Our common British fossils and where to find them; a handbook for students
John Ellor Taylor
Paperback
(RareBooksClub.com, May 19, 2012)
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885 Excerpt: ...subulata, Epiaster (a genus allied to Micraster), Catopygus, Pyrina, etc. The Lower Greensand beds are frequently rich in Echinoderms, Thus at Shanklin, in the Isle of Wight, we have a very rich "urchin" bed, containing many singular forms, such as Clypcopygus, Enallaster, and Echinospatagus. The last-mentioned fossil is very abundant in the Upper Greensand of Blackdown, Devonshire, where also many other species of the same kind of fossils are obtained. Holaster suborbicularis and H. sub-globosus are very abundant in a bed between the Chalk Marl and Upper Greensand at Abinger, in Surrey; also at Lewes, in a similar stratum. Hemiaster is a characteristic fossil in Grey chalk about Folkestone, at Hamsey, in Sussex, and Ventnor. The commonest Gault echinoderm found at Folkestone is Hemiaster Bailyi. The Red Chalk at Speeton contains Discoidea, Holaster, Diadema, and spines of Cidarids. In the oldest known type of sea-urchin Palcetchinus) the test or shell was composed of more than twenty rows of plates, and the entire test was of a remarkable egg-like shape. Archceocidaris is the oldest known Cidaris, or knobbed sea-urchin, and it occurs in the Devonian rocks; but one species (A. Urii) is not uncommon in the Carboniferous limestone of the Derbyshire Peak district, and I have found its spines somewhat plentifully in the queer little limestone quarry at Hafod, near Corwen, in North Wales. Palceechinns seems to occur most plentifully in the Carboniferous limestone of Ireland. Some beds of the Inferior Oolite literally swarm with fossil Cidarids and Cake-urchins. The slabs of Oolitic limestone found in the quarries about Calne may be seen containing a dozen Cidarids, many of them with their spines still attached, just as when they were alive. Leckhampton...