrical, might have been produced artificially or accidentally, the bone at this place being ex- ceedingly thin. Should such a theory be proved correct, the Aficro- theriwm of the Auvergne deposit would still find its nearest analogue in the existing Meminna of Ceylon, and by the demonstration of this affinity, still further corroborate the truth of Professor Owen’s gene- ralization,—‘“ The affinity of the Microtheres to the Cheorotains is nevertheless very close” (Paleontology, 2nd ed. p. 372).
ON THE DISCOVERY OF HUMAN AND ANIMAL BONES IN HEATHERY BURN CAVE, NEAR STANHOPE.
By Joun Exuxuiort, Esa.
In a tolerably deep ravine, surrounded by trees and brushwood growing in wild profusion, was, until lately, a cave, in that member of the carboniferous formation locally called the “ Great Limestone,” and situated about one mile and a quarter north from the town of Stan- hope, in the county of Durham. The limestone is now being worked for the purpose of supplying the Weardale Iron Company with a flux used in the operation of smelting tbeir ironstone ; and conse- quently the cave has been laid bare to ‘the light of day.
The cave was much visited a few years ago, both by strangers and persons living in the locality, but probably few of the visitors ever studied the excavating forces by means of which the cave was hol- lowed out of the solid limestone, and fewer still, if any, would think that they were treading on a primeval burial- place.
Doubtless the excay ation must be mainly due to aqueous agency, but a reference to Sir Charles Lyell’s ‘ Principles of Geology,’ Pro- fessor Phillips’s ‘ Treatise on Geology,’ and Richardson’s ‘Geology,’ shows that our leading writers on this subject consider that the jirst —
ELLIOTT— HUMAN REMAINS NFAR STANHOPE. 39
eause of a cavern must have been a fracture in the limestone rock, consequent on the upheaval of the strata, and that water then finding access to the crack, would wear it out to its present dimensions. Fractures in this case would most probably take place when the “Red Vein” was formed, which is only between two hundred and three hundred yards distant
> re 2225 a) , aa 2 Ue ae eee from the cave, and crosses
faa Se cape, the ravine nearly at right- i, angles. This vein, which con- tains lead-ore, iron - stone, etc., is a wide one, requiring a wide fissure, and the force necessary to produce such a fissure would be sufficient to cause rents and small dislo- cations in the rocks at con- North. Beantape Barn: siderable distances. Besides Fig. 1.—Ground plan of cavern district. this there are two other veins Pa a eh Bone, Domest: ¢ Red Yel crossing the ravine ab lesser brushwood before the quarry was worked, on hill-side ; distances from the cave, and ge er po As) degrees. these would still further in- crease the probability of an original fissure.
The cave must be very old if we suppose it to have been formed by the water running down tue ravine when on a level with its mouth or opening, seeing that the watercourse is now worn down ten or twelve feet below the cave’s bottom. Again, if we suppose it to have been ex- cavated by the attrition of the wayes of the sea during some re- mote period, when the waters of the ocean stood on a level with the cave, it must still have a very
Fig. 2.—Transverse section of cave. ancient origin, for the cave is : i uerel of the Burn. 4 Level of cave (from a to situated upwards of thirty miles
eet). c Osseous remains in the cave, (from
btoc 14 yards). d cave without remains, (from from the sea, and upwards of base of d to ground-linef' 7 ft). e Limestone. — eight hundred feet above its pre- sent level. This locality must have been submerged during the glacial period, as we have evidence of by the deposits of boulder clay ; and if the sea on receding should have remained on a level with the limestone for a great length of time, the result would have been the wearing down of the rock, or the hollowing out of crevices and caves in the exposed strata.
Jn a certain place of the cave-flooring, the workmen recently came upon a large sheet of stalagmite of varying thickness, but averaging about four inches. This calcareous incrustation has been formed by the ceaseless dropping of water holding lime in solution, from the roof of the cave. On removing this crust and a small portion of fine
¢ ee ys SZ Wie oA py
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Sy GF UNE ee IP Yow,
ps é or =
e SO
36 THE GEOLOGIST.
sand and silt, the workmen exhumed a human skull and a quan- tity of bones, some undoubtedly human, and others belonging to the lower animals. The human skull, according to its phrenological de- velopment, seems to indicate a low intellectuel capacity, the forehead being low, and the circumference under the average standard. There is also a fragment of a skull which seems to have belonged to a toler- ably large animal, as it measures three and a quarter inches from the medial line to the outside beside 6 the ear, giving a breadth of six and a half inches for the whole skull; then if the integuments, hair, ete. be added, we should faa a physio- enomy little short of nine inches wide, and this creature may have been that of one of the principal tenants of the cave, and which pro- bably devoured the cthers. Inter- mixed with the remains are very
a Angular piece of Limestone, Sand, etc. small pieces of bone, ae partially pire sere ce Osseous remains, Sand, Silt, ete, cemented together by calcareous
d Stalagmite. ¢ Open cave. f Limestone. matter, and occurring in patches et different places ; these have the appearance of coprolites. The bones are nearly all fragmentary, and much broken; the fractures being of an ancient date, thereby showing that the remains had been subject to violence and fracture before they were imbedded in their calca- reous tomb.
How long these remains have lain in the cave P- by what means they have been carried and entombed there ? whether the animal-remains belong to existing or to extinct species P and how the fractured bones are to be accounted for? are all very interesting paleontological problems.
The cave has in all probability been occasionally inhabited by wolves, foxes, ete., which would sally forth, seize their prey, and re- turn to devour it, leaving the bones to be covered over by the stalag- mite as we find them ; the coprolites before mentioned seem to point to this conclusion. There seems to be not so much mystery about the animal bones being found there; but the case is quite different as regards the human. There is always something strange and start- ling in such occurrences, when human remains are found otherwise than reposing in the silent and hallowed precincts of a regular bury- ing-place.
During the interment of these relics of some of the perhaps earliest members of our race, the rippling of running water on the cavern floor, the monotonous drippings from the roof, the growling perhaps of wolves, or the barking of foxes, and the bellowi ing of the wind through the gloomy chambers of the cavern, would ‘form the only requiem.
Co OWW FP
[6 or 7 feet wide. ] Fig. 3.—Section of cave.
i | i |
PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 37
Tt ought, in conclusion, to be observed, that the remains are de- posited in a certain wing or chamber of the cave, about two feet above the floor where the water runs, so that they would he dry, with the exception of the calcareous droppings from the roof, or in the case of the cavern water being swollen above the capacity of the lower channel to contain it.
Although a considerable portion of the cave has been destroyed by the quarrying operations, which are still going on, there remains yet a much larger extent undisturbed, so that more remains will most
likely be discovered.
“est Croft, Stanhope, by Darlington. Dec. 17th, 1861.
[These bones, with specimens of the stalagmite, etc., have been transmitted to us and will receive careful study and consideration. We shall shortly give a concise and ac- curate account of them.—Ep. Grot., 22 Dec. 1861.]
PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES.
GroLocicaL Society or Lonpon.— December 4.—Sir R. I. Murchison, V.P.G.S., in the chair. The following communication was read :—‘‘ On the Bracklesham Beds of the Isle of Wight Basin.” By the Rev. O. Fisher, M.A., F.G.S. After noticing the researches of Prestwich and Dixon, the author proceeded to state that most of the “ Bracklesham beds” are displayed at low water at Bracklesham Bay; but other and higher beds belonging to the same series are to be observed in the New Forest, at Stubbington, and in the Isle of Wight. By means of the fossils, for the most part, Mr. Fisher divides the series into four groups :— 1. The uppermost abounds in Gusteropoda, and has several fossil-beds. One of these, in the eastern part of its range, is full of Nwmmulina variolaria (No. 16 of Mr. Prestwich’s Section of Whitecliff Bay, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. uu. pl. 9); the NM. variolaria bed of Selsea and of Stubbington; and the Shepherd’s Gutter bed at Bramshaw, New Forest. The beds above the last-named are—l1st, a portion of No. 19 of the Whitecliff Bay section and the coral-bed of Stokes Bay and Hunting Bridge (New Forest); and 2nd, the shell-bed at Hunting Bridge, and pebble-bed, with shell-casts, at Highcliff. The lowest bed of this groupis the ‘‘Cyprea-bed”’ of Selsea, the ‘‘Cardita-bed” of Stubbington, and the Brook bed in the New Forest. 2. This group is more sandy than the last; it has two fossil-beds, one of which contains Cerithium giganteum (at Hillhead, Stubbington; and half a mile west of Thorney station, Bracklesham Bay). 3. This is a sandy group, and is remarkable for the profusion of Nwimmulina levigata in its principal fossil-bearing beds. 4. This embraces the lowest fossiliferous sands of Bracklesham Bay. Its distinctive shells are Cardita acuticosta and Cyprea tuberculosa.
Some species of mollusks pass upwards from the Bracklesham into the Barton series ; yet the Fauna of the Bracklesham beds has a sufficiently distinct facies; and the following species range through this series, and are confined to it—Cardita planicosta, Sanguinolaria Hollowaysit, Solen obliquus, Cytherea suberycinoides, Voluta Cithara, and Turritella suleifera. Pecten corneus is also characteristic, but is met with higher up.
38 THE GEOLOGIST.
The Bracklesham beds seen at Whitecliff Bay were first treated of, and Mr. Prestwich’s section referred to in detail. No. 6 (a pebble-bed) of this published section is regarded by Mr. Fisher as the base of the Brackle- sham series; the upper limit being somewhere in No. 19. Descriptions followed of the beds seen at Bracklesham Bay ; the eastern side of Selsea; at the Mixen Rocks; at weil-sinkings near Bury Cross; at Stubbington (including the Cerithium-bed at Hillhead, discovered by the author in 1856) ; Netley, Bramshaw, Brook, and Hunting Bridge (where H. Keeping has lately found a fossil-bed high in the series), in the New Forest. Indications of the western range of the marine shells of “ Bracklesham” aze were quoted as occurring at Lychett, near Poole, and as very rare (one Ostrea) near Corfe.
Bracklesham beds, containing marine forms, seen at Alum Bay, Isle of Wight, and at Highcliff, near Christchurch, were then described in full. The Bracklesham series is regarded by Mr. Fisher as commencing in both these sections a few feet beneath a dark-green clay (part of No. 29 of Mr. Prestwich’s section of Alum Bay) containing a peculiar variety of Nummulina planulata and many shells of the Barton Fauna.
Remarks were also made on the estuarine condition of the lower Bracklesham beds in their western area; on the probable sources of their materials; on the successive deepenings of the old sea-bottom, and the formation of the pebble-beds; and lastly, on the fitness of the Brackle- sham and Barton series as a field for research in the history of molluscan species.
The paper was illustrated by a series of specimens from the author’s collection.
Specimens of gold in quartz-veins, of gold-dust, and of gold-ingots, from Nova Scotia, sent by Mr. Secretary Howe, were exhibited by Pro- fessor Tennant, F.G.S.
CORRESPONDENCE.
Northampton Sands.
Dear Sir,—The November number of your valuable journal contains a paper by Mr. J. H. Macalister, on ‘‘ The Fossils of North Bucks and the adjacent Counties,’’ in which, I believe, reference is made to myself in the following passage, page 481:—‘“‘ The identity of the Northampton Sands (formerly classed with the has) with the Stonefield Slate of Oxford- shire and Gloucestershire, and constituting the lower zone of the Great Oolite;” and in a note it is added, “so classed by Dr. Wright, being separated by him from the inferior oolite, which they formerly were sup- posed to represent.”
To this statement I have simply to say, that Mr. Macalister is altogether incorrect, as I have nowhere classed the Northampton Sands with the lias, nor made any reference to them. If that gentleman will refer to my memoir on “ The Paleontological and Stratigraphical Relation of the so-called Sands of the Inferior Oolite” (Quart. Journal of the Geol. Soe. vol. xii. p. 292), for 1856, he will find a full statement of the case, as regards the counties of Gloucester, Somerset, and Dorset, but no reference whatever to Northampton; and in the preface to my ‘ Monograph on. the Oolitic Echinodermata,’ p. ix., he will find it stated that ‘in every
\
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—— SSS : ‘aur
ST i
SECTION OF THE CHALK CLIFFS UNDER DOVER
S. J. Mackie, F.G.S., del.
CASTLE
KENT.
NOTES AND QUERIES. 39
instance, with the exception of the Northamptonshire beds, which have been carefully noted by my friend, the Rev. A. N. Griesbach, I have visited the localities given in this work,” but in no part of that mono- graph has my friend referred the Northampton Sands to the has. Mr. Macatister has been therefore altogether misinformed on this subject. I submit that it ought to be a rule with gentlemen furnishing papers to the valuable pages of the ‘ Geologist,’ in every case to refer to the original articles from which they quote. Yours most truly, THomas WRIGHT. Cheltenham, November, 1861.
NOTES AND QUERIES.
SUBDIVISIONS OF THE CHALK Formation.—The generally accepted subdivisions of the chalk are,—1, Upper White Chalk with bands of Flint nodules; 2, Middle or Lower White Chalk; 3, Grey Chalk or Chalk Marl.
