Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 27.djvu/697

 least 25 feet high. But whatever may have occasioned this deposit, the other beds (4, 4, 4) have had a similar origin.

It was in the lowest bed of shale (3, 3, 3), especially at 3a, where it is 25 feet thick, and of a reddish colour*, that the greatest quantity of reptilian remains were found. Some of them appear to belong to undescribed animals ; others, from a cursory view, seem as if allied to Micropholis†. Nob. 26 and 27 are remarkably beautiful and perfect, showing rows of exceedingly minute teeth. No. 24 seems almost identical with another little skull that was obtained from the rocks near Whittlesea, most probably a continuation of the same strata. The portions of the reptilian skeleton (D. S. 10 to D. S. 16) are also exceedingly interesting, on account of the perfect preservation of the bones of one of the legs. When first got out of the rock, a few of the bones of the foot were attached; but these were unfortunately lost in removing them : even those that are left seem to characterize an animal of more terrestrial habits than many of those already known.

It is to the energetic zeal of Mr. Donald White that I am indebted for the valuable specimens marked respectively D. S. 10 to 40 and 43-47, and also for much valuable information with regard to this locality‡. At the spot marked 3 a he obtained nine skulls in the course of one day's search.

The denudation of the lower part of this range of hills is very different from that of the higher part occupied by the shale " 10." The sandstones, interbedded with the shales, are cut into along the range by numerous kloofs orravines — the strata forming projecting shoulders between them (as shown in the map, fig. 10), and rising in steps from the more level ground to the slopes of stratum 10, thus forming a marked contrast to the latter.

Below the fossiliferous shale (3), and just below where it is the thickest, the sandstone, a few feet in depth, has a purplish-grey tint (No. 2, 2), as if a portion of the colouring-matter of the shale above had permeated the sandstone to that depth ; below and continuously with this the sandstone is fine-grained and yellowish, and is the lowest exposed rock of the series.

The outlier b is somewhat different in character from the range of hills. In it the shales are wanting, except at the point 7 ; and they are replaced in a great measure by the sandstone (4, 4, 4) before described, and which we may imagine to be the deposit of a current deflected from time to time from one part of the area to the other.

On the opposite side of b, and also round the shoulder of the mountain at D, the shales are much more largely developed than on this side ; but no section has yet been made of them.

Further, three dykes (12) traverse the outlier, converging towards a

near the bones. — T. E. J.
 * Very fine-grained, purplish-red, nodular, argillaceous sandstone, calcareous

† Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xv. p. 642.

‡ The specimen marked D. S. 41 (large skull, in two fragments of rock) was given to me by Mr. Powell. The specimen D. S. 42 was found by myself at the Queenstone Quarries ; it is of hard grey sandstone, with a large plume- like plant on it.

VOL. XXVII. — PART I. 2 o