NOTES AND QUERIES. 



443 



osamine carefully the bitnminous shale founcl associated with the trae coal-seams. 

 I have myself resided for many years in a coal district, and I had imagined that I 

 Tt-as well acquainted with all the yarieties of carboniferous fossils, but my know- 

 ledge was confined to the fossil flora merely, and I had no conception until recently 

 that the bituminous shale was so rich in fish-remains. The beauty of the scales 

 of many of them I cannot describe as I could wish, and I regret that no work 

 with which I am conversant supplies the deficiency. The shape of a fish-scale is 

 a very imperfect description of its beautiful markings, and of the great variety 

 found in the fossil state. I can only allude here cursorily to the varieties found 

 in this neighbourhood ( Yorkshire t, but a more careful revision may lie hereafter 

 given. The si;ecie3 I have met with comprise: — Holoj>fychvM, JIe{jalichthy», Diplo- 

 camhus, C'jdocanthus, CUnoptycium, GyroUpii. and some indications of an unknown 

 species. In addition to the scales, numerous detached teeth, with a beautiful 

 enamel still existant, are found, and instances of jaws with ten, twenty, or 

 thirty teeth, are not uncommon. In some parts of the country entire fish are 

 found in a fossil state, but this is not the case where I am located I have thought 

 it advisable to state these facts for the benefit of such of your readers as may have 

 imagined, with myself, that the coal-measures were barren of interest, excepting as 

 regards their vegetable remains which wiU always possess an interest in them- 

 selves : and, if these fish-remains should attract attention, t feel assured the trouble 

 given by local geologists and collectors would be amply compensated. In con- 

 clusion I may be allowed to caution my readers not to give up the search for such 

 remains in consequence of not finding them iruttanter. Some shales may be very 

 barren of organic remains, whilst others, at a greater elevation or depth, may l>e 

 rich in these interesting fossils. — Yours, ice, G. Wii^ox, Wakefield." 



The Geology of Ll.^xdudxo. — -That 'Queen of Welsh watering-places' — as 

 guide-books are pleased to style it — Llandudno, is such a fine field for geological 

 enterprise, that I should like to hear of visitors taking as kindly to the stones ai$ 

 they do to its famed plardi. A recent visit has given me something beyond the 

 huge Produdi and Spiriferi that take rank among collectors as the typical fossils 

 of the promontory, and as the Geologist is taken in and esteemed by more than 

 one ' Captain ' of the mines there, I am glad to place my ' notes ' in its pages. 

 Good service in mineralogy has been already done by Captain W, Vivian, of 

 Ty Glas, who, with the true spirit of an investigator of nature, assisted me greatly 

 in the pursuit of that kindred science I was more sp-ecially interested in. The 

 piled-up anticlines of the Great Orme gave me a range of life-remains of great 

 interest. In point of size, the Brachiopodous shells aforesaid will still hold rank 

 as the aristocracy of its fossil life ; but when in the course of a ramble over the 

 ' Head,' their bed has been visited — it lies on the crown of the hill, I'i'.W. cf the 

 Old Copper ^Minc — let the collector's walk be extended down the slope, that, 

 leaving the telegraph on the right, leads to the sea, and let him notice the 

 shale-bed that lies about six feet below his feet, and has been, in many places, 

 broken into for the sake of its mineral contents. These are tiny nodules of 

 green and blue carbonate of copper, but the bed in which they occur 1= little else 

 than a mass of delicate fiossils, exquisitely preserved through chalcedonization, 

 and comprising the rarest and most beautiful forms of corals and sponges, 

 Encrinites of several speiies, but chiefiy Rhodocrinui, Brachipodous and Lamelli- 

 branchiate shells and many species of Gasteropoda may be picked out, not perhaj>3 

 of the beds in. situ, but from sundry mounds of • rubbish, ■ — in mineralogicai eyes, 

 but which are treasure-houses of much value in geological ones, — lying at the foot 

 of the sloping valley ; and out of which the nodular copper has been sifted. One 

 only palatal tooth of a costraciont-fish has yet been met with, an ordinary' 

 Psatnmodus. The physical geology of the whole district is well worth attentive 

 study — not only in the unnatural elevations and crater-like depressicns cf the 

 Great Orme. but in those yet more ancient volcanic disturbances that have 

 niised the trap-hills bet-ireen Llandu'lno and Conway. The igneous rc-ck, in one 

 range erupted through Lower Silurian sandstones, is filled with a CyathophyUitish- 

 looking coral [ Petraia rugosa. I believe altered by chemical contact with the molten 

 mass. A Hue of basaltic outburst close to Macs Du, which has raised the shales 



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