In a recent inspection of the grand collection of Fossil Fishes in, the Museum of the Earl of Enniskillen at Florence Court, his lordship called my attention more particularly to two Ichthyodorulites, which he believed to be new.

In a paper entitled “On Traces Of Glacial Action near Llandudno,” printed in the Geological Magazine, Vol. IV. p. 289, I described certain indications of glacial action (as they appeared to me) upon the two masses of Carboniferous Limestone, well known to visitors at Llandudno under the name of the Great and Little Ormesheads. The principal conclusion at which I arrived was that, “after the limestone hills of the district had acquired their leading forms by upheaval and marine denudation, the whole district was depressed. The summits of the low rocky islets thus formed became capped with ice-fields, which in places descended in glaciers into the sea. At times, very probably, they were united to the mainland by pack or coast ice.” I then supposed that, after some minor changes, “the whole was gradually upheaved above the sea, probably—at any rate, in the case of the Great Ormeshead—not quite uniformly.”

The following notes were made during a few days' leave of absence, spent chiefly on the Green-slate area of the Lake-district, the beds of which have an east-north-east and west-south-west direction of strike, extending across the country in a belt about fourteen, miles in width, resting on the Skiddaw Slates, and passing under the various divisions of the Coniston series. The characteristic feature of this tract of country is the uniformity in direction of all the gorges, or depressions, in which the lakes occur. The initiative of their direction (as pointed out by Dr. Nicholson) appears to have been given by a system of north and south faults: thus Windermere, Rydal Water, Grasmere, and Thirlmere may be said to lie in one line of depression. Between the two last-mentioned lakes the pass of Dunmail Raise forms a col between two valleys. In the bottom of the valley, between the pass and Grasmere, there are immense mounds of moraine, matter, the pebbles are all angular and strictly local. Steel Fell and Seat Sandal form two cliffs on either side, that on the western being much the steeper; the summit of Helm Crag, being much weathered, forming the well-known “couchant lion with a lamb under its nose,” of the guide books. Following up the ice marks of Easdale Valley into that of Raise Beck, there seems little doubt that the two glaciers occupying these valleys united between Silver How and Nab Scar, and thence bore down upon Loughrigg Fell, which stopped its forward progress in a direct line, deflecting it into what is now Rydal Water. The lake Grasmere is excavated in a rock-basin, and one can easily understand its excavation being due to the immense pressure of the ice infringing on Loughrigg Fell. A similar state of things took place at the foot of Rydal Water; the rocks here are moutonnèed and glaciated upwards.

The occurrence of plant-remains in the Silurian and Cambrian rocks is a subject of great interest, but one which has not hitherto been sufficiently investigated. Many supposed plants have been described by Emmons, Hall, Billings, and Dawson, from the older Palæozoic rocks of North America, and little doubt can be entertained of the vegetable nature of some even of the most ancient of these. Many, however, as believed by Professor E. Forbes and Mr. Salter, are certainly referable to the tracks or burrows of marine animals. More recently the Cambrian rocks of Sweden have yielded to the researches of Torell and Linnarsson some remarkable impressions and casts of fossils, which are believed to be of a vegetable nature (Geol. Mag., September, Vol. VI., p. 393, Plates XI., XII., and XIII.). In Britain there is not, as far as I am aware, any instance of the occurrence of plant-remains in deposits of Lower Silurian age, as to the nature of which all authorities are agreed. The Oldhamia of the Cambrian rocks is believed by Mr. Salter to be a plant, but good authorities would place it either amongst the Polyzoa or Hydrozoa. The Cruziana semiplicata of the Lingula Flags has often been assigned to the Fucoids, but it is believed by Mr. Salter to be “the filled-up burrow of a marine worm” (Mem. Gaol. Survey, vol. iii., p. 248). Long ago Professor McCoy described from the Skiddaw slates (lowest Llandeilo) certain fossils which he believed to be fucoids (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. iv., p. 223, and Pal. Foss., pl. i. A). After studying a large number of specimens, however, I have been compelled to come to the conclusion, held by Mr. Salter and Professor Harkness, that these fossils (viz. Palæochorda major, P. minor, and Chondrites acutangulus) are truly referable to the action of marine worms. Within the last few years, however, I have obtained from the Skiddaw Slates several fossils, which certainly do not admit of being explained in this manner, though I would not go so far as to assert that they are unquestionably plants. The age of the deposit in which they occur renders them, at any rate—whatever their true nature may be—of sufficient interest to merit a short description.

Although the subject of this paper has already been discussed in detail, yet, as this has been done from a medical rather than from a geological point of view, it may be well that the chief facts of the case, the method of investigation followed, and the conclusions come to, should be brought before the Geological Society; for the Society will not fail to have an interest in noting what a practical bearing our science has on the health, as it has long been known to have on the wealth, of mankind.