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far out into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, there would be found to be a 

 stratified deposit dipping away just as this does from the flanks of the Longmynd, 

 and consisting as this does of the larger pebbles close to the beach, and further out 

 of finer mud, the one in course of time becoming what is called a conglomerate, 

 the other the ordinary sandstone and shale which is so much more common. 



According to this the Longmynd would be an island standing out from the 

 surface of the primeval sea before the time when all the succeeding strata which 

 now intervene between us and it, were formed — that is, all above the Llandovery. 

 Such strata are well developed \vithin sight of the spot where we stand — on 

 the one side we have the parallel ridges of Wenlock edge and Aymestrey lime- 

 stone extending from Wenlock to Ludlow, and thence thinning out in their 

 course southwards. 



Due south is the district of Woolhope, most interesting as including 

 withia itself an epitome of most of the Silurian rocks and proving the 

 persistency of their relative position over so large an area ; and lastly, 

 Malvern, which also presents the same order of strata, the Wenlock over- 

 lying the Llandovery, and this succeeded by the lower and upper Lxidlow rocks 

 with the intervening stratum of Aymestrey Limestone. 



In all these places the Silurian rocks are found to protrude from 

 under the old Ked Sandstone, which was therefore deposited subsequently 

 to them and which occupies nearly all this immediate neighbourhood. This 

 extensive deposit is remarkable by its being the first in which vertebrate 

 fishes have left any extensive traces. It would, indeed, be rash to assert 

 that such did not exist previously. When we hear of such a fossil 

 as that of the Archoeopterix being found in rocks which, though well 

 searched, had, till a short time ago, failed to yield a single specimen of it — 

 when Mr. Darwin tells us of a plate of a kind of barnacle being found in 

 the secondary rocks — a single specimen in that wide, and as was supposed, well- 

 known stratum, proving, as certainly as thousands of such specimens could, that 

 the ancestors of these little animals which now clothe the rocks of our sea shore 

 with their innumerable and curious dwellings had this remote antiquity— in 

 the face of these facts, I say, it would be rash to assert that the vertebrate 

 animals of the old red had no representatives at an earlier age. " It is as rash " 

 (to use Mr. Darwin's own words) "in us to dogmatize on the succession of organic 

 beings throughout the world, as it would be for a naturalist to land for five 

 minutes on some barren point in Australia, and there to discuss the number 

 and range of its productions." The same conclusion is forced upon us by finding 

 at the summit of the Silurian rocks, but below the base of the old red, a 

 remarkable bone bed, which in some places is some eight inches thick. This 

 deposit consists almost entirely of spines and bits of the skin of innumerable 

 fishes of which, however, not a single specimen to which they can be 

 assigned has come to light. In the Lower Ludlow rock, indeed, a few 

 specimens of Pteraspis have been found, but it is by no means sure that 



