bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
On the Base of a large Lacertian Cranium from the Potton Sands, presumably Dinosaurian
Authors: Seeley Harry Govier
Published: October 2009

The specimen on which this note is based was found by Mr. Charlesworth in the Potton Sands, near Potton, in Bedfordshire. The bed of phosphatic nodules which there occurs in the brown sands, named by Conybeare and Fitton Woburn sands, is probably of the age of the Purbeck-Wealden formation, though there is also a possibility that it may be as new as the upper part of the Lower Greensand.

The formation has yielded, besides numerous Ichthyosaurs, Plesiosaurs, and Pliosaurs, with which the fossil has nothing in common, some Teleosaurs and several Dinosaurians. The only Dinosaurian genus, however, of which the remains are numerous and varied is
Iguanodon
, represented chiefly by vertebræ, teeth, fragments of jaws, and phalanges. All the vertebrate remains appear to have been sifted on that pebbly shore; and the larger bones were probably deposited on a different horizon. The only other Dinosaurian genus indicated by teeth would seem to be
Megalosaurus
; hence, on ordinary principles of association, we might suspect that any new bone inferentially Dinosaurian probably pertained to one or other of these types.
On the Pectoral Arch and Fore Limb of Ophthalmosaurus, a new Ichthyosaurian Genus from the Oxford Clay
Authors: Seeley Harry Govier
Published: October 2009

Sixty years ago Sir Everard Home figured the skull, ribs, vertebræ, and scapula of a fossil animal which he regarded as more nearly allied to Fishes than to any other class. Two years later, helped with specimens by Buckland, he gave a further account of the paddle, vertebræ, and ribs of the animal, which he still regarded as a fish. In 1818 he figured the pectoral arch much as it is represented in all figures now in use, remarking that the sternal bones were first pointed out to him in detail by Buckland. Clift suggested to Home the resemblance which the sternum has to that of
Ornithorhynchus paradoxus
, thereby breaking down the supposed analogy between the new animal and cartilaginous fishes, though the pectoral fin was still compared to that of a shark, a view only abandoned in 1819. Sir Everard goes on to observe:—“It will be seen that the difference between these bones of the sternum in the fossil skeleton and that of the
Ornithorhynchus
consists in the fossil skeleton having a clavicular bone which is wanting in the other (
sic
); and the
Ornithorhynchus
having a long process from the scapula in which is the cavity of the shoulder joint (
sic
), wanting in the fossil skeleton.” This clavicle he had previously supposed to be a misplaced rib; he describes it as a slender curved bone crossing the upper end of the sternum, uniting the two scapulæ together, and bearing a resemblance to the clavicular bone in birds.
Giants' Kettles at Christiania
Authors: Brögger W. C. , Reusch H. H.
Published: October 2009

Amongst the many phenomena which invite attention and consideration in the North are the so-called “giants' kettles.” There are, perhaps, not many lands which possess so large a number of these striking regular holes, often scooped out to a great depth into the rock, as are found in the Scandinavian peninsula. Yet it is not an unusual thing for a tourist to light upon many of these kettles in his wanderings wherever a river dashes wildly through a narrow cleft. Not only beside rivers and waterfalls, but far from both are they to be met with. At one place in Lærdal the old Bergen road to Lærdalsörm goes right through the middle of a monstrous kettle. The saying among the people is that there St. Olaf turned his horse round.

It is not the traveller only who is acquainted with giant's kettles of remarkable size, form, and situation; the common people know them well and have much to tell about them. The graphic power that belongs to hereditary superstition is always fertile in pictures, and in every obscure phenomenon of nature sees a supernatural being personified. So these unusual holes are represented as having been produced by giants.
Notes on the Palæozoic Echini
Authors: Keeping Walter
Published: October 2009

The interest excited by the discovery, in 1869, of that remarkable flexible Echinoderm,
Asthenosoma
or
Calveria
, in the deep Atlantic, is increased by the fact noticed by Mr. J. Young∗ and other palæontologists, that certain other forms, whose day ended far back in geological time, also possessed the same overlapping plates and consequent flexibility. This structure was first described by Prof. J. Hall in
Lepidechinus
, and has since been noticed by Meek and Worthen in another American genus,
Lepidesthes
, and by Mr. Young in the scattered plates of
Archæocidaris
from our own Carboniferous rocks. This character I have also detected in other genera of the same group of Perischoechinidæ from Co. Wexford, Ireland.

It is worthy of note that whereas in the more modern (Cretaceous and Recent) group of flexible
Echini
(Echinothuridæ) the interambulacral plates imbricate from above downwards, and the ambulacral from below upwards, in these Palæozoic forms (Perischoechinidæ) the opposite arrangement obtains.

1. Perischodomus. Pl. III. figs.1–5.

Since the first notice of the genus
Perischodomus
by Prof. McCoy, in the ‘Annals of Natural History,’ vol. iii (1894) p. 251, this specimen, which is one of McCoy's two types, seems to have been lost sight of by palæntologists; for we find Mr. Etheridge, Jun., observing † that “very little is known regarding this genus,” and Meek and Worthen say ‡ “only a single very imperfect specimen of it has, we believe, yet been found.”

