Societies and Academies

Abstract

LONDON. Geological Society, June 24.—Dr. A. Smith Wood ward, president, in the chair.—V. C. Illing: The paradoxidian fauna of a part of the Stockingford Shales. This communication deals mainly with a small subdivision of the Stockingford Shales occurring at the base of the Oldbury division. The beds have been termed the Abbey Shales, and are about 100 ft. thick, consisting mainly of blue laminated shales, although glauconitic sandy horizons occur at frequent intervals. This small subdivision passes down into the Purley Shales, while it is separated from the overlying shales (which are probably of Lower Maentwrog age) by a calcareous conglomerate lying upon an eroded surface of the underlying blue shales, although the irregularity of the eroded surface does not appear to be great in the somewhat poor exposures. The beds have been examined in a series of trenches situated near the Abbey Mound in Hartshill Hayes, and have yielded over fifty different species of trilobites—each ranging through one or more of about fifteen fossiliferous horizons in the sequence. The fauna shows marked affinities with those of the equiva lent beds in Waies, Scandinavia, and Bohemia.—T. C. Nicholas: The trilobite fauna of the Middle Cambrian of the St. Tudwal's peninsula (Carnarvon shire). In a previous paper on the geology of the St. Tudwal's peninsula approximate determinations were given of the fossils found in the Upper Caered Mudstones and Nant-pig” Mudstones, both of Middle Cambrian age. The object of the present paper is to give detailed descriptions of several forms which are either new or of particular interest, namely, Agnostus kjerulfi, two new species of Agnostus, a species of Agraulos, of Dorypyge, of Corynexochus, and Solenopleura applanata, and to give brief notes on a number of other species, including Agnostus punctuosus, A, exaratus, A. fissus, A. altus, A, truncatus, Microdiscus punctatus, Conocoryphe cf. dalmani, and Paradoxides hicksii. The vertical distribution of the different forms through'the Upper Caered and N ant-pig Mudstones is tabulated and compared with that of other areas, particularly the succession recently established by Mr. V. C. Illing in the Abbey Shales of Nuneaton. This comparison strengthens the opinion already put forward in the previous communication, that there is a non-sequence at the base of the Lingula Flags in the St. Tudwal's Peninsula.