19 
Nautilus Goniatites, Aviculopecten, Lingula , &c., were 
met with, but they were supposed not to extend upwards 
into the Middle Coal Measures. However, about ten years 
since, Professor Green, M.A., F.G.S., of the Yorkshire 
College of Science, then on the Geological Survey, found 
some of these shells in the bed of the Tame, under the 
Guide Bridge railway viaduct at Dukinfield, and he sup- 
posed them to lie about 150 yards above the Big Mine of 
Ashton. As no evidence of superposition could then be 
obtained, doubts were entertained as to their true geologi- 
cal position, some parties thinking that they might belong 
to the Lower Coal Measures, and there thrown down by a 
fault. 
In 1861 he (the President) examined the beds and pro- 
cured specimens of Nautilus, Goniatites, Discites, Aviculo- 
pecten, Orthocevatites, and Posidonia, but he could find no 
clear evidence of their true position in the Coal Measures, 
although they certainly looked more like Middle than 
Lower. 
In the memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain 
on the country around Oldham, published in 1864, the late 
Mr. Salter, A.L.S. and F.G.S., describes Professor Green’s 
shells under the names Aviculopecten fibrillosus, Cleno- 
donto sp. inc., Goniatites sp. inc., Nautilus prcecox, Discites 
rotifer, and Discites spec. unc. 
Last week he (the President) went over to the Ashton 
Moss Pit, and in the spoil on the pit hill succeeded in finding 
specimens of Goniatites, Posidonia, Lingula Mytiloides, 
and Sanguinolites costellatus. The specimens, especially 
the Goniatites, were all of small size when compared with 
those generally found in the lower coal measures. Accord- 
ing to Messrs. Higson, the mining engineers, the bed of 
shale wherein the fossils occurred is somewhere about 130 
yards above the Big Mine, thus clearly proving that there is 
a bed of marine shells in the upper part of the middle coal 
