NOTES AND QUERIES. 



169 



himself and Mr. Salter, he determined the rock from which they came to he 

 '•'par excellence" of the Wenlock age. 



Thiuking that some of your readers when passing through South Wales 

 might like to visit the spot has induced me to trouble you with this note. I 

 may also say that the bone-bed crops out in the Blue Lias between Penarth 

 Head and Lavernock, near Cardiff. I have a slab of the bone-bed from this 

 place, the finest I have ever seen, literally full of small reptilian bones, copro- 

 lites, fish-scales and fish-teeth. 



Hoping this communication will not trespass too much on your valuable space, 

 — Yours truly, Norman Glass, Kensington. 



The Geology of Athloxe. — Dear Sir, — In sending you a brief account of 

 the Geology of Athlone district, but more particularly of the Mountain Lime- 

 stone formation so amply developed in this neighbourhood, 1 shall have to 

 depend almost entirely upon what I have seen, and deal only with what I have 

 thought. In my investigations here I have had but little help from books, less 

 from men. When I came to Athlone in January, 1859, I came from the chalk- 

 hills of Hampshire, and all the knowledge that I possessed of the Mountain-lime- 

 stone and its fossils, and of the Carboniferous system generally, was derived from 

 a casual reading of Hugh Miller's " Old Red Sandstone," and Page's " Introduc- 

 tory Text Book of Geology." However, when I had settled down and begun 

 the study of. geology in earnest, I set myself rather a difficult task, to find out — 

 unassisted by books or friendly counsel— the fossil wealth of the linisstone beds 

 in this locality. I can assure you this has been to me a very pleasant occupa- 

 tion, and each new discovery has given me an earnest of what I may expect in 

 other places. 



In drawing your attention to the fossils of this district, I shall dwell more 

 particularly upon the Mollusca of the Mountain -Limestone than upon ought 

 else. These I have found in abundance, and specimens of almost every species 

 and genera named by David Page in his "Advanced Text-Book of Geology," as 

 common to the Carboniferous limestone are to be found in any small collec- 

 tion. Of the Brachiopoda I have several species of Productus, Terebratula, 

 Spirifera, and Orthis. Several species of Lingula and Mytilus ; Euomphalus 

 and Belleroplion ; together with two or three species of Orthoceras, and others 

 that I am unable to name. About fifty or sixty species in all, represented by 

 numerous specimens embracing varieties and peculiarities, is no bad collec- 

 tion from one locality ! That the Mountain Limestone formation is eminently 

 fossilifcrous there cau be no doubt, but of the several beds I shall allude to in 

 this letter only one had yielded me these treasures. 



Within a short distance of Lough llee, one of the principle lakes of the 

 Shannon, but in different directions, there are three large quarries opened, in 

 what I am inclined to consider are the upper, middle, and lower beds of the Car- 

 boniferous limestone. For convenience of reference I shall name them according 

 to their several peculiarities. Beginning at the bottom they will stand thus : 



I. "Encrinital" limestone,- — Kil Toom, county Roscommon. 



II. " Productus" and " Spirifer" limestone, — Coorsun Point, co. Westmeath 



III. "Black" fissile and " Italy" limestone, — Ballykeyron, co. Westmeath. 

 Although these beds have but one appellation there is a wonderful difference 



in their composition. The "Encrinital" limestone of Kil Toom is almost 

 wholly "made up" of jointed stems and branches — indurated by some process 

 — of these extinct echinoderms. " These singular animals — the representatives, 

 perhaps, of others now equally abundant, but of different appearance — were 

 provided with means of secreting stony portions, which, when fitted together 

 formed a moveable stone column, thickly ringed with branches similarly pro- 

 duced, and terminated by a cap, made also of stony plates fitting together, 

 forming a stomach partly closed by a proboscis ; also defended with innumerable 

 arms, widely extended in a complicated fringe : this mass of living stone seems 



[supplement to the " geologist," No 40. 



