36 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



Montgomeryshire, Welshpool. The Rev. John E. 

 Vize, M.A., F.R.M.S., Forden Vicarage. Fungi, 

 especially Coniomycetes, leaf fungi generally. 

 Microscopy. 



SCOTLAND. 



Renfrewshire, Gourock by Greenock. Thomas 

 Steel, Lome Place. Microscopy, Geology, especially 

 Post-Pliocene. 



IRELAND. 



Co. Antrim, Belfast. W. Gault, 105 Westmoreland 

 Street. Geology, especially Cretaceous Fossils, Vol- 

 canic rocks and minerals of N.E. Ireland. Speci- 

 mens exchanged or returned if desired. 



OUR COMMON BRITISH FOSSILS, AND 

 WHERE TO FIND THEM. 



By J. E. Taylor, F.G.S., &c. 



No. XI. 



HUNTING for fossil corals in the older rocks, 

 implies visits to some of the most picturesquely 

 romantic spots in Great Britain, with here and there 

 a little variation in some localities whose ancient love- 

 liness has had to give way to the deforming ugliness 



relief. To a young geologist who is fleshing his 

 maiden hammer, such a sight as is here presented 

 produces an effect not likely to be forgotten during 

 life. Myriads upon myriads here lie intombed the 

 exuviae of primeval seas ! No museum in the world 

 could attempt to vie with these almost bare or lichen- 

 covered slabs for variety and abundance of organic 

 remains. Hours can easily be spent in climbing from 

 crag to crag, in and out of the brushwood which is 

 irregularly growing where the layers of soft slate are 

 intercalated between the limestone slabs ; and one 

 forgets that the wide-stretching plain at the foot of 

 the "nest" is superficially crowded with ironworks, 

 manufactories of all kinds, forests of chimneys (many 

 of them out of the perpendicular), colliery works in 

 various stages of mining development as to the modern 

 character of their pit gear, and densely packed regular 

 or irregular rows of unpicturesque-looking houses. 

 The walls of the old castle look over this modern 



Fig. 28.— Balanophyllia regia, a recent British 

 Coral (natural size). 



Fig. 27 .—Caryophyllia, a recent British Coral (natural size). 



, Fig. 29. — Oinphyma sulturbinata, a common 

 L Silurian fossil coral. 



of extensive mining or manufacturing operations. 

 This is the case with the Wren's Nest, near Dudley, 

 formed of a romantic cluster of highly inclined upper 

 .Silurian limestones rising from beneath the coal for- 

 mation which extends up to their very base. These 

 limestone slabs are hard, as if the soft organic matter 

 of the molluscs and corals, whose hard parts almost 

 wholly make up the rocky mass, had thoroughly per- 

 meated it, and thus produced a similar induration 

 to that effected by sculptors, when they boil their 

 porous plaster casts in oil to render them tougher and 

 more durable. But hard as the Dudley limestone is, 

 the fossil corals are harder, and as the faces of the 

 slabs are weathered, the fossils stand out in hieh 



scene of energy and mechanics, and the old and the 

 new, even in human history, are thus brought into 

 strange juxtaposition. 



Leaving out other fossils, the student may find at 

 the Wren's Nest, or in the quarries opened in the lime- 

 stone, abundance of such corals as Favosites Gothlan- 

 dica, F. polyrnorpha, &c. , and various species of 

 such characteristic Silurian corals as Oinphyma (in 

 great abundance), Cystiphyllum, Forites, Heliolites, 

 Fahvocyclus, Colummiria, Halysites (the well-known 

 and very plentiful "chain-coral"), Strombodes, Cyatho- 

 phyllum, &c. Not only is there an abundance of 

 species of fossil corals, ''[simple and compound, but 

 of genera and species as well. Compared with the 



