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PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 28, 



hope Quarry. 



Fish have been quoted from the Wenlock shale of the Malverns in 

 the paper by Sir Roderick I. Murchison referred to above. This was 

 on the authority of Prof. John Phillips, who at that time thought he 

 had found some minute remains of the kind, but now distinctly states 

 that he must not be considered as authority for fish-remains in any 

 stratum older than the upper beds of the Aymestry limestone, in 

 which he has certainly found them, as stated in the second volume of 

 the Memoirs of the Geological Survey, Part 1. p. 226. 



We must now turn to the next bed in succession, and to the only 

 authenticated instance known in Britain of Fish occurring in the 

 Wenlock limestone. I refer to the notice, first published in the Edin- 

 burgh Review for July 1846, of a true Cestraciont palate found at 

 Longhope, Gloucestershire, by the Rev. P. B. Brodie. Desirous of 

 following up this investigation, I have communicated with that gentle- 

 man on the subject, and he has kindly given me the fullest informa- 

 tion, and allowed a drawing to be taken from this valuable specimen. 



. His account of the discovery is, that a friend of 

 looth of Cestraciont his? mte rested in the collection of organic re- 

 Fish, found in Long- ma j ns ^ t, ut not a practical geologist, found two 

 of these bones lying together mixed with the 

 ordinary shells and corals of the locality, in the 

 Longhope quarry. Mr. Brodie visited the spot 

 with him, and ascertained the exact locality ; 

 he then sent the specimen, here figured, to Sir 

 P. Egerton, who at once pronounced it a Cestra- 

 ciont fish, and under that title it was mentioned 

 by the writer in the Edinburgh Review. But 

 unfortunately, as I think, for its authenticity, it 

 was found lying loose among the debris of the 

 quarry, not imbedded in the shale ; and it has 

 such a suspicious resemblance to certain fish- 

 palates which occur in the Mountain Limestone 

 quarries of Mitchel Dean, not four miles distant, 

 that I confess I have the greatest doubts as to its 

 origin. It is not at all unlikely that quarrymen 

 t OuSnI ieW ' °f Mitchel Dean, who pick up these showy fos- 



c. Part of the surface and sils, might be working in the Longhope quarries, 

 edge magnified. and drop them from their p 0C k ets . The speci- 



men has been since re-examined by Sir P. Egerton, and, as it appears 

 to him to be an undescribed species of the genus Cochliodus, the 

 question must still remain open. 



With regard to the existence of Fishes in the Uppermost Silurian 

 strata there can of course be no question. Those described and 

 figured by Sir R. I. Murchison from the Bone-bed of the Upper 

 Ludlow rocks prove this point ; and also that these fishes were of 

 the Placoid order. Prof. Phillips, in the second volume of the 

 Memoirs of the Geological Survey, has also noticed fresh localities 

 where this bone-bed contains remains of teeth and scales ; and has 

 detected such fragments in the Malvern region down as far as the 



