4 Bolton, Palceontology of the Manx Slates. 



that any attempt was made to describe the supposed fossils. 



In that year Mr. J. Taylor* described certain supposed 

 imprints in the slates of Dalby. These imprints were 

 said to resemble the dotted outline of the Protichnites 

 figured in Owen's PalcBontology. 



Mr. Mackie, Editor of the Geologist, thought that the 

 impressions looked more like portions of gigantic Lingulce 

 or some fibrous shell. Mr. Salter denied their organic 

 origin altogether, and Mr. Lamplugh informs me that the 

 impressions were probably the hollows left by the decay 

 of the slightly calcareous nodules, which occur rather 

 abundantly in some localities. 



The fibrous structure mentioned by Mr. Mackie, may 

 have been " slicken-siding " developed in the slate in 

 immediate contact with the nodules, or the strain-slip 

 cleavages which are present almost everywhere. 



In 1863, a paper was read by Mr. Taylorj- before the 

 Manchester Geological Society, in which he mentioned the 

 discovery by Mr. Thos. Grindley of a fucoid, and also 

 avers that behind the Castle Mona Hotel, he himself dis- 

 covered both fucoids and the tracks and castings of worms. 



At Mount Craig he found the remnant of an Orthoceras, 

 the specimen showing the chambers and also the gradual 

 tapering of the body of the shell. 



In the absence of either the specimen or of any figure, 

 neither of which seem to have been exhibited, very little 

 reliance can be placed upon the description. 



It is not unlikely that it refers to some partially 

 weathered out worm-casting, or to thin intersecting 

 mineral veins, which in these rocks often simulate 

 chambered organisms. The same paper mentions that 



* Loc. cit. ante. 



t "Cambrian Strata of the Isle of Man." Trans. Manch. Geol. Soc, 

 Vol. iv., 1863, p. 285. 



