562 Geological Society. Anniversary AddresSi\S^2. 



bone-bed described by Mr. Strickland contains not only fishes, many 

 of which are of new species, but also many shells, some of which are 

 supposed to be of forms intermediate between those known in the lias 

 and the keuper. In this case, therefore, we are probably in the same 

 position as the inquirer into the Palaeozoic rocks, who stands upon 

 the beds of passage from the Silurian into the Old Red or Devonian 

 rocks before adverted to. In both cases, when he finds forms which 

 belong to the inferior and superior systems, whether he may draw 

 his boundary line above or below these equivocal strata, seems at 

 first to be of small importance ; for, as with the progress of research, 

 we must expect to find an infinite number of strata which contain 

 fossils indicating a transition from lower to higher formations, so 

 must the lines of separation which geologists set up between forma- 

 tions be liable to undergo small alterations. Adhering, however, to 

 the belief, that in the sequel those limits will most prevail which are 

 most made to depend on great changes in animal economy, I think 

 that the conclusion of Sir Philip Egerton, as based on the existence 

 of the fishes with heterocerque tails, must lead us to place the " bone- 

 bed " as the uppermost limit of our New Red System, or in other 

 words, as the last-formed stratum in which such ichthyolites appear. 

 A point connected with an important previous deduction has been 

 determined by Mr. Strickland in a cutting of the Gloucester rail- 

 road. The period at which the Lickey trap rocks were erupted, 

 is now proved by actual sections to be that which from colla- 

 teral circumstances had been surmised by myself. By observing 

 that the New Red Sandstone of the Upper Lickey lies unconform- 

 ably upon a mass of Red Sandstone, Mr. Strickland has demon- 

 strated that the disturbance and elevation of the ridge took place 

 after the deposit of the Lower New Red Sandstone, and anterior to 

 the accumulation of the New Red, properly so called. In this fact 

 some geologists may see an additional reason for classing the Lower 

 (New) Red Sandstone with the coal-measures, both having partaken 

 of the same elevatory movements. Though such a consideration 

 alone ought not to guide us in classification, the facts so recently 

 put forward by Professor Sedgwick of the prevalence of plants of 

 carboniferous species in this red sandstone, both in Cumberland and 

 in Warwickshire*, and the similar data, which I ascertained in Staf- 

 fordshire, Shropshire, &c., may eventually lead us to consider all the 

 sandstones beneath the magnesian limestone as naturally connected 

 with the carboniferous aera, a view which my last researches in Rus- 

 sia have also led me to adopt. In this respect, indeed, the deposit 

 agrees well with the rothe-todte-liegende of foreign authors, which, 

 like our Lower Red Sandstone, contains both carboniferous plants, 

 and occasional thin seams of coal. 



From Mr. Trimmer we have received an account of the true geo- 

 logical position of the CucullcBa decussata, verifying that which was 

 originally assigned to it by Mr. Webster, and confirming the just- 

 ness of Mr. Parkinson's opinion, that the species is distinct from the 

 • See Geological Proceedings, November 1841. [The paper here referred 

 to will appear in an early Number of Phil. Mag.] 



