TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 637 



cstraiiij:rapliical horizon in the Trias. It is proposed to distinguish in future the 

 Waterstones from the Lower Keuper Sandstone, reserving the latter name for the 

 sandstones and conglomerates, as typically developed in Cheshire. 



7. Oil a Discovery of Fossil Fishes in the Neio Bed Sandstone of Nottingham. 



By E. WiLSOX, F.G.8. 



The author called the attention of the Section to a recent discovery of fossil 

 iishes in the Lower Keuper Sandstone of England — a circumstance of sufficient 

 rarity in itself, apart from any palfeontological results, to deserve at least a 

 passing notice. 



During the construction of the Leen Valley Outfall Sewer in 187S, a remark- 

 ably interesting section was given by the tunnelling driven through Kough Hill, 

 ur Colwick Wood, near Nottingham, showing the lower beds of the Waterstones 

 resting on a denuded surface of the * Basement Beds ' of the Keuper. 



The lowest stratum of the Waterstones was a sandstone about a foot thick, 

 with streaks of red and green marl, and a seam of pebbles at the base. The fishes 

 occurred in this bed, and chiefly in a thin seam of red marl, overlying the pebbly 

 seam at the very bottom of the Waterstones ; they were present in large numbers, 

 as if in a shoal, for a distance, in the line of section, of about .33 feet. 



The specimens he obtained have been examined by several competent authorities, 

 but unfortunately their state of preservation is so bad that nothing certain can be 

 made out as to their precise zoological aflinities. Dr. Traquair, however, believes 

 that they probably belong to some species, new or old, of the genus 6'emionotns. 



The occurrence of these fossils at the junction of two distinct sets of beds— 

 the Basement Beds and the Waterstones — is probably not a mere chance coincidence. 

 The characters of the preceding Keuper Basement Beds — false-bedded, coarse, grey 

 sandstones and conglomerates with large fractured quartzite pebbles, and lenticular 

 beds of red marl — prove them to. have been formed during a period of great 

 violence ; while those of the Waterstones — regularly-bedded fine-grained yellowish 

 sandstones and red marls covered with ripple-marks, sun-cracks, and pseudomorphs 

 of common salt — show that they were formed in quiet and shallow waters. It 

 appears pretty certain, then, that these fishes did not live in this area during the 

 turbulent times of the Basement Beds, but came in when subsidence let in the 

 quieter waters of the Waterstone epoch.* 



8. On the Rhostics of Nottinghamshire. By E. Wilson, F.G.S. 



The author gave a summarised account of the Khsetic series in Nottingham- 

 shire. The Ehfetic sections of this district already known to geologists comprise 

 those at Gainsboro', Newark, and Elton. The author described several additional 

 new sections in the Rhfetics of the county — viz., at Gotham and Kilvino-ton 

 between Newark and Bottesford; at Barnstone, between Bingham and Stathern; 

 the boring for coal at Owthorpe, near Colston Bassett ; and the section at Stanton- 

 on-the-Wolds, between Nottingham and Melton Mowbray. A list of the Rha^tic 

 fossils of Notts was given, and the presence of bone-beds noticed. The author 

 could not agree with certain geologists that the green marls which are found 

 beneath the Paper Shales in Notts (nor probably also the ' Tea-green Marls ' of the 

 West of England) belong to the Ilhjetic series, but took them to be Upper Keuper 

 Marls, once red in colour, which had become discoloured by the downward infil- 

 tration of some deoxidising agents evolved during the decomposition of the organic 

 matters of the fossils of the Paper Shales. For, in lithological character the 



' It should be mentioned that the specimens were obtained under somewhat un- 

 favourable circumstances, namely in the roof of a tuimel, several hundred feet from 

 daylight, and after the rock liad been defaced by smoke and dirt. The fossiliferous 

 bed lies only a few feet below the surface of the ground, and if carefully opened 

 from abo\e better and perhaps identifiable specimens might very possibly be obtained. 



