1862.] MORRIS AND ROBERTS CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONE. 95 



described by Sir Eoderick Murchison in his classic work ' The Silu- 

 rian System/ the additional facts which a visit paid to it during the 

 past autumn enables us to record may be considered simply as a 

 continuation of those previously observed. 



The thin beds of limestone which form the basement of the Titter- 

 stone Clee Coal-field are well exposed in a marginal flexure of the 

 strata north-eastward of the hill, at Oreton and Farlow, and also, 

 at a somewhat higher level, around its southern abutments. Our 

 observations upon the character of the beds and their fossil contents 

 have been confined to the exposures in the first-named localities. 



The geographical relations of this limestone ridge with the near- 

 lying millstone-grit and coal-measures, in their turn covered up by 

 the sheets of erupted basalt which form the high summits of the 

 Clee, are well seen fi'om the igneous knoll of Kinlet, three miles to 

 the eastward. 



§ 2. Immediately below the summit of the ridge at Farlow, and 

 on the northern side, is a quarry of yellow sandstone, from which 

 recently a large quantity of stone has been obtained for the rebuild- 

 ing of the church. 



It is a thick-bedded, fine-grained sandstone, having ripple-marked 

 surfaces, and occasionally containing disseminated pebbles of quartz. 

 The colour of the stone is a pale yellow, in places slightly stained 

 by ferruginous oxidation. Remains of fossil Fishes were first de- 

 tected in this quarry in 1856 ; these consisted of dermal plates of 

 PterichtJiys, or an allied genus ; and from it was subsequently ob- 

 tained by Mr. T. Baxter, F.G.S., the anterior portion of a Pterich- 

 ihys, of a new species, which is now in the collection of Sir Philip 

 Egerton. It is described by Sir Phihp at the end of this paper. 

 Several other specimens (one nearly perfect) of this new species have 

 lately been obtained by us from some large slabs of this yellow 

 sandstone, as well as fragments of a larger Pterichthys, and de- 

 tached scales of a small Holoptycliius, probably of an undescribed 

 species. A single plate of the well-known Holoptycliius giganteus 

 also rewarded our search. Wo remains of Testacea (with the ex- 

 ception of fragments of Conularice) nor of Plants have yet been de- 

 tected in these beds. 



The measures lying between this Pterichthys-bearing sandstone, 

 and the Old Red rocks which form a wide surface to the northward, 

 are the following, given in descending order : — coarse yellow sand, 

 without pebbles ; yellow sand with loosely laid pebbles of quartz ; 

 a thin bed of similar pebbles, compacted into a conglomerate ; and 

 fissile yellowish sandstones. The precise junction of this lowest 

 bed mth the red rocks having cornstone-bands is not at present to 

 be seen, but a roadway now in progress of cutting vidU probably 

 expose it. 



Above the Pterichthys-bed, a nearly similar series of alternating 

 sands, with and without pebbles, lead up to compact pebbly sand- 

 stones and coarse grits ; and these are capped near the summit of the 

 ridge by fissile yellow sandstones. About thirty feet of unknown 

 ground lies between this and the beginning of the limestone series. 



