TRANSACTIOKS OF SECTION C. 631 



2. Of the Vertebrata the fishes enumerated in Mr. Salter's list are important. 

 The following are the genera named : — Megalichthys, Ilhizodus, Pleuracanthus, 

 Byssacanthus (?), Pahieoniscus, Amblypterus, Ilelodus, and Pueciiodus. 



Although reptilian remains are rare in South Wales, yet they are not altogether 

 wanting. In 1865 ' Professor (now Sir Richard) Owen described some remains of a 

 small amphibian (between newt and lizard), found by the late J. E. Lee in the 

 lower part of the Middle (or upper part of the Lower) Coal-measures at Llan- 

 trissant, Glamorganshire. The animal was rather larger than the .allied Dendrer- 

 peton Acadianum, and Professor Owen named it Anthrakerpeton crassosteuni, 'the 

 thick-boned coal-reptile.' This paper and its illustrations were reproduced in the 

 ' Trans. Cardiff Nat. Soc' 



10, Extent of the Coal-measures under the South of Em/land. — Sir H. De la 

 Beche in 1840 - noted that a great sheet of pakeozoic rocks, including the Coal- 

 measures, extending from Belgium to Central England, had been rolled about, 

 undulated, crumpled, and then partially worn away before the New Red Sand- 

 atone and other Mesozoic strata were laid down upon them ; and that these, in 

 their turn, had been denuded so as to expose here and there portions of the under- 

 lying Coal-measures, though near by a ridge of profitless Mountain-limestone or 

 other older rock might come to the surface. 



In 1856 Mr. Godwin-Austen, following up his reasoning about the areas of 

 coal-growth (see above, page 617), explained that the movements of disturbance 

 which they have undergone had tended to preserve the great Franco-Belgian coal- 

 band, and had rendered it available ; and he proceeded to state that the course of 

 that band of Coal-measures may be traceable westward, and probably coincided 

 with, and may some day be reached along the line of, the Valley of the Thames. 



Professor Prestwicli in 1871 extended this inquiry;^ and, having carefully 

 compared the coal-beds of Somerset and Belgium, described the characters and 

 relations of the strata in detail, and showed that the coal might be met with at a 

 workable distance from the surface along a narrow but interrupted curved area 

 from Westphalia, through Belgium and France, to England ; then along the 

 north-eastern part of Kent (Isle of Thanet, &c.), and through Herts, Bucks, 

 Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, to the Bristol coal-field, and on to South Wales. 

 The coincident axis of disturbance is south of the river Thames, in his opinion 

 throwing off the coal-beds on its northern flank. 



Mr. W. Galloway has given in the ' Cardiff Nat. Soc. Report,' vol. xvii. 1856, 

 p. 23, a sketch of the views here alluded to. A full account of the history and 

 literature of the question of the underground range of the older rocks in the South- 

 east of England, especially as to the possible occurrence of the Coal-measures, is 

 published in the ' Memoirs of the Geological Survev : The Geologvof London and 

 of Part of the Thames Valley,' vol. i., 1889, pp. 13-28, by Mr. AVhitaker, F.R.S., 

 who, having given close attention to this subject, has suggested the following 

 localities as likely sites in the search for coal in the South-east of England : 

 St. Margaret's, Cliartham, Chatham, and Shoreham, all in Kent; Bushey (Herts), 

 Loughton (Essex), and Coombs, near Stowmarket (Suflx)lk).'' 



An interesting fact relating to this matter is that in February 1890 the engineer 

 of a boring at the foot of Shakespear's Clitf, Dover, announced that at 1,204- feet 

 below the surface there a thin seam of coal was met with, and at several yards 

 lower down coal eight feet thick was pierced, associated with clays, grits, and 

 blackish shales. (Newspapers.) Dr. Blanford, in his 'Anniversary Address to the 

 Geological Society 'on February 21, 1890, stated that Professor Boyd Dawkins, 

 in a letter received the day before, had informed him that a coal-seam had really 

 'been reached at a depth of 1,180 feet, and that this seam is proved to be of Car- 

 boniferous age by the plant-fossils in the associated clays. . . . The discovery is solely 



' Geol. Maq., vol. ii., pp. 6, 8, plates L and II. 



* Mem. Geol. Surv., vol. i., pp. 213-214. 



^Report Royal Commission Coal- Supply, 1S71 ; Jjinir. Address Geol. Soc, 1872; 

 Popular Science Review, July, 1872 ; and Proceed. Instit. Civil Engineers, vol. xxxvii., 

 1874, p. 110, kc, plates VIII. and IX. 



♦ Geol. Mag., November, 1890 ; Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1890, p. 819. 