These have been in undisputed use for very many years, not because they do not require any modification to render the accordance more definite and more rigidly corresponding to the accumulation of information which has been going on since their introduction, but chiefly because chalk,—at least English chalk,—is white or of a pale grey, which when the beds are in a dry state is so nearly white, that ordinary eyes do not see the difference, and ordinary collectors do not care about it so long as they can get hold of a fine fossil.
Still, however, it is very necessary, and high time that some one should take in hand to define accurately the lines of division, especially that be- tween the upper and lower white chalks.
I doubt very much that the cessation of the bands of flints denotes the demarcation between the upper and lower white chalk (middle chalk of some authors): they should be properly, and must be ultimately, separated by a characteristic difference in the distinguishing organic remains.
With the lowermost bands of flints (Plate IT. a) very numerous beds of veniriculites and sponges set in, and are continued far below the termina- tion of the layers of flints, down to a very thick bed of pure white’chalk (4), that rests upon a very marked and peculiar stratum about two feet thick (c), which, from the weathering out of its upper and under surfaces, forms a marked line as far as the eye can see the distinctions of bedding all along the coast.
This bed, in my own note-books and in conversation, I have familiarly termed the ‘‘ two-foot stratum.”
Below this we have again a thick bed of white chalk, free from flints. At least, such is the order in the section to which these remarks more particu- larly refer, namely, that presented by the East or Castle Cliff at Dover, of which we give a view in Plate II.
This “two-foot stratum ” is persistent throughout Kent, and I have met withit both in Surrey and Sussex, and it will therefore probably form one of the best and most unmistakable guides in inland quarries to those particular beds of white chalk to which we wish to draw attention, for the purpose of getting all the information we can as to their geographical area, order of succession, and organic contents in other chalk districts, so that the true horizon of division, as formed by distinctiveness of organic remains, may be properly made out.
40 THE GEOLOGIST.
We shall be obliged by communications, and stratigraphical lists of fossils from our readers and correspondents, to assist us in our labours in determining this interesting point of Whether the ordinary division into “white chalk with flints,” and ‘‘ white chalk without flints,” is not merely a mineralogical division, and not a proper geological subdivision cha- racterized by distinctive organic remains, and marking out a positive zone in the succession of geological events and of life-forms ; or Whether a dis- tinguishing alteration in the organic remains of the white chalk does not happen so near the horizon of cessation of flint layers, that by including or excluding some few beds of chalk, those valuable and characteristic petrolo- gical features (of chalk with, or without flints) may not be made more pre- cisely valuable and definite than at present. S. J. Macxig.
Lower Sr1iurtan Fossits at Buitry.—The neighbourhood of Builth affords excellent specimens of many of the Lower Silurian fossils, espe- cially trilobites. It may be useful to inform amateur and professed geolo- gists that the little town of Builth contains a good practical geologist in the person of Mr. John Jones, gardener at Pencarrig House, who, though in humble circumstances, possesses a capital knowledge of the fossils of the district, and the localities where they may at once be found. He is willing at all times, so far as his duties permit, to become the pioneer of geo- logical visitors at Builth, and will, for a suitable consideration, forward spe- cimens to correspondents. Several amateurs of high standing, as well as professors, have availed themselves of his knowledge to the enriching of their collections. Within the last twelve months I have received from him some excellent specimens of Trilobites (Ogygia Buchii, Ampyx nudus, Trinucleus concentricus, etc.), also specimens of Didymograpsus, Graptolithus, Rastrites, etc. I make this statement that others wishing to have their collections of Lower Silurian remains added to, may know whither to look for aid.—A_ Lmom1nsTER SUBSCRIBER.
Mammatian Remains.—In the ‘ Philosophical Transactions’ for1715, vol. xxix., two teeth of Elephas, probably H. antiquus, are recorded to have been found in the north of Ireland, at Maghery, eight miles from Bulturbet, in digging the foundation of a mill near the side of a small brook that parts the counties of Cavan and Monaghan. They were about 4 feet underground, and about 80 yards from the brook. The bed on which they lay had been laid with ferns, and with that sort of rushes here ealled “sprits,” with which brushes and nut-shells were intermixed. Under this was a stiff blue clay, on which teeth and bones were found. Above this was, first, a mixture of yellow clay; under that a fine white sandy clay, which was next to the bed. The bed was, for the most part, a foot thick, cutting like turf; and in every layer the seed of the rush was as fresh as if new pulled.
In the ‘ Philosophical Transactions’ for 1754, vol. xlvii., there is a record of several bones of an elephant found at Leysdown, in the island of Sheppey, by Mr. Jacob, surgeon, of Faversham. Three or four years before, Mr. Jacob had sent the acetabulum of an elephant, which was dis- covered sticking in the clay which was partly washed away from the cliff, about a mile eastward of the cliffs of Minster. This, with other parts— vertebrae, a thigh-bone 4 feet long, too rotten to be taken up entire—all lay below high-water mark ; and as the place soon after became his property by purchase, he then went, attended by some workmen, in search of more relics, and found a tusk 8 feet long and 12 inches in circumference in the middle, besides other bones within 20 feet of those first recorded.
|
PLATS Ill.
3. J. Mackie del.
Fig. 1.
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CYPHOSOMA KCNIGT.
[From the Upper Chall PI
oa
of Gravesend, Kent.]
In the National Collection, British Museum.
THE GEOLOGIST.
FEBRUARY 1862.
NOTE ON KONIG’S SEA-URCHIN. (Cyphosoma Kenigi, Mantell.)
By S. P. Woopwarp, F.G.S.
One of the commonest fossils of the chalk in the London district is the beautiful Sea-Urchin, of which we here give two figures, from examples in the national collection. It was named by Dr. Mantell, in honour of Mr. Charles Konig, the distinguished German savant, who in his youth was Librarian to Sir Joseph Banks, and became after- wards the Keeper of the Natural History Collections in the British Museum. By the country people in Wiltshire it is called the “Shepherd’s Crown.”
The Konig’s Sea-Urchin belongs to a subdivision of the old Lin- nean genus Cidaris, to which the name of Cyphosoma was given by
_ Agassiz (from kudos, curvus; cdpa, corpus). The five ambulacral
bands are nearly as broad as the inter-ambulacral, and are ornamented with a double series of tubercles equal in size to the rest. These tubercles are placed on crenulated bosses, but are not perforated as in most of the Cidaride.
The upper and under sides of this fossil Urchin are so different that drawings of them might be taken to represent two distinct species. The under side exhibits ten pairs of rows of tubercles, largest at the margin, and diminishing gradually to the central orifice. On the upper surface the tubercles are much smaller, and there are two ad- ditional rows on the inter-ambulacral bands, external to those which are continued downwards over the base. This character was pointed
MOl:,: V. G
4.2, THE GEOLOGIST.
out by Dr. Mantell in his original description of the species, and serves to distinguish it from another form, nearly equally common in the chalk, which is figured and described by Goldfuss as C. granulosus, but is generally regarded as a (perhaps sexual ?) variety, having a more tumid shell, and with the additional rows of tubercles on the upper surface rudimentary or obsolete.
The pairs of ambulacral pores in Cyphosoma Kenigi, form ten wind- ing lines from the mouth-opening (peristome) to the apical orifice (periproct). They are somewhat crowded at the mouth, but extend in single file to a little above the circumference, and then fall into double series on the upper part of the shell. The specimen repre- sented by fig. 1 exhibits a portion of the dental apparatus, lying in the peristome, and consisting of one of the five pairs of jaws which are similar in all the Hehinide, and form the ‘ lantern’ of Aristotle.
Young and half-grown specimens of Cyphosoma Kenigi are com- paratively rare. They may be recognized by the flatness of the under surface, which distinguishes them at all ages, while in the little C. corollare (Parkinson) the base is rendered concave by the curling in- wards of the margin of the peristome. In the other common little species, C. spatuliferwm (Forbes), the ambulacral pores are ranged in single file throughout their course.
The spines of Cyphosoma Keenigi are awl-shaped and rather short and stout, with spatulate ends. In the second example figured, a multitude of spines of all sizes were preserved in connexion with the shell, and have been cleared from the matrix with great skill and in- genuity by Mrs. W. H. Allen.
There is another specimen in the British Museum with the spines remaining i situ, which was obtained more than a century ago, and formed one of the ornaments of Sir Hans Sloane’s collection.
Although common in the chalk-pits of the Thames Valley, and in those near Brighton and Lewes, the Cyphosoma Kenigi appears to be unknown to the collectors of fossils from the uppermost division of the chalk at Norwich, or in the corresponding bed at Ciply in Bel- gium, and Meudon near Paris. It is said to be found at Montolieu, in the department of Drome, at Dusseldorf, and in the island of Rugen in the Baltie.
a ——
a
43
SKETCH OF THE GEOLOGY OF THE TORBANE MINERAL FIELD.
By AnpRew Tayrtor, F.R.PS., F.B.S.E.
The various corps of an army drawn up in line of battle are dis- tinguished not only by their various uniforms, but also by the dis- tinct position assigned them in the field. This greatly helps the general to the immediate disposition of sharpshooters, infantry, or artillery, as the fate of battle may require. Most of the minerals which are the basis of our commercial and mining greatness are obtained from the Carboniferous system. The industrialist obtains them from various parts of this formation. When a new substance has presented itself, having characters very different from the ordi- nary rank and file of coals, clay-bands, or fire-clays, its stratigraphi- eal position will help us to determine if it is entitled to a distinct character. If its place be distinct from those of the ordinary coals, if likewise there are indications of a different physical mode of for- mation, then its claim to be a new mineral will be greatly strength- ened.
The lower carboniferous rocks of Scotland consist of shales-and sandstones more than a thousand feet thick, termed by Mr. Maclaren the calciferous sandstone series. A freshwater limestone, equivalent to that worked at Burdie House, near Edinburgh, is the predominant member of this group. This limestone runs in an elliptical area round that city for nearly twenty-four miles, extending through Fite, Midlothian, and Linlithgowshires. Part of this series extends to the south-east of the town of Bathgate, round which is the Torbane Hill mineral basin. A geological section in the Bathgate Hills, taken from Dechmont-law to Balbardie House, exhibits a limestone containing freshwater fossils, and equivalent to the one worked at Burdie House, gradually merged into another limestone containing marine fossils, which is usually recognized as the lowest bed of the carboniferous series.
The axis of the hills occurs in a wooded prominence overlooking the Caputhall Bogs, and near the “ Clinking Stane.” At this point the limestones may be traced within a few hundred yards of each other, dipping north-north-west and south-south-east. The Kirkton limestone, a peculiar bed, described by Dr. Hibbert, containing both marine and fluviatile remains, intervenes. Eastward from the pro- minence just indicated, both the axis of the hills, and the connexion of the limestones, may be traced in the burn running through Ban- gour Farm, at Binny, and thence at various points to the shore of the Forth at Hopetoun.
From the section described, the succession of the strata on either side of the axis, comprising the country eastward to Edinburgh on the one hand, and westward to Shotts on the other, is as follows :—
44, THE GEOLOGIST.
Axis. W.NN. ‘ S.S. E. \ i] 3. Upper Lanarkshire coal measures :— 3. Sandstones, shale, and a bed of coal. Wholly fluviatile organic characters. 2. Beds of marine and fluvio-marine lime- | 2. Freshwater limestone. stone intercalated with shale, coal, ironstone, and stratified trap. 1. Shales, sandstones. 1. Shale, sandstone, tufa.
On the Bathgate Hills the marine limestone is sixty feet thick, and the fluviatile limestone about twenty feet thick. But towards the south-west, on the borders of Edinburgh and Lanarkshires, the marine limestone thins into beds of from three to six feet thick, whilst the freshwater bed is above fifty feet thick.
The Torbane Hill bed lies in number two of the left-hand series of strata. Along with two or three local coal-seams, it occupies a small mineral basin some two or three miles in area, lying immedi- ately above the mountain-limestone, but stratigraphically distinct from the upper Lanarkshire coal-measures. The petrological struc- ture of the surrounding strata is very unique; let us try to evolve their history.
The physical changes closing the life-era of the Scott?sh old red sandstone system are difficult to determine. From various geolo- gical reasons, the chief of which are the wave-ripples on the sand- stones, and the physical structure of the surrounding mountain-chains, it has been deduced that central Scotland was a strait or frith bounded as now by the prominent peaks of the northern and southern High- lands. Islets, covered by a strange vegetation, dotted this watery cx- panse; from the eastward strong currents brought down the spoils of a now lost land, depositing the shales and sandstones so predominant round the Scottish metropolis. In this quarter, too, an intense vol- canic activity prevailed.
The trappean bosses, which form so prominent a feature in the landscape round Edinburgh, were mostly erupted at this time. So, at least, the labours of Mr. Geikie and others go to prove.
From St. Abb’s Head to Bathgate a chain of volcanos sent up their lurid contents into the Carboniferous sky. Nowhere was this activity more intense thin on the Bathgate hills. The freshwater series to the eastwards of our section are everywhere intercalated with trap ; some of it developed as aerial ash-beds, the rest as submarine green- stones. ‘The prominences round Winchburgh, Binny, and Linlithgow, which the railway-traveller may remember so boldly characterize the scenery, are the memorials of these eruptions. The spot pointed out as the axis of the hills was undoubtedly the vent of a very active vol- cano. Immediately above Bathgate four or five great beds of basaltic greenstone and ash lie so intercalated with the aqueous strata as to
TAYLOR—TORBANE MINERAL FIELD. AS
be only explicable on the hypothesis that they were emptied at the same time that the other strata were deposited.
