Mr. Tate on the Geology and ArcLcBology of Beadnell. 103 



Beadnell beds, however, do not lead to any such general 

 conclusion ; for I found in the same stratum, and within a 

 distance of not many yards, that the Stratula in one place 

 dipped from 40'* to 70^ to the north, and in another place at 

 similar angles to the south-west by south. Probably this bed 

 had been formed by the action of strong eddies and counter 

 currents, which piled up the drifted sand with considerable 

 irregularity. 



FOSSIL ANNELIDS. 



Most curious and instructive are the fossil worms and 

 tracks which occur in several layers of flaggy and ripple- 

 marked sandstones a little northward of Ebbs Nook. They 

 are seen also in other sandstone beds of the section, and in 

 other localities in Northumberland. Though similar anne- 

 lids are not unfrequent in Palaeozoic rocks, they have been 

 but seldom noticed. Species from the Silurian Formation 

 have been described by Sir Roderick Murchison in his great 

 work on the Silurian System, by Professor McCoy in 

 Sedgwick's Synopsis of the Classification of British Palaeozoic 

 Rocks, and by Mr. J. W. Salter in the Quarterly Journal 

 of the Geological Society. Few distinct descriptions have 

 been given of forms in the Carboniferous Formation; the 

 only notices I know of are contained in a paper by Mr. 

 E. W. Binney on some trails and holes formed in rocks of the 

 carboniferous strata ;* and in an excellent popular " Account 

 of a large fossil marine worm occurring in the mountain 

 limestone district in Wensleydale, Yorkshire," by Mr. Edw. 

 Wood, F.G.S.t Mr. W. Lee also refers to annelid borings, 

 in a paper on what he calls Fossil Footprints in the carboni- 

 ferous system. J Having carefully examined the annelids in 

 the Mountain Limestone Formation of Northumberland, I 

 am able to distinguish four distinct forms ; two of them are 

 referable to 



CEAssopoDiA, (McCoy), 



A Genus which has been found in Silurian beds and which 

 may be thus defined : — Body long ; of excessively short, 

 numerous, wide segments, from which arise very long, deli- 

 cate, crowded cirri forming a broad dense fringe on each side, 

 completely concealing the feet. These annelids appear to 

 belong to the order Dorsibranchiata of Cuvier, and are allied 

 to the nereides, species of which inhabit our coast. They are 



* Memoirs of the Manchester Philosophical Society, vol. x., p. 181. 



fThe Naturalist, Nos. L and II., p. 14 and 41. 



X Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society, vol. ix., p. 409. 



