484 W. IF. King ^ W. J. Lewis— 



scarcely anything about extinct land reptiles. Nothing shows better 

 how justified Seeley was in 1874 in considering the fragment of 

 Craterosaurus to be part of a skull than the fact that since the 

 original description, so far as I am aware, the cranial nature of 

 Crater oxaurus has never been questioned, at least in print. Had 

 Seeley with the evidence then at his disposal originally described 

 Craterosaurus as a neural arch of a dorsal vertebia, probably several 

 of his learned colleagues would have supposed him to be mistaken. 

 As a striking example of the great difficulties that the founders and 

 pioneers of modern palaeontology encountered in their early days, 

 Craterosaurus thus possesses more than usual intere.st. 



II. — TuE Uppermost Silurian and Old Hed Sandstone of Soutu: 

 Staffordshirk. 



By W. WicKHAM King, F.G.S., and W. J. Lewis, B.Sc. 



{Concluded from the October Number, p. 443.) 



2. The Downton Castle or Yelloiv Sandstones (see Figs. 2 and 3). — 

 These occur at Lye and Turners Hill, but the best sections are at 

 Saltwells. There the lowest beds are 10 feet of brown yellow and 

 blue soft sandy mudstories (see Fig. 2, E*), seen resting on the Ludlow 

 Uone-bed, north of the Tram Bridge. Like the same zone at Ludlow, 

 they are practically unfossiliferous. 



To the north of this section there are some W.S.W. to E.N.E. 

 faults that have let down some yellow Downton Sandstones which 

 are studied best at "the (canal) B^isin section" and Brewin's Tunnel. 



The bottom of the Basin section is dolerite. Above it is this 

 sequence : — 



Greenish - yellow gritty hard sandstones : Lingula Leivisii 



(medium species), very abundant throughout 

 Flaggy green sandstones ........ 



Kubbly green and some yellow sandstones with many L. Leivisii 



i^ ' (medium species) ......... 

 Yellow sandstone ......... 

 Kubbly light-green shales, h. Lewisii (smaller species) and 

 fragments of fish scales ........ 1 



E'^ Very dark -green shale. Platyscliisma heJicites, Modiolopsis 

 complanata, L. minima (rare), L. Leivisii (smaller species) 

 veiy common ......... 1 



Above the last there are 15 feet of yellow Downton sandstones 



, with Orbicnioidearugata and L. minima. On the south side of 



Brewins Tunnel the Platyschisma shale crops out immediately 



under the yellow sandstones which dip E.N.E. 31°. 



Here the section continues thus : — 



E*^ One band of massive yellow sandstone with a fucoid bed at base. 



L. minima (common) . . . . . . . . 36 



E'' Fissile light-green shales 8 feet, passing into alternations of 

 light-green shales, and rusty-red marly sandstones. 

 L. minima . . . . . . . • . . 16 6 



69 5 

 Add the lowest part of E" at Tram Bridge . . . 10 



Total of E exposed . . . 79 5 



