TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 539 



6. On the Occurrence of certain Fish Remains in the Coal Measures, and the 

 Evidence they afford of their Fresh-water Origin* By James W. Davis, 

 F.G.S., L.8., Hon. Secretary of the Yorkshire Geological and Poly- 

 technic Society. 



A few miles south-west of Leeds, in the district of Morley and Adwalton, 



there is a bed of cannel coal which is extensively wrought. It occurs about 130 



yards above the silkstone or blocking coal ; the latter forming the base of the 



middle coal measm-es in the West Riding of Yorkshire. An average section of the 



bed of cannel or stone coal is as follows : — 



Feet Inches 



Impure cannel 



Cannel coal 



Impure cannel * 



Dirt : 2 



Common coal a 



Slightly impure cannel 5 



Black shale 3 



In the cannel coal, and more numerously in the impure cannel above and below 

 it, there occur numerous fossil remains of fish. They consist of both elasmo- 

 branchs and ganoids, but by far the most common are specimens of Ccelacanthus 

 lepturus, Ag. The extent and seeming method of deposition of the cannel coal — 

 viz., in a series of small inland lakes, at times dried up, and at others more or 

 less filled with water — taken in conjunction with the internal anatomy of the 

 ( Ve lacanthus and the frequent occurrence of the fossil bones of Labyrinthodonts, 

 lead to the inference that these swampy pools were very similar to those*found in 

 Africa and Australia at the present time, where Lepidosiren and Ceratodus inhabit 

 their muddy beds, and during the dry season, when the ponds and streams are 

 dried up, are enabled, by the action of a lung-like air-bladder, to exist either out 

 of the water or buried in the mud until the rainy season again enables the fish 

 to breathe in the ordinary manner by gills. The Ccelacanthus are similarly pro- 

 vided with a swim bladder, whose walls have been erroneously described as osseous, 

 which, so far as can be ascertained, served an exactly similar purpose to that of 

 the Lepidosiren now existing. These facts, together with others cited in the paper, 

 point to the conclusion that the strata were of subaqueous, and in all probability 

 freshwater origin. 



7. On the Discovery of Marine Shells in the Gomrdsier Beds of 

 Northumberland.^ By G. A. Lebouk, F.G.S. 



The author described the circumstances of the find, which took place in the first 

 instance near the village of Whittonstall, in South Northumberland, at the begin- 

 ning of the present year (1878). He then adverted to some hitherto unrecorded 

 previous observations of marine forms in the Lower Coal Measures in the neighbour- 

 hood of Wylam and Prudhoe, by Mr. G. C. Greenwell, F.G.S. The species 

 altogether were the following : — 



A, from Whittonstall (four localities) : 

 Aviculopecten papyraceus. 



Av. sp., two forms not sufficiently well preserved for specific determination. 

 Orthoceras sp., a small elegant form. 

 Encrinite stems, decomposed in every case. 



* Published in full in the « Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological and Poly- 

 technic Society' for 1878. 



■ t The subject will be found treated more fully in the author's ' Outlines of the 

 Geology of Northumberland.' London and Newcastle, 1878. 



