670 * MR. H. BOLTON, F.ll.S.E., ON [Aug., 1904. 



replaced by a succession of thin limestones, calcareous clays 

 and shales, and red and green sandstones. 



No trace of a coal seam is seen amongst these beds. 



Naturally so great a lithological change is accompanied by 

 some change in the character of the fauna. 



The change is not, however, of the nature of a replacement, 

 it is rather one of extinction. Yery many of the typical 

 examples of the Coal Measure fauna disappear and with the 

 exception of the Ostracoda, and Anthracomya, those which 

 do persist are few in number and difficult to find. 



As the uppermost beds of the Upper Coal Measures are 

 destitute of coal seams, only feeble traces of a coal flora are 

 present, and we must therefore rely on the fauna to determine 

 whether these upper beds are most closely related to the 

 Permian s above or the productive Coal Measures beneath. 



Notwithstanding the sudden change in lithological 

 character, a change which undoubtedly foreshadows the 

 deposits of the overlying Permian, there is, nevertheless, so 

 far as the writer knows, only the slightest approximation 

 in the fauna of the one to that of the other. The fauna of 

 the overlying Permian s has been worked out with great 

 thoroughness by Mr. C. Roeder, and the late Prof. Greinitz, and 

 is published in the Society^s Transactions, Yol. XX. p. 537. 



The fauna of the Permians, at Newton, described and 

 figured by Captain Brown in the first volume of the Society's 

 Transactions shows also the same marked divergence. 

 The fossils of the Upper Coal Measures, sparse though they 

 be, belong undoubtedly to a Coal Measure fauna, and the 

 only striking disparity between them and those of the 

 Middle and Lower series is to be found in the abundance of 

 the ostracods in the former. 



Even this disparity is not so great as it appears, for 

 ostracods are abundant over not a few of the thick coals of 

 the Middle series. By reason of their small size they have not 