McCoy's diagnosis of this genus is:—“Spheroidal, depressed, subpentagonal; ambulacra narrow, of two rows of small
On a remarkable fossil Orthopterous Insect from the Coal-measures of Scotland
Authors: Woodward Henry
Published: October 2009

The clay-ironstone of Coalbrook Dale, Shropshire, has already yielded the wing of one most interesting form of fossil locust, the
Gryllacris (Corydalis) Brongniarti
(Pl. IX. fig. 2), figured and described in Mantell's ‘Medals of Creation,’ in Murchison's ‘Siluria’ 4th edition, 1867, p. 300, woodcut 80, and, lastly, in the Geol. Mag. 1874, new series. Dec. ii. vol. i. pl. xiv. fig. 3; whilst the Coal-measures of Saarhruck and of Westphalia have yielded fossil remains of a
Gryllacris
and seven species of
Blattinæ
, or cockroaches, 4
Termites
(white ants), 1
Acridites
, 3 species of the Neuropterous genus
Dictyoneura
; and from those of Grundy co., Illinois, U. S. A., 3 species of the genus
Miamia
, 1 of
Mylacris
, 1 of
Megathentomum
, 3 species of
Euphemerites
, and 1 doubtful species of
Mantis
have been described by Mr. S. H. Scudder, and from the Coal-measures of Cape Breton the genus
Haplophlebium
by the same author.

Mr. Scudder has likewise described seven genera from more or less fragmentary remains in the Devonian rocks of New Brunswick.

Dr. Anton Dohrn (Director of the Zoological Station at Naples) has described a new and most remarkable Neuropterous insect from the Permian (Todtliegende) of Birkenfeld, which he has named
Eugereon Bœckingii
, and regards as possibly belonging to an extinct order (
Dictyoptera
).

It has been my good fortune during the past year to have placed in my hands, through the kindness of Edward Charlesworth, Esq., F.G.S., a most interesting fossil insect from the Coal-measures of Scotland.

The insect in question
The Drift of Devon and Cornwall, its Origin, Correlation with that of the South-east of England, and Place in the Glacial Series
Authors: Belt Thomas
Published: October 2009

1. I
ntroduction
.—If we separate the southern counties from the rest of England by a line following up the Thames to near Cirencester, then along the southern boundary of Gloucestershire to the Severn at the mouth of the Avon, we get an irregular strip of country, shaped somewhat like a fish, of which Kent forms the head, and Cornwall the tail. Excepting, perhaps, some of the hills of Somersetshire, this part of England appears to have been entirely free from the action of land-ice in the Glacial period; and there are no glaciated rock-surfaces, no true till, and no moraines. Along with, and, as I believe, in consequence of, this freedom from ice-action, there is also an utter absence of those fragmentary marine shells which, further north, are found in drift on both the eastern and western coasts, where the great streams of ice from the north, after crossing arms or channels of the sea, advanced upon the land—and the presence of which, as they are never found above heights to which the circumpolar ice reached, and for other reasons I have urged, is due, not to the submergence of the land beneath the ocean, but to portions of the ocean-bed having been carried up by the rising ice*.

The purpose of the present paper is to describe the surface-geology of the counties of Devon and Cornwall, to examine the theories that have been proposed to account for the origin of the drift beds, to give my own views on the
On the Correlation of the Deposits in Cefn and Pont-newydd Caves with the Drifts of the North-west of England and Wales
Authors: Mackintosh D.
Published: October 2009

I
n
the present state of Posttertiary geology it is of very great importance (as may be inferred from the Presidential address just published, May 1875) that some one should attempt to correlate the deposits in caves with the glacial drifts of the neighbourhood. I therefore venture to bring before the Society a brief statement of the results of observations lately made in and around the Cefn and Pont-newydd Caves, Denbighshire. These caves are situated near to each other in the face of a limestone escarpment, on the north bank of the river Elwy. The Pont-newydd cave has been described by Professor M'Kenny Hughes and the Rev. D. E. Thomas, in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute (vol. iii. p. 387), and by Mr. W. Boyd Dawkins, F.R.S., in his work on Cave Hunting. By these writers the cave-deposits are regarded as Postglacial. The best account of Cefn Cave, as it existed before the deposits were nearly all cleared out, is perhaps to be found in Mr. Joshua Trimmer's ‘Practical Geology,’ published in 1841, the following being the order of succession therein stated or implied:—

1.

Sand, silt, and marl, with sea-shells in one or more places (uppermost).

2.

Loam, with angular fragments of limestone and bones, filling the cavern nearly to the roof (
diluvium
of old authors).

3.

Crust of stalagmite.

4.

Loam, with smooth pebbles, bones, teeth, and fragments of wood (lowest).