The chemical changes effected by these igneous strata on the sur- rounding rocks are likewise very curious. In many places the lime- stone is changed into a crystalline marble. One bed at Kirkton affords undoubted evidence that it was deposited by a thermal spring. The great thickness the main bed of limestone in the hills attains, may be accounted for as much from its being a chemical deposit, as one of animal origin. The sandstones and shales, too, are often curi- ously baked, showing the violence of the igneous agencies. But we call special attention to the prevalence of bitumen in the district, some- times appearing solid in the crevices of the sandstones, as at Binny ; sometimes in round circular nodules in the trap or limestones ; and sometimes oozing out liquid from trappean reservoirs.
The circular type of structure is very prevalent in the aqueous rocks of the district, as in the sandstone at King’s Cavel, and amongst the ironstones. It extends throughout the rock sys- tems. It is most manifest in the oolite or roe-stone of another for- mation. However we may explain it, it is clearly the result of agen- cies at work when the sandstones and shales were depositing, and not a subsequent chemical change. This admitted, it follows that most of the bitumen of the district is contemporaneous with the igneous rocks, and that the highly bituminous sandstones and shales were saturated at the period of their deposition. The clearest proof of this is the structure of the celebrated Binny sandstone. How else can we explain the black bituminous patches appearing on its surface P The physical agency at work may have been the conjunction of two rapid currents. But it is much easier to suppose the bitumen ejected from some neighbouring volcano floated in the waters of the lagoon or river in which the sandstone was forming, and then me- chanically mingled with it ; than that the sandstone was subsequently saturated from beneath.
Facts zonnected with the occurrence and formation of bitumen at the present day bear out this hypothesis. Its connection with volcanic agency is well known. The celebrated pitch-lake of Trinidad stands in close proximity to a volcano, as also do some of the bituminous localities im Asia Minor. All the three varieties of this substance float on water. Maltha, or mineral pitch, floats on the surface of the Dead Sea. Petroleum floats on the Tigris and Euphrates, so much so, that the surface of the river is often set on fire. The boatmen.on the Tigris and Huphrates are paid in this substance. Doubtless at the bottom of these rivers there are many nascent beds of richly bitu- minous shales.
Given then a series of submarine volcanos ejecting out sheets of liquid bitumen, and at the same time sand and mud rapidly deposited ; let these commingle, and we have the rationale of the formation of the Binny sandstone, and the bituminous shales of Queensferry and Broxburn. ‘These forces ceased after a time. A morass was slowly formed which now constitutes the Houston ceal-bed. This indicates
46 THE GEOLOGIST.
another condition under which bitumen was eliminated. In this case it is the result not of mechanical deposition, but of subsequent chemi- eal action from decaying organic substances. Again, the action of the currents was resumed, and fresh bituminous shales were formed.
When the contemporaneous traps on the north-west side of our section were ejected, the same succession of physical changes con- tinued. Bitumen occurs in globules both in the contemporaneous traps and in the limestones. The limestones indicate three marked alterations in the level of the land. First, the Kirkton limestone, with its leafy lamine, and curiously baked hens of cherty porcelain, is interstratified ash, and over: -capping basalt indicate proximate vol- canic activity when forming. J luvio-marine fossils are found in it. The land then sank so far as to allow the building corals to com- mence their labours ; a reef was now formed which was added to by shells dashed in by the surf from the neighbouring sea, and the pre- cipitation of carbonate of lime from a sea surcharged from its prox- imity to a voleanic cone; thus the great belt of the limestone of the hills was formed. But immediately after the land was subject to as rapid an elevation ; as is manifest from the Stigmarias found in the upper bed of the limestone,—the lower beds abounding in deep-sea shells. Ash-beds also cover it. The hills now seem gradually to have risen above the waves, and a prevalence of freshwater strata filled the small Torbane Hill basin. But all this time the voleano did not stop its activity, as is evidenced by the thick ridges of inter- bedded basalt which may be traced terracing the country upwards from Bathgate. It is easy to suppose that sheets of bitumen, as at the prior period of the Binny sandstone, floated on the waters of this lagoon; that in one time in particular, a very large quantity was given out, and thus, aided mayhap by ejections from beneath, the Tor- bane Hill bed was formed. May not the round circular masses in the Torbane Hill mineral, which so puzzle microscopists, be the result of the action of currents, ,—only, however, on a smaller scale than those visible to the naked eye in the other rocks. of the district >? In sug- gesting this hypothesis we make allowance for the fact that at other tymes the basin was elevated so that morasses could accumulate, and thus the beds of coal be formed. The district thus exhibits evidence of both modes of the elimination of bitumen.
In the upland country west of the Torbane Hill basin there is a sin-
gular absence of trappean ridges. The district rises into a series of
undulating hills formed solely of the upper members of the carboni- ferous system of Lanarkshire. The lower carboniferous volcano had ceased previous to their deposition ; and the Bathgate bills probably formed elevated land at the base of the great strait in which these strata were depositing. Slowly the land rose and fell, morass after morass accumulated to be compressed into future coal-beds after being covered over by sand and mud. Bitumen was thus formed through chemical agencies. Its source is manifest from the microscopic struc- ture of the coal, which is entirely of woody origin, not exhibiting
traces of clay or sand from drift. The beds of this upper formation —
0g RE Wg em ee. inane
RUBIDGE— SOUTH-AFRICAN ROCKS. 47
were deposited over a wide area, and, unlike the Torbane Hill basin, with the greatest uniformity. This upper coal-basin then strikingly contrasts with the unique character of the Torbane Hill basin; and greatly aids our argument that the mineral was formed under different physical conditions from those of the true coal-beds.
NOTES ON THE METAMORPHOSIS OF ROCKS IN SO UME ARICA:
By Dr. R. N. Rusipes, of Port Elizabeth.
It is near eleven years since that in travelling through Howison’s Poort,* one of the most picturesque of the many fine mountain passes through the quartzite ranges of the eastern province of the Cape Colony, my atteution was drawn to a geological fact to which obser- vation in other parts of the Colony has since led me to attach no little importance. In the construction of the main road from Port Elizabeth to Graham’s 'Town, many deep cuttings have been made in the solid quartzite rock. In many instances the rock seen in these works lost its crystalline character gradually, and assumed that of a hard blue sandstone, and at length nearly resembled the blue fossi- liferous shales and sandstones of the Kcca.
These quartzite rocks have been referred to the age of the Carbo- niferous formation of Europe by Mr. Bain (Geol. Trans. vol. vil. 2nd series, pp. 54 and 188), and both he and Dr. Atherstone (‘ Kastern Pro- vince Magazine,’ vol.i. p. 588) describe them as conformable with the slaty rocks of the district. I have no doubt whatever that they generally are so. They pass gradually into each other, and, as I have described, the quartzite traced downward loses much of its siliceous character, and gradually assumes that of the slate and of the Ecca rock. This last is by Mr. Bain dissociated from the Carboniferous formation, and made the lowermost of the Lacustrine or Karoo series, but I have the following reasons for differing with him :—
1. At the western entrance of Howison’s Poort are some beds of rock, intermediate in lithological character between the quartzite and the Hcca beds. These contain vegetable stems which have been re- cognized by many as identical with those of the Ecca. At Forester’s Farm, east of Graham’s Town, is a blue rock, just like that of the HKeeca, containing the same fossils, which passes gradually into the eneiss. The sandstone on the one side is in relation on the other with the claystone-porphyry of Bain, as is the rock at the Ecea. Near Salem, in the heart of the Carboniferous system of Bain, are similar rocks with like fossils, conformable with the quartzite.
2. The strike of the inclined rocks, quartzites, slates, and Ecca rocks is throughout the province north 60° west nearly. If we draw
Poort, a natural pass through a mountain range.
48 THE GEOLOGIST.
a line of eight miles through Graham’s Town and near Salem, at right- angles to this direction, it will pass through little but quartzite. If we draw a line of the same length through the Commadagga beyond the Zeurberg, it will pass through nothing but slates, Ecca rock, and claystone porphy ry
3. On the road to Graaff Reinet is a place called Wolve Krool. It is a plain, bounded by quartzite hills. Its section is this :—
Here the Ecea rock contains Fig. 1. its characteristic fossils, is eon- formable with the quartzite, and } is separated from the Dicyno- don rocks by a highish moun tain of quartzite and many males of slate, porphyry, etc. I could add many other reasons for this belief, but I think these will be sufficient. What is then the true relation of the quartzite to the Ecca rock and the slates? and how is it that at one part of a line of strike the rock will be all of a blue slaty fossiliferous character, and at another all crystalline quartzite, destitute, or nearly so, of fossils ? How is it that in deep sections, natural as well as artificial, such as are made by cutting roads or by deep gullies, the slaty rocks are found below gradually passing upwards into quartzite? Of this I could give scores of instances, but I will select only one natural one. The range of quartzite on the left-hand of the section is crossed by a bye- road. This road passes for a mile or more over well-marked Ecca rock, with the high quartzite hills on either hand. The quartzite on the right-hand dies out, and the road to Graaff Reinet passes over Ecca rock in the corresponding part of the section.
I found what I believe to be the key to the explanation of these facts in Namaqualand. In passing through Ezel’s Poort, between Springbok Vontein and Spectakel, | was shown a section which had been noted by Dr. Atherstone as remarkable. The gneiss hills were covered by horizontal layers of quartzose sandstone, and these were continuous on the western side of the hill with like quartzose sand- stone dipping at a high angle westward, conformably with the gneiss. Tt was clear that this change of dip was not due to any upheaval, for the horizontal sandstones were found undisturbed a few yards distant. I soon learnt to regard this juxtaposition of horizontal and inclined beds, this continuity of quartzite conformable and unconformable with its subjacent rock, as a normal state of things in Namaqualand. When I saw high mountains with like structure, I was at first a little stag- gered, but soon felt convinced that even on this scale the phenomenon was due to the assimilation to each other by a process, common to both, of rocks of widely different ages.
In the Western Province I made, in a rapid journey from Cape Town to Ceres, a selection from the clay-slate to the Upper Silurian of Bain. I had reason, as far as I was able, to confirm the truth of . Mr. Bain’s section, while differing from him in the inference I drew
. MN peat ae WYP,
vs
Quartzite. Porphyry.
Quartzite. Porphyry. Heea rock. Slate.
Slate,
RUBIDGE—SOUTH-AFRICAN ROCKS. . 49
from it. I believe his wide dislocation of the Ceres beds from the clay- slate to be an error into which he has been led by a state of things like that of Ezel’s Poort. I have never been able to get direct proof that this is the case here, although I have elsewhere, as shall pre- sently appear.
On my return to the Eastern Province, I thought I saw evidence of the siliceous change of rocks on a much oreater scale than I had observed them in Namaqualand. I wrote a Paper on the subject, and published it in the local magazine I have quoted above (‘ Hastern Province Magazine,’ vol. ii. p. 187). I hoped it would have led my friends here, from whose sections mine differed considerabl y, to re- examine their data. A little after, I sent home a Paper which was read at the Geological Society of London (see an abstract of it in the ‘Geological Society’s Journal,’ vol. xv. p. 195), in which I eo these views, and predicted that the clay-slate of the west would here- after be found identical with the Upper Silurian of Bain, and the Car- boniferous rocks of the east identical with both, the quartzite being changed rock, sometimes slate itself, sometimes a newer unconfor- mable rock, Of this identity I was ‘enabled to send home strong presumptive proof in the shape of fossils identical with the Upper Silurian of Bain, from the clay-slate on the western shores of Francis Bay. More recently L have obtained the same fossils (pronounced Devonian at home) from various points between the Kromme and Kabeljouw rivers, St. Francis Bay, in the clay-slate, and from Chatty, near Port Elizabeth ; from Naroo, near Uitenhage ; from Blauw Krants, on the Bezuidenhouts river, on the road to Graaff Reinet ; and from the northern base of the Coxcomb in the Winterhoek range in the Carboniferous. Still, it might be objected that there may really be a difference between the clay-slate and the Devonian, though Mr. Bain may have mistaken the line of division. If refer- ence be made to the Admiralty chart of St. Francis Bay, it will be seen that the low shores of the bay are crossed by a range of moun- tains of considerable elevation. These mountains, which are quartz- ite, cross the strike at a considerable angle, nearly, in fact, for some distance at a right angle; so that on the beach and the low hills you may cross near ten miles of slate, perhaps five miles of strike, while six or eight miles inland, on the heights, the corresponding part of the section is all quartzite. The quartzite must, consequently, cross unconformably the slates, and therefore be newer than they. The reasons why they cannot be older, I need not give here, as I have given many of them above. These same quartzite hills are continuous with others of the same lithological character, which are decidedly confor- mable with the Devonian rocks, though they too cross the strike at an angle of 30°. I have not had opportunities for such an examination of the country between this and Cape Town, as to enable me to say positively that there are no beds older than the Devonian; but I think I have shown satisfactorily that the evidence on which the clay- slate is referred to a much higher antiquity is fallacious. I can safely assert that the Devonian beds of this country are crossed by lofty
VOL. V. H
50 THE GEOLOGIST.
ranges of quartzite, often unconformable with them, which quartzite is continuous with like quartzite conformable with the Devonian beds. Whence I infer that the rocks of a tract of country may be so altered by molecular changes common to all (probably in the instance of our rocks the infiltration of silica), that beds of widely different ages may pre- sent the same lithological character, and that when horizontal quartzose (or calcareous* or felspathic ?) rocks are continuous with inclined rocks of the same kind 7 ts not always safe to infer that beds resting conformably on the latter are much newer formation than those on which the sandstones rest unconformably, that the beds a, 6, are very far older than ¢, d, for instance.
oe 2. GN (1 7 iin m\ \ WUE Mj
a b
It is my conviction then (though I admit that my evidence is not quite conclusive) that the inclined slaty rocks of this Colony, west as well as east, all belong one formation, which geologists at home have, on the evidence of fossils, pronounced to be Devonian; and that the quartzite is a rock which has undergone a superficial change, and may therefore be called metamorphic. This siliceous metamorphosis is associated with other changes. The clay-slaty beds are often con- verted into ochry, micaceous, and chloritic schists.
