•iS* Geological Society : — Anniversary of 1839. 



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 exe- 

 cuted for the lower portions of the series, and jiromised to be con- 

 tinued for the upper. Among the contributions to the fossil history 

 of the oolites, we must also place Dr. Buckland's " Discovery of the 

 fossil wing of an unknown Neuropterous Insect in the Stonesfield 

 slate." This stratum, the Stonesfield slate, has, during the peist 

 years, occupied the Society in the consideration of its fossils in no 

 small degree ; but the speculations thus suggested belong to Palae- 

 ontology rather than Descriptive Geology. Mr. Murchison's notice 

 of a specimen of the Oar's rock, which stands in the sea off" the 

 coast of Sussex, nine miles south of Little Hampton, shows it to 

 agree with some of the rocks in the greensand or Portland beds ; 

 and its thus belonging to the strata below the chalk falls in Avith the 

 remark of its occurring between the parallels of disturbance which 

 traverse the Wealden of Sussex on the north, and the Isle of Wight 

 on the south ; for these disturbances and other facts agree well 

 with the notion of protruded strata between. The Wealden strata 

 themselves have been observed by Mr. Malcolmson, at Linksfield, 

 near Elgin. It is remarkable, that these strata had already, very 

 unexpectedly, been found by Messrs. Murchison and Sedgwick in 

 the Isle of Skye. 



I have also to notice Dr. Buckland's account of the discovery of 

 fossil fishes in the Bagshot Sands at Goldworth Hill, near Guildford. 

 As these fossils resemble those of the London clay, Mr. Lyell's 

 opinion that the Bagshot Sands were deposited during the eocene 

 period is strongly confirmed. 



The freshwater beds of the Isle of Wight, which had already 

 supplied specimens of some of the Pachydermata of the Paris basin, 

 have furnished an additional supply of rich fossils, which have been 

 examined by Mr. Owen. He has found them to contain bones of 

 four species of Pateotherium, and two species of Anoplotherium ; 

 also a jaw of the Chajropotamus, a fossil genus established by Cu- 

 vier ; and another jaw closely resembling that of a Musk Deer, which 

 Mr. Owen refers to the genus Dicobune, a genus also established by 

 Cuvier upon the fossils of the Paris basin. Such discoveries, falling 

 in with the conclusions obtained by the researches of previous phi- 

 losophers respecting the tertiary period of the earth's history, and 

 supplying what they left imperfect, cannot fail to give us great con- 

 fidence in the results of those investigations, and to enhance our ad- 

 miration of the sagacity which opened to us this path of discovery. 



Dr. Mitchell gave an account of his attempts to trace the drift 

 from the chalk and sti'ata below the chalk, as it exists in the coun- 

 ties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Bedford, 

 Hertford, and Middlesex. This drift I had occasion to notice in my 

 Address last year, in reference to Mr. Clarke's elaborate geological 

 survey of Sufi'olk; and I then stated that this diluvial deposit is 