Mr. Trimmer believed that the lowest of these deposits was introduced, before the glacial submergence, by the adjacent river while flowing
On the Occurrence of the Genus
Astrocrinites
(Austin) in the Scotch Carboniferous Limestone Series; with the Description of a new Species (
A. Benniei
), and Remarks on the Genus
Authors: Etheridge R.
Published: October 2009

I
ntroduction
.–In a paper entitled “Proposed Arrangement of the Echinodermata” &c., Messrs. Austin referred to a genus which they proposed to establish under the name of
Astracrinites
, in the following words:—“Another genus (
Astracrinites
of our MS.) offers so many affinities to the recent and fossil Echinodermata, that we consider it the most remarkable of all the known genera. By its being lobed it approaches to the
Lobistella
; its ambulacra, spines, and arms mark it as allied to the
Echinites
, while the arrangement of its calcareous plates connects it with the
Lilies
of the ocean. In short, it possesses the lobes of a Starfish, the ambulacra and spines of a Sea-urchin, and the plates of a Crinoid. It is further remarkable by deviating from the quinary type so prevalent in the Echinodermata: the lobes and ambulacra of this new genus are each four in number.”

In the following year Messrs. Austin described this curious and aberrant form under the name of Astracrinites tetragonus. Their description is as follows :”

“Family Astracrinidæ,

“Consisting of the genera Astracrinites and Aporocrinites ;

“Genus Astrocrinites, Austin.

“Def.—Dorso-central plate quadrangular, to which four pairs of elongated plates are attached, imparting a lobed shape to the fossil. In the retiring angles at the base of the four lobes are a like number of ambulacra. Mouth central. Anus lateral.

“A. tetragonus, Austin.

“Def.—The plates of this species agree with the generic definition. Each of the elongated plates has two or three rows of minute tubercles around its outer margin
How Anglesey became an Island
Authors: Ramsay A. C.
Published: October 2009

T
he
structure of the low ground of Caernarvonshire within three or four miles of the Menai Straits in almost all respects resembles that of Anglesey, both in its geology and physical geography. The Menai Straits divide the two regions; but carboniferous rocks form the larger part of either shore, and the Straits may be considered simply as a long shallow valley, the bottom of which happens to lie beneath the level of the sea. The question thus arises. At what epoch and by what means was Anglesey separated from the mainland?

The whole of Anglesey is low; and only one steep escarpment, a minor one, occurs in the island—that of the Old Red Sandstone overlooking Traeth Dulas, which rises abruptly above the tidal flat of the Traeth to the height of about 250 feet. (See Map and Section Pl. XIV.).

The entire island may, indeed, be looked on as a gently undulating plain, the higher parts of which attain an average elevation of from 200 to 300 feet above the level of the sea; while most of its principal brooks and small rivers run north-east and south-west, in depressions with gently sloping sides; and only one inland valley, with the same trend, is of any marked importance, namely that of Malldraeth Marsh, in which the small coalfied lies. There are, however, a few exceptions to the average levels mentioned above—the summit of Holyhead mountain being 709 feet, and Garn, near Llanfairynghornwy, 558 feet above the sea, while the greatest elevation
Fossiliferous Cambrian Shales near Caernarvon
Authors: Marr J. E.
Published: October 2009

T
he
shales under consideration extend from about three miles S.W. of Caernarvon to Bangor, being roughly parallel to the Menai Straits. They are faulted against Lower Cambrian to the east, and disappear against a dyke on the west. They are, as a rule, greyish black to bluish black in colour, most commonly tolerably sandy and micaceous; but in places, as where the fossils are found, they are chiefly clayey with hardly any admixture of sand.

The fossils were obtained from three places, all within a mile of Caernarvon and on the banks of the Sciont.

The first place is close to Pont Seiont, on the E. side of the river, where an arrow marks the dip in the Ordnance map. The shales here are bluish black, dipping at about 45° S.E., containing a large amount of iron oxide, from the decomposition of iron pyrites, which is itself found in nests and veins scattered through the mass of shales, but especially towards the top of the section; and the outer surfaces of the rock weather to a rusty or olive-brown hue.

The rock is of a splintery nature; and it is rather difficult to get large pieces. It has a concretionary structure all through, breaking up into lenticular pieces; and it is in the interior of these pieces that most of the fossils occur.

Most of the fossils came from the bottom of the section, and were scattered somewhat capriciously, so that one might work for two or three hours without
Appendix
Authors: Hicks Henry
Published: October 2009

I
n
the interesting series of fossils collected by Mr. Marr, and which have been placed in my hands for identification by Professor Hughes, I have been able to recognize the following forms:—a new
Caryocaris
, a new
æglina
;
Trinucleus
, sp.;
Barrandea
, sp.;
Lingula
, sp.;
Discina
, sp.;
Obolella
, sp.;
Orthoceras caereesiense
(Hicks),
Didymograptus bifidus
(Hall), D.
indentus
(Hall), D.
Murchisoni
(Beck) and var.
furcillatus
(Lapw.). The specimens hitherto discovered are for the most part fragmentary; and hence identification of some of the species is difficult. I have therefore preferred in such cases to note the occurrence of the genus only. Others are undoubtedly new species or varieties, to which I propose to give names, though I do not think it would be advisable to figure or describe them fully until better specimens are found. Fortunately the species recognized enable us to make out without any doubt the position of the beds in the series, and to correlate them with those in other districts.

