solution, or having dissolved some of the silica of the sandstone and thus eventually cemented the grains together.
Note on the fossils; by J. W. Salter, Esq.
No traces of true Lower Silurian fossils occur in the district.
1. The fossils of the Bromsgrove Lickey have already been adverted to. It is sufficient to note that they are the common Llandovery or May Hill shells, such as Pentamerus oblongus, with P. lens, Spirifer elevatus, and a variety of Orthis calligramma, &c. They occur always as casts in the incoherent red grit, and are generally of full size. The fossils of the small patch of sandstone visible at Shustoke Lodge, near Barr, are also clearly referrible to the Upper Llandovery (or May Hill) zone. Among a number of Upper Silurian forms, such as the common species—
- Phacops caudatus,
- P. Stokesii,
- Atrypa reticularis,
- Rhynchonella Wilsoni,
- Acroculia Haliotis,
- Periechocrinus montliformis,
- Favosites alveolaris, and
- Petraia bina,
we have the characteristic shell Pentamerus lens, a species never known to range out of the Llandovery rocks (P. liratus does rise into the Woolhope shales). This shell, with other fossils, was found here in plenty by Mr. J. E. Davis, after Mr. Sharpe had discovered the locality.
2. Woolhope Limestone.
The limestone of Hay Head, near Barr, has been generally regarded, from its position, as the equivalent of the Woolhope band, but there is not much palæontological evidence to prove this, except the occurrence of very large specimens of the Illenus (Bumastus) Barriensis, for which well-known fossil it is the original locality.[1]
The following are found either there, at Ginity Graves, or at Daffodilly, on the same band:—
- Calymene Blumenbachii; Phacops caudatus;
- Strophomena depressa, S. pecten, S' imbrex, S. funiculata, S. euglypha, and S. antiguata;
- Leptena transversalis;
- Obolus transversus; Orthis elegantula, O. biforata;
- Atrypa reticularis, A. marginalis;
- Spirifer elevatus, S, plicatellus;
- Athyris tumida;
- Rhynchonella nucula, R. deflexa., R. Grayii;
- Pterinea(?) planulata;
- Euomphatus discors, E. funatus;
- Orthoceras annulatum.
With a few corals, such as—
- Heliolites interstinctus;
- Thecia Swindernana;
- Favosites alveolaris (or F. Gothlandica);
- Halysites catenularius—the chain coral;
- Cyathophyllum truncatum, C. angustum;
- Omphyma turbinatum (the largest of the Silurian cup corals);
- Aulopora serpens, which is now found to be the creeping base of a Syringopora or tube-coral.
- ↑ See Magazine of Nat. History, vol. 2, p. 41, figs. 8, 9, 10, 1829.
