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THE DISCOVERT OF SILURIAN FOSSILS AT WICTON. 

 By Dr. BULL. 



Dr. Bull said the President's request reminded him a little of his old 

 hospital days, when the Clinical Professor would pick out one of the pupils, and 

 not always the most attentive, and say, "Now, sir, be good enough to examine 

 this case, and let us know what is the matter." There was no help for the 

 student but to make the best of it he could before the whole class, and he sup- 

 posed he must be equally obedient now in face of the many e.Kcellent geologists 

 around him. 



The discovery of these fossils was made in this way. Some little time 

 since Mr. Ai-kwright observed amongst the broken stones in the lane they had 

 just left, several pieces of fossiliferous limestone, and on enquiring from his 

 bailiff where they had come from, he was told that all the stones broken in the 

 lane had been turned out of the bottom of a four foot drain carried across the 

 field they were now in. It happily occurred to Mr. Arkwright that it would bo 

 an object of great interest to the Woolhope Club to examine the locality in 

 which they were found, and if possible to explain their appearance there. The 

 club gladly seized the opportunity and fixed their verj' first meeting for the 

 ■ purpose of doing" so, and Mr. Arkwi-ight has very kindly had these two large 

 holes for exploration, dug specially for this visit. 



Now, as you see, these holes tell the same tale as the drain. At four feet 

 from the surface you come to a layer of stones of different characters and sizes, 

 and on breaking up some of these stones from each hole you find the same fossils 

 that Mr. Arkwright found in the lane. It might veiy possibly have happened 

 that the Silurian rocks which we know to be below this round-backed hill of 

 Old Ked Sandstone on which we stand, had been thrust up nearly to the surface, 

 in a similar way to tftie dome at Hagley Park ; but it is not so, the rocks are not 

 in situ here, for all these stones, as you see, are loosely deposited, and are 

 all more or less water worn. Indeed, standing as we do now on this high 

 ground and looking at the very gradual slopes, the rounded contour of all the 

 hiUs around us, there is nothing to lead one for a moment to suspect the 

 presence of any upcast of Silurian rocks. They all present the graduated inclines 

 of the Old Red Sandstone, made steep here and there, perhaps by a protecting 

 belt of Comstone. We have nothing to do here on the surface, with the direct 

 effects of volcanic action, or Vulcanicity, and we must look rather for the 

 explanation of any facts that may come under our observation to-day to those 

 gradual changes, produced by the action of causes now in operation, carried 

 on for lengthened periods of time. 



If you examine these stones carefully as they appear broken np in the 

 lane, and as you break them yourselves, you will find a very gi'eat variety — 

 Sandstones of different kinds and coloiu-s, Cornstones of all hues, and fossiliferous 



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