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The Flockf 071 Stone, or Fish Coal, is still more bituminous 

 than the last ; it is often used in the manufacture of gas ; but 

 when burned, it leaves a large quantity of fine, soft, brown 

 ashes : a resinous substance, called middletonite, is found in 

 it, which is supposed to be of vegetable origin. The remains 

 of fishes in this bed, as in the Stanley shale, are disseminated 

 throughout the entire mass, but certain layers may be observed 

 in which they are more abundant. The parts are, as in the 

 former shale, all detached, and blended together in confusion. 

 Coprolites also are found in the Fish Coal, but they are by no 

 means so well preserved as in the Stanley bed ; indeed, they 

 appear to have fallen upon a harder ground, and to have 

 sufi'ered from the action of the waters in which they were 

 deposited. 



" The thickness of the bed may be said to be about six or 

 eight inches, the upper portion of it containing also layers of 

 compressed shells. There appears to be little or no difference 

 ■ between the specimens from Overton and those from Mid- 

 j dleton. At Dewsbury, the compressed shells occur in the 

 whole mass, but I did not observe any remains of fishes ; 

 I indeed the remains of fishes seem to be confined, in a great 

 I measure, to certain localities ; for whilst they are abundant at 

 ! Sir John Kaye's pit, at Overton, none could be found at the 

 pit of Messrs. Stansfeld and Briggs, although only about a 

 mile distant from the former. 

 1 *' What may be the range and extent of these beds much 

 ! South of Wakefield, I am unable to say ; but I suppose the 

 Stanley beds are wrought at a pit beyond New Miller Dam, 

 on the Wakefield and Barnsley road ; and I strongly suspect 

 that the Stone or Fish Coal of Yorkshire is identical with the 

 j Cannel Coal of Wigan and Lancashire. 

 ! These two beds, so rich in organic remains, fragmentary 

 though they be, must be highly important and interesting to 

 the naturalist and to the systematic geologist ; but I beg 