As described in Mr. Marr's paper, the rocks have been faulted down against very much older beds, and the stratigraphical evidence of their position is wanting; we have therefore to rely almost entirely upon the fossils and some slight assistance which we are able to derive from lithological characters. The whole fauna, speaking generally, has an Arenig look about it; and even were no species capable of being clearly made out, I should have no hesitation in placing the beds in that group. It is, however, far more satisfactory
On the so-called “Greenstones” of Western Cornwall
Authors: Phillips J. Arthur
Published: October 2009

I
n
a paper which I had the honour of reading before this Society in March 1874, I described and gave analyses of two varieties of Cornish Greenstone, both of which were characterized as being probably altered hornblendic slatesw. In the present communication it is my intention to give the results of a chemical and microscopical examination of some of the more important of the so-called Greenstones of West Cornwall, reserving for a future occassion an account of those found east of the parish of St. Stephens.

Penzance District
.—The most extensive group of these rocks is probably that situated on the margin Mount's Bay, in the vicinity of Penzance, and extending, with comparatively little interruption, from Penlee Point, about two and a half miles south-west of that town, to a mile east of the village of Gulval. From the latter locality to Marazion there deos not appear to be any extensive exposure of rocks of this class, but they again make their appearance in considerable masses in the sea-cliff extending eastward from Marazion to Cuddan Point.

This district may be regarded as being to a certain extent classic ground, since the rocks which now occupy our attention have frequently been the subject of the investigations and speculations of the earlier geologists.

In a paper read by Prof. Sedgwick before the Cambridge Philosophical Society, March 20th, 1820, he says:—“In the cliffs between Penzance and Mousehole, we found the ordinary varieties of clay-slate, much intersected by contemporaneous veins of quartz. These rocks were
Hæmatite in the Silurians
Authors: Kendall J. D.
Published: October 2009

I
n
a paper read last session before the Society, I pointed out some of the most important features of the Hæmatite deposits that occur in the Carboniferous Limestone of Cumberland and Lancashire. Amongst other things I showed that the direction of the deposits was invariably parallel to that of the meridional divisional planes by which the rocks are intersected; and as an explanation of that fact I suggested that the hæmatite had probably been deposited in caverns which had been hollowed out by chemical action along the meridional planes, or that the hæmatite had replaced the Limestone along those lines.

The paper also briefly referred to the deposits of hæmatite in the Silurians of the same districts, and went to show that these deposits (which are in the form of veins), like those in the Carboniferous Limestone, were in direction parallel to the divisional planes. There was, however, this difference between these Silurian deposits, and those in the Carboniferous Limestone, that whereas all the deposits in the latter were parallel to one another, and had a direction nearly north and south (that is the same as the meridional divisional planes), those in the Silurian had two directions, some being parallel to one set of divisional planes and some to the other.

Since the delivery of that paper I Have had an opportunity of examining a Silurian deposit which appears to me to be altogether unlike (as regards the relation between the direction of the deposit and the divisional planes) either
On some Unicellular Algæ parasitic within Silurian and Tertiary Corals, with a Notice of their Presence in
Calceola sandalina
and other Fossils
Authors: Duncan P. Martin
Published: October 2009

J
ohn
Q
uekett
described, in his lectures at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1851–1852, certain tubes or canals as being very frequently met with in the skeletons of corals; and in his Lectures on Histology, published in 1854, and which contained the subject matter of his previous discourses, he wrote as follows: “Confervoid growths also are very frequently met with in the skeletons of corals, as all these bodies possess animal matter which, decomposing after death, becomes a nidus for the development of confervæ; and hardly a section can be examined without exhibiting such an appearance as shown in fig. 78”. This figure shows long, short, and almost straight canals cutting across the normal coral structure at different angles.

In 1859 Kölliker gave the results of his examination of some corals to the Royal Society, in a communication “On the frequent occurrence of vegetable parasites in the hard structures of animals”. He said:—“All the genera of corals which I investigated contained parasitical fungi, viz.
Astræa diffusa, Porites clavaria, Tubipora musica, Corallium rubrum, Oculina diffusa, Oculina
sp.,
Alloporina mirabilis, Madrepora cornuta, Lophohelia prolifera
and
Nullipora alcicornis
. The fungi were most frequent in the genera
Tubipora, Astræa, Porites
and
Oculina
, the last three of which contained also many sporangia, which in the red coral were very scarce or wanting”

Before Quekett lectured, and contemporaneously with his and Kölliker's researches, Dr. Carpenter and C. Wedl investigated the corresponding tubes or canals in shells; and the last-named naturalist communicated a most admirable paper on
On the Occurrence of the Rhætic Beds in Leicestershire
Authors: Harrison Wm. J.
Published: October 2009

G
ood
inland sections, exhibiting the junction of the Triassic and Liassic beds, are rather scarce in this country. I wish, therefore, to describe an exposure of the Rhætic beds near this town, which is of interest as proving the continuity of that formation and the remarkable persistence of lithological conditions in its strata; whilst the occurrence of some new species of fossils shows that our knowledge of the life of that period is, as yet, very incomplete.

These Rhætic beds are to be seen in three brick-pits situated at the northern extremity of the Spinney Hills, a low range forming the eastern boundary of the town of Leicester and the Soar valley (fig. 2).

