8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Dec. 1, 



area in the Midland Counties. It is a greenish micaceous sandstone, 

 closely resembling the Gloucestershii'e specimens, — ripple-marked on 

 its upper surface, and covered below with cubic pseudomorphous 

 crystals, the largest of which is about ^ inch in diameter, and exhibits 

 a trace of the basket- or hopper-shaped form, analogous to those 

 above described. — [Jan. 21, 1853.] 



2. On the Distribution a7id Organic Contents of the " Lud- 

 low Bone Bed " i7i the Districts q/" Woolhope and May Hill. 

 By H. E. Strickland, Esq., F.R.S. F.G.S. With a Note on 

 the Seed-like Bodies found in it. By Joseph Hooker, M.D., 

 F.R.S. F.G.S. &c. 



In a paper read to this Society in June last* I noticed the occurrence 

 at Hagley, four miles N.E. of Hereford, of that remarkable deposit 

 the " Ludlow Bone Bed," a stratum interesting not only for its wide 

 extension, as contrasted with its very shght vertical thickness, but 

 also as presenting nearly, if not qmte, the earliest known indication 

 of Vertebrate Life on the surface of our Planet. I showed its close 

 conformity, at Hagley, to the type of the same deposit as first de- 

 scribed by Sir R. Murchison near Ludlow ('Silurian System,' p. 198), 

 and enumerated certain Fish and Mollusca which it there contained. 

 I also briefly referred to certain seed-like bodies which seemed to in- 

 dicate the commencement, or at least the first appearance, of terres- 

 trial vegetation. 



The interest of the subject has since induced me to trace out the 

 same deposit at various points towards the S.E. Prof. Phillips had 

 already indicated the existence of Ichthyic fragments near the boun- 

 dary-line of the Silurian and Devonian systems at two or three points 

 in this direction (Mem. Geol. Surv. vol. ii. pp. 178, 191), but had not 

 gone into much detail as to their structural character. Having suc- 

 ceeded in tracing this stratum at additional localities, and having 

 obtained in it some fossil remains of considerable interest, it seemed 

 desirable to communicate these results to the Society. 



It will be remembered that at Hagley the Ludlow Bone-bed occurs 

 as a thin stratum of fish bones, scales, and coprolites, mixed with car- 

 bonaceous fragments, not more than from one to two inches thick. 

 The same bed occurs around the N.W. margin of the Woolhope di- 

 strict, between Stoke Edith and Prior's Frome, where vegetable frag- 

 ments were noticed by Prof. Phillips, though the Bone-bed has not 

 yet been there detected. At Prior's Frome Mr. Scobie has lately 

 found specimens of the same seed-like body as that found at Hagley, 

 which will be hereafter described. 



At the locality now to be mentioned the bone-bed is much in- 

 creased in thickness. This is at a point described by Prof. Phillips 

 (I.e. p. 178) between Lyne Down and Gamage Ford, on the S.W. 

 side of the Silurian area of Woolhope. The bed crops out in the 

 side of a lane, and presents a stratum nearly a foot thick, containing 

 the remains of Fish in immense profusion. Prof. Phillips describes 



* See Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. viii. p. 381. 



