84 POPULAE GEOLOGT. 



pretty gothic church which is pleasantly situated on the brow of 

 the hill overlooking Lightclrffe; and went through Wyke to a coal- 

 pit on the other side of the village. Here the Black^bed coal — iO 

 yards above the Better bed coal — is met with about 86 yards below the 

 surface of the ground. Over the Black-bed coal lies the celebrated iron- 

 stone-bed of Low-moor. The ironstone is brought to the siu?face and 

 shunted in great heaps, and afterwards spread over the ground in a 

 layer about a yard in thiclcness, to " weather." When first brought 

 up from the mine it is coated with a clayey shale, exposure to the 

 atmosphere, causes this shale to crumble away and leave the ironstone. 

 The length of time required for this process and the number of turnings, 

 depends upon the supply and demand for the material. These shales and 

 ironstones contain a great number of fossil plants ; and it is by carefully 

 looking over these shale-heaps and ironstone-beds, that we find those beauti- 

 ful fossil-plants which adorn the cabinets of our local collectors. We have 

 no need to go down the pits to fin.d them, for the miner brings them up to 

 the surface for us, and all we have to do, is to look for them there. 



The yovmg student must not however, expect too much, for I have 

 often walked over these beds without finding any fossils worth taking 

 home ; but practice and experience are the same in geology as in all other 

 pursuits, and now-a-days it is a poor journey indeed that does not furnish 

 my bag with specimens worth preserving. 



The shale brought to the surface while working the Better-bed coal 

 contains animal remains chiefly bones, scales and teeth of fish, but portions 

 of the vertebra of a reptHe have been found by my friend Mr Rushwortb, 

 of Hipperholme. He has also found among a number of other rare fossils — a 

 very good specimen, of the jawofMagalichthysHibberti with three large teeth 

 fixed in it. The larger teeth and jawbones are very rarely met with, but diu-ing 

 a visit, last summer to one of these shale-heaps, I picked up a dozen specimens 

 of the smaller sized fish-teethbesidesanimiber of fish-scales, and other fossils. 

 The shales and ironstone nodules, above tlie Black-bed coal also contain 

 fossil shells, siich as "Unios" or as some persons call them "An thracosia." 

 Sometimes they occiu- in thick bands, in the ironstone — called by the 

 miners " mussel bands." Two well defined species are found here, one 

 about the size of a common mussel and the other about one-fom-th as 

 large. In some places another kind (Cardina) occiu-s also in bands, 

 resembling our common cockle-shell ; the strata in which they occur are 

 called by miners the " qockle-bands." 



