ON SOME SINGULAR NODULES IN THE MAGNESIAN LIMESTONE. BY REV. J. STANLEY TUTE, B.A. In the quarry of Magnesian Limestone near Wormald Green there occur some singular nodules of an impure silicate of lime, which appear to be of sufficient interest to be worth putting on record. They seem to form a connecting link between the Permian beds of Yorkshire and those of Durham. I am informed by Mr. R. Howse, of Newcastle, that simular nodules are found at South Shields, and at Fulwell, near Sunderland, an analysis and description of which appeared in the Transactions of the Tyneside Naturalists' Field Club, by Mr. Robert Calvert Clapham, and read Dec. 23, 1861.* The following is a copy of the analysis of the nodules from the Trow Rocks: Upon this he remarks "It is therefore not a flint (properly so called), but a mineral consisting of silica, and carbonate of lime and magnesia, which may yet require to be named. It is possible that it may have existed as some organic substance, of which the present mineral may retain some of the original form. "Another specimen of a similar substance, but much more flinty in its appearance, found at Fulwell, and sent me by Mr. J. W. Kirkby, approaches much more nearly to the composition of flint in the quantity of silica, but contains a greater percentage of other matters than that mineral. It is composed as under :- The nodules at Wormald Green occur in the lowest beds of the middle Permian Limestone, which are yellow, and much fractured. The nodules themselves are nearly white, in section have frequently a regular oval form, with dark central markings, either oval or approximately oval, as if some round organic substance like seaweed had formed the nucleus of a deposit, and had been occasionally crushed into a flattened form.* The dark portions seem to indicate the presence of carbonaceus matter. Other nodules occur, more spread out, and flatter, which exhibit faint parallel bands, which probably mark the successive deposits of silicate of lime. Op. cit. II., III), 4, 5, 6. III., 1, 2; iv. THE OCCURRENCE OF A TOOTH OF A MASTODON IN THE GLACIAL DRIFT. BY REV. J. STANLEY TUTE, B.A. Mr. Bullivant, the schoolmaster of South Stainley, has showed me the Tooth of a Mastodon, which he found in a pit of Glacial Drift, on the road-side, about a mile from Ripley. The tooth was about six feet from the surface, in a bed of clay, grit, water-worn stones, and sharp angular rocks. About a foot above the tooth was a layer of sand. The drift is a portion of the brown glacial stream from the N. W., which spreads out eastward into the vale of York, it is cut off on the west by Cayton Gill, and on the south by the river Nidd. Near the river Laver, at Aldfield, it overlies an older bed of dark-coloured drift. NOTES ON THE POLYZOA, STOMATOPORA, AND PROBOSCINA GROUPS, FROM BY GEORGE ROBERT VINE. In his illustrations of the "Geology of Yorkshire," Mr. John Phillips referred only one species of Polyzoa to the "Zoophyta" group, which he found adhering to fossils derived from the Cornbrash Rocks of the Yorkshire coast. This species Phillips named Cellaria Smithii. "It seems," the author says, "to belong to the genus hippothoa, Lamx., see his Expos. Meth. t. lxxx., fig. 16, Scarborough, attached to cardium citrinoideum." Phillips. In Mons. Jules Haime's description of the "Fossil Bryozoa of the Jurassic formation,t the author only cites one species (p. 180), Berenicea lucensis, as found in the Great Oolite, Hampton Cliffe, and also in the Bradford Clay and Cornbrash. From material, at that time in my possession, and also from a careful study of the Polyzoan fauna preserved in the cases of the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street, I was able to record, and partially describe, in my third "Report on Fossil Polyzoa,"‡ the following Cornbrash examples : 1. Stomatopora Waltoni, Haime Cornbrash, Stanton. In another paper on the "Jurassic Polyzoa found in the neighbourhood of Northampton" I also described amongst others, and partly illustrated, the following species: 1. Stomatopora Waltoni, Haime, Cornbrash, Bedford. 2. Diastopora Oolitica, Vine Davidsoni, Haime Brit. Assoc. Reports, 1882-3. || Jour. Northampton Soc. Nat. History, 1886. Since these papers were written I have been allowed to examine, study, and select, from more than six hundred fossils, a certain number on which Polyzoan encrustations were found. The whole of these fossils belonged to Mr. Thomas Jesson, F.G.S., to whose previous kindness, by way of loans and gifts, I owe so much. Altogether, on the 600 fossils, there were considerably more than 1,200 colonial polyzoan growths; and the whole of these were of such varying habits that I almost despaired of ever being able to fix the types for serial description. However, rather than further delay the publication of notes on the Cornbrash Polyzoa, I make a provisional selection of two groups, Stomatopora and Proboscina, in the hope that at some future time I may be able to add to the present list of species. Before I give a detailed examination of the Cornbrash Stomatopora and Proboscina, I think that it will be both wise and useful to future students if I give preliminary studies of the peculiarities of the Jurassic forms already described, especially as regards British rocks. The Genus Stomatopora, Bronn. (1825), may be considered as equal to the Genus Alecto (1821), previously described by Lamouroux ; the reason assigned for the change of name was, that Leach (1815) had already used the term Alecto for an altogether different group of fossils. In his "Petrifactions of Germany" Dr. Goldfuss employed the word Aulopora for Jurassic species, properly belonging to the Stomatopora, or "Alecto" group. Up till 1848 the whole of these generic terms were indifferently used by authors. Milne Edwards, Johnstone, and d'Orbigny (Prodr. de Palæont.) used the word Alecto, and Reuss (Foss. Polyp. der Wiener.) employed the term Aulopora. In his Palæont. Française, Terrains Crétacés (1852) d'Orbigny used the word Stomatopora for all those uniserial species which were found encrusting foreign bodies, not only in the Cretaceous rocks of France, but in other horizons as well. Altogether twentytwo species are accounted for, and as the synopsis which prefaces the descriptive text of the author gives the status of our knowledge of this group up till 1852, including the Cretaceous species, it may be useful to insert the list here, in d'Orbigny's own phraseology :* Since this synopsis was drawn up, Uniserial Stomatopora have been described in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Soc., and Transac. of Yorkshire Geol. Soc. by myself, where full references will be found of species derived from the Wenlock shales of Shropshire, and from American Silurian and Devonian Rocks, by Mr. E. O. Ulrich, Prof. H. A. Nicholson, Mr. Hall, and other American writers. M. Jules Haime's monographical description of the "Bryozoaries Fossiles de la Formation Jurassique,"* the author described and illustrated seven species of Uniserial Stomatopora; but as I wish now to deal with British forms only, I give the names and references to those British species, examples of which Haime had before him when he wrote.† In my third British Association Report (1882-3), as previously referred to, I was able to add to the British list, two new names: 4. Stomatopora antiquata, Haime (Juras. Bryoz. pl. vi., fig. 7). dilatans montlivaltiformis (B. A. Rep., p. 251). 5. In a paper "On Some Polyzoa from the Lias (Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc., vol. xliii., p. 636, pl. xxv., fig. 10), Mr. E. A. Walford described, from the Middle Lias, King's Sutton, a Stomatopora sp., but in a footnote he says "I have found the same species in the Inferior Oolite of Dorset," and for this reason he was induced to name the Lias form : 6. Stomatopora elongata, Walford (Q. J. G. S., 1887, p. 636). In another paper (on some " Bryozoa" from the Inferior Oolite of * Ed., 1854, Paris. + All the British type examples of Haime are preserved in the Walton Collection of Jurassic Polyzoa in the Woodwardian Museum, Cambridge. |