President's Address. 29 



Orkney, the remains of a small delicate bivalve, not yet 

 described or figured, but which very much resembles a 

 Venus." * 



So wrote one of the most elegant and masterly writers yet 

 known in the science of geology, and what was true of the 

 conchology of the Scotch Old Ked at that date holds good now. 

 So far as I am aware no shells have ever been described from 

 any deposits truly referable to that period. The delicate 

 bivalve spoken of by Miller is in reality a small rh3dlopod- 

 ous Crustacean, named Estheria, and not a Mollusc at all. 

 This was first suggested by the late Dr S. P. Woodward at 

 the Liverpool meeting of the British Association in 1854,-(- 

 and was demonstrated by Professor T. Piupert Jones after- 

 wards. X 



THE CAEBONIFEROUS CONCHOLOGY OF SCOTLAND. 



Carboniferous Conchology, I may say Carboniferous Palae- 

 ontology generally, has been studied in Scotland with much 

 greater assiduity than that of her Silurian rocks. This is 

 probably due to three causes — the association of the organic 

 remains with strata of economic value, the situation of the 

 great centres of population on and near rocks of Carboniferous 

 age, and, as a rule, the better state of preservation of the 

 fossils. 



Few works complete in themselves have been written on 

 Scotch Carboniferous fossils. On the other hand, a very 

 large number of contributions of the utmost importance have 

 appeared in the pages of scientific magazines and journals of 

 learned societies. 



It will not 1)6 out of place to mention here the name of 

 one who may, perhaps, be regarded as the first collector of 

 shells and other organic remains of the geological period now 

 under consideration — the Picv. Mr Wodrow, minister of 

 Eastwood (Pollokshaws), near Glasgow, who flourished at 

 the beginning of the last century. 



In Sir John Sinclair's " Statistical Account of Scotland," 



* The Old Eed Sandstone, 7tli edit., 1859, p. IIG. 



+ Vide Jones, Men. Foss. Estheriie, 1862, p. 15. + Ibid. 



