ETHERIDGE BETOXIAX ROCKS AND FOSSILS. 691 



far as we know at present, everywhere. The value of Mr. Salter's 

 paper is lost if we reject his careful determinations relative to the 

 Upper Old Eed and Devonian ; if they be controverted, then we will 

 convert the term Upper Devonian into Carboniferous Slate; but 

 upon the nomenclature as it now stands, Mr. Salter's observations and 

 my own go far to suggest, if not to prove, that the Coomhola species 

 may yet be Upper Devonian ; and this is supported by the fact 

 that Cyrtina heterodijta and Sjpirifera disjuacta occur in the gritty 

 beds of Eeenydonegan Point, Bantry Bay, one a strictly Middle 

 Devonian form, and the other neither known in the Carboniferous 

 Slate nor above the Upper Devonian in England or in any part of 

 Europe. There may be confusion yet in the Irish series ; and the 

 comparison made between the thick Carboniferous slates of Cork, 

 aad the equally thick sandy slates and limestones of the Upper 

 Devonian series of Baggy and Croyde in Xorth Devon, may yet 

 require considerable revision ; that these Irish and Xorth-Devon 

 Upper Devonian beds are intermediate between and connect the 

 Upper Old Ked Sandstone and the Carboniferous rocks, there 

 can be no doubt ; and although the Coomhola grits appear strati- 

 graphicaUy to belong to the Carboniferous rocks of Ireland, yet 

 it is found that they contain many Devonian species ; and notably 

 we find close resemblance between the two, both in structure and 

 associated fossils, especially so in the Baggy, Marwood, and Pilton 

 group ; and they may readily be mistaken ; but, taken as a whole, 

 there cannot be any doubt as to the distinctness of the faunae of the 

 two, although connected by gradual passage. The species, then, of the 

 Upper Devonian of Xorth Devon may be on the " same general 

 horizon" as those of the Coomhola series in Ireland; but that our 

 lowest beds of this group, or the Petherwin and Landlake limestones 

 and slates &c., are chronologically below the Baggy group and the 

 Irish grits, there cannot be any doubt. We may yet expect to find 

 a true Upper-Devonian fauna in the slates and grits that overlie 

 the Upper Old Red Sandstone of the south of Ireland ; and it will 

 have to be collated to the English type ; for that we have a large 

 assemblage of well-marked forms in oui' Upper Devonian beds not 

 yet accounted for in the Irish series is certain ; and that we have a 

 definite Middle- and Lower-Devonian fauna in Xorth Devon, distinct 

 from the Upper- and not known in Ireland, whatever may be the 

 cause, is equally certain. 



It has been questioned whether or not the " Stringocephalus-lime- 

 stones of either Xorth or South Devon can be shown to exist below 

 anything that can be identified as Old Bed Sandstone." Xo doubt 

 can exist as to the stratigraphical position of the slates and grits that 

 contain this and associated shells abundantly in Xorth Devon ; its 

 position here, as in Bhenish Prusssia, the Eifel, and as the Calceola- 

 slates of the Boulonnais, is in the heart of the Middle or Ilfracombe 

 group ; it is abundant in places, especially so in Combe-Martin Bay, 

 Hagginton, &c. ; and when it is proved that the intermediate mass 

 of slates &c. of the Ilfracombe series are Carboniferous Slate, then 

 will Stringocejphalus Burtini, Uiacites gryphus, Calceola sanialina, 



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