THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE, 



NEW SERIES. DECADE II. VOL. IX. 



No. IX.— SEPTEMBER, 1882. 



I. — On a Series of Phyllopod Crustacean Shields from the 

 Upper Devonian of the Eifel ; and on one from the Wenlock 

 Shale of S. Wales. 



By Henet Woodward, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., 



of the British Museum. 



(PLATE IX.) 



"AYING in the autumn of 1878 arranged to make a geological 

 excursion to the Eifel, with my friend Mr. John Edward Lee, 

 F.S.A., F.G.S., of Torquay, we were so fortunate, when near Gerol- 

 stein, to meet Professor Dr. Ferdinand Eoemer, of the University of 

 Breslau, Silesia, who has made the Eifel region his special study, 

 and who cordially joined our party, giving us the benefit of his great 

 knowledge of this most interesting geological region.^ 



And here let me say, that to any one interested in Devonian 

 Geology and desirous to collect fossils, for themselves, or to study 

 the volcanic phenomena of the district, I cannot conceive a more 

 delightful and primitive region for a fortnight's hammering. Mr. 

 Lee was particularly anxious to direct our attention to the Upper 

 Devonian beds of Biidesheim (between Gerolstein and Priim), which 

 he had carefully studied on a former visit in 1875.^ Besides abund- 

 ance of small Goniatites and Orthoceratites, we found by splitting 

 open the shale that every lamina had numbers of bilobed impressions 

 of some fossil organism on its surface, each being coated with a 

 black pergamous layer, which, owing to the wetness of the shale, 

 from springs, was only too easily removed, and when the specimens 

 were dried it had a propensity to curl up or split and flake off, 

 leaving only an impression behind. 



These markings, from their blackness and rounded contour, are 

 called by the natives " tinter-flecken " (ink-spots). My first im- 

 pression, on examining them, was that they were opercula most 

 likely of Goniatites, so abundant in these Biidesheim beds, but after 

 visiting the locality and making a more careful examination of the 

 fossils in situ, I was convinced they could not be referred to the 

 Cephalopoda, and that their true nature was that of Phyllopod 

 Crustacean shields. 



' See das Eheinische Uebergangsgebirge. eine palseontologisch-geognostische 

 Darstellung, von Carl Ferdinand Eoemer, Phil. Doc. Hannover, 1844, 6 plates, 4to., 

 and numerous other papers on the fossils of this region by the same author. 



- See paper by Mr. J. E. Lee, on the Discovery of Upper Devonian fossils in the 

 shales of Saltern Cove, Torbay, identical with those of Biidesheim (Geol. Mag. 1877, 

 p. 100, PL v.). 



DECADE II. VOL. IX. — NO. IX. 25 