There is not in the Eastern Province much evidence of ordinary metamorphic action, except in the claystone-porphyry of Bain, which I regard as a product of metamorphic action, as I shall more fully explain hereafter. At the Matland mines , about twenty miles west of Port Elizabeth, are slates like those which at Chatty contain Devonian fossils. Some of these have been converted into chloritie, hornblendic, and micaceous schists, without any evidence of the prox- _ imity of eruptive rocks. Im the planes of bedding of these schists are veins of quartz, and occasionally carbonate of lime, not very rich in copper-pyrites. I regard the hard blue crystalline limestone of the same locality, in which lead and zine ore occurs, as partially, at least, metamorphic. At George and other places intermediate be- tween Cape Town and here, granite occurs, but as I have had no opportunity of examining it, I shall trace the evidences of metamor- phic action from Cape Town northward.
At Cape Town I found granite-veins varying from one to three feet to as many lines diameter running parallel with the strike of the clay-slate rocks without displacing them, showing, I think, that they had been changed zz situ. Other veins crossed “the strike. Again,
* T think I saw calcareous beds of which all I have asserted of the quartzite might be predicated.
RUBIDGE—SOUTH-AFRICAN ROCKS. 51
isolated masses of slate preserved their dip unaltered in the midst of granite which appeared to have a dipinthe same direction. Passing north-westward towards Namaqualand, I saw the slate near Heer- lozement so little altered and so like some of the fossiliferous rocks of the Hastern Province that I much regretted that my engagements did not permit of a closer examination of it. At Olifant’s river the rocks, still with the same strike as in Cape Town, viz. nearly magnetic north (north 30° west), had assumed a micaceous and talcose character, and on the northern bank of the river were much impregnated with iron. Four or five miles beyond Kokonap I saw the slate for the last time till I met it at the Orange river, and here it abounded in a peculiar form of eyanite which I afterwards found in great abundance in the gneiss and mica-schist of De Kiet, near Hondeklip Bay. Some grassy country intervened between this spot and the next where rocks were visible. These were felspathic in great variety. I could not get a satisfactory observation of their dip for some days’ journey, perhaps owing to the little experience I had then of rocks of this class. There are few things I have more to regret im the wav of lost opportunities than the want of a careful examination in detail of the country within ten miles’ radius of the lowermost ford of the Olifant’s river. It would include a section from the clay-slate to the Upper Silurian of Bain which are found in the Cederberg as well as the passage of the former into the felspathic rocks of Namaqualand. Bain has no hesitation in affirming this change, and I have every reason to think that he is correct ; but believing as I do in the identity of his clay-slate and the Upper Silurian, I cannot but regret that I was unable to make a thorough examination of the country. I believe Bain’s separation of the clay-slate from the Upper Silurian (Devo- nian) are drawn here as elsewhere from the position of the quartzite crossing the slate and underlying the Devonian. Is not this evidence identical with that on which metamorphic formations are assigned to widely distant epochs in Europe P
In addition to the want of time and of experience referred to, I have to regret the loss of a note-book in which my observations on the rocks in the earlier as well as later part of my journey in Nama- qualand were inserted. I cannot therefore tell from my own obser- vations how the strike of the rocks which was north 30° west at Olifant’s river, assumes a nearly east and west strike at Springbok Vontein. As we pass northwards it takes a more northerly direc- tion, and at Oograbis it is north 60° west, and at Annies, on the Orange river, it resumes its north 30° west strike with its slaty character. I have no hesitation in affirming the passage of the slate into felspathiec rock here.
Assuming, then, the metamorphosis of paleozoic rocks into gneiss, mica-schist, etc., I will merely reiterate my firm belief that those of Namaqualand are the changed condition of the great mass of slaty beds which extend from the mouth of the Tish river in the east to Cape Town, and thence to Olifant’s river, and at various points con- tain fossils which have been referred to the Devonian epoch by geologists of Europe. I again admit that the evidence by which I
52 THE GEOLOGIST.
have attempted to establish this is somewhat defective, but I have shown clearly that that on which it is dented is valueless.
I have already described the interpolation of masses of granite among the slate of Cape Town without displacement : this phenomenon obtains to a much greater extent in Namaqualand; great masses of granite, with little if any evidence of stratification, pass gradually into eneiss on either side, and, in fact, all round, without change of dip. These are called locally “ bosses,” and their scaling off is remarkable, giving them the rounded outline, whence their name. The same thing is seen in the change of hornblende-schist into greenstone or syenite, with large crystals of hornblende. Numerous instances of this occur; one of the most striking is between Klein Pella and Oomsdrift.*
I have mentioned in a former Paper that the soni of the strata in which the copper-ore is deposited occur in gneiss, and when a sec- tion is seen on a hill-side no granite is visible, but when worked to any considerable depth, the rock loses its laminated character and be- comes a felspathic granite or greenstone. A remarkable section was observed near Pella: a stream had worked a deep channel in the rocks ; the edges of the ravine so formed were of well-marked gneiss, while the water ran cver a bed of granite without trace of lamina- tion, the gneiss preserving the same dip on either side of the ravine. Indeed, it appeared to me as if metamorphosis of the rock into felspa-
thie granite was the normal state below, while the gneissic lamina- tion was a superficial indication of the old stratification-planes. While on this subject I will mention what appears to me to be a singular character of our paleéozoic rocks here. The specimens I have sent home will show that all the Devonian fossils here lose every trace of their carbonate of lime. They are preserved, often very perfectly, in oxide of iron, but in my experience they are seen only on the exposed edges of the rocks, be these oreatly inclined, as at Chatty and Hermansdorp, or only slightly so, as at Coxcomb and Jeffrey’s bay. At Chatty I have seen a mass hollowed out in all directions by the decay of the encrinites on the edges, while tracing the same layer deeper in, it lost all trace of fossils. Frequent repeti- tions of this seemed to me to establish it as a rule that the fossils in the rock were only exposed by decomposition. Still it may be merely accidental. J should be glad to learn whether it is so or not.
I have stated that in thie metallic twists, or saddles, I never saw eranite in what I could consider the position of an intrusive rock. In one of the accessory twists which meet the metallic saddles at various angles, and which in section on a flat surface have the appearance of a feather, the shaft (@ 6) of the feather was , gs of micaceous schist, with a few rather Me arge crystals of felspar. I have frequently seen as— irregular-shaped Suellen of mica- schist follow- aa Cire ing neither strike, nor any law that I could per- ceive, among the gneiss. Granite occurred in Fig. 3. the same way in other spots.
* Drift-ford (of the Orange river).
RUBIDGE—SOUTH-AFRICAN ROCKS. 53
It is well known that prehnite is a common mineral in some parts of this colony. It occurs in the dioritic or syenitic dykes of the Dicynodon strata, and is evidently a product of the re-arrangement of the minerals of these dykes during their decomposition. The prehn- ite is found in lamine between the decomposing masses of the dykes and on their faces as digitate concretions. Unlike M. Daubrée’s zeolites it has not required heat for its formation, but, like them, it is forming at this hour by aqueous action. I have almost as little doubt that dykes and other masses of granite are forming in the same way from the re-arrangements of the constituent minerals of the gneiss. I find it easier to feel the truth of this on the spot than to convey it to others; still I will endeavour to give some reason for my faith. One mass of gneiss, near Henkrees, in which a vein of granite, terminated by an expansion about a foot square, proceeded along the gneiss. It was quite evident that there was no intrusion, no connection with any mass below. Spindle-shaped masses of granite placed between beds of felspathic, micaceous, and other rocks, were numerous and could often be entirely removed by a hammer, showing they had no connexion with any subterranean mass. Spherical lumps of granite or syenite were frequently quite isolated in the schists of the mines. I have stated before that beds of quartz- ite appeared to be intercalated by a filtration from above; some of these could be traced down till they became mixed with mica and then with felspar, and not very much deeper assumed the character of the gneiss of the country. Other masses, which seemed to be in- termediate between these, toward the spindle-shaped granite lumps above, were composed principally of quartz, with a few grains of mica and felspar, and occasionally garnets : these were surrounded by mica- schist in bent-up strata ; yet the whole mass, perhaps twenty pounds or less in weight, could be removed. These circumstances seemed to me to prove clearly that if felspathic rocks of any kind are the products of metamorphic action, then are granite, syenite, etc., trace- able to a like origin ; that if, as I think, I have clear evidence, in the Maitland Mines and other places of this neighbourhood, paleozoic rocks are convertible into micaceous, chloritic, and felspathic schists, without evidence of eruptive agencies, then are the so-called igneous rocks equally so. I think it will scarcely be disputed by any who admit the re-arrangement of felspathic rocks I have contended for, that causes by which such re-arrangement was made, may have effected the original conversion of sedimentary into crystalline rocks. We have in this province a rock which has been pronounced decidedly igneous by the highest European authorities ; it is the claystone- porphyry of Bain. Yet its position among the other rocks is, in many respects, just that of the quartzite; and, like the latter rock, its individual beds and its minor masses are conformable with the stratified rocks, while in ranges many miles in length, it crosses the strike of the strata, generally at an angle of about 30°. This fact was first demonstrated to me by Mr. Pinchin, a gentleman who has made many interesting observations on the geology of this country.
54 THE GEOLOGIST.
The sections of the Zeurberg, of Van Zonder’s Plain (given above) on the Graff Reinet road, together with a somewhat imperfect re- collection of that of Graham’s Town, had led me to believe that the relation of the porphyry to the slate was constant. It is now evident that I was in error here. The fact of the masses of the porphyry crossing the slate without disturbing it seems to me greatly to strenethen my views as to its metamorphic origin by rendering the hy- pothesis of Messrs. Bain and Wylie untenable. The former gentleman supposed that the porphyry had been poured over the surface of the strata as liquid lava. Mr. Wylie referred its origin to volcanic ac- tion, producing ash, which was deposited at the bottom of the ocean, and formed this igneous-like rock with its contained granite pebbles and fragments of rock. The fact of the direction of its masses being ai: an angle of 80° with the strike seems to me to be incompatible with either of these hypotheses. The ranges of porphyry, like those of quartzite, die out and reappear. The normal position of the porphyry appears to be as in fig. 4, but I have seen it placed as in figs. 5 and
Slate. Porphyry. Slate. Slate. Porphyry. Slate. Slate. Porphyry. Slate. Lee ae ee “fz HAL (i flees YIN gp LEELA IP SA fey /) | Saaee AY LE Y Wee ea V\\ UA ABSA 111 \\\ Bape, Zid pega \\\\\
oe ee Fig. 6.
The character by which we all agree to recognize this rock is the presence of masses of quartz and granite of various sizes with occa- sional fragments of slate and other rocks. Sometimes these masses are as much as fifty pounds in weight, at others they are so minute as to be scarcely recognizable by the naked eye. In a recent journey to Paardenpoort I met with amass of this-porphyry which terminated in a vein about a foot thick, with very minute crystals. Now what is the character of the rock among which this porphyry is interposed or interstratified P It is such that no one acquainted with the two would pretend to diagnose them, save by the presence of the crystals above mentioned. Nor would the blowpipe, or even more careful analysis, so far as J am aware, enable him to do so. If then the base of the rocks differ so little, and there is evidence that no displacement has taken place in any known section (see Bain and. Wylie), is it not clear that this rock has originated in slow conversion? Yet I be- lieve whatever may be predicated of it may be equally so of granite ; for it contains granitic masses in great numbers, and often of large size : besides granite, veins occupy precisely the same position among rocks which I have given reasons for believing to be the same strata in the Western Province.
But it will be seen above that I am not disposed to admit that the evident displacement of strata is at all times due to eruptive agency. I have given instances, on a very small seale, in which I feel sure it is not so. I hope ere long to be able to show that the infiltration of quartz from above has produced this effect, but my evidence on this"
RUBIDGE—SOUTH-AFRICAN ROCKS. 55
subject is still somewhat defective ; I will defer what I have to say on this subject till a future period.
