BRITISH ASSOCTATIOH MEETING AT NEWCASTLE. 
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A close examination of the latter shows that at whatever depth they may 
be found they give evidences of their having been derived, some, probably, 
from the denudation of older rocks which have been re-deposited with 
their organic contents in the then open fissures of the veins, others from 
younger deposits showing that the rocks in which the veins are found were 
then either the bottom of the ocean or within its influence. That the de- 
posit in the veins was at times very slow is shown by some of the jclays 
being composed of as thin laminsB as if they had been deposited in hori- 
zontal beds. On having the specimens of the material before one, nothing 
can look more unpromising to the eye of a Palaeontologist. The most 
sanguine would scarcely expect that anything like an extensive fauna could 
be derived from them, and jet he had before him probably from 160 to 170 
species derived from carboniferous limestone veins alone. The first step 
in their discovery is to wash the vein-stuff, floating away as much as pos- 
sible of the finer material ; in doing which from some of the mines you can- 
not but be struck with the great beauty and variety of the tints that are 
produced, the water being coloured by tlie difl'erent specimens from the 
most delicate French white to the densest black. In the sediment remain- 
ing after the washing, the organic remains are to be sought for. So abun- 
dant are they in some instances that half an ounce in weight has yielded 
as many as 158 specimens, whilst others still remain in the deposit. 
^Numerous though the organic remains may be, it is not to be expected 
that they are to be found in every sample selected somewhat promiscuously 
from a mine. Those that are mineralized or crystallized may be at once 
set aside as barren. Below are given the number of samples examined, 
and those that are fossiliferous : — White Mines, Cumberland, seven samples, 
organisms in two ; Grassington Mines, Skipton, fifteen samples, organisms 
in six ; Alston Moor, eleven samples, organisms in five ; Weardale, twenty- 
seven samples, organisms in thirteen ; from Allenheads, eight samples. 
These being much mineralized, organic remains were found in three samples 
only ; but in six others that have been more recently sent and more care- 
fully selected, organic remains have been found in every instance. Tiie 
samples referred to above weighed from a pound to about an ounce. The 
lowest depth at the Allenhead Mines he had yet traced organisms is 678 
feet, but there appears no reason whatever for supposing that they may 
not be obtained from the lowest workings, provided favourable material 
for examination can be obtained. He would now take the Alston Moor 
Mines of Cumberland. In specimens from the Slaggy Burn, Copper 
Hazle, we have a deposit of the same mineralogical condition, and contain- 
ing precisely the same genera and species as those from Corrhaust, Wear- 
dale, and equally abundant. The same influences appear to have been at 
work at these points depositing a similar material with precisely the same 
organisms, and we thus have in efiect what, if they had been found in a 
stratified bed, would be recognized as organic remains upon the same hori- 
zon. Returning again to the Yorkshire mines ; in the Grassington Mines of 
Shipton, in No. 1, he found fragments of bone or fish-scale, and No. 4, which, 
before being washed, looked like a yellow brown marl, was whoUy composed 
of encrinital stems. This came from 330 feet from the surface. But the 
most abundant organisms, and perhaps the most interesting of all, come 
from the New Eake Veins. A sample, weighing when washed only half 
an ounce, is crowded with fossils. A very singular group of specimens 
occurs here, which have been called Conodonts by Pander, who considered 
they belonged to fishes, and divided them into thirteen genera of fifty-six 
species ; but lately they have been examined by Dr. Harley, who, from 
their microscopic structure, thinks they belong to Crustacea. Those pre- 
