Prosser—Fossils in Millstone-grit. 109 
found near Sweeney a specimen of Sanguinolites variabilis in a 
mass of sandstone. In June 1859, Mr. D. C. Davies, Oswestry, re- 
cognized drifted blocks of Millstone- -grit in a Railway- -cutting, and 
found them to contain Rh ynchonelie (see Proc. Oswestry Field- 
Club). In the autumn of the same year the writer of this paper, 
examining some heaps of sandstone lying along the roadside near 
Sweeney Chapel, found them to be teeming with obscure fossils, 
which Mr. J. W. Salter, F.G.S., afterwards determined to belong to 
Schizodus, thus enhancing the interest of the case, these fossils not 
being such as one would expect to meet in Carboniferous rocks. 
Large slabs were covered with this Schizodus, giving the beds a 
Permian rather than a Carboniferous aspect. Subsequently, how- 
ever, Productus cora, D’Orb., P. concinnus, Sow., and Sigillaria, 
declared its true character. These heaps, though not in sit#, were 
very near the parent beds; and were the first of the kind found in 
such a situation. In the following winter Mr. Davies found in his 
own garden a drifted block of Millstone-grit containing Rhyncho- 
nella pleurodon and Productus cora; and in March 1860, he and 
Mr. A. Norris found fossils zm sié% near Treflach Hall, Sweeney. 
In July of the same year, the writer, together with Messrs. R. Hay 
and H. Lewis, Oswestry, found Strephodes, Orthides, &c., in a heap 
of sandstones lying in a field at Llanforda Isaf, near Oswestry. The 
same heap yielded a day or two later a more numerous suite of 
fossils to Messrs. Hay, Lewis, and Davies. During the same year 
the writer found a Sigillaria on Sweeney Mountain ; and, in com- 
pany with Mr. H. Lewis, found also a Bellerophon in some fossi- 
liferous sandstone near Oswestry Racecourse. 
The fossiliferous strata may be examined on the roadside, and in 
the fields near Belan Farm and 'Treflach Hall, Sweeney ; as well as 
in the fine section exhibited in Mr. Savin’s sandstone-quarry near 
the ‘Tower.’ These beds are, in this locality, of considerable thick- 
ness ; they occupy the base of the Millstone-grit, and immediately 
overlie the uppermost layer of the Carboniferous Limestone, which 
is here of that impure and cherty variety called by the workmen 
‘Bastard limestone.’ These fossiliferous beds have been traced by 
the writer from Sweeney Mountain on the East, over Cyrn-y-bweh 
on the West of the Oswestry Coal-field, as well as above Trevor, and 
the Eglwysegle Rocks. Thus their fossiliferous character is proved 
to be constant over a distance of nearly twenty miles. Passing in a 
North-westerly direction, along the margin of the North- Welsh 
Coal-field, we find the lithological characters of the Sweeney beds 
shown by the Millstone-grit of Hope Mountain, South of Mold (Sil. 
Syst. p. 144), of Mynydd Moel, and of Halkin in Flintshire (Yates, 
Geol. Trans. 2nd Ser., vol. ii. p. 237, &c.); and in all probability 
these distant localities will prove to be in like manner fossiliferous. 
The fossil remains found in these sandstones are in general but 
indifferently preserved. In the red varieties, perhaps on account of 
the iron present, they are often little more than casts, the calcareous 
matter of the Shells having entirely disappeared; but in the cream- 
coloured sandstones the shells are occasionally seen well preserved. 
