Chap. XII.] 
FOSSILS OF THE COAL-FIELDS. 
301 
Other probable examples of such associations, indicating the contiguity of 
land on which Plants grew, and from which they were transported during long 
periods into estuaries, are seen near Shrewsbury and other localities, among some 
of the younger coal strata, which at Manchester are seen to be of very great 
thickness. In the environs of Shrewsbury, small Cyclas-like Shells and valves 
of a dwarf variety of the little Crustacean Leperditia * are commingled in the 
same limestone with a minute Shell, originally termed Microconchus carbona- 
rius,but now referred by naturalists to the marine and estuary genus Spirorbisf. 
The above-mentioned shells, indeed, may also be of marine origin. 
The following figures (Foss. 82, 83), formerly published in the ' Silurian 
System,' explain more particularly the contents of this peculiar limestone of the 
coal strata. 
Fossils (82). Uppermost Limestone op the Coal-measures. (From Sil. Syst. p. 84.) 
1. Leperditia inflata (Cypris, Sil. Syst.); 
magnified 12 times. 2. Anthracosia? (Cyclas 
or Edmondia?, Sil. Syst.); natural size, and 
magnified 4 times ; from near Shrewsbury. 
3. Anthracomya (Modiola, Sil. Syst.), from 
Ardwick, Manchester, in a band of limestone 
of the same age. (From Sil. Syst. p. 84.) 
In all such cases, and still more where the coal is intercalated, as before said, 
among purely marine animal remains, we must believe that the vegetables from 
which it was formed were carried down into seas or estuaries fed by freshwater 
affluents, of which condition the little fossil Estherise (E. striata, E. tenella, 
E. punctatella) are perhaps the best evidences %. 
With the proofs in our possession of the large quantities of terrestrial vege- 
tables which occur in the Carboniferous era now under consideration, accom- 
panied as they are in numerous cases by river and lake Shells, and in other 
instances by Insects and Arachnida, it might be expected that Eeptiles would 
also be procured from them ; and such has proved to be the case. The first dis- 
covery of this nature was made in the coal-field of Saarbriick in Rhenish Bavaria 
(a coal-field also rich in Insects), wherein two species of Archegosaurus, Gold- 
fuss, have been found, — a Reptile which Hermann von Meyer supposes to be a 
connecting link between Batrachians and Lizards. 
Since then the footsteps of a large Reptile allied to the Cheirotherium 
have been observed in the Carboniferous strata of Pennsylvania ; and Professor 
M'Coy detected in the Museum of Lord Enniskillen the remains of a small Rep- 
* This little marine animal was formerly known 
as Cypris inflata. See a critical examination of 
the characters of these and other minute Bivalve 
Entomostraca, by Prof. T. Eupert Jones and Mr. 
J. W. Kirkby, in the Ann. Nat. Hist. 3rd ser. vol. 
xviii. p. 36 &c. 
t Some of the coal sandstones in the environs 
of Manchester exhibit on their surfaces the clearest 
indications of having been shore-deposits, certain 
tracks having been marked on them by animals 
which must have crawled at ebb-tides. Mr. Bin- 
ney states also that the shells of Spirorbis occur 
throughout the whole of the thick series of the 
Lancashire coal-field, and thus indicate the long- 
continued action of marine conditions. See a 
valuable paper ' On some Trails and Holes in the 
Carboniferous Strata, with Eemarks on Micro- 
conchus carbonarius,' by Mr. E. W. Binney, 
Transactions of the Literary and Philosophical 
Society of Manchester, vol. x., 1851-52. 
I See Kupert Jones's Monograph on the fossil 
Estherise, Pal. Soc. 1866 ; also Quart. Journ. G-eol. 
Soc. vol. xix. pp. 141 &e. ; and Trans. G-eol. Soc. 
Glasgow, vol. ii. p. 71. 
