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I. — Cambrian Hyolithid^:, etc., from Hartshill in the Nuneaton 



District, Warwickshire. 



By E. S. Cobbold, F.G.S. 



(PLATE IV.) 



PROFESSOR CHARLES LAPWORTH, in his " Sketch of the 

 Geology of the Birmingham District", 1 gives a list of species 

 (pp. 343 and 349) from "the Hyolite Limestone " and the associated 

 shales as provisionally determined by Miss E. M. R. Wood 

 (Mrs. Shakespeare). He referred the beds generally to the Lower 

 Cambrian and paralleled them approximately with the fossiliferous 

 beds of Cornley, the details of which had not then been worked out. 

 The present study of the Hyolithidse, etc., of Woodlands Quarry, 

 fully confirms the reference to the Lower Cambrian, and it would 

 seem that the position of the Hyolite Limestone in the faunal 

 sequence is near to or a little below that of the Olenellus and Grey 

 Limestones of Comley at the local summit of the Lower Cambrian. 

 The evidence of this is indirect, for no species has yet been identified 

 from both localities, unless it be JKicromitra lalradorica, Billings sp. 

 Nevertheless, the Hyolithidse, etc., found in North America that 

 are nearest to, or representative of, those of Hartshill, are there 

 associated more or less intimately with a number of trilobites and 

 brachiopods that find their representatives in the Comley Limestones. 



To put the matter in another way: the Hyolithidse, etc., of 

 Hartshill, combined with the trilobites of Comley, make up what is 

 practically the same Lower Cambrian fauna that is found at North 

 Attleboro', Massachusetts, in the exposures of Manuel's Brook, 

 Newfoundland, and at many intermediate positions. 



During the past four years Mr. L. J. Wills, F.G.S., has kindly 

 sent me, for comparison with the forms found at Comley, a number 

 of specimens that he had collected from Woodlands Quarry. This 

 communication is the result of a critical examination of these 

 specimens, without any previous reference to Mrs. Shakespeare's 

 determinations above alluded to. 



The specimens are preserved in the Birmingham University 

 collection, and are found upon a number of pieces of red sandy 

 limestone, specially characterized by plentiful tubes of Coleoloides 

 and ffyolithus. A few other fossils occur and also some very obscure 

 fragments of trilobites which are quite indeterminable; Where 

 unweathered the rock is of a dull purplish-red colour, on which the 

 white sections and fragments of shells stand out clearly. "Usually 

 the examples are -very unsatisfactory for the shells break open 

 tangentially and rarely show their surface characters. Where 

 weathered the rock becomes brick- red and the fossils occur as casts 

 or partially weathered exteriors, which may be more or less 

 completely freed from the matrix. 



Invagination of shells is very frequent, as many as three or four 

 shells of the same species are sometimes found one within another, 

 1 Proc. Geol. Assoc, vol. xv, pt. ix, 1898. 