The Rhætics form a capping to the hills at this northern end; but southwards, as the ridge rises, they are overlain by a thick covering of drift to the depth of at least 20 or 30 feet.

Eastwards the upper members have been denuded by a little stream, the Willow Brook, although the lowest bed (the Grey Marl) is nearly, but not quite, continuous right across to Crown Hill, where Lower Lias beds (yellow fucoidal limestones) first put in an appearance (see fig. 2).

The floor of the brick-pits just mentioned is about 10 feet deep in red Upper Keuper Marls. Descending sections in neighbouring pits and in the railway-cutting near the station show an alternation of Red, Grey, and Blue Marls to a depth of from 80 to 100 feet. It is noticeable that the
Notes on the Gravels, Sands, and other Superficial Deposits in the Neighbourhood of Newton Abbot, Devonshire>
Authors: Woodward Horace B.
Published: October 2009

T
he
visitor to Newton Abbot cannot fail to be struck with the number of sand- and gravel-pits, some of great size, which are scattered about the neighbourhood, not only in the valleys, but high up the slopes of the hills, and in several instances on their summits.

On giving some attention to the character and distribution of these deposits of sand and gravel, it will be found:—
first
, that two main divisions may be made in them, namely those of an evidently alluvial character, and those which occupy positions quite unconnected with the present systems of drainage; and,
secondly
, that these latter deposits are nevertheless confined to the Bovey Basin and bordering hills, not descending into any of the other lateral or outlying valleys.

A reference to the geological maps of the country will not serve to throw much light on the correlation or identification of the beds when they are examined in detail. But since the days when De la Beche and Godwin-Austen recorded their observations, many new sections have been opened up. The rapid growth of Torquay and Newton Abbot has been attended by a call for sand, which is largely used in the preparation of “cobb,” a kind of plaster, unfortunately necessary to envelop and keep the damp out of houses for the most part built of marble.

The examination of these sections, together with those dug for the foundations of new villas on Woolborough Hill, has led me to differ from the opinions and eonclusi,ons which have
On two Chimæroid Jaws from the Lower Greensand of New Zealand
Authors: Newton E. Tulley
Published: October 2009

H
aving
been working for some time past at the Cretaceous Fishes, my interest has been especially centred in the group of the Edaphodontidæ; for the specimens belonging to this group, which have been brought to light within the last few years, have much enlarged our knowledge of these peculiar forms of fossil fishes. The general results of my examination of this group, will shortly be published; and in the present communication it is only proposed to consider two specimens from the Lower Greensand of New Zealand, which have been deposited in the British Museum by Dr. Hector. My attention was first directed to these specimens by Mr. W. Davies, of the British Museum, when I was examining the fine series of Chimæroid jaws now in the national collection.

One of these New-Zealand specimens is the right mandible of a species of
Ischyodus
already known to us from the Gault of Folkestone; and the second is a small right maxilla, which is altogether new and appears to be generically distinct from any of the fossil forms hitherto described.

Before considering the peculiarities of the mandible, it will be necessary to enter into some explanation and description of the species to which it is referred.

It appears that, the late Prof. Agassiz, some years ago, saw in the Earl of Enniskillen's collection of fossil fishes, a Chimæroid mandible from the Gault of Folkestone, which he named, in manuscript, Chim0œra brevirostris. Subsequently, in his ' Poissons Fossfles' (1843), he alluded to this specimen
On a Bone-bed in the Lower Coal-measures, with an Enumeration of the Fish-remains of which it is principally composed
Authors: Davis James W.
Published: October 2009

N
ear
Bradford and Clifton, in Yorkshire, a peculiar stratum of shale, which contains so great a number of remains of fossil fishes that I venture to call it a bone-bed, occurs immediately above the Better-bed coal, and is known to extend over a surface four or five miles in length by about two in average breadth.

The Better-bed coal is a member of the Lower Coal-measures, or Gannister series. It occurs about 700 feet above the Rough rock, the uppermost bed of the Millstone grits, and is separated from the Black-bed coal by overlying strata of an average thickness of 120 feet. It is extensively worked by the Low-moor Iron Company, and used by them in smelting the clay-ironstone of the district. It is peculiarly valuable for this purpose on account of its freedom from sulphur, the excellence of the iron manufactured by this firm being in a great measure ascribed to the use of the Better-bed coal.

The following section (p. 333) will explain the position of the bone-bed. The section extends from the thick series of sandstones known as the Elland Flag rock, below the Better-bed coal, to the Black-bed coal above.

The beds vary very much in thickness within even a small area, the sandstones and shales often thinning out from a thickness of from twenty to forty feet in less than a mile, and altogether disappearing. The most persistent beds are the coals and the fireclays, or seat-earths on which they rest. The section may be
Evidences of Theriodonts in Permian Deposits elsewhere than in South Africa
Authors: Owen
Published: October 2009

A
few
days ago Mr. W. Davies brought to my notice the cast of a fossil which had been purchased by the British Museum in 1865 of Krantz, the dealer, with the label ‘
Eurosaurus uralensis
, H. v. Meyer,
Brithopus priscus
, Kutorga. Permischer Sandstein von Perm.”

