Geological Society : — Anniversary of 1839. 23 



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I cannot close my enumeration of the valuable contributions 



for which we are indebted to Mr. OweU; without remarking how 



well our anticipations have been verified, when, in awarding him 



the Wollaston medal last year, we considered the labors which 



we thus distinguished as only the beginning of an enlarged series 



of scientific successes ; and how well also Mr. Owen's own de- 



claratioUj that he should lose no available time or opportunity 



which could be applied to paloiontological research, has been 



borne out by the services he has rendered that branch of our 

 science. 



In the remainder of my review of what has been done among 

 us in Palaeontology, I must necessarily be very brief. I have 

 already mentioned the discovery of fossil fishes in Bagshot sand. 

 These fishes have supplied three new genera, which Dr. Buckland 

 has distinguished and has named Edaphodon^ Passalodon, and 

 Ameihodon; of which the two first offer combinations of the char- 

 acters of bony and cartilaginous fishes. Mr. Stokes has given us 

 his views of the structure of the animal to which belonged those 

 fossils with which we are so familiar under the name of Orthoce- 

 ratites. He is of opinion, that these fossils, in their living condi- 

 tion, existed as a shell, enveloped within the body of the animal 

 to which they belonged. He has distinguished three genera of 

 these shells, to which he assigns the names ActinoceraSj Ormoce- 

 rasy and Huronia, The Marquis of Northampton also has exam- 

 ined those minute spiral shells which occur in the chalk and 

 chalk flints, and have been termed Spirolinites. And, finally, 

 under this head I must mention Mr. Alfred Smee's paper, on the 

 state in which animal matter is usually found in fossils. 



Mr. Austen's hypothesis of the origin of the limestone of Devon, 

 though belonging in some measure to Geological Dynamics, may 

 perhaps be mentioned here, since he explains tlie position of those 

 beds by reference to the habits of the coral animal. Mr. Austen 

 has already shown himself to us as an excellent observer ; and in 

 constructing geological maps, a task requiring no ordinary talents 

 and temper, he has earned our admiration. We shall therefore 

 not be thought, I trust, to depreciate his labors if we receive with 

 less confidence, speculations in their nature more doubtful. As 

 we can hardly suppose the calcareous beds of Devon to have had 

 an origin diff'erent from those of other countries, we cannot help 

 receiving with some suspicion, a doctrine which would subvert 



Vol. 3XXVII, No. 2.— July-October, 1839. 30 



