Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 79 



importance by any other ossiferous bed which has yet been described, 

 and it gives new features to the striking geology of the vicinity of 



Edinburgh. — 



Mr. Conybeare, in transmitting an account of this discovery, ob- 

 serves, that the formation here described may very possibly be 

 closely related to the bituminous schist, containing shells, apparently 

 fluviatile, and fish, discovered in 1830 by Messrs. Murchison and 

 Sedgwick, in Caithness, and by them considered as occupying the 

 relative position of the carboniferous group. This formation has 

 been fully described by them in the Geological Transactions ; and 

 the fish discovered are there carefully figured, with which it will be 

 interesting to compare those of Burdiehouse. With regard to the 

 discovery of Saurian remains in rocks of this age, Mr. Lyell has 

 already observed, (vol.i. p. 129,) that amongst other fossils col- 

 lected from the mountain limestone of Northumberland, the Rev. 

 Charles V. Vernon had been fortunate enough 



Unius sese dominum fecisse lacertae, 

 having found there a Saurian vertebra. 



Although in England the lias is the oldest formation which has 

 presented any very decided or abundant specimens of Saurian ani- 

 mals, still, on the Continent, especially around the Thuringer wald, 

 they are commonly found in the cupriferous schist coeval with 

 our own magnesian limestone: these remains were referred by Cu- 

 vier to the genus Monitor, and here also they were associated with 

 the remains of fresh-water fish. 



As the whole formation of Zechstein (our magnesian lime) is im- 

 mediately next in order of age to the carboniferous group, — as the 

 cupriferous schist is its lowest member, and the fossils of the for- 

 mation generally present an intermediate link between the inferior 

 carboniferous and superior muschelkalk and lias, we cannot be much 

 surprised by any new instance of analogy between the said schist 



and the coal measures. 



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