TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 99 
The Duke of Argyle read a notice respecting the occurrence of 
copper veins in Argyleshire, and exhibited specimens of marble from 
various places in Scotland. 
Fishes of the Old Red Sandstone. By Ropertck Impry Murcuison, 
F.RS., F.G.S., General Secretary to the British Association. 
Mr. Murchison called the attention of the Section to the subject 
of the old red sandstone of the northern counties of Scotland, the 
general relations of which had been long ago pointed out, and some of 
its fossil fishes described by Professor Sedgwick and himself*. On this 
occasion his object was to mark distinctly the progress which had since 
been made in our knowledge of the structure and contents of this sy- 
stem in the same tract of country. In dving this, Mr. Murchison 
referred to Mr. Hugh Miller, of Cromarty, who, unaided, had unra- 
velled the complicated relations of the older stratified deposits around 
his native place, and had first endeavoured to describe a singularly 
formed animal with lateral wing-like processes, the Péerichthys t, 
which with Coccosteus and other new genera of Agassiz have recently 
been found in considerable quantities, on both sides of the Murray Frith. 
Mr. Murchison then adverted to the general views of Dr. Malcolmson, 
of Forres, who had re-examined all the fish deposits lying between the 
Orkneys and Aberdeenshire, and had divided the old red sandstone of 
these parts into three members, the middle and lower of which are 
distinguished by forms of fish peculiar to each. This work, illustrated 
by drawings, is now in the course of publication in the Geological 
Society’s Transactions, and will form an interesting subject of com- 
parison with the work preparing by Professor Asmus, of Dorpat, upon 
similar ichthyolites, to which Mr. Murchison adverted in his commu- 
nication on the geology of Russia. 
Account of the Footsteps of extinct Animals observed in a Quarry in 
Rathbone-street, Liverpool. By James Yates, F.R.S. 
“For more than half a century a stone quarry has been worked in 
Rathbone-street, Liverpool; but only within a few weeks have any 
traces been observed in it of organic existence. On my way to the 
Meeting of the British Association, I had occasion to stay a short time 
at Liverpool, and was informed by Mr. Higginson, a surgeon in that 
town, that he had found in this quarry footsteps of the same kind 
which were discovered about two years ago at Stourton, in Cheshire. 
I accompanied him to the spot, and found the appearances as follows. 
The strata are moderately inclined, and of so great thickness as to be 
well adapted for building. The workmen are at this time hewing out 
of them a set of pillars twenty feet long, intended to form the colon- 
nade of a public edifice. These thick strata alternate with others which 
are very thin, and on which the ripple-mark is sometimes seen. Lumps 
* Geological Transactions, vol. iii. p. 125. 
t On this occasion M. Agassiz named the prominent species Péerichthys 
Milleri. H 2 
