
LOWER CARBONIFEROUS ROCKS OF THE FIFESHIRE COAST. 397 
sudden disappearance of the crinoids, corals, and other marine fossils so abundant 
in the overlying beds. The Cypris scoto-burdigalensis is also found in layers so 
distinct, and entering so largely into the composition of the rocks, as fairly to in- 
dicate fresh water conditions. One marking feature also is the abundance of 
Sphenopteris afinis, unknown in the overlying limestones, but all along between 
Elie and St Monans, and farther east down as far as the bed L, it is the prevail- 
ing fossil in this the Estuarine part of the series. 
The well-known Limestones of Burntisland, with their numerous fish remains, 
lie on this level. It is, however, to the east of St Monans and on beyond Pitten- 
ween that the series can be studied to best advantage. The very point in the 
descending order can be fixed where the Sphenopteris begins, and its rapid in- 
crease traced downwards through the strata. Two singular beds of limestone, 
obviously on the same level with those marked G and H at Pettycur, on the 
west, well deserve attention. They are yellow or pale-buff in colour, distinctly 
_ brecciated, often siliceous and cherty, and so much harder in structure than the 
sandstone, that they may be traced on the shore west of Pittenweem harbour, 
standing boldly up in marked outline and running seawards like tall slanting 
walls. In colour and structure they are quite different from the six overlying 
limestones. On the west side there is a bed at Pettycur marked G, which may 
be traced running inland through the railway cutting and sweeping round till it 
reappears behind the Binn, which shows at certain points much of the same 
colour and some tendency to the same brecciated structure, but from the absence 
of siliceous matter it is comparatively soft. 
West of Newark there is in the coal-shale a bed with nodules of clay ironstone, 
containing coprolites, from which I extracted two complete specimens of fish—a 
species of Paleeoniscus. Near the same point, close to an out-burst of intrusive 
trap, is a layer containing good specimens of carboniferous wood in a state of 
charcoal, some of the fragments being very distinct. 
To this part of the series also belongs a shale-bed beyond Crail (close to the 
farm-servants’ houses at Kilminning) containing fish remains, among which I could 
detect the scales of Megalichthys and Eurynotus. It was there I obtained the 
jaw of a small species of fish belonging to the family of Pycnodonts, with five 
rows of tesselated teeth. Of this family, so common in the secondary strata, only 
one previous example is mentioned by Professor Owen as having been found in ~ 
the palzeozoic rocks, a small jaw described as occurring in the coal-field at Leeds. 
That found at Kilminning was upwards of 1000 feet below our Scottishcoal-fields, 
and is probably therefore of a still older date. 
in order to ascertain the thickness of the mass of strata measured in a line perpendicular to the plane 
of the beds. Taking the direct distance from F to L at right angles to the general strike, and taking 
the average dip from a series of measur ements, the result is that this mass of estuarine beds is 
, about 1400 feet in thickness. Such measurements are of course only approximate. 
VOL. XXII. PART II. 5K 
