THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE III. VOL. IV. 



No. XL— NOVEMBER, 1887. 



os,i<3-i3r.A.L J^I^TIOIJ:H]S. 



I. — On a new Species of Euetpterus from the Lowek Carboni- 

 ferous Shales of Glencartholm, Eskdale, Scotland. 



By Henry "Woodward, LL.D., F.R.S. 

 (PLATE XIII.) 



SOME time since, in the summer of 1884, Mr. Jex, a collector of 

 fossils employed by Mr. Eobert Damon, F.G.S., of Weymouth, 

 obtained from the Lower Carboniferous Shales of Eskdale, a new 

 and most interesting form of Merostomatous Crustacean belonging 

 to the genus Eiirypterus. It has been secured for the Geological 

 Department of the British Museum (Natural History), and I now 

 propose to submit a brief description of this very interesting 

 specimen. 



In my Monograph of the order Merostomata (Part IV. 1872, 

 pp. 133 — 139, pis. XXV. — xxvii. see also p. 180) I described the 

 only previously-known British Eurypterus from the Carboniferous 

 Limestone series, Kirkton, near Bathgate, West Lothian, named 

 Eurypterus Scouleri ; a specimen doubtfully referred to the same 

 having been since discovered at Cape Breton. Another species not 

 determined was noticed by Salter from the Carboniferous of Nova 

 Scotia. A form doubtfully referred to E. Scouleri from the Upper 

 Devonian of Kiltorcan, Ireland, and one named by Salter E. pulicaris 

 from the same horizon, St. John's, New Brunswick, and two from 

 the Lower Devonian of Arbroath, namely E. Brewsteri and E. pyg- 

 mceus, complete the Carboniferous and Devonian, series. 



But in the Upper Ludlow beds (U. Silurian) no fewer than 17 

 species have been described, 10 being from Russia and N. America, 

 and seven from Ludlow, Kendal, and Lanarkshire ; but the most 

 perfectly preserved are those from New York and the Island of 

 Oesel in the Baltic. 



Description of the Specimen. — The specimen is presei'ved with its 

 doi'sal aspect exposed upon the surface of a much-jointed bluish- 

 grey mudstone ; owing to shrinkage and the want of tenacity 

 between the matrix and the fossil, much of the black and glistening 

 organic surface of the carapace and segments has been lost in 

 transit. The counterpart however of a portion of the fossil is 

 preserved, and assists us in the interpretation of the appendages, etc. 



The head, which is semicircular in outline, is very tumid, and 

 strongly and irregularly tuberculated ; the general surface being 

 coarsely squamose and scabrous. The eyes are not visible ; but 



DECADE III. VOL. IT. NO. XI, 31 



