MARINE FOSSILS IN THE COAL-MEASURES OF FIFE. 749 



In this shale, a few months afterwards, I found the remains of a 

 Lingula in great abundance. Further search led to the discovery of 

 other Mollusca, two of which are easily determinable as MurcJdsonia 

 striatida and Bellerophon Urei. Other specimens probably belong to 

 BelUrophon decussatus : and imperfect examples of a Lamellibrauch 

 are not unlike a Sanguinolites. 



The Lingula differs in no way from Lower-Carboniferous examples 

 of L. mytiloides, or from Permian examples of L. Credneri, which 

 names Mr. Davidson has shown refer to one and the same species. 

 On some planes of the shale it is very thickly strewed, in many 

 cases with the valves together, in others as single valves or in 

 fragments. 



The Murchisonia only occurred twice. One specimen shows from 

 twelve to fourteen individuals within a few square inches of surface. 

 These shells are well preserved. 



Several specimens of Belleroplion Urei were found, aU more or less 

 in bad condition. 



Along with the Mollusca are some scales, plates, and teeth of 

 fishes, some of the scales resembling those of Rhizodopsis. Also 

 stray patches of coprolitic matter, and very rarely there are fragments 

 of plants. No Microzoa have been detected, though the shale has 

 been carefully examined for Ostracods. 



The shale is black, brown, or rather purple, in colour. Part 

 of the bed is laminated ; but much of it splits irregularly with 

 a curious roughly granulated surface. Here and there in it are 

 flattish concretions or cakes of soft red ironstone, which contain 

 good examples of the Lingula. 



The position of the bed is about 35 fathoms above the " Eight- 

 Foot Coal," and thus considerably higher than all the workable 

 coals of the series. 



As the measures lying above the "Eight Foot" are exposed on 

 the shore to the eastward of West Wemyss, I afterwards looked for 

 this Liyigida-hed there, and soon found it to the east of Wemyss 

 Castle. It is here seen as a thick black shale, more or less 

 laminated, and associated with a thin coal. Being a soft bed it is 

 denuded to a lower level than the sandstones above and below it, 

 and is thus covered by the tide before high water. The coal is the 

 highest that is marked on the six-inch Geol. Survey Map (Sheet 32). 

 The base of the upper red beds is seen a short distance to the dip ; 

 so that the stratigraphical position is about the same as at the first 

 locality. 



The LingulcB are here scarcely so numerous as at Denbeath Pit, 

 though not at all rare. Bdlerophon Urei occurs with them. Likewise 

 the teeth (or dermal spines) of that common Coal-measure fish 

 Diplodus gibbofms. A few other fish-teetb, some Palaeoniscid scales, 

 and coprolites (filled with scales), along with traces of plants are 

 the other fossils found. 



Quite recently, in company with Mr. J. S. Grant- Wilson, of the 

 Geological Survey, I came upon another outcrop of this bed, in a 

 little den or ravine at East Wemyss, about a mile to the east of the 



Q. J. G. S. No. 176. 3 D 



