NOTES AND QUERIES. 
443 
examine carefully the bituminous shale found associated with the true coal-scams. 
I have myself resided for many years in a coal district, and I had imagined that I 
was well acquainted with all the varieties 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. 1'he 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 cau only allude here cursorily to the varieties found 
in this neighbourhood (Yorkshire), but a more careful revision may be hereafter 
given. The species I have met with comprise: — Holoplychius, Mcjalichthys, Diplo- 
canthus, Ccclocanthus, Clenoptycldus, Gyrolepis, and some indications of an unknown 
species. In additiou to the scales, numerous detached teeth, with a beautiful 
enamel still csistaut, are found, and instances of jaws with ten, twenty, or 
thirty teeth, arc not uncommon. In some parts of the country entire fish arc 
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 will always possess an interest in them- 
selves : and, if these fish-remains should attract attention, I feel assured the ti-oublc 
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 tlie search for such 
remains in consequence of not finding them iiislanier. Some shales may be very 
baiTcn of organic remains, whilst others, at a greater elevation or depth, may be 
rich in these interesting fossils. — Yours, &c., G. Wilson, Wakefield." 
The Geology of Llandudno.— " 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 as 
they do to its famed plants. A recent visit has given me something beyond the 
huge Producli 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 lias been already done by Captain AV. 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 specially interested in. 1 he 
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, N.W. of the 
Old Copper Mine — 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 is little else 
than a mass of delicate fossils, exquisitely preserved through chalcedonization, 
and comprising the rarest and most beautiful forms of corals and sponges, 
Encrinites of several species, but chiefly 7?/(or/c>OT/i!«s, Brachipodous and Lamelli- 
branchiate shells and mmy species of Gasteropoda may be picked out, not perhaps 
of the beds in situ, but from sundry mounds of ' rubbish,' — in mineralogical 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. Ona 
only palatal tooth of a ccstraciont-fish has yet been met with, an ordinary 
I'sammpdns. The physical geology of the whole district is well worth attentive 
study — not only in the unnatural elevations and crater-like depressions of the 
Great Orme, but in those yet more ancient volcanic disturbances that have 
rrtiscd the trap-hills between Llandudno and Conway. The igneous rock, in one 
range erupted tlu'ough Lower .Silurian sandstones, is filled with a Cyathophyllitish- 
looking coral {Pctraia riigosa, I believe), altered by chemical contact with the molten 
mass. A line of basaltic outburst -lose to Maes Du, which has raised the shales 
2 K 2 
