Geological Address at Manchester, 411 



the south of Scotland by Mr. Geikie between the lower and upper 

 Old Red is thus in perfect harmony with the zoological fact that 

 the central or Caithness fauna is entirely wanting in that region, 

 as in England, — as it is indeed in Ireland, where a similar break 

 occurs. 



" It gratifies me to add that many new forms of those fossil 

 fishes which so peculiarly characterize the Old Red Sandstone have 

 been admirably described by Sir Philip de Grey Egerton in the 

 Memoirs of the Geological Survey, and I must remark that it is 

 most fortunate that the eminent Agassiz is here so well represent- 

 ed by my distinguished friend, who stands unquestionably at the 

 head of the fossil ichthyologists of our country. 



" Very considerable advances have been made in the develop- 

 ment of our acquaintance with that system — the Carboniferous — 

 which in the North of England (Yorkshire) has been so well des- 

 cribed by Professor Philips, and with which all practical geolo- 

 gists in and around Manchester are necessarily most interested. 

 The close researches of Mr. Binney, who has from time to time 

 thrown new lights on the origin and relations of coal and the 

 component parts of its matrix, established proofs, so long ago as 

 1840, that a great part of our coal fields was accumulated under 

 marine conditions, the fossils associated with the coal beds being, 

 not as had been too generally supposed, of fluviatile or lacustrine 

 character, but the spoils of marine life. Professor Henry Rogers 

 came to the same conclusion with regard to the Appalachian 

 coal fields in America in 1842. Mr. Bi nney beheves that the plant 

 Sigillaria grew in salt water, and it is to be remarked that even in 

 the so-called ' freshwater limestones' of Ardwick and Le Botwood 

 the Spirorbis and other marine shells are frequent, while many of 

 the shells termed Cypris may prove to be species of Cythere. 

 Again, in the illustrations of the fossils which occur in the bands 

 of iron-ore in the South Welsh coal field, Mr. Salter, entering par- 

 ticularly into this question, has shown that in the so-called ' Unio- 

 beds' there constantly occurs a shell related to the Mya of our 

 coasts, which he terms Anthracomya ; while, as he has stated in 

 the Memoirs of the Geological Survey , just issued, the very Unios 

 of these beds have a peculiar aspect, differing much from that of 

 true freshwater forms. They have, he says, a strongly wrinkled 

 epidermis, which is a mark of the Myada?, or such burrowing 

 bivalve shells, and not of true Unionidae ; they also di0*er in the 



