126 British Association for the Advancement of Science. 
Mr. Strickland mentioned the discovery of an Ichthyosaurus, 
at Strensham near Tewkesbury, by Mr. Marrett, and also exhib- 
ited a fossil fish with cycloidal scales from the lias, a fact not 
agreeing with the hypothesis of Agassiz. 
Dr. Wilde made a communication on ancient Tyre, and gave 
many interesting statements concerning the celebrated Tyrian 
ye. 
Mr. Bowman read a paper on some skeletons of fossil vegetables, 
found by Mr. Binney, in the shape of a white impalpable powder, 
under a peat-bog near Gainsborough, occupying a stratum four to 
six inches in thickness, and covering an area of several acres. It" 
appeared to be pure silica.. On examination with high magnifiers, — 
the powder was found to consist of a mass of transparent squares 
and parallelograms of different relative proportions, whose edges 
were perfectly sharp and smooth, and often traced with delicate _ 
parallel lines. On comparing these with the forms of some eX- 
isting Confervee, Mr. B. found the resemblance so strong, that he 
had no doubt they were the fragments of parasitical plants of that 
order, either identical with, or nearly allied to, the tribe Dzato- 
macee which grow abundantly on the other Alge. 
Mr. Murchison exhibited a geological map of Europe, colored 
by Von Dechen, and the first part of a work on Petrifactions, col- 
lected by Humboldt in South America. The latter work has led 
to some important conclusions ;—no odlitic or jurassic strata seem _ 
to exist in South America (or perhaps even in North America;) _ 
but there is a large development of the tertiary series, and a still _ 
larger of cretaceous, in the southern continent. Specimens of + 
Silurian fossils had been brought to the present meeting of the 
Association, collected in North America, by Prof. C. U. Shepard 
of New Haven, Ct. 
Mr. Murchison called the attention of the meeting to a section 
of a part of Germany which he had lately visited. Mr. Murchi 
son stated, that having with Prof. Sedgwick, examined the older 
rocks of Western Germany and Belgium, it is their intention to lay 
before the Geological Society of London, a memoir, illustrated by 
fossils, on the classification of those ancient deposits, a succession 
of the Carboniferous, Devonian and Silurian systems. . 
ent communication bore only on one point of this analysis, offer 
ing to prove the geological position of the anthracite or culm 
bearing strata of Devonshire and Cornwall. ; 
