219 



eludes by shewing the great improvement which may be made in the 

 general climate of this island, and particularly in that of its moun- 

 tainous districts, by complete draining, 



3. Verbal Notices. By Dr Fleming. 



1. On the Shell referred to by Ure in his " History of Ruther- 

 glen and Kilbride," as " a species of Patella.'" — Dr Fleming called 

 the attention of the Society to the extraordinary merits of Mr Ure, 

 who died in 1798, leaving a memorial, in the work above referred 

 to, and which was published at Glasgow in 1793, of an acquaintance 

 with organic remains unequalled on the part of any contemporary 

 author of the United Kingdom. This work, however, is very sel- 

 dom referred to by modern palaeontologists, although eminently use- 

 ful in illustrating the progress of discovery. It was likewise stated, 

 that an additional degree of interest must be felt by the members of 

 the Society, in consequence of a collection of organic remains, chiefly 

 marine, and from the carboniferous limestone, which belonged to Mr 

 Ure, having been presented by Mr Stark, and which now occupies 

 a place in the cases up stairs. 



Dr Fleming stated, that the description of the Patella, refei-red to 

 at p. 305, and delineated in Tab. xv., figs. 9, 10, is so obscure, doubt- 

 less in consequence of the imperfect specimen then in Ure's posses- 

 sion, that it was not until he had succeeded in procuring examples 

 in nearly the same condition, along with others more characteristic, 

 that he could refer the organism to its type, or, rather to the genus 

 DisciNA of Lamarck. This genus was unaccountably confounded with 

 Orbicula of Lamarck, by Mr G. B. Sowerby, in a paper in the thir- 

 teenth vol. of Linn. Trans., 465, and the errors there introduced have 

 been propagated in the " Silurian System" of Murchison; the "Geo- 

 logy of Yorkshire," by Phillips ; and the " Geological Report on Lon- 

 donderry," &c., by Portlock. The species indicated for the first time 

 by Ure, is probably referable to the Orbicula rugata of the Silurian 

 System, p. 610, T. v., f. 11, although much doubt must rest on the 

 determination. The shell consists of several somewhat easily sepa- 

 rable layers. The external one, cuticle-like, exhibits regular con- 

 centric grooves, constituting the character of the 0. rugata, while in 

 the different aspects of the inferior layers, may be contemplated the 

 0. nitida of Phillips, and the 0. striata of Sowerby. At the period 

 when Ure wrote he seems to have been in possession of only imper- 

 fect examples, or the upper valve of this brachiopod, but in his col- 



