Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 26.djvu/494

 eastern counties of England ; and it was from a block of this kind in Suffolk that one of Sowerby's type specimens of Pecten cinctus was obtained.

According to Murchison and Nicol's Geological Map of Europe (1856), Cretaceous strata containing Perna Mulleti and Crioceras Duvali occur at the village of Losser, near to Oldensaal, on the western borders of Holland. These beds have been described by M. Ferd. Romer *, to whom the fossils collected at Losser have been submitted by the General Commission for the Geological Examination of the Netherlands. Under a thin covering of the sandy drift, which completely masks all the country around, is found a bed of yellow ironshot sandstone, very similar to that of the Teutoburger Wald, and containing the following fossils, which enable us to refer it, without doubt, to the Middle Neocomian : —

Ammonites Decheni, Rom. (A. bidichotomus, Leym., junior).

Ancyloceras (Crioceras) Duvali, Lev.

Exogyra sinuata, Sow.

Pecten cinctus, Sow.

Perna Mulleti, Desk.

Pinna (the same species as in the Teutoburger- Wald Sandstone) near to Pinna Neptuni, D'Orb.

Lima longa, Rom.

Lima, sp. (the same that is abundant at Gildehaus).

Trigonia, sp.

Pholadomya, sp.

Goniomya, sp.

Heteropora ramosa, Rom.

3. Westphalia. — Passing eastwards we find the first exposures of the Neocomian of North-western Germany in the hill-group of Bentheim. Here the formation is represented by beds of yellowish grey sandy limestone, very similar to that of Tealby, which passes insensibly into hard sandstones, and in places contains thick beds of blue clay. These beds and the similar ones of the Teutoburger Wald were formerly classed with the Quader ; the settlement of the question of their true age is due to Professor Ferd. Romer†. The list of the fossils which he gives, from Gildehaus, near Bentheim, shows that these limestones, like those of Lincolnshire, are referable to the Middle Neocomian. The following is the list : —

Crioceras Duvali, Lev.

Belemnites lateralis, Phil.

Panopgea neocomiensis, Desk. sp. (large form).

Thracia Phillipsi, Bom.

Avicula Comueliana, D' Orb.

Lima, sp.

Pecten cinctus, Sow.

orbicularis, Sow.

Exogyra sinuata, Sow.

The Neocomian strata stretch in a band, running in an easterly direction from Bentheim to a point on the Ems, between Rheine and Salzbergen. At the eastern end of this band the beds pass into black clay full of septaria.

In the same district, but considerably to the south, near Ahaus, there occur black plastic clays, containing a bed, a little over one foot thick, of pyritous argillaceous stone, containing the following fossils : —


 * Zeitschrift d. deutsch. geol. Gesell. vi. (1854) p. 124.

† Neues Jahrb. fur Min. u. s. w. 1850, p. 385.