GEOLOGY AND ARCHEOLOGY OF CORNWALL AND DEVON. 261 



Herefordshire. The following, however, were difficulties in the 

 way of the unqualified acceptance of this chronology : — The Old 

 Red rocks and the Devonian beds differed greatly from one another 

 in the materials of which they were composed, and, more serious 

 still, though each abounded in fossils, the two suites were utterly 

 unlike. There were in the north, to use the language of the late 

 Hugh Miller, " fossil fish by the ton and the ship-load " ; * whilst 

 the southern rocks, especially the limestones of Devonshire, were 

 replete with fossil sponges, corals, crinoids, trilobites, and mollusks. 

 So far as was known, however, none of the fossils of one locality 

 had been found in the other. 



The difference in the composition of the rocks implied, of 

 course, a corresponding difference in the character of the two old 

 sea-bottoms which they represented, and this of itself would 

 probably be a sufficient explanation of the absence of the Devonian 

 invertebrates in the Old Eed formation ; but it might have been 

 expected that it would not apply to the fish. It is not easy to see 

 why they, being free-swimmers, should fail to find as genial a home 

 in the southern as in the northern area. Be this as it may, their 

 remains were not forth-coming in the deposits of the south, and 

 this constituted the chief amongst the difficulties alluded to. 



As long ago as 1843 the late Mr. Jonathan Couch discovered 

 near Polperro certain fossils such as he had never seen before. 

 He at once submitted them to Mr. Peach, then resident at Fowey, 

 who believed them to be fish remains, and described them as such 

 m a paper read to the British Association, at Cork, in the year 

 just named. They naturally attracted a large share of attention, 

 and several geologists devoted much time to their elucidation. 

 At length, in 1851, Professor Mc Coy, having subjected such speci- 

 mens as he could command to a microscopic investigation, pro- 

 nounced them to be sponges merely, and the case was supposed to 

 have collapsed. I had made a large collection of them, had 

 traced them from Talland Sand bay to the Eame Head, and had 

 found them in the parish of St. Veep on the left bank of the 

 Fowey, at Bedruthan Steps in North Cornwall, and at Mudstone 

 Bay in South Devon. To this collection I added from time to 

 time as opportunities offered, believing that, whether sponges or 



* ^^Foot-prints of the Creator" p. 2. 



