NOV : IS' 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



ROYAL PHYSICAL SOCIETY. 



SESSION CXXX. 



Wednesday, 21st November 1900.— B. N. Peach, Esq., F.E.S., 

 President, in the Chair. 



The President delivered the Opening Address, entitled 

 " Scottish Palaeontology during the last Twenty Years." 



My retirement from the Presidentship of the Royal 

 Physical Society on the threshold of a new century, 

 furnishes a favourable opportunity for reviewing some of 

 the work done in Scottish palaeontology during the last 

 twenty years. 



In the first case, I shall attempt to treat the work from 

 the biological side ; and in the second, I shall try to show 

 the bearing of these discoveries in palaeontology upon the 

 geology of Scotland. 



Part I. 



In treating of the biological aspect of these discoveries, I 

 purpose to begin with the more lowly forms of life and pro- 

 ceed towards the higher. As Mr Kidston has already so 

 exhaustively treated of the fossil plants in his retiring ad- 

 dress to our Society, no farther back than the year 1893,^ I 

 shall proceed at once to the animals. 



1 R. Kidston, Proc. Roy, Phys. Soc, vol. xii. pp. 183-257, 1894. 

 VOL. XIV. 2 B 



