Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles, 401 



of some barbed arrow-heads of bone, some having indented grooves, 

 probably for the appliance of poison ; also needles, and a flute-bevelled 

 tool of bone, a splinter or knife of hard flint, and the horn of an 

 Antelope hacked at the base, probably when the animal was flayed. 



" On the occurrence of Crag Shells beneath the Boulder-clay in 

 Aberdeenshire/' By T. F. Jamieson, Esq. 



In a former paper (Q. J. G. S. vol. xiv. pp. 522-525) the author 

 referred to the existence of gravelly beds containing marine shells 

 underlying the boulder- clay between Cruden and Slains, on the 

 coast of Aberdeenshire, over an area of about 6 miles by 3£ ; these 

 shelly sands and gravels he has since more carefully examined, and 

 he refers them to the age of either the Red or the Mammaliferous 

 Crag of England. Cyprina rustica, C. Islandica, Astarte spp., Venus 

 spp., Artemis lincta, Cardium spp., Pecten opercularis, var. Audouini, 

 P. maximus ?, P. princeps ?, Pectunculus glycimeris, Tellina solidula, 

 Mya truncata ?, Fusus antiquus and its var. contrarius, Mangelia, 

 Purpura Lapillus, var. crispata, occur in worn fragments. Cyprina 

 Islandica is the most abundant. 



Chalk-flints are common among the materials of the beds in ques- 

 tion ; also fragments of fossiliferous limestone and of red and grey 

 sandstones, of undetermined age. 



M On some small fossil Vertebrae from near Frome, Somersetshire." 

 By Prof. Owen, F.R.S., F.G.S. 



In this communication Prof. Owen described three minute Verte- 

 brae discovered by Charles Moore, Esq., F.G.S., in an agglomerate 

 occupying a fissure of the Carboniferous Limestone near Frome 

 in Somersetshire, in company with teeth of a small Mammal allied 

 to the Microlestes of Plieninger. The vertebrae are stated to cor- 

 respond in size with the teeth of Microlestes ; but to have Reptilian 

 characters, especially in their biconcave structure, — a character 

 common in Mesozoic Saurians, but rare in the existing genera. 

 There appears to be but very slight grounds for supposing that such 

 a character may have ever belonged to any Mammals, although some 

 of the existing Monotremata have peculiar vertebral modifications 

 somewhat resembling, in these respects, the structural features of 

 Reptiles. In their large and anchylosed neural arch, however, these 

 little vertebrae present a mammalian character. 



Remains also of small Saurians and Fishes occur in considerable 

 numbers with the vertebrae in question, as well as the more rare 

 mammalian teeth. 



LIV. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



ON THE LAW OF THE PROPAGATION OF ELECTRICITY IN IMPER- 

 FECT CONDUCTORS. BY J. M. GAUGAIN. 



r f^HE phaenomena of tension, which always accompany the propa- 

 -*- gation of electricity, manifest themselves in imperfect conductors 

 with an intensity which greatly facilitates their study, — as, for ex- 

 ample, when the electricity developed by a machine and accumulated 

 on a conductor passes into the ground through a cotton thread, a 



