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Lyell, Charles, Sir, 1797-1875

"The Student's Elements of Geology"

Some of this same
tribe of shells, such as Camarophoria, allied to Rhynchonella, Spiriferina, and
two species of Lingula, are specifically the same as fossils of the
carboniferous rocks. Avicula, Arca, and Schizodus (Figure 410), and other
lamellibranchiate bivalves, are abundant, but spiral univalves are very rare.
(FIGURE 417. Restored outline of a fish of the genus Palaeoniscus, Agassiz.
Palaeothrissum, Blainville.)
Beneath the limestone lies a formation termed the marl-stone, which consists of
hard calcareous shales, marl-slate, and thin-bedded limestones. At East
Thickley, in Durham, where it is thirty feet thick, this slate has yielded many
fine specimens of fossil fish-- of the genera Palaeoniscus ten species,
Pygopterus two species, Coelacanthus two species, and Platysomus two species,
which as genera are common to the older Carboniferous formation, but the Permian
species are peculiar, and, for the most part, identical with those found in the
marl-slate or copper-slate of Thuringia.
(FIGURE 418. Shark. Heterocercal.)
(FIGURE 419. Shad. (Clupea. Herring tribe.


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