I have had but little time or opportunity for the microscopical studies which have done so much for the views on the nature and origin of granite which I am here advocating. I should hardly have ventured indeed to have given observations so crude as my own, but for a conviction that probably no country in the world offers greater facilities for studies of this kind than does this Colony, and more especially the district of Namaqualand, which is probably barer of vegetation and more intersected by gullies than any other country in the world not absolutely uninhabitable.
I will give a brief réswmé of the observations wnich led me first to doubt and at length to abandon the igneous theory of granite, in which I was a firm believer ere I visited the Western Province of the Colony.
1. The undoubted change which rocks have undergone into quartz- ite and its equally evident origin in superficial and igneous agency. Mr. Darwin admits this origin of the Table Mountain sandstone.
2. The existence of beds of granite and other rocks of felspathic bases in association with sedimentary rocks in positions which it is impossible to believe they could have occupied by forcible intrusion from below. Many veins of the claystone-porphyry exceed a thousand yards in width, yet they do not in the slightest degree disturb the strata adjacent to them. At Kleinpoort I measured the slate eighteen inches from its junction with the porphyry. It dipped towards the latter at an angle of 35°, the porphyry itself having a dip in the same direction.
8. The irregular masses of granite taking the place of gneiss and not connected with the granite below.
4. The origin of prehnite and other zeolitic minerals from decom- position of igneous dykes of the Dicynodon-strata. Prehnite, as well as of quartz, is formed thus between the decomposing “ boul- ders”’ of igneous rocks. Veins of carbonate of lime are often formed in the same way. Nor can I hesitate to refer the felspathic veins and irregular masses in decomposing gneiss in Namaqualand to a like process of re-arrangement. I have there seen carbonate of lime in felspathic rocks; fluor-spar mixed with epidote and felspar ; phos- phate of lime with felspar and quartz.
5. I have mentioned the igneous dykes of the Dicynodon-strata. They have always been referred to plutonic agency, but it appears to me that there are great difficulties in admitting such origin. They take, I believe, every direction of the compass, vary from eighteen inches to some hundreds, perhaps thousands, of yards in breadth, and some of them are probably fifty or more miles in length; they are numerous, and occur frequently from near Somerset East to the Vool River, but never, in my experience, or that of any one I know, pass the boundary of the Dicynodon-strata, nor do they disturb the rocks through which they cut in the base.
6. I have mentioned the occurrence of granite-veins conformable
56 THE GEOLOGIST.
with the strata among which they lie. The claystone-porphyry of Bain, appears conformable as to individual beds, while in the mass it crosses the section of the country. I have uever found igneous rocks in the positions of upheaving rocks. I have repeatedly found them in positions (4,5) where they could not possibly be so. In Namaqualand the rocks between Springbok and Concordia were per- haps more decidedly gneiss-like than in any other part of the section, except perhaps near Kok Vontein, yet I regard these two spots (the former about a mile north of Springbok Vontein, the latter two miles south-east of Kok Vontein) as the main axial lines of the country. Many facts concur to prove that whatever may have been the cause of the upheaval of strata in this country, igneous rocks have had nothing to do with it. That there are considerable difficul- ties about the stratification of this neighbourhood, I fully believe. That I have no clue to the satisfactory explanation of those difficul- ties I am obliged to confess. To mention one or two, I believe that encrinites are generally local in their distribution, that is, individual species are confined to a few beds; and that if the same species of encrinite 1s found in these spots, the rocks containing them may be safely assigned to the same age or near it. At the northern base of the Coxcomb* are some nearly horizontal beds of blue and ferru- ginous schists containing trilobites, shell-fish, and encrinites, pro- nounced Devonian on good authority. The strike of these rocks is north 60° west nearly, and this line of strike would pass through Cape Reciffe. The Chatty beds of shale, which are in hills continu- ous with those of Port Elizabeth, would nearly correspond in strike with these beds; and at Chatty two or three encrinites identical with those of Coxcomb occur. Yet at the former place the rocks dip at an angle of 45°. There do not seem to be any igneous rocks to account for this difference. At Naroos, near Uitenhage, the slaty beds are associated with quartzite, and dip at 60°-70°.
Again, the beds containing spirifers or this encrinite at Kabel- jouw river’s mouth, Jeffrey’s Bay, have but a shght dip on the sea- shore; a little inland they have a greater dip, but at Hermansdorp, where the same spirifers or this of encrinite occur, they have a dip of 80° close to their junction with the quartzite. I cannot account for these things. I suppose no one in the present day would call quartz- ite an igneous or upheaving rock. Yet it is certainly my impression that if any rock in this country influences the change of dip in either rocks, quartzite does. Mr. Niven, the gentleman from whom I have the last fact, and who has done so in uch in throwing new light on the geology of this province, tells me that the quartzite, a hundred and eighty yards from the slate, dips 45°. If compelled to suggest a reason for these things, it would be, that whereas quartzite might be meta- morphosed by addition of matter infiltrated, claystone, porphyry, granite, etc., might owe their origin to mere crystalline action under the agency of water, thermo-electric currents, ete. This last is Mr. Sterry Hunt’s view, I think. |
* Part of the Winterhoek range, mis-spelt Muterhoek in the abstract of my Paper.
5 ¥ } Tate ‘ ‘ = ued! 5 . citys} Godan : nS j K \ i 7 7 / 4 i NS 5 " 7 x » ' en * ‘ \ * i ‘> : ‘ " ; Y Yo XY , « Eten F 5 = a f ; } ' 3 ~ f Dy 5 viel " u a f —— " 7 7 N= i/ ; tat pe piney ; . i) Ht ht fat ern sii ht a; x x. \' } A Gi a y J i
PLATE IV.
MOLAR TOOTH OF ELEPHAS I BEXIANUS (N.S.)
In the National Collection, British Museum.
8. J. Mackie del.
ON A FOSSIL ELEPHANT FROM TEXAS (£. Teswianus). By Cuaries Carter Briaxe, Esa.
The existence of a fossil species of true elephant distinct from Elephas primigenius in America has been only of late years brought under the notice of paleontologists. I have slightly ailuded to the subject in the ‘ Geologist,’ Vol. [V.p.470. For many years remains of true Elephant have been found with those of Mastodon at various spots within the New World.
Cuvier (‘ Ossements Fossiles,’ ed. 1834, vol. 11. p. 145) mentions only one species of American elephant, the remains of which had been discovered in Kentucky, Carolina, Ohio, Mexico, Louisiana, Virginia, and Maryland.
De Blainville (‘ Ostéographie, Eléphans, p. 157: Atlas, pl. x.) alludes to a tooth of fossil elephant from Texas, which is apparently referable to Hlephas primigenius. He also mentions other remains from Mexico, Mississippi, Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, Maryland, Vir- ginia, and Behring’s Straits.
Leidy (‘Nebraska Fauna,’ 1852, p.9) recognizes specific distinc- tion between the European and American species of elephant, and terms the latter H. Americanus.
Humboldt (¢ Cosmos,’ vol. i. p. 280) alludes to certain elephantine remains from the Mexican plateau, but gives no description which might identify the species.
Dr. Carpenter (Silliman’s Journal, 2nd series, vol. 1. p. 244) de- scribes a collection of elephant and mastodon remains, collected by Mr. William Huff, from the banks of the Brazos river, near San Felipe de Austin (Texas), some of which are at present in the British Museum. Through the kindness of Mr. G. R. Waterhouse, I have been enabled to identify them as those originally alluded to by Dr. Carpenter.
The most complete, elaborate, and philosophical conspectus of the affinities of the Order Proboscidea has been that from the pen of Dr. Falconer (Quarterly Journal Geographical Society, 1857, p. 319, and 1858, p. 81), in which he distinetly recognizes an American spe- cies of elephant (Huelephas Colwmbi), which he says has hitherto been undescribed. He places this apart from Hwelephas primigenius, in the same group as H. Indicus and Armeniacus, of which group he discriminates the character as having “ Colliculi approximatt, mache- ridibus valde undulatis.” The detailed exposition of his memoir has not been published up to February, 1862, although it was read on June 3, 1857.
Mr. William Bollaert, F.R.G.S., who has contributed original me- moirs on the geography of Texas to the Geographical Society (Jour- nal, 1851, vol. xx. p. 115), mentions the fact that he was the dis- coverer of a tooth of “ Mastodon” from San Felipe de Austin, Texas. This tooth was carefully preserved by him, and was submitted to me
VOL. V. I
58 THE GEOLOGIST.
in February, 1858. At that time I had not read Dr. Falconer’s paper, yet from the remarkable appearance of the tooth, the conclu- sion that it was a distinct species of elephant, closely allied to the Indian type, forced itself on me. ‘This opinion was confirmed by Professor Owen, and after the name of Elephas Texianus had been given to the species, the specimen was deposited in the British Mu- seum, and now forms one of the most conspicuous objects in the gallery devoted to Proboscidea. Professor Owen, in September, 1858, thought fit to adopt the name of #. Texianus for the species, in his eloquent address to the British Association (and also in the second edition of ‘ Paleontology,’ p.395). From a comparison of this tooth with that already possessed by the Museum from the same locality, described by Dr. Carpenter, I think decidedly that the remains in the Museum are identical with 2. primigenius, while the tooth dis- covered by Mr. Bollaert appears to belong to the distinct species of Ei. Texianus vel Columbi. This is the only specimen which I have seen of this type, as Dr. Falconer has not stated where the specimens are on which he described his species. He appends as a doubtful synonym, “ H. Jacksoni ?, Silliman’s Journal, 1838, vol. xxxiv. page 363 ;” but after examination of the very bad drawings contained in that page, I cannot make any distinction between them and J. prz- migentus. The tooth of H. Texianus (m. 6, lower jaw) has enamel- folds much wider and much more waved and undulated than that of the EH. Jacksont. The canals of cement are consequently of much greater width, and the whole aspect of the tooth is much more like EH. Indicus. ,
As the British Association, in their Rules for Zoological Nomen- clature, have authoritatively sanctioned the principle that names not clearly defined, and likely to propagate important errors, may be changed, and as the name of #. Coluwmbi lays itself open to the grave charge that it is not clear whether it is named in honour of Columbus, or because it is found in Colombia (Venezuela y Nueva Granada), I trust that this name will not be accepted. That of #. Texianus, founded upon a yet unimpeached geographical distinction, if it has not the advantage of published priority, yet gives a more lucid idea of the nature of the species which it indicates.
The figure by Mr. Mackie gives a better idea of its appearance than any mere verbal description. I however define it as ELEPHAS TEXIANUS, dentium molarium (m. 6), collicult undulati, mages remote quam in BH. Indico. Its association with #. Indicus and Armeniacus, by Dr. Falconer, seems warranted by its legitimate aflinities.
The greater w idth between the enamel-folds may indicate a more
sapid and j juicy diet than that of the larch-eating elephants of Esch- scholtz Bay. The nutritious prairie-grass of Texas did not require such formidable apparatus for its comminution as was possessed by the Siberian mammoths. The indication of this species, therefore, illus- trates the remarkable special adaptation of animals to external and climatal conditions, and may not be altogether irrelevant to the ques- tions discussed by the physio-philosophers of the present day, with regard to the origin of species.
58
ON THE MICROSCOPICAL EXAMINATION OF SOME BRACKLESHAM BEDS.
By T. Rupert Jonss, F.G.S.
In Vol. I of the ‘ Geologist,’ at page 249, was published a paper on the preparation of sands, clays, and chalk, for microscopical pur- poses, under the heading of “ Geological Manipulations ;”’ and, as both pleasure and geological profit are to be obtained from the exact examination of various fossil-bearing deposits, both as to their con- stituents and their contents, I beg to offer you an example of the results of such an examination of some tertiary beds from Brackle- sham. These notes I have had by me several years, and their short- comings are so great in some respects that I should not send them, were it not that they may serve as a plan to sume young care- ful observers who might feel inclined to enter upon the strict exa- mination of some definite series of fossiliferous strata. What the series under notice is deficient of, is a statement of the exact. rela- tionship of these several deposits, examined nearly twenty years ago. I received the materials at that time from a friend who was collecting “ Bracklesham fossils,’—a term which will be more definite, now that the Rey. O. Fisher, F.G.8., has indicated the exact limits of the Bracklesham formation.*
The specimens were chiefly, I believe, from Bracklesham and Selsea; but some may have been brought from the Isle of Wight. By the presence of certain fossils, however, in some of the deposits, their exact place may probably be determined. However deficient in these stratigraphical requirements the following account of the deposits may be, they will serve the purpose here intended, namely, to show young beginners what to look for in sands and clays. In- structions have been already given as to how such materials are to be examined, in the first volume, p. 249. .
The careful microscopical examination of a good series of succes- sive deposits, in the way that we propose, cannot but be useful both to the geologist and the paleontologist. The conditions of deposit will be elucidated by the proportions of fine and coarse materials in the beds; especially if these be traced along a considerable tract by the examination of many samples of the deposit, through its varia- tions from clay to sand (or vice versd), or in its changes from an argillaceous or arenaceous to a calcareous condition. Such variations are not always recognized with sufficient exactness by the eye or by the pocket-glass, and require mechanical, if not chemical, analysis; recourse being had to the aid of acids in determining the relative pro- porticns of lime and other constituents. Except by careful separa- tion in water, and patient sorting and picking, the minute shells and other fossils cannot be obtained in anything like a fair average ; and year by year the Foraminifera, Entomostraca, Bryozoa, and the small
* See Report of the Geological Society’s Proceedings, Dec. 4th, 1861.
