Vol.51.] THE COUNTRY AROUND FISHGUARD. 157 



of volcanic activity during the deposition of the Middle Llandeilo.. 

 No fossils of this period which might enable one to settle the 

 question have at present been discovered in the Fishguard-Newport 

 area. 



The great series of barren slates above the Upper Llandeilo 

 graptolitic shales must therefore belong to the Bala, and near New- 

 port they are quite devoid of volcanic material ; while the Dinas 

 Head sandstones, etc., would be of Llandovery age. From these 

 Newport slates no fossils were obtained by me, and they are tougher, 

 more cleaved and altered, than the black shaly beds which have 

 yielded the graptolites. 1 



In a paper read before the British Association at Southampton 

 in 1882, Prof. "W. Keeping states that he found some graptolites too 

 badly preserved for precise identification in the cliff south of Pen 

 Pistill, Newport Bay. Prof. Lapworth examined these, and stated 

 that they might be Lower Llandovery, Llandeilo, or Arenig species 

 of Diplograptus and Climacograptus. Judging from the lithological 

 characters of the rocks, which are either pale-blue and grey fel- 

 spathic grits — much less quartzose than the Aberystwith grits, and 

 very ash-like in appearance — or else deep black slates occasionally 

 ribboned with paler bands, Prof. W. Keeping thinks that they are 

 of Llandeilo or Arenig age. Around Cardigan Harbour beds of 

 precisely the same kind occur, and ' just beyond the little bridge 

 over the stream at the south-western end of Cardigan town ' in ashy- 

 looking slates he found Dicettograptus Morrisii (Hopk.) and Diplo- 

 graptus socialis (Lapw.), the former of which is a typical Bala 

 fossil and occurs abundantly in the Dicranograptus Clingani- and 

 Pleurograptus linearis-zones of the Hartfell Shales, while both forms 

 are found associated in the Girvan area. Prof. Lapworth believes 

 that, amongst the graptolites which Prof. W. Keeping sent him from 

 the river JNevern, the Middle Bala form Climacograptiis tuberiferus 

 was the commonest, and that occurs well above the Bala Limestone. 

 If the beds, therefore, are continuous westward across the Nevern 

 valley towards Dinas and are not cut off by a fault, the age, at 

 any rate of part, of these slates is fairly certain. But they seem 

 from coast-sections to have suffered considerable folding, so that it 

 would be more satisfactory to find definite fossil-evidence in the 

 actual tract between Dinas and Newport. 



It has been before stated that there are no volcanic beds inter- 

 calated in the great series of slates and shales which occur above 

 the Siphonotreta micula-'beds near Newport. The age of these 

 scdimentaries has been fixed as Upper Llandeilo. But in Abereiddy 

 Bay there are interbedded lavas and tuffs in the Upper Llandeilo ; 

 so that wo seem here at Newport to have got outside the range of 

 the volcanic eruptions of the later portion of this period. On the 

 other side of Fishguard, however, there was extreme volcanic 



1 In some ashy flags outside the Castle, Newport, some crinoid stem-joints 

 and obscure brachiopods have recently been found. These flags overlie the 

 Upper Llandeilo graptolitic shales. 



Q.J.G. S. No. 202. n 



