556 Dr. R. H. Traquair — A Netc Palceoniscid Fish. 



down into the bed of woody fi-agnients and other bits of dead plants. 

 The carbonate of lime there segregated from the mass to certain 

 centres, and preserved, in round nodules, the vegetable structures, 

 before they were quite decomposed, more or less distinct, as they 

 had fallen on the forest floor." 



Considering the perfect preservation of most of the stems, leaves, 

 and other plant-remains found in the nodules from the Coal- 

 measures, it seems evident to me that they were sealed up at an 

 early stage in the formation of the deposit. The calcareous matter 

 was most likely supplied by small shells, such as Goniatites,'' 

 caught up in the tangled mass of vegetable remains, which, on being 

 dissolved by the organic acids generated from the decaying bodies 

 of small organisms likely to be present, quickly redeposited around 

 the woody fragments, and, as in the case of the nodules from the 

 Yarra, the balls finally received their rounded contour from the 

 swirling action of eddies and currents. 



On breaking open one of the nodules from the Yarra, the 

 resemblance to a fractured 'coal-ball ' is very striking, the plane of 

 fracture often showing a matted mass of twigs and woody fragments, 

 together with seeds and some of the more durable leaves. In the 

 light of the data used iu the above comparison it is therefore 

 certainly worth a further enquiry into the tenability of the theory 

 of the ' coal-balls ' of England being formed in situ ; and especially 

 in view of the evidence already known, which goes to prove an 

 allochthonous origin for much of the coal-deposits of various ages 

 in different parts of the world. 



VI. — A New Pal^oniscid Fish from the Base of the 

 Pendleside Series near Holywell, Flint. 



By Dr. R. H. TRAauAiR, F.E.S., F.G.S. 



ri^HE remains of a Palceoniscid fish from the Lower Carboniferous 

 J_ rocks of Flintshire, submitted to me by Mr. J. T. Stobbs, are 

 unfortunately not sufficiently perfect to afford material for a complete 

 diagnosis. The specimen shows the impressions of the outer surface 

 of both mandibular rami and of the left maxilla, and beyond this 

 we have only a mass of dislocated scales — the general form of the 

 fish, the position of the fins, and the condition of the fin-rays being 

 entirely lost. 



The mandible is three-quarters of an inch iu length, slender and 

 tapering, the external sculpture, according to the impression left, 

 consisting of fine close ridges, which, iu feather fashion, diverge 

 upwards and forwards and downwards and forwards from a line 

 running longitudinally along the middle of the surface, thus forming 



^ "Whilst writing these notes I have received a valuable and suggestive paper bjr 

 M. H. Douvillc, " Les ' Coal-balls ' du Yorkshire," from the Bull. Soc. Geol. France, 

 ser. IV, vol. v, pp. 154-156, pi. vi, in which that author records the association of 

 large numbers of Goniatites {Gafstrioceras) , Nautilus, Orthoceras, Aviatlopecten, and 

 other marine shells, -with the coal-balls and their vegetable contents. 



