262 GEOLOGY AND ARCHAEOLOGY OF CORNWALL AND DEVON, 



fishes, the fossils were good indices in geological chronology. 



Whilst accepting the decision of Professor Mc Coy as probably 

 final respecting such specimens as he had seen, I stated in 1852, 

 to the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, that I had found at 

 Hannafore Point, near Looe, a specimen such as he had not seen. 

 This, in 1857, was submitted to Mr. W. H. Baily, who at once 

 identified it as a fish defence-spine ; and as such I described it in 

 a paper read to the British Association at Leeds in 1858, when 

 the identification was confirmed by Sir P. Egerton, F.E.S. In 

 1862 I read to the same body, at Cambridge, a paper descriptive 

 of a scale of Phyllolepis concentricus, an Upper Old Eed Sandstone 

 fish, found by my son, Mr. A. Pengelly, in my presence, on the 

 northern shore of Torbay. 



The ichthyolitic character of the two fossils just named was 

 admitted by all palaeontologists, but Mc Coy's decision respecting 

 the ^' Polperro fossils " remained unreversed and, so far as I know, 

 unquestioned until the 12th of March, 1868, when the Rev. W. S. 

 Symonds, F.G.S., resident in Herefordshire and familiar with 

 the Old Red Pteraspidian fishes of that county, was examining my 

 collection of the so-called "Polperro sponges." On having his 

 attention called to a fine sj)ecimen of great size, he exclaimed 

 " That's Pteraspis," and at once urged that it should be sent to 

 Professor Huxley for examination. This was accordingly done, 

 and in a few days I had the gratification of learning that that 

 distinguished palseontologist had fully confirmed the identification 

 by Mr. Symonds. As was first asserted by Mr. Peach, the Polperro 

 fossils are remains of Fishes, not Sponges ; and the difficulty spoken 

 of has disappeared. Arrangements have recently been made for 

 describing and figuring the Polperro fish in an early Volume of 

 the Transactions of the Palseontographical Society. 



The case before us then may be thus briefly stated : — To as- 

 certain the place of the Devonshire Slates and Limestones, go into 

 East Cornwall and collect fossils, and, having taken these into 

 Herefordshire, in order to their identification, it will be found that 

 they fully confirm the belief that the rocks in question belong, 

 like the Old Red Sandstones, to the interval between the Silurian 

 and Carboniferous systems.* 



* For the History of the Discovery of Fossil Fish in the Devonian Eocka 

 of Devon and Cornwall, see Trans. Devon. Association, Vol. ii, pp. 423—442. 



