NOTES AND QUERIES. 
169 
himself and Mr. Salter, he determined the rock from which they came to be 
"par excellence" of the Wenlock age. 
Thinking 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 fuU 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 Athlone. — 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 liave seen, and deal only with what I have 
thought. Li 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- 
liills 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 limestone 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 Pa^e 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, Terebratida, 
Spirifera, and Or this. Several species of Liiigula and Mt/tilus ; Euomphalus 
and Bellerophon ; 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 
fossiliferous there can 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 Ilee, one of the principle lakes of the 
Shannon, but in difl'erent 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. Por 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 dilference 
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 l3y 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. 