60 THE GEOLOGIST.
fry of the Mollusca, are becoming more and more valuable as leading characteristics of strata, as our knowledge of these microzoa in the fossil and recent states advances.
Such researches as these, made on any series of deposits, whether British or foreign, must be of use, either for the improvement and correction of observations already made and published, or for the groundwork of future descriptions of strata and their fossils.
Schafhautl, Sorby, Ehrenberg, Reade, Bryson, and others, have worked at this subject in their own several ways, and it is to be hoped that not only will these older labourers continue to work in
““ Microgeology”’ or “ Clinology,” as the study is termed, but that others, with equal patience and acumen, will come forward to labour in this wide and promising, but as yet little cultivated field of re- search.
The Results of the Examination of Five Specimens of Sands and Clays Srom the “ Bracklesham Beds” of the Isle of Wight Basin. No. 1. Light-blue sandy clay;* very friable; full of crushed shells. Quantity examined, 480 grains.
Grs. Proportions.
Calcareous Shells, fragments of shells, | ei
and other fossils a Ree sho ae 136 ue Arenaceous NAMGE Rai ah ci. toe orcs 1388 1104 29 Arpillaceous ) WGlay§ic.-c.5.0055 cese esos — 250 ~=—-2000 52
| 480° 3840 100 No. 2. Very light-blue, friable, sandy clay. Quantity examined, 480 grains. Grs. Grs. Proportions.
Calcareous Shells, etc.,and fragments 23 184 5° Arenaceous SANG erent, acerca. 185 1480 38°5 ‘Arenlageous’ -Clay?ses. os. eects owe eeoe es 272 2176 56°5
480 38840 100°0 No. 8. Dark-green clayey sand; very friable. Quantity examined, 3840 grains. Grs. Proportions. 13
Caleareous Shells ete., and fragments. ......... 497 MURDER DIES <sercncseskh rc steal see - 20 .K AESURPEOHE vapid SUN ea Oe O88 sao f 068 Arqillaceoas! Olay. Gate i 2. eR SS 793 23°5 3840 100°0
* The clays and sands in this paper are described as they appear when dry.
+ The specimens No. 3, 4, and 5 being given in lots of 3840 grains, Nos. 1 and 2 (which were examined in lots of 480 grains) are given also as 3840 grains for the sake of comparison. With regard also to Nos. 1 and 2, their lists of fossils must be regarded as less perfect in relation to the other specimens, on account of the small quantity of the deposit examined.
t For the list of fossils, see the table further on.
§ The sands of all the lots are chiefly composed of green grains (silicate of iron ?) and quartz sand. Further details respecting the relative size, angularity, ete., of the sand- grains in the several specimens ought to have been given.
RUPERT JONES—ON BRACKLESHAM BEDS.
61
No. 4. Reddish-yellow sand, very friable, abounding with large
Nummulites. Quantity examined, 3840 grains.
Grs, Proportions,
Calcareous Shells* etc., and fragments ......... 878 23 Pebbles of flint, greenstone, iron- Arenaceous } stone, and brown pellucid quartz... 23 } 58 SUT a tee a ee SA 2205 Ferruginous concretion ............ 12 19 PAG UMAGCEOUS MOLY 0 fi cco soc ce ses Samu geborss+ gies ets 722 3840 100
No. 5. Light-blue sandy clay; hard, but easily separated in hot
water. Quantity examined, 3,840 grains.
Grs. Proportions.
Calcareous Shells, etc., and fragments ......... LG 2
AECHACEOUS) CSANG(VeLY MIN) .<..5).Psbaqcdcses i s0 ce 1296 33°8
Bymitoustcaneretion (face... «ts 6s. ss FO 18
PUPCTILTG EOS, y CLAY comes) seaceacer sin Retteae veo suek as 2428 63:2 3840 100°0
TABLE OF THE FOSSILS FROM THE FIVE SPECIMENS OF
“ BRACKLESHAM BEDS.”
Now Ie No. 2. No: 3. No. 4. No. 5. Fish Bones. | Fish Tooth and | Fish Bones, Fish Bone and | Fish Bones and Otolite. Teeth, and Otolite. Otolites. Otolite. MOLLUSCA: GASTEROPODA. Murex. Fusus ? Ringicula. Ringicula. Ringicula. Pleurotoma. Pleurotoma, 2 s. Voluta. Natica. Natica. Natica. Natica. Cerithium. Cerithium. Potamis. Potamis, 2 sp. Turritella. Turritella. Turritella. Turritella, 8 sp. | Turritella, 2 sp. Solarium. Solarium ? Solarium. Solarium. Infundibulum. Dentalium. Dentalium. Dentalium. Dentalium. Dentalium. Planorbis. Bulla (minute). Bulla,
* The shells in this specimen are larger than in the other lots. In the latter the shells, etc. found in this examination were chiefly of small size, although larger shells, of course, are sometimes abundantly distributed in the mass of the beds.
62
THE GEOLOGIST.
LAMELLIBRANCHIATA. Ostrea. Ostrea. Ostrea. Ostrea. Pecten. ; Pinna ? Area. Cucullea. Cuculleea. | Cuculleea. Chama. Cyprina, 2 sp. Astarte ? Crassatella. Crassatella. Venericardia. Venericardia. Venericardia. | Venericardia. Venus ? Cytherea. Cytherea. Cytherea.” Corbula. Corbula, 2 sp. | Corbula, 2 sp. | Corbula. Panopeea ? Pholas. BRYOZOA. | Cellepora Cellepora petiolus. Flustra. petiolus. Lunulites. | ENTOMOSTRACA. Cythere scabro- papulosa. C. eostellata. C. horrescens. C. cornuta. Cytherella com- pressa. C. Muensteri. ECHINODERMATA. | | Echinoderm. | Echinoderm.- | Echinoderm. ANNELIDA. | | Serpula ? | CORAL.
Turbinolia sul- cata.
Turbinolia sul- cata.
MURRAY—WALLABIES’ HOLES IN AUSTRALIA. 63
FORAMINIFERA. Nummulina N. levigata. leevigata. Nummulina N. scabra. N. scabra. scabra. Nummulina N. variolaria. N. variolaria. variolaria. Miliola (Trilo- Miliola (Quin- culina). queloculina). Guttulina. Guttulina. Rotalia obscura (and others). Lignite. Lignite. Pyrites. Pyrites. Pyrites.
Should one wish to take in hand the examination of a series of the tertiary strata of any part of the Isle of Wight basin, in the manner above suggested, well assorted samples, collected and labelled with care, can be readily obtained of Henry Keeping, of Freshwater, who is an intelligent and trustworthy collector, and whose charges are moderate.
ON THE OCCURRENCE OF A PECULIAR SUBSTANCE IN THE LIMESTONE OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
By W. Murray, Esq., C.E.
Taking a section across the Murray River Valley, in South Austra- lia, for a distance of about forty miles from west to east, we have (as shown in the accompanying diagram) two parallel ranges, and on the
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ieee tvs Vourray.
. \ ‘\ if
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JIN
Fig. 1. outer flank of the western range there are at some places micaceous strata (A), having a steep inclination, resting against the contorted
strata of the range, sections of which are seen in gaps and gullies, with steep sides, in some instances 800 to 1000 feet deep. These
64 THE GEOLOGIST.
hills are partly granitic ; the granite is reddish, very readily decom- posed, and worn by the rain and weather here and there into strange grotesque figures. There are well-defined metallic lodes in this range. East of these hills are three terraces leading down to the river. The first is the broadest, extending about two-thirds the distance, and falls twenty feet to the river. It is composed chiefly of sand; but rocks similar to those of the western rock crop out here and there. The second terrace averages about two-ninths of the distance between the range and the river: it falls about thirty feet; some- times not more than ten or fifteen feet ; at places, however, more than fifty feet. The third or lowest terrace is only one-ninth of the dis- tance, and nearly level with the river: in fact, it is overflowed when the water is up. The river itself flows slowly, having a fall of about one foot a mile. It is at the fall or escarpment between the second and the third terrace, on an exposed face of friable limestone, that the peculiar substance referred to in this notice is found. ‘The whitish limestone (similar to the bryozoal limestone of the Mount Gambier district) has its exposed edges excavated by innumerable burrows of wallabies, kangaroo - rats, opos- i il sums, ete., which live = am <i and breed here in count- — a less numbers, far in the My i nu. body of the rock, and the upper part of the openings of these bur- rows are coated with a softish-brown fetid ma- Fig. 2. terial, which appears to be the concreted exhalations and effluvia coming from the heated in- teriors of these long-inhabited and thickly tenanted burrows. The concretion is thickest just within and at the mouth of a burrow, and dies away upwards on the face of the rock, just as the stain of smoke coming from a crevice is dark at the fissure, and becomes fainter and fainter up the side of the wall. This material 1s several inches thick, and, owing to the dryness of the climate, is not washed away by rain. In England the specimens brought over are somewhat deliquescent. It has not yet been examined chemically.
This curious concomitant of cave-habitats in a warm and dry cli- mate seems worth notice as connected with the subject of bone-caves. The same country (South Australia) is likely to afford valuable in- formation relative to the origin and early condition of subterranean caves and fissures; for the limestone of the Mount Gambier district is extensively excavated by subterranean drainage, on which the
water-supply of the towns and stations is, to a large extent, depen- dent.
The samples of brown material referred to in the above remarks were obtained from a place on the River Murray, near the Reedy Creek (Toongell) or the Thirty-nine Sections, called Pontarra, or Green
AA Wallabies’ Holes. River Murray.
a ee es eee Pian
CORRESPONDENCE. 65
Corner, and at Cooloodee. It is about fifty miles due-east of Adelaide, and about 35° south latitude, and 139° 20’ east longitude. I found it while making my surveys for the direct eastern line of railway from Adelaide to the River Murray (see Council Paper, No. 47, Septem- ber 10th, 1858, S. A.).
The River Murray and its tributaries drain an immense district in New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, discharging it- self into the Lake Alexandria in South Australia; thence to the sea it is navigable for 1500 miles.
Our readers are referred also to the Journal of the Geological Society, No. 68, August, 1860, pages 252-261, for some account of the geology of the South-Australian district above referred to.— Epit. GEOLOGIST. |
CORRESPONDENCE.
The Accumulation of Cave Deposits.
Dear Srr,—Without offering any opinion on the Rev. H. Eley’s spe- culation, in the December Number of the Gzotoaist, on the mode of “ The Accumulation of Cave Deposits,” I presume it is quite safe to conclude that it could only apply, at most, to caverns which were inhabited by animals.
Now, though we have satisfactory evidence that some caverns—Kent’s Hole near this place, for example—were the homes of carnivora, others, and some of them very famous, are entirely destitute of any such indica- tions, whilst their distinctly stratified deposits were certainly due to the long-continued action of water.
Amongst the numerous caves near the sea-level which occur in the lime- stone cliffs between Berry Head and Mudstone Bay, near Brixham, there is one into which the sea only enters at spring-tide high-water, or during very heavy gales. It is only accessible from the sea, and is situated at the apex of a small cove, the mouth of which is a passage, probably about twenty feet wide, between two walls of limestone; within it is somewhat wider. Hxcept at high-water, a small, steep, terraced, shingle beach lies between the sea and the mouth of the cavern. The cove is simply a gallery, at least eighty feet long, about four feet wide, in some places not more than three feet high, but commonly high enough for a man to stand erect. In fact, it is nothing more than one of the north and south joints, or lines of fracture, so common in the district, eroded into a tunnel.
A considerable drip of water, apparently free from earthy matter, enters through the roof.
When recently visiting it, I found the floor, consisting of fine sea sand, more or less covered with fresh seaweed, which was most abundant at the inner end. About halfway in, I picked up several disjoined bones, pro- bably parts of the same animal, undoubtedly a terrestrial mammal, and, ~ judging from the state of the epiphyses, a young individual. I have still some of them by me. With one exception they are quite free from all marks of abrasion.
The sea had also carried in some evidences of the existence of man ;
VOL. V. K
66 THE GEOLOGIST.
amongst other things I remember a portion of a tin kettle and a fragment of a basket, of the coarse kind used on board colliers and other ships.
Here, then, is a cavern which the sea is at present filling, and in which it is depositing relics of man and portions of terrestrial mammals, but not, so far as I could discover, any marine organism, excepting the seaweed. Probably a careful search might have detected some small shells and other sea-offerings amongst the weeds, but I certainly saw nothing of the kind, nor were there any of the larger mollusks so constantly cast up on our beaches. There appears no reason, @ priori, why some caves belonging to earlier periods may not have received their contents in a similar manner.
Again, those who have visited the Cheddar Cliffs, in Somersetshire, probably remember that a considerable body of water issues from the foot of the right-hand cliff, not far above the village of Cheddar. This stream commences its subterranean journey about two miles off, where it enters a ““swallet.”
