193 



horizontally against their dank, having the same degree of dip 

 as at Westbury, viz. : about 2 S.S. K. It is to be observed, that 

 this point is not noted upon the Maps of the Geological Survey ; 

 it has, therefore, probably hitherto escaped the notice of the staff 

 of able and lynx-eyed Surveyors, by whoso labours that magni- 

 ficent national work has been so indefatigably and so successfully 

 elaborated. 



Wednesday, 17th of August. The Club met at Swindon ; the 

 attendance was, however, but thin, not more than half-a-dozen 

 presenting themselves at the rendezvous at breakfast ; of these, 

 the majority proceeded on wheels to Abury, while the geological 

 Section, represented by the President and Mr. Charles Moore, of 

 Bath, the well-known palaeontologist, addressed themselves to the 

 geology of the district, which they traced from the quarries in the 

 Portland Oolite above the Town, to the summit of the opposite 

 chalk escarpment at Burdrop Park. 



The dirt-bed in the Swindon quarry, which has yielded a very 

 interesting series of fossils to the persevering industry and in- 

 telligence of Mr. Moore, was closely investigated ; but it does not 

 yield up its treasures to every casual explorer ; and one valve of 

 a Cypris was the sole, yet satisfactory result of much laborious 

 examination. 



In the course of the evening, Mr. Moore exhibited a beautiful 

 series of minute organisms from this bed, concerning which he 

 offered some interesting observations. 



The band of dark sandy clay, marked No. 4 in the Section 

 given in the Memoirs of the Geological Survey, Sheet 34, he con- 

 siders to be the equivalent of the dirt-bed of the Swanage Sec^ 

 tiou, and although he stated that he had as yet found no traces 

 of Mammalia in it; yet he has obtained teeth of Macelodus 

 Brodiei, and of other reptiles found in the Purbeck strata of 

 Swanage. But the remains of greatest interest are some minute 

 vertebrae and articulated bones, which Professor Owen tias decided 

 to belong to a perennibranchiate Batrachian, an Order not pre- 

 viously known below the Tertiary beds. 



Cypris is found in the same bed, and one or two species of 

 Chara, with other fruits, and also a numerous series of Testacea. 



This was a Ladies' Meeting, but I regret to say, that the 

 Ladies did not respond to the invitation conveyed in the printed 

 circulars, to the extent it was hoped they would have done. One 

 only gracing the table with her presence. Let us hope this was 

 due rather to the inconvenience of a somewhat distant locality, 

 than to lack of sympathy with the object of our meeting. The 

 occasional presence of the gentler sex at such gatherings of the 

 Club, as may be favourable to their coming amongst us, should by 

 all means be encouraged, as tending to exert a humanizing in- 

 fluence over the rougher nature of even the most intellectual of 

 philosophers; while the Ladies on their part, cannot fail of 



