I.—On the Discovery of Silurian Fossils of Ludlow Age in Cornwall

Extract

This is merely a brief note to record the discovery of fossils of undoubted Silurian age in the “Black Slates with limestone lenticles ” which occur on the shore and in the cliff at Fletching's Cove, near Porthalla, and at Porthluney, near Gorran, in Cornwall.

For many years the most careful search in these beds for fossils has been unsuccessful beyond minute ossicles of crinoids and indeterminable fragments of Orthocerata. I have spent many weeks each year hunting for fossils, often alone, but sometimes in the company of Dr. Barrois, Mr. Teall, Messrs. Vassell, Sherborn, Howard Fox, and others, and beyond finding the well-known Brachiopoda in the quartzites of Gorran and Carne, our search has seemed almost in vain. Some four years ago, however, Mr. Sherborn found in the Black Slates of Fletching's Cove an impression, which he identified as a fragment of Serpulites longissimus, J. de C. Sow., of Ludlow age. This fragment is now in the Museum of Practical Geology. This Spring, in company with Messrs. E. Dixon, of the Geological Survey, and Mr. G. T. Prior, of the British Museum, I paid my usual visit to Cornwall, and was rewarded by finding at Porthluney in these Black Slates a limestone lenticle which contained Orthocerata in quantity. It was only on the 6th June that I showed this to Mr. Sherborn, who at once took it to Mr. G. C. Crick, who recognised two of the fossils therein contained as comparable with Actinoceras baccatum, H. Woodw., and Barrandeoceras holtianum (Blake), together with other fragments also of Upper Silurian age.