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

Abstract

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*, 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 undertaken. We have the result of Mr. Salter's examination of a collection of fossils made by Messrs. R. Gibbs and W. Rhind during Prof. Geikie's survey of the district, in the Appendix to the ‘Geology of the Neighbourhood of Edinburgh.’ Notwithstanding that Mr. Salter's observations were confined to a mere list of the species obtained by the collectors, there can be no doubt that his were the first systematically carried out, and that they laid the foundation for future research. In this communication I propose to give :—first, a summary of our present knowledge of the Invertebrate Fauna of the Calciferous Sandstone series