352 Proceedings of the British Association, 



brae of the newly-discovered saurians, which presented a remarkable 

 contrast to those of the recent crocodiles. He shewed a singular 

 gradation from the recent saurians to sauroid fishes, by means of 

 this arrangement of vertebrae, which thus becomes an excellent 

 guide in the discrimination of the saurian animals ; and he concluded 

 his communication with a quotation from Agassiz, respecting the 

 progressive development of animal life. — Dr Riley alluded to the 

 extraordinary structure of the cerebral column of these extinct sau- 

 rians, as likely to illustrate the supposition of Dr Gall, that the spinal 

 column of vertebrate, would be eventually found to correspond with 

 the ganglionic system of invertebrate animals. — Dr Buckland was 

 particularly struck with the singular structure of these vertebrae, as 

 indicating in the animal a nervous power of the most extraordinary 

 character. 



A paper was read by Mr Hopkins, containing theoretical views 

 respecting the geological phenomena of elevation. The principal 

 object of the author in this paper was to investigate the effects of 

 an elevating force acting simultaneously at every point, on portions 

 of the crust of the globe of considerable superficial extent ; and to 

 shew that the theoretical inferences deduced from this hypothesis 

 are in striking accordance with the phenomena he had observed in 

 the limestone and coal districts of Derbyshire. He also proved that 

 in that district the direct cases of dislocation were not such as could 

 result from the influence of the jointed structure as the determining 

 cause of those directions. He pointed out how the theory he had 

 discussed will account for nearly all the phenomena of mineral veins, 

 which can be attributed to mechanical causes ; as well as for the for- 

 mation of systems of anticlinal lines, of faults, and of the phenomena 

 of elevation. — Mr Sedgwick considered this as the most important 

 communication as yet made to the Section. We should now be enabled 

 to indulge in the same speculations in Geology, as in her elder sister 

 science Astronomy, and from the beginning now made, it was im- 

 possible to predict how far investigations like Mr Hopkins' might 

 eventually be carried. The observations of Mr Hopkins held true 

 in Cumberland, Derbyshire, and Flintshire ; and some of his cases 

 of complicated dislocation were admirably illustrated in Caernarvon 

 and Stainmore. Mr Sedgwick had himself paid particular attention 

 to the joints of rocksy and had found them connected both with their 

 strike and dip. He had also observed some singular phenomena in 

 the Westmoreland slates ; he had seen in them two sorts of joints, 

 and a cleavage which was in a different direction from the jointing. 



