15 



epoch. The Bone bed there contains numerous bones and 

 teeth, scales, (Gyrolepis) and fragments of Icthyodorulites, 

 of Fish, and Saurians, &c., but in a very fragmentary 

 condition. It almost immediately overlies the grey marls, 

 twenty feet or more, (now classed with the Rhcetics,) the Red 

 Marl (New Red Sandstone,) appearing underneath; about 

 fifteen feet of light and black coloured shales, (with Avicula 

 contorta and Cardium Rhoeticum,) form the top of the 

 diiFerent pits where this formation is exposed near the town, 

 and has evidently been much denuded. Crystals of Selenite 

 and Pyrites abound. The beds dip apparently to the S.E. 

 In one of these black shales, in March, 1874, Mr. Harrison 

 discovei-ed the first Radiate known in the British Rhoetics. 

 Still more recently, Mr, Embrey, of the School of Science, 

 Gloucester, discovered in the well known section at Garden 

 Cliff, "Westbuiy, Gloucestershire, several beautifully pre- 

 served specimens of the order Stelleridoe, and these have 

 been determined by Dr. Wright to belong to a species of 

 Ophiolepis, which a short tune previously had been detected 

 in strata of the same age at Hildesheim, in Germany, and 

 which he has named Ophiolepis Damesii. Mr. Embrey 

 kindly sent me a specimen; and in a recent visit to Leicester 

 I took it there to compare with Mr. Harrison's, and we 

 could detect no difference. Mr. Harrison only found two 

 one of which is very small; Mi-. Embrey has obtained several 

 nearly entire; the latter informs me that it is met with at 

 Westbuiy in an otherwise unfossiliferous black shale, between 

 two beds of shale, with Cardium. Until quite lately no form 

 of this order had been noticed in the Rhoetics, though there 

 was of course no reason why they should not have lived 

 during the period, since Star fish and Ophiura occur both in 

 the Silurians and Keuper Sandstone (in Germany), and 



