place: and the same may be said more or less exactly on comparison of the estuarine jurassic beds of Skye and Brora, and of Yorkshire, with the Wealden series. The freshwater shells of the Wealden indicate the bed either of a delta or a great lagoon; the marine shells of the Stonesfield strata, the basin of a deep sea. Nor can we resist the conviction that not only did the same terrestrial area, however modified it must have been during the long succession of ages, supply the debris of an almost unchanged system of animal and vegetable life to the jurassic seas at first, and subsequently to the cretaceous ocean, but that also the fauna and flora of this ancient land of the secondary epoch had many important features which now characterize Australasia. The Stonesfield marsupials and the Purbeck Plagiaulax are allied to genera now restricted to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land; and it is a most interesting fact, as Professor Phillips was the first to remark, that the organic remains with which these relics are associated also correspond with the existing forms of the Australian continent and neighbouring seas; for it is in those distant latitudes that the waters are inhabited by Cestracions, Trigoniæ, and Terebratulæ; and that the dry land is clothed with Araucariæ, Tree-ferns, and Cycadeous plants. 20. LITHOGRAPHIC STONE OF GERMANY.-The quarries in Germany which yield the fine-grained fissile calcareous stone so much employed in lithography, and belonging to the upper portion of the jurassic series, afford also a rich assemblage of organic remains, of the highest interest. This deposit is found in that prolongation of the chain of the Jura which, after the fall of the Rhine at Schaffhausen, passes into Germany along the borders of the Maine and near to Cobourg. The quarries are situated on the sides of the valley of the Altmuhl, a tributary of the Danube, that extends by Pappenheim and Aichsted. This valley presents a precipitous escarpment, which is composed of, 1. (the upper most part), fissile calcareous rock, containing in abundance fishes, crustaceans, echinoderms, and reptiles, with a few small ammonites and bivalve shells;-2. a magnesian limestone;— 3. limestone of a greyish-white colour, abounding in ammonites; and 4. brown or grey sandstone, of a fine grain, constituting the base of the hills of the district.* The most celebrated quarry of the laminated limestone is that of Solenhofen, near Pappenheim. The cream-coloured limestone of this quarry has long been known to contain organic remains of great beauty and interest. Crustaceans allied to the Lobster, Shrimp, &c., are often met with, and many specimens are figured by authors. Knorr's "Monumens des Catastrophes que le Globe terrestre a essuie" contains numerous coloured representations of these fossils. The Prawn-like crustacean here figured (Lign. 121) shows the extraordinary state of preservation of these remains. Cro * For the relative age of these Jurassic rocks of Bavaria, see Fraas's Memoir, Geol. Soc. Journ. vol. vii. part 2, p. 74. codilian, Pterodactylian, Chelonian, and other reptiles, upwards of sixty species of fish, forty-six of crustaceans, and twenty-six of insects, have been collected in the Solenhofen beds by Count Münster.* There are but few shells and plants, and these are marine. Sir H. De la Beche has remarked, that the fact of the greatest number of fossil Insects yet noticed in the Oolite having been found where the remains of the Pterodactyles principally occur seems to establish a connexion between these creatures, not merely accidental; and that it is probable the whole of the deposits of this local group of the Jura-limestone (and those also of Stonesfield) may have been effected on a coast where the water was not deep, and on the shores of which the flying reptiles chased their insectprey. The association of insectivorous mammals and reptiles with innumerable relics of insects in the Purbeck beds of Dorset is of equal interest.‡ 21. COAL-BEARING STRATA OF THE OOLITE.—We noticed the occurrence in the tertiary system of Provence of beds of coal with limestone containing fresh-water shells and crustaceans (vol. i. p. 264); and in the lacustrine deposits of the Rhine, accumulations of brown-coal and lignite (p. 283). In the Wealden of the South-east of England, lignite and thin seams of coal are associated with shale and laminated sandstones, so much resembling the ancient carboniferous beds as to have led to an expensive and abortive search for coal; while in the north of Germany the Wealden contains a rich coal-field of considerable extent. The fluviomarine strata of Stonesfield, though teeming with vestiges * See Münster's Beiträge zur Geognosie und Petrefactenkunde, for descriptions and figures of numerous fossils from the Solenhofen deposits. A beautiful fossil Dragon-fly from Solenhofen is figured in Medals of Creation, vol. ii. p. 551. See Prof. Owen's remarks, Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. x. p. 432, of land-plants, enclose no considerable masses of vegetable matter; but in the extension of these lower beds of the Oolite northward, indications of lignite and carbonized plants become more abundant; and along some parts of the Yorkshire coast seams of coal and numerous fossil vegetables occur; proving that the currents of fresh water which flowed into that part of the jurassic sea were occasionally loaded with trees and terrestrial plants, transported from the lands inhabited by the Megalosaur, Pterodactyles, and small Mammalians, the remains of which are found at Stonesfield. On the eastern and the western shores of Scotland, strata of a similar character are exposed. Professor Phillips has described the coal-bearing beds of the Yorkshire Oolite,* and Sir R. Murchison those of Sutherlandshire; † the tabular arrangement at p. 491 shows the succession of the deposits in these two localities. In Yorkshire the lower Oolite is represented by, 1. a thin Cornbrash limestone; 2. a thick mass of sandstones and shales abounding in coaly matter; and 3. ferruginous sandy beds, overlying the Lias. The carbonaceous matter takes the form of seams of coal, which, though thin, are, from local circumstances, of considerable value. These strata assume the appearance of a true coal-field, with subordinate beds of coarse shelly limestone. Indeed, Prof. Phillips has remarked that in the Lower Oolitic series of Yorkshire there are five plant-bearing bands of sandstone and shales (occasionally yielding coal in three zones), four calcareous bands, and several layers of ironstone. Here, observes Professor Phillips, we have truly a coal-field of the Oolitic era, produced by the intercalation of vast quantities of sedimentary detritus loaded with vegetable matter, brought down by floods * Encyclopædia Metropolitana, art. Geology; Manual of Geology; and the Geology of Yorkshire, by the same eminent philosopher. See also Geol. Proceed. for June, 1857. Geol. Transact. 2nd series, vol. ii. p. 293 and 353. from the land, between the more exclusively marine strata of the ordinary Oolitic type. The fossil plants which accompany the coaly sandstones occur also may in the calcareous beds, both on the Yorkshire coast and at Brandsby. No marine exuviæ have yet been found in the coal-grits or shales. Along the coast under Gristhorp cliffs, a seam of shale, but a few inches in thickness, be traced for miles; and, from its abounding in leaves of ferns and equisetaceous and cycadaceous plants, it is chiselled out by collectors to obtain specimens; for the beauty and variety of these fossils render them objects of great interest. Detached leaves (Lign. 122) in a carbonized state are very abundant, and their venation is generally well preserved. Professor Phillips has figured several kinds in his "Geology of Yorkshire: " and numerous species are described LIGN. 122.-PART OF A LEAP in Lindley and Hutton's "British Fossil Flora."* The fruits of Zamialike plants also occur, and many splendid examples are preserved in the British Museum † and other collections. This specimen (Lign. 123) shows the usual appearance of these fossil fruits; it is imbedded in dark ironstone-shale, and the leaves and their imprints are covered with a white hydrate of alumina. Some of the fossils that have been described as flowers are conjectured to be bodies of this kind, broken transversely, in which state the OF PTEROPHYLLUM COMP- * See also Quart. Geol. Journ. vol. vii. p. 179; and Medals of Creation, vol. i. p. 152. + Petrifactions, p. 55. |