Geological Society . \^\ 



changes in localities very unlikely to be revisited for any purposes 

 except those connected with scientific inquiries. 



Your Committee, in making; this Report, think it unnecessary 

 to go into any minute details relative to the instruments or other 

 materiel required for the proposed operations, still less into those 

 of the conduct of tlie operations themselves. Should such be re- 

 quired from them, it will then be time to enter further into these 

 and other points, when the Committee will most readily devote them- 

 selves to the fullest consideration of the subject. 



J. F. W. Herschel, 

 Chairman of the Joint Physical and 

 Meteorological Committee. 

 Resolutions. — 1. That this Report be received and approved. 



2. That the Council, deeply impressed with the importance of the 

 scientific objects which might be attained by an Antarctic Expedi- 

 tion, particularly by the institution of magnetic observations in 

 southern regions, do earnestly recommend that Her Majesty's Go- 

 vernment be pleased to direct the equipment of such an expedition. 



3. That the imperfect state of our present knowledge of the 

 amount and fluctuations of the magnetic elements, renders the esta- 

 blishment of fixed magnetical observatories, for a limited time, at 

 various points of the earth's surface, highly desirable, particularly 

 in Canada, St. Helena, Van Diemen's Land and Ceylon, and at the 

 Cape of Good Hope, and that the Council do earnestly recommend 

 Her Majesty's Government to cause such obsen^atories to be esta- 

 blished. 



4. That a deputation, consisting of the President, Treasurer, 

 and Secretaries of the Society, Sir John F. W. Herschel, the Chair- 

 man, and Major Sabine and Mr. Wheatstone, the Secretaries of the 

 joint Committee of Physics and Meteorology, be requested to com- 

 municate the above Resolutions to Lord Melbourne, and to urge on 

 the Government the adoption of the measures therein proposed. 



GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY, 



Nov. 21, 1838. — A paper was first read " On the Jaws of the 

 Thylacotherium Prevostii* (Valenciennes) from Stonesfield, " by 

 Richard Owen, Esq., F.G.S., Hunterian Professor, Royal College of 

 Surgeons. 



Doubts having been recently expressed by M. de Blainvillef, from 

 inspection of casts, respecting the mammifcrous nature of the fossil 

 iaws found at Stonesfield, and assigned to the Marsupialia by Baron 

 Cuvier, Mr. Owen brought the paper before the Society, to meet the 

 objections and give a detailed account of the fossils from a careful 

 inspection of the originals. In this communication, liowever, he 

 confined his description chiefly to the jaws of one of the two genera 

 which have been discovered at Stonesfield, and characterized by 



• Comptes Rendus, 1838 ; Second Semestre, No. 11, Sept. 10, p. 580. 

 t Ibid., No. 8, AoAt 20, p. 402 et seq.; No. 9, Planche; No. 17, 

 Oct. 22, p. 727; No. 18, Oct. 29, p. 750. 



