Conus in the Lias of Normandy. 



293 



France or in this country. The fact, indeed, has remained 

 almost unknown, a brief notice of the fossils, unaccompanied 

 by figures or a specific description, having alone appeared in 

 a report of a meeting held in 1837, by the Linnaean Society of 

 Normandy. 



Although fossil shells belonging to Lamarck's family of the 

 Enroules are sufficiently abundant in the tertiary strata, a 

 very few examples have yet been recorded of the occurrence 

 of any of these shells in any of the more ancient fossilife- 

 rous rocks. The Enroules of Lamarck comprise the genera 

 Ovula, Cyprcea, Terebellum, Ancillaria, Oliva, and Conus. Of 

 these, the only examples known to me in secondary forma- 

 tions, are a species of Cyprcea, which I have mentioned and 

 figured in the Geol. Trans. (2nd Series, vol. v. p. 243.) as oc- 

 curring in the upper chalk of Faxoe in Denmark, and a Cone 

 called C. tuber culatus, of which a single specimen was found 

 by M. Dujardin in the chalk near Tours, of which he has 

 given a figure in les Mem. de la Soc. Geol. de France, torn. ii. 

 deuxieme partie, 1837- Plate 17- p. 232. 



I was greatly surprised, therefore, during my late visit to 

 Caen (June, 1840) to see in the cabinets both of Prof. Des- 

 longchamps and M. Tesson, several specimens of Cones which 

 they told me had been discovered in the lias of La Fontaine- 

 Etoupe-four, about six miles south of Caen. We find it stated 

 in the report before alluded to, that M. Deslongchamps had 

 found in the Commune of Bretteville sur Laize, three species 

 of Cones in the lias, and that M. Tesson had afterwards found 

 a fourth and more perfect individual of the same genus in the 

 quarries of Fontaine-Etoupe-four not far from the locality be- 

 fore-mentioned. In both these places the lias is described as 

 resting on the quartzose sandstone of the transition formation 

 (terrain intermediaire). Two of these specimens only re- 

 tained the shell itself, the others were casts. (See Figures.) 



In order to satisfy myself of the correctness of the alleged 

 geological position of these Cones, I visited in June, 1840, 

 Fontaine-Etoupe-four in company with M. Deslongchamps, 

 and ascertained to my full satisfaction that the rock from 

 which the Cones had been extracted was full of Ammonites, 

 Pleurotomaria, and other fossils, which must belong either to 

 some member of the inferior oolite or upper lias. 



The fundamental rock consists of highly inclined vertical, 

 and in some places curved, beds of reddish and white quart- 

 zite, alternating with greenish talcose schists. Upon these an- 

 cient rocks the brown fossiliferous limestone rests unconform- 

 ably and in horizontal stratification. At many points are seen 

 at the contact deep rents traversing the inferior quartzose 