The subject of this cast is that of Kutorga's plate i, and is, as he truly describes it, the lower end of a humerus, with the perforation or canal above the inner condyle, on which character he mainly rests his determination of the fossil as evidence of an extinct mammal and as the basis of his genus and species
Brithopus priscus
.

The discovery of that character in the humerus of
Cynodraco
and other genera of South African reptilia, led to the rescue of the cast in question from the obscurity in which it had remained since its acquisition, and to the present retrospect of the circumstances under which Kutorga's contribution to Permian palæontology has been thrown into the background, and his supposed mammalian genera systematically ignored.

Kutorga, accepting the evidences summed up, in 1831, of the mammalian nature of
Thylacotherium
and
Phascolotherium
, and the proofs of the Oolitic age of their matrix, saw no geological objection to the remains of that class being discovered in the Permian deposits.

With respect to the most conspicuous test-character of the fossil humerus he truly states that such character was known only (in 1838) in that bone of certain unguiculate mammals ; and he quotes the instances given
On the Metamorphic Rocks surrounding the Land's-End Mass of Granite
Authors: Allport S.
Published: October 2009

I
n
the following notes I propose to lay before the Society the results of a microscopical examination of certain metamorphic rocks surrounding the Land's-End granite. In doing so my principal object will be to point out the structural and mineralogical changes produced in clay-slates and certain igneous rocks by the intrusion of a mass of granite, and also to compare the phenomena of contact-metamorphism with those produced by other agencies in rocks of similar character at a distance from the granite.

On referring to the map of the Geological Survey of Cornwall, it will be seen that in the vicinity of Penzance the granite is surrounded by a belt of altered Devonian slates extending from St. Ive's Bay on the north coast to a point a little beyond Mount's Bay on the south; they also occur along the coast north-east of Cape Cornwall, and reappear in the same direction at Porthmear Cove and near Zennor. The so-called greenstones occur in four distinct groups, also round the outskirts of the same mass of granite, vizaround Penzance and in the other localities just mentioned. In all cases they are represented as occurring in the altered slates either at a short distance from the granite or in actual contact with it.

A microscopical examination of both these groups shows at once that they have all been highly metamorphosed, and that the alteration varies greatly in character and extent according to the nature of the rock and its distance from the granite. The change
On the British Fossil Cretaceous Birds
Authors: Seeley Harry Govier
Published: October 2009

History
.

T
he
oldest remains of British fossil birds are recorded by Sir Charles Lyell as having been first found in 1858, in the Cambridge Upper Greensand. This stratum still continues the only member of the British Secondary deposits in which the bones of birds have been identified by morphological characters; for though the Rev. Mr. Dennis had previously asserted the occurrence of birds in the Stonesfield Slate, on the evidence of the microscopic structure of osseous tissue, it is safer, in the absence of recognizable bones, to believe that the ornithic structure he detected was found in an ornithosaurian rather than in a true bird. The discovery of bird-bones in the Cambridge Greensand was made by Mr. Lucas Barrett, F.G.S., then Assistant Naturalist to the late Professor Sedgwick in the Woodwardian Museum of the University of Cambridge; but I am not aware that Mr. Barrett ever published any account of his discovery. The bones are mentioned by Lyell as “the remains of a bird which was rather larger than the common Pigeon, and probably of the order Natatores, and which, like most of the Gull tribe, had well-developed wings. Portions of the metacarpus, metatarsus, tibia, and femur have been detected; and the determinations of Mr. Barrett have been confirmed by Professor Owen.” What became of Mr. Barrett's specimens I was never able to find out. They were not in the Woodwardian Museum when I succeeded to Mr. Barrett's duties in 1859; and the whole of the remains to which I
On some recent Sections near Nottingham
Authors: Irving A.
Published: October 2009

T
he
author refers to papers on this district previously published. In his previous paper on the district, reasons had been given for considering the Permian and the Triassic strata to be much more closely related to one another than is generally stated in the textbooks, and for questioning the propriety of attempting to draw any hard and fast line of demarcation between the two formations, at least so far as they are represented in the north-eastern area. For further proof of the reasonableness of the position taken by him then, the author of the present paper refers to the careful and accurate paper of Mr. E. Wilson, F.G.S., of Nottingham, whose whole life has been passed in the district, and whose observations may be thoroughly relied upon. The description of the sections described by Mr. Wilson were included in the present paper, but are omitted in this abstract; and the reader is simply referred to the paper at p. 533 of the present Quarterly Journal for an account of a section which must strike every one who examines it as one of the most valuable pieces of evidence yet obtained of the relation that subsists between the Permian and the underlying Coal Measures:

There is an interesting point, however, in connexion with this particular geological horizon, which has not been touched upon by the author of the paper last referred to, and which illustrates the extreme difficulty which must have presented itself to the minds of the Geological-Survey officers in
On the Miocene Fossils of Haiti
Authors: Guppy R. J. Lechmere
Published: October 2009

A
very
important memoir “On the Topography and Geology of Santo Domingo” has recently been published by Professor Gabb. Whatever tends to elucidate the geology of the island of Haiti must of course contribute to our knowledge of West-Indian and American geology generally, and may also throw further light upon some of the problems connected therewith which have not as yet been solved.

