164 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Eed, pass up into the Ursa stage of the Lower Carboniferous, repre- 

 sented, however, probably by other species than in the Old Eed of 

 Scotland. This happens also among the plants ; and among the 

 lower animals, not only many genera, but even numerous species 

 pass up from the Devonian to the Mountain Limestone. 



It is much to be regretted that the plants of the Marwood beds, 

 and the Lower Carboniferous flora of England and Scotland gene- 

 rally, have been so imperfectly studied. They would certainly fur- 

 nish very valuable materials for the decision of the much-vexed 

 question where the limits are to be drawn between the Devonian 

 and the Carboniferous in Devonshire. 



On the Continent the flora of the Greywacke of the Vosges and of 

 the southern Black Forest belongs to the Ursa stage. Of the 

 twelve Vosges species which Prof. Schimper has described, nine occur 

 in Bear Island, and four have been recognized in Ireland. Calamites 

 radiatus, as in Bear Island and in Ireland, is very common, and forms, 

 together with the Lepidodendra, Stigmarice, and Knorrice, the chief 

 mass of the plants. 



At Moresnet, in the neighbourhood of Aix, immediately under 

 the Carboniferous Limestone, occurs a shale which rests upon the 

 Eifel Limestone. This shale yielded Paloeopteris Bcemeriana, and 

 Spirifer disjunctus, Sow., and was entitled by Herr von Dechen the 

 Verneuilii-shale, and placed at the uppermost limit of the Devonian. 

 As, however, this Spirifer is also present in the Carboniferous shales 

 of Ireland*, and therefore passes up from the Devonian into the 

 Lower Carboniferous ; and as we meet with the fern among the 

 plants of Bear Island, we may probably class these Verneuilii- 

 shales of Aix with the Ursa stage, and draw the dividing line with 

 all the more reason below them, since they lie in unconformable 

 stratification upon the Eifel Limestone. 



Among the American fossil floras, that of St. John's, Kew 

 Brunswick, belongs, according to my view, to the Ursa stage, and 

 not to the Devonian, in which Dawson has placed it. Dawson's 

 list (' Acadian Geology,' p. 534) contains forty-eight species ; of 

 these, thirty-seven have not been found elsewhere, nine are known 

 in the Carboniferous, and three in the Devonian. The greater 

 number, therefore, of those which are common to other localities 

 belong to the Carboniferous ; and it is remarkable that two of the 

 Devonian species are only represented by a few leaf-fragments, and 

 their determination may be still doubtful ; while among the Lower 

 Carboniferous species the Calamites are very abundant, and Ca- 

 lamites radiatus in some places fills whole strata, and is therefore 

 quite as abundant as in Ireland, Germany, the Vosges, and in Bear 

 Island. To this it may be added that, among the thirty-seven spe- 

 cies of St. John's which as yet have not been found elsewhere, 

 twelve agree so nearly with Carboniferous species as to be only di- 



* [This Spirifer disjunctus was stated, in the Memoir of Salter and Baily 

 relied upon by Prof. Heer, to have occurred in the Carboniferous strata of 

 that country ; but this has since been ascertained by Mr. Etheridge to have 

 been a mistake.] 