It is scarcely possible to believe that it fails to introduce specimens of the natural history of the district into this cavern, or that it does not deposit organic relics, together with mud and stones, in at least some of the shel- tered nooks and recesses which probably occur along its course of fully two miles.
I have no doubt that, at least, one of the celebrated caves of this county was in this way furnished with the materials which have rendered it famous.
T am far from believing that the history of any cavern can be regarded as generally typical. Neither of the agencies above described could have produced the phenomena observed at Orestone, near Plymouth, where, in all probability, the fossils and the materials in which they were inhumed found a passage through an open fissure into the cavernous interior of the limestone.
It would not be safe to generalize from any individual case, whether it be Kent’s Hole, Windmill Hill Cave at Brixham, the caverns at Orestone, or a dirty dog on a study hearth-rug.
: I am, yours, etc., Wu. PENGELLY. Lamorna, Torquay, December 14th, 1861.
Northampton Sands.
Dear Sir,—In replying to Dr. Wright’s communication in the last number of your excellent periodical, I offer him my apologies. The origin of my mistake was, in carelessly reading that part of Mr. Aveline’s ‘ Me- moir on the Geological Survey of a part of Northamptonshire,’ where he speaks of the confusion that formerly existed with regard to these sands.
These beds have been assigned to the Upper Lias, although not by Dr. Wright, and are so coloured on more than one geological map. For in- stance, in Reynolds’s ‘ Geological Atlas,’ lately published under the revision of Professor Morris, all the country over which the Northampton sands are so well displayed has been coloured, with the Zias, brown, a mistake which should be avoided if asecond edition of that neat and otherwise useful little work is contemplated.
The fact is, no one knows exactly where to place or with what to class these sands. lias they assuredly are not. Mr. Aveline considers them to be equivalent to the Stonesfield Slate of Oxfordshire. This seems likely,
=
PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 67
both from their position and their organic remains. But a deal yet remains to be done with them; they have yet to be accurately traced, searched, and studied. Strata which yield, as they do, such valuable iron-ore, de- mand attention and examination.
Yours very truly,
JoHN H. Macatister. Oxford, January \st, 1862.
PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES.
Geotoaists’ Assocration.—The ordinary monthly meeting was held on Monday, December 2nd, at 5 Cavendish Square. The Rev. Thomas Wiltshire, M.A., F.G.S., President, in the chair. The following papers were read :—‘‘ On two beds of re-deposited Crag Shells in the vicinity of Yarmouth, Norfolk,” by C. B. Row, Esq., F.G.S. “On a Newly Dis- covered Outlier of the Hempstead Strata on the Osborne Estate, Isle of Wight,” by Dr. E. P. Wilkins, F.G.S. ‘On the Exchange of Fossils among the Members,” by A. Bolt, Esq., A.A.
Professor Tennant exhibited several specimens of gold recently forwarded from Nova Scotia to this country. He read extracts froma Report which has made by Mr. Howe to Lord Mulgrave, the Governor of the Colony,in Septem- ber last, from which it appears that the gold-discoveries made in the colony in 1860 were unimportant, the gold being found in quantities so small as not to afford a satisfactory return for the labour of seeking for it. The exitement had accordingly subsided. Last March, however, a man acci- dentally discovered a piece of gold among the pebbles at a brook; this led to further investigation, and it is now generally believed that gold in abundance exists in the colony within an easy distance of means of trans- port, and Mr. Howe considers that the Government will be warranted in assuming that at the localities where the chief working has been hitherto earried on, viz. Tangier, Lunenburg, Lawrencetown, and Lake Thomas, gold-mining will be permanently established as a new branch of industry, tempting to the capitalist and attractive to the emigrant. The gold is found in quartz veins and in the sand on the shore. Specimens of gold in the matrix, and some of the gold grains found in the sand were exhibited, as also two ingots of pure gold cast. from: that discovered in the above- mentioned workings.
Mr. Rickard exhibited a machine recently patented, the object of which is to render peat available as fuel, to the same extent as coal, at a greatly reduced price.
Mancuester Literary anD PuitosopHicaL. Sociery.—November 26th, 1861. J.P. Joule, LL.D., President, in the chair. A Paper was read by Mr. H. W. Binney, F.R.S., entitled ‘ Additional Observations on the Permian Beds of South Lancashire.” This was a continuation of two previous papers read before the Society. Since that time the author had made further observations on the Permian strata at Heaton Norris, near Stockport; Medlock Vale, between Ashton and Manchester; Choriton- upon-Medlock, and Ordsal near Manchester; and Skillaw Clough and Bentley Brook, near Newburgh, in the west of Lancashire.
At Heaton Norris, in the sand delf of Mr. Howard, near the railway station, the lower New Red Sandstone was seen dipping to the south-west at an angle of 25°. This was succeeded by red and variegated marls having
68 THE GEOLOGIST.
a similar dip. These last-named strata were overlapped by the Trias, which dips to the south-west at an angle of 12°. At Heaton Mersey the following section was met with :—
Feet
Daas) Bee OPER T= ert EIR Ns 5 5, cs RE SO 45 Permian—Red and varigated marls containing Tetones Abs hen ewes 129 Lower New Red Sandstone grooved iWenseiiete desea eee 402
576
The Permian beds were cut off by a fault near the railway station at Heaton Norris (first noticed by Mr. Hull, of the Geological Survey), which brought in the Trias. This rock occupied the district between that town and Goyt’s Hall, in the Marple valley, where the lower part of the middle coal-measures was seen in nearly a vertical position. ~
The author considered Mr. Howard’s sand delf to be a likely place for ascertaining whether a coal-field worth working existed under the town of Stockport.
The next was a section made by Mr. John Wood, at Medlock Vale, be- tween Waterhouses, near Ashton-under-Lyne, and Manchester. It was as follows :—
¥eet. In.
Dall AS ue ee Fes Oh Sb va sabi Seber eee 26 0
{Wei Tie Meee Un eee ee ee RCD COMES Rep CC wate!) Permian—Red marls, with beds of limestone and five beds of
PAV SUIN 2) a, s race a apseeepblecae nesta Seacee eee eRe 246 3
Lower New Red Sandstone snc. cee etek. coe noe ee 375 11
GoalemeGasunes: nomen socics icsac Neer roche etc ee about 90 0O
761 2
What these coal-measures were, whether above or under the Bradford Four-feet Mine, it was at present impossible to say; but it was to be hoped that some mine would be met with to enable us to determine the value of the great: tract of coal-measures lying between Ashton-under- Lyne, Oldham, Middleton, and Manchester. Mr. Wood had done more than any other gentleman to clear up this point, and it was to be desired that he should meet with a.good seam of coal, both for his own sake and that of the public.
The third section mentioned was at the sugar-works of Messrs. Fryer and Co., in Chester Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester. The fol- lowing beds were there met with :—
Feet STNRTAS oie, cet stom joss ah adetec aeach naw aks ete Sac Oe anna hae apenas eee 114 Permian—Red marls with limestones... ...... 0... ccc. eee eee cen eeeeceess 237 Coarse. red sandstone with pebbles... 1.0.0.0... seecseess ss 45 Coursesred “sandStone reece: oon vata cdnes pon pean 24 Coal-measures, consisting of red shaly marls and Hmestones (Ard- WICH) iene ceca eee ea he aoa RIN ee bn eagss heen a 126 546
The limestones in the last-named strata contained specimens of Micro- conchus carbonarius and scales of Paleoniscus, which clearly proved them to be similar beds to those of the upper coal-field at Ardwick, to which they bear every resemblance in physical character.
The oceurrence of coal-measures on the south side of the city of Man-
chester is quite new and of great importance, showing that such strata at
PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 69
places are met with under Permian and Trias deposits much nearer the surface than was previously suspected, and where the upper rocks gave no evidence of their proximity. ‘The above bore has proved beyond doubt that a band of coal-measures lies under the south of Chorlton-on-Medlock, and possibly extends to Heaton Norris, being probably brought up by the great Pendleton fault, which most likely passes through the south of Man- chester and joins the fault seen near the railway station at Heaton Norris previously alluded to.
In the fourth section, at Ordsal, Messrs. Worrall found the Trias beds four hundred and sixty feet in thickness without going through them. At the bottom of the bore the water became so salt that they: discontinued the work, it being no longer fit for dyeing and such-like purposes. This is the first instance, to the author’s knowledge, where salt water has been met with in the Trias near Manchester.
The fifth and sixth sections were at Skillaw Clough and Bentley Brook, to the north of the Newburgh station on the Manchester and Southport railway. ‘These were some time since discovered by Mr. E. Hull, of the Geological Survey, and described shortly by that gentleman in the sheet explaining the map of the district. Further particulars were given of the details of both sections, and an analysis of the limestone was produced, which showed it to differ in its chemical characters from the thin ribbon- bands found in the Permian marls near Manchester, Patricroft, Astley, and Leigh; it was very like the yellow magnesian limestone found at Stank, in Furness, North Lancashire. Probably it might prove to bea different bed, and more like the great central deposit of magnesian lime- stone of Yorkshire than the thin beds previously alluded to.
December 24th, 1861.—J. P. Joule, LL.D., President, in the chair. Mr. Binney stated that many years since he had communicated to the Society a description of some markings on the surface of the Kerridge flags. He afterwards published, in Vol. X (New Series) of the Memoirs, a Paper on similar markings, found in the Upholland flags, near Wigan, and attributed then to the burrowing of an animal similar to the common lug-worm of our coast, the Arenicola piscatorum. Similar holes have since been found in rocks of various ages, from the Cambrian upwards.
The position of the Kerridge flags is, probably, one of the best ascer- tained in whole coal-field. It is in the lower division above the millstone grit. In the lower coal-field there are two main beds of flagstones : the first, or lower, the Rochdale series, under the “rough rock ;” and the upper, or Upholland or Kerridge series, above the same rock, the chief workable beds of the lower coal-field of Rochdale and other districts, often termed the “mountain mines,” lying midway between these two flag-deposits. This series of coal is now, and has been for many years, wrought under the Kerridge, flags so as prove beyond doubt the position of the latter. Some discussions have lately taken place at Macclesfield as to whether the Ker- ridge beds were Permian or Carboniferous. No one who ever saw Per- mian beds, could ever for one moment suppose Kerridge flags to belong to those strata. It is possible that Permian beds may exist in the low dis- trict lying between Kerridge and Macclesfield, as they have been met with at Hug Bridge on the south, and Norbury Brook on the north, but up to this time they have not been proved to be there.
Considerable interest has been excited by the discovery of what were supposed to be the foot-marks of some animals on the surface of the flags. He had been induced to make two journeys to Kerridge for the purpose of examining them; but although plenty of worm-holes and ripple-marks are to be found on the surface of the Kerridge flags, as yet he had seen no tracks of animals upon them.
70 THE GEOLOGIST.
Mr. Edward Hull, B.A., called attention to instances of glacial striations recently discovered by Mr. G. H. Morton, at Liverpool. During a recent visit to that town in connexion with his duties on the Geological Survey, Mr. Hull: was kindly conducted by Mr. Morton to the spots where the striz are visible. One of these is at the south, the other at the north side of the town, and at the latter the extent of surface exposed is several hundred square yards. The rock-surfaces had been protected by a thick coating of boulder clay, which has been removed for brick-making. It is owing to the protection thus afforded to the rock that the striations are preserved in all their original freshness. The rock belongs to the New Red Sandstone, and is a moderately hard reddish-brown and yellowish building-stone. There are two systems of striew, the primary one ranging N.N.W., the secondary nearly east-and west. Of the latter, the markings are comparatively unimportant, but are very clear and sharp. The primary striz run in remarkably straight lines—in the form of deep groovings and seratches, and the whole surface of the sandstone is worn down to one uniform gently-sloping plane.
It appeared evident, from the directions of the strie, that they had been produced by icebergs coming from the north, im all probability from the Cumberland mountains, where glaciers are known to have existed during the period of the boulder clay, or rather earlier. The secondary groovings might have been produced by bergs coming from North Wales, but this appeared very problematical. The interest attached to these cases of gla- ciation:was stated to arise from their position at so great a distance from the Cumberland range. In the immediate neighbourhood of these moun- tains, as also in that of North Wales, ice-moulded surfaces have frequently been observed, but never before on the New Red Sandstone of Lancashire or Cheshire.
Mr. E. W. Binney referred to the existence of similar striations on the Carboniferous limestone of Great Ofme’s Head, where the groovings were found to range northward, or outwards from the mountains of the interior. He also noticed the distribution of the Shap granite, blocks of which he had lately seen on the high Silurian and Carboniferous ranges to the south and south-east of Shap Fell.
Mr. Brockbank stated that, on the high lands of Yorkshire and Derby- shire, he had observed erratic blocks which could be traced to their northern sources.
Mr. Hull said, it had been shown, by a large number of facts, that the direction of the erratic blocks of the Drift period was from north to south, so that there must have been some predominating influence in operation, either prevalent winds, or, more probably, oceanic currents, tending to impel southward the icebergs and rafts which were the vehicles for the transportation of the erratic boulders and pebbles.