Santo Domingo is a republic occupying two thirds of the Island of Haiti. A very large portion of the territory comprised within its boundaries has been geologically surveyed and mapped out by Prof. Gabb and his assistants. The formations examined by them are classified as Postpliocene, Miocene, and Cretaceous. Eruptive rocks are also developed to a largo extent.

It is not my intention to speak of the geological part of Prof. Gabb's labours. That could only be done usefully by those acquainted with the country and conversant with its structure. My present business is with the palæontological portion of the work.

The Geological Society possesses the first regular collection of fossil Tertiary shells and corals made in Haiti, and, indeed, I might almost say, in the West Indies. This collection contains the types of the species described by Sowerby for Mr. Carrick Moore, and by Prof. Duncan. I have from time to time, when treating of the West-Indian Tertiary rocks and fossils, alluded to the fact that several of the species contained in that collection were unnamed.

Most of those species have now been described by Prof.
The Cephalopoda-beds of Gloucester, Dorset, and Somerset
Authors: Buckman J.
Published: October 2009

Every student of the geology of the Cotteswolds has recognized a band at the base of the Inferior Oolite under the name of the “Cephalopoda-bed,” so named from the important list of Ammonites,
Nautili
, and Belemnites which it has been found to contain.

To quote from Mr. Hull's ‘Memoir on the Geology of the Country around Cheltenham,’ “This bed had been long known to geologists as ‘the ammonite bed;’ but the ammonites were supposed characteristic of the Inferior Oolite, and its true importance was overlooked. Dr. Wright, however, found that the species were identical with specimens from the Upper Lias of Whitby, in Yorkshire. About the same time the work of M. D'Orbigny made its appearance, wherein nearly all the cephalopoda from the ammonite bed are figured and described as ‘
Toarcien
,’ or Upper Lias forms, while even in our own district several of the species……were known to be characteristic of the Upper Lias Shale” (p. 26).

Mr. Hull refers to a paper by Dr. Wright in the ‘Proceedings of the Geological Society,’ vol. xii., in support of the view that the Cotteswold Cephalopoda-bed belongs to the Upper Lias and not to the Inferior Oolite, and, further, that the learned Doctor had traced it to the Dorsetshire coast; and, indeed, in this very paper we find the following remarks upon sections at Half-Way House and Bradford Abbas, which we quote, as showing that Dr. Wright had at this time identified the Dorset Cephalopoda-bed with the one in Gloucestershire.

“Between Yeovil and
Observations on the Later Tertiary Geology of East Anglia
Authors: Wood Searles V. , Harmer Frederic W.
Published: October 2009

In writing the Introduction to the ‘Supplement to the Crag Mollusca,’ issued by the Palæontographical Society (for 1871), our object was, with the help of the Map and Sections accompanying it, to give only such a compressed or synoptical account of the researches on which we had for several years been engaged as would enable geologists to perceive the results at which we had arrived respecting the succession of the beds posterior to the Crag in the East of England. We considered that as the officers of the Geological Survey had commenced the examination of the district, and would eventually publish a detailed account of the sections and other evidence bearing upon that succession, we should have only encumbered scientific publications by bringing forward in greater detail the physical evidence which we had collected, and which had led us to the conclusions of which we thus gave a representation, the evidence of organic remains which we had collected being given by the author of the ‘Crag Mollusca’ in the tabular lists which accompany the Supplement to that work.

There are, however, some subjects referred to in that „Introduction„ upon which we have made subsequent observations that we desire to bring forward; and there is one in particular upon which we touched only slightly, the break between the Lower and Middle Glacial deposits, which from its geological importance it is desirable should be shown in some detail, in order that while the officers of the Survey are engaged upon the district
Note on the Red Crag
Authors: Whitaker William
Published: October 2009

My work on the Geological Survey in the Crag District has led me to think that previous observers have made a slight error in the classification of a certain ferruginous sand that is often to be seen above the shelly Red Crag, the line of junction being mostly very irregular.

This sand has been described by Prof. Prestwich as an “upper division” of the Red Crag, or, to quote his own words, “owing to the want of all fossils in the neighbourhood of Ipswich, as the ‘unproductive sands’ of the Red Crag”; and he goes on to speak of the “erosion of the lower division” underneath this, afterwards classing the upper with the Chillesford sands.

Mr. S. V. Wood, Jun., has referred the ferruginous sand in question to various horizons in the Glacial Drift, I believe with a constant tendency to lower its horizon; but his former views need not be dwelt upon, as that tendency has continued until he has accepted my classification, and now regards this sand simply as Red Crag, not separated stratigraphically or palæontologically from the shelly mass below.

