Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 34.djvu/25

THE

QUARTERLY JOURNAL

OF

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.

Vol. XXXIV.

 

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1. On our Present Knowledge of the Invertebrate Fauna of the Lower Carboniferous or Calciferous Sandstone Series of the Edinburgh Neighbourhood, especially of that Division known as the Wardie Shales; and on the First Appearance of certain Species in these Beds. By R. Etheridge, Jun., Esq., F.G.S. (Read November 7, 1877.)

[Plates I. & II.]

Introduction.—Little or no attention has been paid to the organic remains of the great series of strata below the Gilmerton or No. 1 Limestone of the Midlothian coal-field (adopted as the conventional base of the Carboniferous Limestone series by the Geological Survey when compared with the numerous papers and other publications bearing on the fossils of the overlying strata or Carboniferous Limestone Series. It is true the fishes were examined by Agassiz^[1], and the plants to some extent by Lindley and Hutton, but in both cases only to a limited extent. Dr. Hibbert's celebrated paper on the Burdiehouse Limestone appears to have been the first memoir in which any systematic observations were recorded; and, with the exception of a few miscellaneous publications in the interim, it was not until the Geological Survey broke ground in the Edinburgh neighbourhood that any further detailed work of this nature was under-

1. The study of the Fishes has been resumed by Dr. Traquair, F.G.S.