BltlTISH ASSOCIATION MEETING- AT NEWCASTLE. 373 



A close examination of tlie latter shows that at whatever depth they may- 

 be found they give evidences of their having been derived, some, probably, 

 from the denudation of older rocks which have been re-deposited with 

 their organic contents in the then open fissures of the veins, others'from 

 younger deposits showing that the rocks in which the veins are found were 

 then either the bottom of the ocean or within its influence. That the de- 

 posit in the veins was at times very slow is shown by some of the clays 

 being composed of as thin laminae as if they had been deposited in hori- 

 zontal beds. On having the specimens of the material before one, nothing 

 can look more unpromising to the eye of a Palaeontologist. The most 

 sanguine would scarcely expect that anything like an extensive fauna could 

 be derived from them, and yet he had before him probably from 160 to 170 

 species derived from carboniferous limestone veins alone. The first step 

 in their discovery is to wash the vein-stuff, floating away as much as pos- 

 sible of the finer material ; in doing which from some of the mines you can- 

 not but be struck with the great beauty and variety of the tints that are 

 produced, the water being coloured by the different specimens from the 

 most delicate French white to the densest black. In the sediment remain- 

 ing after the washing, the organic remains are to be sought for. So abun- 

 dant are they in some instances that half an ounce in weight has yielded 

 as many as 156 specimens, whilst others still remain in the deposit. 

 Numerous though the organic remains may be, it is not to be expected 

 that they are to be found in every sample selected somewhat promiscuously 

 from a mine. Those that are mineralized or crystallized may be at once 

 set aside as barren. Below are given the number of samples examined, 

 and those that are fossiliferous : — White Mines, Cumberland, seven samples, 

 organisms in two ; Grrassington Mines, Skipton, fifteen samples, organisms 

 in six ; Alston Moor, eleven samples, organisms in five ; Weardale, twenty- 

 seven samples, organisms in thirteen ; from Allenheads, eight samples. 

 These being much mineralized, organic remains were found in three samples 

 only ; but in six others that have been more recently sent and more care- 

 fully selected, organic remains have been found in every instance. The 

 samples referred to above weighed from a pound to about an ounce. The 

 lowest depth at the Allenhead Mines he had yet traced organisms is 678 

 feet, but there appears no reason whatever for supposing that they may 

 not be obtained from the lowest workings, provided favourable material 

 for examination can be obtained. He would now take the Alston Moor 

 Mines of Cumberland. In specimens from the Slaggy Burn, Copper 

 Hazle, we have a deposit of the same mineralogical condition, and contain- 

 ing precisely the same genera and species as those from Corrhaust, Wear- 

 dale, and equally abundant. The same influences appear to have been at 

 work at these points depositing a similar material with precisely the same 

 organisms, and we thus have in effect what, if they had been found in a 

 stratified bed, would be recognized as organic remains upon the same hori- 

 zon. Returning again to the Yorkshire mines ; in the Grassington Mines of 

 Shipton, in No. 1, he found fragments of bone or fish-scale, and No. 4, which, 

 before being washed, looked like a yellow brown marl, was wholly composed 

 of encrinital stems. This came from 330 feet from the surface. But the 

 most abundant organisms, and perhaps the most interesting of all, come 

 from the New Hake Veins. A sample, weighing when washed only half 

 an ounce, is crowded with fossils. A very singular group of specimens 

 occurs here, which have been called Conodonts by Pander, who considered 

 they belonged to fishes, and divided them into thirteen genera of fifty-six 

 species ; but lately they have been examined by Dr. Harley, who, from 

 their microscopic structure, thinks they belong to Crustacea. Those pre- 



