754 ON MAEINE POSSILS IN THE COAL-MEASUEES OE EIFE. 



order from the lowest beds seen at Anstruther to the highest at the 

 mouth of the Eiver Leven ; and the lines of division used in their 

 systematic arrangement are arbitrary, though convenient. The 

 Coal-measures of this county are thus part and parcel of the under- 

 lying portion of the series, and they have evidently originated under 

 much the same physical conditions as prevailed here during the 

 whole of the Carboniferous period. I believe that the same regular 

 sequence of Carboniferous strata obtains in other parts of Scotland, 

 and it is the same in the North of England. 



In conclusion, it may be remarked that no marine deposits have 

 been observed as yet in the upper red beds {d^') of the Coal- 

 measures in Fife, or in other parts of Scotland. These latter beds 

 contain the ordinary coal fossils, except that in Fife there have 

 been found on one horizon the remains of species of Eury^terus, 

 some Limuloid Crustacea, and a cockroach. The next appearance of 

 undoubted marine life in palaeozoic strata is in the Lower-Permian 

 Limestone of Durham and JN'orthumberland, where two of the 

 species* found at Wemyss, along with two or three other Carboni- 

 ferous forms, are found among what is essentially a new fauna. 

 These recurrent species, however, form a connecting-link between 

 Carboniferous and Permian life; while, on the other hand, the 

 fewness of the surviving species of the great Carboniferous-Lime- 

 stone fauna shows how extensive and long-lasting must have been 

 the physical changes that took place in the period intervening. 



* Lingula mytiloides and Biscina nitida. 



