THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 693 



where the carboniferous limestone occurs in great force, overlain by the millstone grit, 

 the strata exhibiting great disturbance from the intrusion of igneous rocks which appear 

 in intersecting beds and dykes. They were worked as early as the year 835, at which 

 time a grant was made by the abbess of Repton, of her estate at Wirksworth, on condition 

 of an annual stipend of lead being paid, for certain religious uses ; but a still greater 

 antiquity belongs to them, as evidenced by the discovery of some Roman remains. A 

 block of lead was discovered on Cromford moor, in the year 1777, with the following 

 inscription, " The Emperor Caesar Hadrianus Augustus, from the mines at Lutudarum," 

 a station in that locality ; and another block was met Avith near Matlock in 1783, 

 inscribed, " Lucius Aruconius Verecundus, from the mines of Lutudarum." All affairs 

 with reference to these mines are regulated by a peculiar court, legally constituted, the 

 laws of which are administered by an officer called the barmaster, whose mode of 

 proceeding is extremely simple and summary. When a person has found, or imagines 

 he has found, a vein of ore in any part of the " King's field," which, with few exceptions, 

 includes the whole of the mineral districts of Derbyshire, he may claim it as his own 

 merely by fixing down a few sticks, put together in a peculiar way, and notifying the 

 same to the appointed officer, who immediately confirms him in the possession of his 

 newly-acquired property. The officer, attended by two jurymen, proceeds to the spot, 

 marks out a plot of ground about fourteen yards square, takes it from the former 

 propi-ietor, whether it be freehold or not, and gives it to the fortunate discoverer. He 

 then, with his attendants, their arms extended and finger-ends touching, proceeds to the 

 nearest highway, the line of route becoming a carriage way in perpetuity to the miner, 

 whereon he may cart his minerals. Neither standing corn, nor any other description of 

 property, with the exception of " a dwelling house, a high road, a garden or an orchard," 

 is, or can be, exempt from this fundamental law of the miners. 



So numerous are the organic remains in this formation, that it has received the name 

 of the Encrinal Limestone, from the abundance and variety of encrinite exuviae found in 



it, whole masses of the rock being almost entirely com 

 posed of them. Various articulations of the stems of these 

 interesting lily-shaped animals are here shown. Some 

 of this limestone, when sufficiently hard and close to 

 be susceptible of a polish, is formed into the splendid 

 Encnnai Limestone. variegated slabs which adorn the mansions of wealth, fully 



equal to the marbles imported from Italy to gratify a taste for foreign productions. The 

 seas, during the deposition of the mountain limestone, must literally have swarmed with 

 members of the encrinite family, since they enter into the composition of various masses 

 as largely as coral-animals into a now growing coral-reef. Shell-fish were also abundant, 

 belonging to all orders, of which the engraving affords some examples. 1. Ortho- 

 ceras lateralis, a straight shell divided by transverse septa into chambers, of which 



nearly seventy have sometimes been counted. 

 Orthoceratites have been found a yard in 

 length, sometimes more, and half a foot in 

 diameter, forming a float which would have 

 accommodated an animal far larger than 

 any existing cephalopod. 2. Bellerophon 

 costatus, a small-sized unchambered shell, analogous to the recent Argonaut, or Paper 

 Nautilus, an inhabitant of the Mediterranean. The gigantic scale of some of these shells 

 is supposed to indicate a very warm climate favouring their development in the northern 

 seas, and an ocean highly charged with calcareous matter supplying the material for their 

 construction. Many remains of icthyolites, either as entire fishes, or detached scales and 



