656 EEPORT— 1901. 



13. Nole on the Discovery of a Sllicified Plant Seam beneath the Millstone 

 Grit of Sioarth Fell, West Biding of Yorkshire. By John Rhodes, 

 of the Geological Survey. 



By kind permission of the Britisli Association Committee on Carboniferous 

 Zones I am enabled to record the discovery of a silicified plant seam beneath the 

 Millstone Grit at Swarth Fell, and two miles N.W. of Ilawes Junction. 



The exact geological position of the overlying strata is doubtful, but appa- 

 rently they occupy the horizon of the grindstone or ganister of the district. 



At this particular place, however, the grindstone or ganister is absent, and its 

 place is taken by flaggy silicious limestones with marine shells and by a bed of 

 highly silicious grit with plant remains, the latter resting more or less directly on 

 the silicified plant seam. 



Chert occurs, probably as lenticles in the uneven surface of the seam, and con- 

 tains a mass of detached silicious sponge spicules, apparently rod-like bodies, which 

 may belong to the anchoring ropes of hexactinellid sponges. In the same chert 

 are included fragments of silicified plant remains beautifully preserved. 



In the plant seam included pebbles of silicious grit occur, Avhich contain a few 

 spicules similar to those in the chert, and also plant remains. The plant seam 

 rests on a layer of silicified shale containing a few fragmentary sponge spicules, 

 mostly rod-like forms, one piece belonging to an hexactinellid sponge. The beds 

 below are more or less rotted clay shales with ironstones nodules. 



I am indebted to Dr. G. J. Hinde for notes on the sponge remains directly 

 associated with the plant seam. The plants have not been determined, but have 

 been placed in the hands of R. Kidston, Esq., Stirling. 



WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18. 

 The following Papers and Reports were read : — 



1. On the Bone-beds of Piksrmi, Attica, and on Similar Deposits in 

 Northern Euboea. By A. Smith Woodward, LL.D., F.R.S. 



At the suggestion of the British Minister at Athens, Sir Edwin II. Egerton, 

 K.C.B., the Trustees of the British Museum recently undertook a series of exca- 

 vations in the well-known bone-beds of Pikerml in Attica, and I was honoured by 

 being entrusted with the supervision of the work. The owner of the estate, Mr. 

 j\,lexander Skouses, former Minister of War, most cordially assented, and gave 

 every possible facility for the undertaking : while Sir Edwin Egerton's unflagging 

 interest and zeal combined to ensure the greatest succes.s. My wife and I went 

 into residence at the farm early in April, and we continued to occupy the simple 

 but comfortable room which Mr. Skouses had kindly placed at our disposal until 

 the cessation of digging in the middle of July. 



During much of the time we were accompanied by Dr. Theodore Skouphos, 

 Conservator of the Geological Museum of the University of Athens, which claims 

 some share of the results of all such excavations made in Greece. We have to 

 thank him for much help in dealing with the workmen, who spoke only a language 

 with which I was at first unfamiliar. 



The bones are occasionally exposed by the small stream in the ravine of 

 Pikernii, and they seem to have b-en first observed by the English archaeologist, 

 George Finlay, who presented some to the Athens Museum in 18-35. Three years 

 later a Bavarian soldier took a few specimens to Munich, where Pikerml and its 

 fossils were first brought to the notice of the scientific world by Professor Andreas 

 Wagner. Within the next decade more bones were sent to Munich by Llnder- 

 mayer and described by AVagner ; while during the winter of 1852-5.3 the young 

 Bavarian i^aturalist Roth made the great collection which was described by 

 himself and Wagner in 1854, and stUl constitutes one of the chief treasures of the 

 Munich Old Academy, About the same time Choeretis presented a few specimens 



