72 



the time when this now extinct star-fish lived was so remote 

 that we could form no idea of its immensity. As well might 

 we try to estimate the distance of the nearest fixed stars from 

 the earth as to endeavour to compute by thousands of years 

 the age of the Oolites of the Cotteswold Hills ; and yet throiigh 

 all those untold cycles of ages organic natra-e had been pro- 

 ducing the same generic forms so beautifully displayed in this 

 little fossil Uraster. Similar facts come before us among the 

 Mollusca; for in the pearly Nautilus we have the last descendant 

 of a long line of chambered shells of the same type which began 

 their career in the far, far distant periods of Silurian time, 

 which was probably as much older than the star-fish as the 

 latter was removed from our day, and yet the organic family 

 type was as well exhibited in the oldest as it is in the newest 

 Nautilus, whilst other chambered shells, near allies of the 

 Nautilus, the common Ammonite for example, after flourishing 

 in vast profusion during the Jm^assic and Cretaceous periods, 

 had suddenly become extinct, and left no representative in the 

 Tertiary seas. In like manner, the genus Lingida appeared 

 among the earliest forms of Silurian life, and had transmitted 

 one of its species into the present Molucca sea; this remarkable 

 genus, having survived through all this vast lapse of time 

 without changing in the slightest essential any of its primitive 

 generic characters, whilst side by side with these persistent 

 Lingulce whole families and genera have died out -without 

 leaving a single living representative. 



The second Field Meeting of the Club was held at 

 EOSS, 

 on Wednesday, 19th June, with the especial object of visiting 

 certain caves on the Great Doward, near Whitchurch, which 

 had yielded very remarkable results to the labours of the Rev. 

 W. S. Symonds, whose researches had been indefatigably carried 

 on at that locality for some months previously. 



The discoveries made by Professor E. Dttpont, of Belgium, 

 in the caves of the Lesse Yalley, near Dinant, occurring con- 

 temporaneously with those which, under the direction of Mr. 



