MAS OF ENGLAND AND WALES: 
by Charles Moore. In places the shales are finely laminated, and 
known as Paper-shales ; but the beds from a fossiliferous point 
of view, as Fish and Insect Limestones, are not everywhere to bo 
identified. As in the case of the Insect Limestones at the base 
of the Lower Lias, the distinctive fossils are preserved locally, 
and the fact that in places they cannot be recognized is no proof 
of the absence of equivalent strata. They are indeed intimately 
associated with the beds grouped as the zone of Ammonites 
serpentines, not only in the area under consideration, but also in 
Yorkshire, for in that county we find remains of Fishes preserved 
in greatest abundance and variety at the same horizon. Hence for 
all practical purposes the thin representatives of the zone of 
Ammonites annnlatus, together with the Fish and Insect Lime- 
stones and other beds belonging to the zone of Ammonites serpentinus, 
may be treated as one division forming the Basement Beds of the 
Upper Lias. (See also p. 246.) At the same time it must be 
borne in mind that the occurrence of limestone-bands is subject to 
variation, and that the Basement Beds shade upwards into the 
overlying clays grouped as the zone of A. communis, 
Taking the Basement Beds as a whole, they are very fossili- 
ferous, constituting Cephalopoda Beds as well as Fish and Insect 
Limestones. The following are the more abundant fossils* : 
* For fossils of the Transition Bed, see p. 229. 
