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XXX. — The Lower Devonian Fishes ofGemiinden. By R. H. Traquair, M.D., LL.D., 

 F.R.S., Keeper of the Natural History Collections in the Museum of Science and 

 Art, Edinburgh. (With Seven Plates.) 



(Read 16th March 1903 ; given in for publication 8th September 1903. Issued separately October 31, 1903.) 



Gemiinden is situated in Rhenish Prussia, about eighteen miles to the west and slightly 

 also to the south of Bingen, in the district known as the " Hunsruck," and the rock in 

 which the fishes to be described in this memoir occur is called the " Hunsruck Slates." 



These Hunsruck slates belong to the Lower Devonian of the Rhenish area, and the 

 position assigned to them by German geologists is as follows : — 



( Clymenia Limestone and Cypriclina Slates. 

 Upper Devonian, . . - { ^^ Goniatite Lime8tone . 



, Stringocephalus beds. 



Middle Devonian, . . J Calceola beds. 



f Zone of Spirifer cultrijugatus. 



/'Coblenz beds (Spirifer Sandstone). 



. I Hunsruck Slates. 



Lower Devonian, . . ■< ^ „ n ... 



J launus Quartzite. 



^Sericitic Phyllite and (?) Gneiss of the Taunus. 



The above table is quoted from Kayser and Lake's Text-book of Comparative 

 Geology, as is also the following brief statement regarding the Hunsruck slates them- 

 selves. 



" The Taunus quartzite is succeeded by the Hunsruck slates, a thick series of 

 dark-coloured clay slates, including numerous layers of roofing-slate. They form the 

 monotonous plateaux of Hunsruck and Taunus, but are also repeated in their character- 

 istic form in the Venn and in the Ardennes. In these areas, however, they are for the 

 most part represented by the Grauwacke of Montigny. The fauna of the Hunsruck 

 schists (chief localities, Bundenbach and Gemiinden in the Hunsriick, Caub on the 

 Rhine, Alles on the Semois), unlike that of the rest of the Lower Devonian, consists 

 chiefly of trilobites (Phacops Ferdinandi, Homalonotus ornatus, etc., Cryphceus, Dal- 

 manites \Odo7itochile\) , mailed fish, bivalves, cephalopods (Orthoceras, Goniatites), 

 crinoids, and beautifully-preserved starfishes, whilst Brachiopods are almost entirely 

 wanting." 



The slate is often available for roofing purposes, as at Caub, Bacharach, Gemiinden, 

 and Bundenbach, and it is only through quarrying operations that any abundance of 

 fossils has been found. The roofing-slate, or " Dachschiefer," is of a dark blackish-grey 

 TRANS. ROY. SOC. EDIN., VOL. XL. PART IV. (NO. 30 ). 5 Q 