GrOLoGIcaL Society oF Lonpon.—Janwary 8, 1862.—Sir C. Lyell in the chair. The following communications were read:—1. ‘On the Car- boniferous Limestone of Oreton and Farlow, Clee Hills, Shropshire.” By Professor John Morris, V.P.G.S., and George E. Roberts, Esq. With a Note upon a new species of Pterichthys, by Sir P. de M.G. Egerton, Bart., M.P., F.G.S. The rocks described in this paper are a series of thin beds of limestone and sandstone lying between the Old Red Sandstone of South Shropshire and the Millstone Grit which forms the basement of the Titter- stone Clee coal-field. In consequenee of the opening of new quarries and the eutting of a roadway through the Farlow ridge transversely to the strike of these deposits, the authors were enabled to add somewhat to the de- scription of the locality given in ‘The Silurian System.’ The series of de-
PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 71
posits from the Old Red “‘ cornstone,” upwards, was shown by them to be: —1. Laminated yellow sandstones, with pebble-beds and sands. 2. Bright- yellow sandstones, containing Pterichthys. 3. Brecciated yellow sand- stones, pebble-beds, sandy layers, and laminated sandstones. 4. Sandy and concretionary limestone. 5. Grey oolitic limestones, containing pala- tal teeth of great size. 6. Clays, with ferruginous bands. 7. Shaly eri- noidal limestones. 8. Clays with limestone concretions, and shaly lime- stones. Against the last-mentioned bed the Millstone Grit rests uncon- formably. These beds thicken out at Oreton, a mile east of this Farlow section, and are there extensively worked for various economic purposes, the oolitic limestones, locally termed “‘jumbles,”’ being used for decorative purposes under the name of Clee Hill Marble. In describing the physical conditions of the localities, mention was made of the “ Mole river,” which, losing itself at the west end of the ridge, takes a subterranean course nearly parallel with its axis, and reappears at its lower end, a mile distant. An interesting fact was communicated to the authors by the Rev. J. Wil- liams, of Farlow, of an accidental accumulation in the hollow of its inlet of a body of water estimated at 1,635,000 cubic feet, the whole of which was carried away in forty-eight hours by the sudden clearance of the channel. In describing the paleontology of these rocks, the authors specially drew attention to the fortunate discovery, in the yellow sandstone of Farlow, of Pterichthys macrocephalus (spec. nov., Egerton), made while reducing the thickness of a large ripple-marked slab sent them by Mr. Weaver Jones in illustration of the physical conditions of the deposit. This Pterichthys pro- ving identical with the fragment previously found in the Farlow Sandstone by Thos. Baxter, Esq., F.G.S., they attached to the paper a descriptive note on that fossil, by Sir Philip Egerton, in which the Farlow Pterichthys was contrasted with that of Dura Den, and additional proof given of the identity of the genera Pamphractus and Pierichthys. In addition to pterichthyoid remains, scales of two species of Holoptychius, one probably new, had been found by them. ‘The richness of the overlying limestones in palatal teeth was shown by a fine series of examples, amongst which Orodus ramosus, of unusual size and in perfect condition, and an undescribed Pecilodus, of great magnitude, were most conspicuous. Other genera represented were Helodus, Psammodus, Cladodus, Cochliodus, Petalodus, and Ctenopty- chius. Ichthyodorulites, of large size and rich ornament, chiefly belong- ing to the genera Ctenacanthus and Oracanthus, accompany these teeth. The notices of the invertebrate fauna given by the authors proved the as- sumed lowness of the Oreton Limestones in the Mountain Limestone series —the zone of Rhynconella pleurodon being well marked, crinoidal and bryozoan remains abundant though fragmentary, and corals nearly absent. A large series of Pterichthyes and of rock-specimens were exhibited in il- lustration by Mr. George E. Roberts; and a collection of palatal teeth was liberally sent for exhibition by W. Weaver Jones, Esq., of Cleobury Mortimer, and by Edward Baugh, Esq., of Bewdley.
2. “On some Fossil Plants, showing Structure, from the Lower Coal Measures of Lancashire.” By E. W. Binney, Esq., F.R.S., F.G.S. After noticing the views taken of the structure of Lepidodendron by Hooker and others, the author proceeded to describe three portions of calcified stems, Lepidodendroid in external appearance, two of which exhibit in section a central axis composed, not of cellular tissue, but of large, transversely barred, hexagonal vessels. These two specimens the author refers to a new species, Sigillaria vascularis. The third specimen differs from the others im the absence of the thin radiating cylinder of barred vessels around the central axis ; this he terms Lepidodendron vasculare. Microscopical pre- parations and photographs of sections were supplied by the author.
G2, THE GEOLOGIST.
3. “Supplemental Notes on the Plant-beds of Central Asia.’’ By the Rev. 8. Hislop. Ina Letter to the Assistant-Secretary. Mr. Hislop, in noticing the discovery of more remains of plants, insects, and fishes at Kota on the Pranhita, stated that he certainly now thought that the ich- thyolitic beds of Kota (probably Lower Jurassic in age) are higher in rela- tive position than the plant-sandstone of Nagpur, which, with the Sironcha sandstone underlying the Kota limestone, belong to the Damuda group. He remarked also that, in his opinion, the Zeniopteris of Kampti would prove that the Damuda and Rajmahal groups cannot be widely separated.
NOTES AND QUERIES.
Mammattan Rematns.—Fractured bones of Bos primigenius have been found on the road between Kelvedon and Coggesham, Hssex, by W. H. Thelwall, Esq., who has submitted them to me for identification.— Yours faithfully, CuartEes Carter BAKE.
Fosstz Cocoons or Lrecnres.—Dr. Gergens, of Mayence, has lately suggested that the so-called fossil eggs of snakes, found in some of the freshwater deposits of Germany, may be fossil cocoons of leeches (N. Jahrb. 1861, p. 670). Under these circumstances it may be worth while for those who possess specimens of the egg-like bodies found in the freshwater strata of the Isle of Wight (and which have been thought to be either coprolitic or the eggs of Bulimus, or of freshwater tortoises), to re-examine them, and compare them with the sponge-like oval cocoon of the common leech. Mr. F. EK. Edwards figures several of these oviform bodies in his Mono- eraph on the Hocene Gasteropods, published by the Paleontographical Society.—Huirvupo.
Hamesuire Bastn.—S1r,—Would you kindly solve the following ques- tions for me, to which [have not been able to find any satisfactory answers in the text-books which are commonly available P
1. What was the extent of the Hampshire Basin; and when did the up- heaval of the present range of chalk hills to the north and west take place; and did the sea, which covered the present New Forest district, ever wash against these latter?
2. When did the severance of the line of chalk between Ballard Head, in Dorsetshire, and St. Christopher’s Cliff, in the Isle of Wight, take
lace P 4 3. Could the following animals be said to be coexistent at any period of the Middle Eocene formation (and what ?),—Dichodon cuspidatus, Hyeno- don, Paloplotheriwm anneetens, and Spalacodon ?
4. What was the climate of the country when the freshwater deposits took place at HordellP—Your constant reader, W. B. H., Lymington.
1. The Hampshire basin was not an isolated area, but continuous with the London basin; the deposits in the two areas differing according to depth of sea, presence of rivers, etc. The uprise of the chalk hills took
lace probably during some portion of the Pliocene period. The New frameset district, as now existing, has been covered either by the sea or by a lake in the Pleistocene period. 2. In the Pleistocene period.
3. Yes; during the Middle Eocene period Paplotherium, Paleotherium,.
and others, existed with Hyenodon, in the western European area. 4, Probably much warmer than at present—subtropical.
NOTES AND QUERIES. 73
Notice oF Human Remains 1N Cornnwatu.—Dear Sir,— While read- ing the Autobiography of Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck, I met with the following passage in one of her letters, which, as bearing on a most in- teresting subject at the present time, deserves to be further investigated by those of your readers who reside near the place mentioned, in order to discover the truth of her statement..
In describing her journey from Truro to Falmouth, she says, ‘“‘ Near Gwennap is a place worth seeing, called Carnon Stream Works. Instead of mining for tin, they here direct streams over the sides of the hills, so as to wash down the loose tin, which is here termed ‘stream tin.’ Here have been found many interesting antiquities,—a pickaxe made of elk’s- horn, fimt arrow-heads, and human skeletons,—buried beneath several strata (alternately of fresh-water and marine shells), twenty-four feet from the present surface of the ground.” This was written in 1825.
Yours truly, R. D., Berwick-upon-Tweed.
THe Coat Trapvr.—The total shipments of coal foreign and coastwise last year are estimated at 19,161,615 tons, as compared with 18,159,488 tons in 1860, and 17,218,972 tons in 1859. Newcastle last year shipped 1,916,588 tons of coal and 128,773 tons of coke oversea, and 2,345,017 tons of coal and 20,972 tons of coke coastwise ; Sunderland, 1,023,495 tons of coal and 39,319 tons of coke oversea, and 1,881,299 tons of coal and 268 tons of coke coastwise ; the Hartlepools, 595,674 tons of coal and 18,566 tons of coke oversea, and 1,402,258 tons of coal and 6,508 tons of coke coastwise ; Liverpool, 650,106 tons of coal and 9,582 tons of coke oversea ; Cardiff, 1,123,557 tons of coal and 5,153 tons of coke oversea, and 880,961 tons of coal and 7,976 tons of coke coastwise; Swansea, 411,377 tons of coal and 1,398 tons of coke oversea, and 190,612 tons of coal, 53 tons of coke, and 51,902 tons of culm coastwise ; Newport, 213,585 tons of coal and 22 tons of coke oversea, and 711,225 tons of coal and 2,040 tons of coke coastwise; Shields, 56,589 tons of coal and 2,133 tons of coke oversea, and 23,746 tons of coal coastwise; Blyth, 147,440 tons of coal oversea, and 133,065 tons of coal coastwise; Seaham, 60,837 tons of coal oversea, and 620,465 tons of coal coastwise ; Middlesborough, 106,506 tons of coal and 37,159 tons of coke oversea, and 198,958 tons of coal and 3,082 tons of coke coastwise; Hull, 129,849 tons of coal and 422 tons of coke oversea, and 10,262 tons of coal coastwise; Llanelly, 106,376 tons of coal and 4,797 tons of coke oversea, and 262,201 tons of coal and 11,922 tons of culm coast- wise; Glasgow, 81,171 tons of coal and 1,542 tons of coke oversea; Port Glasgow, 16,852 tons of coal oversea; Greenock, 65,245 tons of coal and 899 tons of coke oversea; Grangemouth, 71,045 tons of coal and 377 tons of coke oversea; Alioa, 58,635 tons of coal and 37 tons of coke oversea, and 9,334 tons of coal coastwise; Whitehaven, 2,498 tons of coal oversea, and 182,146 tons of coal and 1,203 tons of culm coastwise; Maryport, 374,801 tons of coal and coke coastwise; St. David’s, 55,898 tons of coal oversea, and 5,166 tons of coal coastwise; Ardrossan, 35,800 tons of coal oversea, and 79,906 tons of coal coastwise ; Charlestown, 60,305 tons of coal over- sea, and 53,632 tons of coal coastwise; Inverkeithing, 24,499 tons of coal oversea, and 8,295 tons of coal coastwise ; and Borrowstonness, 28,645 ton- of coal and 234 tons of coke oversea, and 53,476 tons of coal coastwise.
TurtLe Remains In THE Upper Greensanp.—The phosphatic nodules of the Upper Greensand of Cambridge are well known to geologists from their extensive commercial use in the manufacture of super-phosphate of lime for agricultural purposes. The nodules have been secreted in or around various organic remains, many of which, such as the bones, were often, probably, broken up before the concretion of the phosphatic matter
VOL. V, L
7A: THE GEOLOGIST.
around them, and both they, and the nodules subsequently, have appa- rently been not uncommonly subjected to a considerable amount of rollmg and degradation. Numerous kinds of shells are common in these nodules, as are bones of pterodactyles and other reptiles. Our attention has lately. been drawn to very numerous fragmentary remains of turtles, consisting chiefly of the crania and lower jaws, with numerous fragments of the cara- pace, ribs, and many vertebre. The predominance of the skulls and lower jaws in the collection we refer to, which was made by Mr. Farren, of Cam- bridge, and has just been purchased by Mr. Gregory, is probably the mere accidental result of the collecting of what might be deemed saleable speci- mens, or that these portions being the most readily recognized, attracted attention, while the other fragments of the limbs and body, more ob- scure in their aspect, were left in nodule-heaps. Professor Owen has made out distinctly, not less than four species, namely,—Chelone sulcimentum, C. altimentum, C. uncimentum. and C. depressimentum. But the point to which we want to draw attention is, the district and the land-shores on which these turtles lived. The Upper Greensand is a marine deposit, and the beds at Cambridge seem closely allied to the grey chalk, especially as that member of the cretaceous group appears developed in Kent and Sussex, and therefore should have been formed under some considerable depth of water.
Now all the Chelonie are of littoral habits, and as these greensand- nodules, like the phosphate-nodules from the Gault and Lower Greensand, and all the other deposits from which we have seen them, frequently have oyster and other shells attached to them, it would seem that they had been brought to a hardened state before they were