1869.] MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 301 



departments of Geology, Zoology and Botany. The next meeting 

 will be held at Liverpool, with Prof. Huxley as President : — 



GEOLOGY Ai^D PALEONTOLOGY. 



THE DEVONIAN GROUP CONSIDERED GEOLOGICALLY AND GEO- 

 GRAPHICALLY, BY PROFESSOR GODWIN-AUSTEN. 



This paper dealt with the probable distribution of land and water 

 during the Devonian period, its fossil Zoology and Botany, and the 

 physical changes which have taken place subsequently. Mr. Godwin- 

 Austen briefly and popularly sketched the order of suQcessive sea- 

 beds, and showed that these represented geological periods. Of 

 these the Devonian group was amongst the earlier. Our rocks, 

 sandstone or otherwise, were simply sea-bottoms, and the geologist 

 only referred them to their original condition in order that he 

 might deduce their physical and zoological history. The Devonian 

 rocks had a wide geographical extent in Europe, Asia, and 

 America. In the latter country there was a broad band of old 

 Silurian rocks which existed as dry land during the Devonian 

 epoch. In Great Britain the Devonian rocks had a general 

 direction from north-east to south-west. From the nature of the 

 fossil fishes of these rocks, Mr. Austen came to the conclusion that 

 the Old Red Sandstone was of fresh-water origin, as of all the 

 existing fishes only six genera were related to the Ganoid family, 

 and all of these were essentially of fresh-water habits. The dry 

 land was covered with a series of great fresh-water lakes, like 

 those of North America. Besides the strata deposited along the 

 bottoms of these lakes there was a series of vast marine deposits, 

 which are termed Devonian. The Old Red Sandstone group was 

 a very perplexing one, and passed down into the Silurian at its 

 base, and into the Carboniferous towards its upper portion. The 

 most northern portion of Devonshire where rocks containing true 

 Devonian fossils came up was Lynton. The author then traced 

 the easterly direction of the Devonian group, showing how they 

 cropped up beyond the chalk of Boulogne, and thence across 

 Belgium and Prussia, into Bohemia and Russia. Prof Phillips 

 said the division of Old Red Sandstone as fresh-water, and 

 Devonian as marine, made by Mr. Godwin-Austen, was very 

 distinct. The former extended towards the north, and the latter 

 towards the south. He expressed himself, however, as opposed 

 to the fresh-water origin of red sandstones, simply because few 



