Royal Astronomical Society. 475 



the specific character of the entire fish to which they belonged. The 

 short sketch* by this author of the fishes of CEningen and of the 

 lias, may lead us to a favourable anticipation of the success of his 

 forthcoming volumes, — and to hope that fossil ichthyology may here- 

 after serve our cause as efficiently as other branches of zoological 

 evidence. 



Fossil Plants. — The early experiments of Hall and Hatchett, am- 

 plified and illustrated by Mac.Culloch, had nearly produced conviction 

 that all the varieties of carbonaceous matter, from the ill-consolidated 

 surturbrand, through every stage of brown coal to pure jet ; and in our 

 older strata from anthracite to bituminous coal, were the products 

 of vegetables. Botanists have since corroborated the soundness of 

 these views, by developing the Flora of the associated strata ; and one 

 of our body has enabled us to refer many of these plants 10 their natural 

 families in living nature, by an ingenious method of exhibiting polished 

 sections of their stems : but it has been reserved to Mr. W.Hutton in 

 pursuing this line* of inquiry, to complete the solution of the problem 

 by demonstrating the vegetable structure in coal itself. The Memoir 

 of Mr. W. Hutton is further of high and practical utility in describing 

 the source of those enormous volumes of imprisoned gases, which 

 upon admixture with our atmosphere become explosive, and occasion 

 such disastrous results to our miners. 



As a slight contribution towards a knowledge of the condition of 

 the surface of the earth during one of the periods in the formation of 

 the oolitic series, which is marked by its vegetation, I offered to you 

 a few remarks on the vertical position of the stems of Equiseti, 

 in a sandstone of the eastern Moorlands of Yorkshire. This phaeno- 

 menon extending over a large area is analogous to that observed 

 in the Isle of Portland by Dr. Buckland and Mr. De la Beche j from 

 which however it differs, as it appeared to me, in requiring for its 

 explanation the desiccation of submarine sediments, so as to leave a 

 stagnant marsh for the place of growth of these plants ; which, after 

 this marsh had been gradually silted up, were submerged by a fresh 

 irruption of the sea, accumulating above them the deposits of the 

 middle and upper oolite. [To be continued.] 



ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY. 



March 8. — The following communications were read. 



On Prof. Bessel's improved method of deducing the Longitude 

 from a Lunar Distance. By Lieut. Stratford, R.N. 



Transits of the Moon with Moon-culminating Stars, observed at 

 Cambridge Observatory, in the month of February 1833. 



On the Mass of Jupiter. By Professor Airy ; the reading of which 

 was not finished. 



April 12. — The following communications were read. 



Prof. Airy's paper " On the Mass of Jupiter' was resumed and 

 concluded. 



A paper was also read f* On a method of determining the Longitude 



• Jahr. Buch, 1832, Dritter Jahrgang, Zweitcs Quartal- Heft. 

 <A P 2 



