176 Mr Whewell's Address to the 



viction of its importance, I must tlie more rapidly proceed witli the re- 

 mainder of .my survey. Mr Bowman sent us ' Notes on a small patch 

 of Silurian rocks to the west of Abergele.' In this investigation, which 

 is interesting to us as the first application of Mr Murchison's Silurian 

 system, the author found strata of which some could be, by means of 

 fossils, identified with the Ludlow rocks. Mr Malcomson has, by the re- 

 mains of fossil fishes, shewn that the calciferous conglomerate of Elgin 

 represents the old red sandstone of Clashbinnie, as the Rev. G. Gordon 

 had already supposed. Finally, proceeding to higher strata, we have to 

 notice a trait of the fossil history of the coal-strata nearBolton-le-Moors, 

 contributed by Dr Black. A stem of a tree thirty feet long, and inclined 

 at an angle of 18° in a direction opposite to the strata, was discovered, 

 having upon it a Sternbergia, about an inch in diameter, extending the 

 whole length of the stem, which had been, while living, a parasite plant, 

 like the mighty existing creepers of the tropical regions. 



" The most curious addition to our fossil characters of strata, are the 

 footsteps discovered on the surface of beds of the new red sandstone. It 

 is well known that several years ago such marks were discovered at 

 Corncockle Muir, in Dumfriesshire. Since that time, similar discoveries 

 have been made at various places, and especially in 1834, in the quarries 

 of Hesseberg near Hllbergshausen ; and to the animal which had pro- 

 duced the impressions then discovered, the name of Chirotherlum was 

 provisionally applied by Professor Kaup. In the quarries of Storeton 

 Hill, in the peninsula of Worral, between the Mersey and the Dee, marks 

 were discovered strongly resembling the footsteps of the Chirotherlum of 

 Kaup : these were described by a committee of the Natural Historj' So- 

 ciety of Liverpool, and drawn by J. Cunningham, Esq. Mr James Yates 

 has also described footsteps of four other animals from the same quarries ; 

 and Sir Philip Egerton has given a description of truly gigantic footsteps 

 of the same kind, which he terms the Chirotherium Herculis. 



" Mr Strickland gave us a notice of some remarkable dikes of calcare- 

 ous grit which occur in the lias-schist at Ethie in Ross-shire, and which 

 had already been remarked by Mr Murchison, in his examination of the 

 coast of Scotland, in 1826. They appear not to have been injected from 

 below, but filled in from above. 



" Mr Williamson's ' View of the Distribution of Organic Remains in 

 part of the Oolitic Series on the coast of Yorkshire,' was the welcome 

 continuation of a labour of the same kind already executed for the lower 

 portions of the series, and promised to be continued for the upper. 

 Among the contributions to the fossil history of the oolites, we must al- 

 so place Dr Buckland's ' Discovery of the fossil wing of an unknown 

 Neuropterous insect in the Stonesfield slate.' This stratum, the Stones- 

 field slate, has, during the past years, occupied the Societ}'' in the con- 

 sideration of its fossils in no small degree ; but the speculations thus sug- 

 gested belong to Palaeontology rather than descriptive geology. Mr 



