1 12 FISIIKS OF THE SILURIAN ROCKS, 



as the supposed scales must be given up — no good evidence 

 that the other kind was not. The ichtiiyic remains of the 

 Sihirian system next discovered were first introduced to the 

 notice of geologists by Professor Phillips, at the meeting of 

 the British Association in 1842.* They occurred, he stated, 

 in a quarry near Hales End, at the base of the Upper Lud- 

 low rock, immediately over the Aymestry Limestone, and 

 were so exceedingly diminutive, that they appeared to the 

 naked eye as mere discoloured spots, but resolved under the 

 microscope into scattered groupes of minute spines, like those 

 of the C heir acanthus, with what seemed to be still more mi- 

 nute scales, or perhaps — what in such circumstances could 

 scarce be distinguished from scales — shagreen points of the 

 scale-like type. [The next ichthyic organism detected in the 

 Silurian rocks occurred in the Wenlock Limestone, — a con- 

 siderably lower and older deposit, — and was first described in 

 the Edinburgh Review for 1845 by a vigorous writer and 

 masterly geologist (generally understood to be Professor Sedg- 

 wick of Cambridge), as "a characteristic portion of a fish un- 



* " Mr Phillips proceeded to describe some remains of a small fish 

 resembling the Cheiracanthus of the Old Red Sandstone, scales and spines 

 of which he had found in a quarry at Hales End, on the western side of 

 the Malverns. The section presented beds of the Old Red Sandstone 

 inclined to the west ; beneath these were arenaceous beds of a lighter 

 colour, forming the junction with Silurian shales ; these, again, passing 

 on to calcareous beds in the lower part of the quarry, containing the 

 corals and shells of the Aymestry Limestone, of their agreement with 

 which stronger evidence might be obtained elsewhere. He had found 

 none of these scales in the junction beds or in the Upper Ludlow shales; 

 but about sixty or one hundred feet lower, just above the Aymestry 

 Limestone, his attention had been attracted to discoloured spots on the 

 s^irface of the beds, which, upon microscopic examination, proved to be 

 the minute scales and spines before mentioned. These remains were only 

 apparent on the surface, whilst the *fish-bed'of the Upper Ludlow rock, 

 as it usually occurred, was an inch thick, conii. ^ing of innumerable small 

 teeth and spines." — Report, in " Athen£eura"/ar 1842, of the Proceedings 

 of the Twelfth Meeting of British Association ( Manchester j. 



