WORK ON THE PALEOZOIC ROCKS. 101 



forms, including" the Russian species described by Fr. 

 Schmidt, but the author gives reasons for separating it 

 from these. Mr. Reynolds (10) adds to our knowledge of 

 the fauna of the Lower Palaeozoic rocks of Western York- 

 shire, by describing a new species of trilobite rare in Britain 

 under the name of Dindymene Hughe sice. It is found in 

 Bala rocks, which have also furnished a cystidean of the 

 family Anomalocystidce , on which the author has notes. 

 He further records several trilobites from the Yorkshire 

 Llandovery rocks which also occur in the Stockdale shales 

 of the Lake district, and two species of Cyphaspis resem- 

 bling continental forms and apparently new to Britain. 



3. Upper PalcBOZoic Rocks. 



We have few additions to our knowledge of the De- 

 vonian rocks, and these are hardly of such a nature as to 

 require notice in an article written for stratigraphical 

 geologists. Consequently in this portion of the article the 

 carboniferous rocks alone will be dealt with, as the Permian 

 rocks also have furnished no new material. Commencing 

 with papers which are mainly concerned with lithological 

 or palaeontological details, it will be sufficient to allude, 

 under the former head, to a paper which gives additional 

 information as to the composition of fire clays (11), and 

 under the latter, to a number of writings adding to our 

 knowledge of the botany and zoology of the carboniferous 

 period (12). The oil shales of Scotland receive notice in an 

 American publication (13). They are noted as occurring 

 in an area which is roughly twenty miles in diameter in the 

 neighbourhood of Edinburgh, in the calciferous sandstone 

 group, and have a thickness of 3000 feet. The shales are 

 described, and their changes in the neighbourhood of in- 

 trusive igneous rocks, e.g., the production of ozocerite in 

 the Binney sandstone. It is stated that there is little doubt 

 that this owes its origin to the distillation of bituminous 

 matter by igneous intrusions in the vicinity of the overlying 

 oil shale. The shale appears to have been formed in tran- 

 quil lagoons, into which vegetable matter was brought down 

 in a very fine state of division, but that the hydrocarbon is 



