NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 135 



The Chairman exhibited the lower jaw-bones and some of the 

 vertebrae of a ruminant — probably a deer — from a moss near 

 Cambusnetlian. These, with a quantity of decayed flesli and 

 coarse black hair, had been found embedded in the peat at a depth 

 of about seven feet, and had first come into the possession of ]\Ir 

 George Thomson, a member of the Society, 



Mr John Bell exhibited a specimen of the Grey Phalarope 

 (Phalaropus lohatus), which was shot some time ago near Helens- 

 burgh. Mr John Young laid on the table a peculiar monstrosity 

 of the Scotch Fir, which had been cut in a plantation near 

 Mugdock, and on which Mr M'Lellan and Mr Eamsay made 

 some remarks. 



PAPERS READ. 



I. — Remarks on the Parallelism of the Scottish and North Irish 

 Carboniferous strata. By Mr John Young^, F.G.S. 



The author founded his remarks chiefly on the geological age of 



the Ballycastle coalfield, and its relation to the Carboniferous 



rocks of the West of Scotland, from a paper read this month 



by Mr Edward Hull before the Geological Society of Ireland, and 



after some preliminary observations proceeded as follows: — 



During the short period Mr Hull was with us in Glasgow, 



engaged in the survey of the coalfields of the West of Scotland, 



he became acquainted with the peculiar stratigraphical and 



lithological characters of the Carboniferous limestone series of 



the Glasgow district, so difi'erent from the typical strata of the 



same age observed in most of the coalfields of England and 



Ireland, and he has since been enabled to trace an approach to 



the same conditions of deposit in the Ballycastle coalfield as those 



seen in the West of Scotland. Mr Hull does not found his 



conclusions solely upon the similarity of lithological character 



of the strata observed in the two districts, but also upon the 



palaeontological evidence of the various organisms obtained from 



the two series of beds. He says that, amongst thirty-three species 



of shells, corals, and crinoids, from the Ballycastle strata, Mr 



Baillie, palaeontologist to the Irish Geological Survey, finds fifty 



per cent, are related to those from the West of Scotland. 



Mr Hull divides the Carboniferous strata of the Ballycastle or 