The so-called “eroded” surface of the shelly Crag, noticed by various observers, is, indeed, apparently so only; but I must say that in many sections there is little or nothing to throw doubt on the reality of the appearance, which is somewhat analogous to the “mimicry” sometimes seen in insect life, though in our case one cannot see any object to be served by the delusion, unless
On the Fossil Vertebrata hitherto discovered in Spain
Authors: Calderon Salvador
Published: October 2009

The fossil forms, like the living, have their zoological geography more marked in proportion to the development of life upon our planet; and for this reason, even if there were no other, it becomes a duty on the part of those who devote themselves to this branch of science in Spain, to furnish all the aid possible towards an elucidation of the problems which present themselves to the inquirer, notwithstanding the little attention paid to our scientific literature throughout Europe, already deplored by the great geologist De Verneuil. With respect to the subject of this paper, it is necessary to bear in mind that no catalogue has ever been made, even of the summary kind which we are about to present, and that our materials have been collected from a large number of periodicals (Spanish, English, French, and German), extending over a period of about thirty years.

The palæontology of our peninsula presents many interesting features in its relations to the natural conditions of the soil. For example, the migrations of quadrupeds, which have caused the formation, in the greater part of Europe, of deposits of remains at a considerable distance from each other, must have been difficult in the Peninsula from the most remote time, and this has given rise to certain peculiarities in our mammalian fauna. Except by continuity, even in recent time, with the African continent, how can we explain the discovery of the
Hyœna brunnea
, the leopard, the serval, the lynx, and the deer of Barbary
On the Kessingland Cliff-section, and on the Relation of the Forest-bed to the Chillesford Clay, with some Remarks on the so-called Terrestrial Surface at the base of the Norwich Crag
Authors: Harmer F. W.
Published: October 2009

In the “Outline of the Geology of the Upper Tertiaries of East Anglia,” given by Mr. S. V. Wood, jun., and myself in the volume of the Palæontographical Society for the year 1871, we called attention to the beds at the base of the Kessingland cliff and their relation to the Crag and Chillesford clay, and gave a section of them. Up to that time the cliff had been, at the time of our visit, more or less obscured by talus, so that some uncertainty existed as to the super-position of the different beds. After a storm in the month of November 1874, however, I was fortunate enough to find the section perfectly clear; and the result of my examination of the cliff was laid in the same month before the Geological Society of Norwich; but that body does not publish any record of its proceedings.

In all respects, so far as the sequence of the beds is concerned, this recent exposure confirmed the representation given by Mr. Wood and myself in 1871; but in one matter of detail, then left doubtful, some correction is necessary.

As Mr. Gunn has recently submitted to this Society a paper describing his view of the section, which, in my opinion, differs entirely from what was then so clearly revealed, I think it desirable to give a short account of the facts as they then appeared to me.

The beds present in the cliff-section I take to be, in ascending order, as follows:
On British Cretaceous Patellidæ and other Families of Patelloid Gastropoda
Authors: Gardner J. Starkie
Published: October 2009

A study of this group of Cretaceous Gastropoda, commenced some twelve months since, brought to light unexpectedly so many forms new to our Cretaceous series, some of the genera to which they are referred having, indeed, never before been found fossil, that I have deemed the result of sufficient importance to form the subject of a paper which I now lay before this Society. Conical or patelloid shells make their appearance amongst the earliest known Mollusca; and from them seem to have been differentiated the convoluted forms represented by
Bellerophon
: in the earliest times these two typical forms can hardly be separated one from the other, being linked together by spirally twisted capuliform shells. So impressed does Pictet seem to have been with this that he, in his great work the ‘Terrains Crétacés de Ste. Croix,’ includes
Bellerophina
in the Fissurellidæ. The families, species of which are here noticed, have been unusually persistent in form, having come down, in some cases, almost unchanged, even specifically, to the present day. The aspect of the group is therefore more recent in appearance than that of any other group of Gastropods from rocks of the same age. Although a considerable advance is here made in our knowledge of these families, from these particular rocks, yet the number of species described from single specimens tells us unmistakably how much more remains to be learned, and the inference is forced upon us that we must still possess, though undiscovered, a far greater variety of representatives
On the Corallian Rocks of England
Authors: Blake J. F. , Hudleston W. H.
Published: October 2009

I
ntroduction

W
hatever
may be the value of the grounds on which the ordinary line of separation between the “Middle” and “Upper” Oolites is drawn, there can be no denying that from the Oxford to the Kimmeridge Clays, in some parts of England, we have one continuous deposit, which, from a physical point of view, has been aptly termed a great “pelolithic” formation. During the period when this was being quietly laid down, at a quicker or slower rate, in these areas, other portions of the same great region were at various times subject to alterations of the physical conditions, in consequence of which the deposits were changed in character; they became Grits or Limestones, and supported coral reefs, with their accompanying Oolites. The very fact of these changes being local—a fact proved as much by the discontinuous as by the variable nature of the deposits—prevents our assuming that they were all contemporaneous, even in a large sense, as has been done by those who have used the term Corallian, as indicative of a period, for all or any of the coral deposits that have been formed between the commencement of the Oxfordian and the close of the Kimmeridgian epoch.

In England, however, these rocks, originally called “Coral Rag” by Smith, from their development in that form in the area studied by him, have been divided into
Upper Calcareous Grit, Coralline Oolite
, and
Lower Calcareous Grit
, the classification being originally derived from Yorkshire; and it has been too hastily assumed that rocks