Hind : Cai-honiferous Geology. 



249 



stone Grit coincides with the greatest thickness of the Penclle- 

 side Series. 



COAL MEASURES. 



It would be a very lengthy task to enumerate all that is 

 known of the Palaeontology and Palaeobotany of the various 

 Coalfields in Great Britain and Ireland. I would claim that 

 much more than a foundation has been laid for the accurate 

 determination of the various life zones in the Coal Measures. 

 In the first place the study of the distribution of plants demon- 

 strates that it is perfectly easy to determine broadly certain 

 main sub-divisions which are identical with the Coalfields of 

 Western Europe, so that it may be affirmed that the flora indi- 

 cates three or four phases in the 6000-7000 feet of Coal Measures. 



The North Staffordshire Coalfield has been studied by local 

 observers for many years, from a palseontological point of view, 

 and I claim that the distribution of the fresh water Mollusca, 

 and in a secondary way the relations of beds containing these 

 zonal forms with intercalated marine bands, renders it possible 

 to determine at least 16 distinct fossil horizons. The marine 

 bands are useless by themselves, for the fauna of the various 

 marine bands resemble each other very closely. But the 

 series being sub-divided into the zones of Anthracomya calcifera, 

 A. phillipsi, A. wardi, A. adamsi, A. williamsoni, Cavhonicola 

 rohusta, a definite marine band occurring above or below one 

 or other of them gives valuable information as to other horizons, 



I claim as far as the North Staffordshire Coalfield is 

 concerned that the Coal Measures have been definitely zoned, 

 and am glad to know that work on similar lines in other Coal- 

 fields is revealing a practically identical palaeontological 

 sequence to that which is found to obtain in North Staffordshire. 



I think that it can now be claimed that we know fairly well 

 the local variations of the Carboniferous succession, as expressed 

 in Western Europe, and that in our own country each province 

 of the Carboniferous Series has been zoned by its fossils. The 

 main question now outstanding is the comparison of the different 

 types of deposit in each area. The idea of broad and far- 

 reaching unconformities no doubt will account for much, and 

 these will doubtless be made out with greater ease once the life 

 zones are well and accurately known. 



The science of Palaeontology is biological, and not mathe- 

 matical, and we know that many factors came into play which 



1909 July I. 



