A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



Backhouse also yielded remains of the capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus). Few other vertebrate remains 

 appear to have been recorded from the superficial deposits of the county. The local Natural History 

 Society's Museum possesses, however, a skeleton of the extinct Irish deer (Cervus giganteus), or miscalled 

 Irish elk obtained in the winter of 1855-56 in peat under a thick deposit of brick-earth at South 

 Shields ; a pair of antlers of the same species has also been obtained from an ancient forest-deposit at 

 the mouth of the Tees,* at Snook Point, which is now in the Durham University Museum ; and a 

 second pair was dug up at Nab Hill so long ago as 1840.* Probably these may be assigned to the 

 Prehistoric epoch. Remains of the wild boar from South Shields may have come from the same 



layer. 



Finally, a fragment of a tusk, five inches in circumference, found in the excavation of the 

 West Hartlepool Docks, is stated to be the only evidence of the former existence of the mammoth 

 or hairy elephant (Elephas primigenius) within the limits of the county. 8 This specimen was 

 preserved in the Athenaeum at West Hartlepool. Mr. Howse regards it as being of Prehistoric 

 age but it should apparently be referred rather to the antecedent Pleistocene epoch. 



Passing on to the fossils of the Paleozoic epoch, the first that claim attention are five species 

 of enamel-scaled, or ganoid, fishes from the Upper Magnesian Limestone of the Permian series 

 from Fulwell Hill and Marsden Bay, first brought to notice in 1862 and again in 1864 by 

 Mr. ]. W. Kirkby. At first all were referred to the family Palteoniscidee, one to the genus 

 Acrolepis, and the others to Pal<eoniscus itself. As regards the first genus, subsequent investigations 

 have confirmed the original determination, but the reference of the others to Paltsoniscus has proved 

 erroneous, for not only are they distinct from that genus, but they also belong to quite another 

 family group the Semionotidis in place of the Palcsoniscidte ; being, in fact, near allies of the well- 

 known Mesozoic genera Lepidotus and Dapedius. Accordingly, in 1877 they were referred by 

 Dr. R. H. Traquair * to a new genus, under the name of Acentrophorus, which is thus typified by 

 Durham specimens. 



The discovery of these fishes is recorded by Mr. Kirkby in the following words : 



'The fossils were first noticed by the workmen in August 1861 in a newly-opened quarry 

 belonging to Sir Hedworth Williamson, Bart., at Fulwell, about a mile and a half to the north of 

 Sunderland ; and my attention was almost immediately drawn to them by Mr. Harry Abbs, of the 

 latter town 



' The quarry referred to is situated on the northern slope of Fulwell Hill, and is not far dis- 

 tant from another more extensive and much older quarry belonging to the same proprietor. In 

 these quarries, as well as in others on the same hill more to the west, the Magnesian Limestone is 

 largely worked for lime-burning, as it has been in the older quarries for the last sixty years or 

 more. During the whole of that period, up to 1861, no traces of any organic remains had ever 

 been found in the limestone of this hill. But about the time named, or a little before, it became 

 necessary, in order to keep the new quarry at its proper level, to cut through some underlying beds 

 (brought up by an anticlinal) which had never yet been cut through, owing to the unvendible quality 

 of the limestone ; and it was in working these lower and inferior strata that the great bulk of the 

 fossil fish were discovered, most of them having been found in one bed, or zone of beds, of lime- 

 stone ; there nevertheless being several instances of their occurrence both above and below that 

 horizon. 



' Soon after their discovery in the new quarry, another on the same anticlinal brought up the 

 equivalent strata in the old quarry, about half a furlong to the south ; and it was not long before the 

 same fossils were met with there, besides other species that the first locality had not yielded. 



' The same fish-bed would appear also to extend considerably to the north-east ; for I have 

 obtained the tail-half of a small fish from a stratum of limestone in Marsden Bay, occupying the 

 same stratigraphical position as the Fulwell fish-bed.' 



Three forms of these Fulwell fishes were respectively named by Mr. Kirkby Paltsoniscus variant, 

 P. abbsi, and P. altus ; names which in 1877 became changed to Acentrophorus variant, A. abbsi, and 

 A. altus. Another type was provisionally assigned to Palaoniscus angustus of Agassiz, an imperfectly 

 known fish of uncertain affinity. 8 Finally the fish originally identified by Mr. Kirkby with Acrolepis 

 sedgwicki (an identification subsequently cancelled by its author) was eventually named by Mr. Howse 

 Acrolepis kirkbyi. According to Dr. Smith Woodward,* it is allied to A. sedgwicki, but its affinities 

 and right to specific distinction are not clear. 



Following the divisions adopted by local geologists, the next zone of the Permian formation 

 from which vertebrate fossils have been obtained is the so-called Lower Limestone, the Compact 

 Limestone of Sedgwick, which forms in most places a conspicuous plateau, or ' step,' in the Permian 

 escarpment. An extremely interesting, although unfortunately very imperfect, specimen from this 



1 Trans. Tyneside Nat. Field Club, v. 1 14. 8 Ibid. in. 



8 Ibid. * Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. joncvii. 565. 



6 See Woodward, Cat. Fois. Fish. Brit. Mus. ii. 447. Ibid. 504. 



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