350 Mr. Williamson 07i the Limestones 



used only as a drain to carry off the water from the pits, Mr. 

 Mellor and myself were rewarded by the discovery of a thin 

 seam of red shale, about sixty feet above the main or three 

 yards limestone, filled with the most beautiful remains of 

 plants, which fully confirmed the opinion Dr. Charles Phillips 

 had been the first to form and advance. Amongst these were 

 large specimens of Ca^awzz to decoratus, Brongn., and Cal. no- 

 dosus; stems of Lepidodendroti Sternbergii, an elegant species 

 o( Netiropteris* with large leaflets, a small Cyclopteris, leaves 

 of Stigviaria ficoides, fragments of a Pecopteris, AsterophyU 

 lites, and several other plants common to the coal series below, 

 formino- a character which, if any truth exists in the theory of 

 identification, cannot for a moment be mistaken. 



2. MoUusca. 



These, like the plants, are not of numerous species. In 

 the three limestones worked at Ardwick, and also at Whiston, 

 but most abundant in the Three Yards mine at the former lo- 

 cality, are countless myriads of a small depressed turbinated 

 shell, the merit of the first discovery of which is due to Pro- 

 fessor Phillips, who is at present investigating its nature. It 

 bears the strongest resemblance to a Planorbis, and is evi- 

 dently of a nature very similar to the one found at Burdie- 

 house, by Dr. Hibbert, and figured in his memoir (page 13.). 

 In form' it closely resembles the recent Planorbis Nautilus 

 (Fleming,) but is rather smaller. It occurs, as I said be- 

 fore, in all the limestones worked, and Dr. Phillips found the 

 same fossil in the limestone at Whiston, and also in a frag- 

 ment of shale from the colliery of E. Fitzgerald, Esq., atPen- 

 dlebury, about four miles from Manchester. It was found in 

 sinkino- down from the upper or "two-feet coal" to Buckley's 

 " three-quarters mine," the highest coal of any importance in 

 the Lancashire coal-field. 



The black bass is literally filled with fragments and perfect 

 shells of a species of Unio of small size. It bears a considerable 

 resemblance to Hibbert's Unio nuciformis from the Burdie- 

 house limestone, but is of a less globular form. This shell 

 varies considerably in size, being sometimes one and a half 

 inches in length, and at others not more than three quarters 

 of an inch. The depressed and crushed state in which these 

 fossils are found would indicate a shell of a thin and fragile 

 nature, and such it has doubtless been : they are most frac- 

 tured towards the lower portion of the bass, no perfect ones 

 being there observable, but towards the top they are generally 

 uninjured, further than has been the result of pressure. Of 



• This I find to be Keiiroplerls cordata, which Dr. Phillips has since met 

 with in the coal measures at Oldham. 



