248 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



XX. Notes on Fossils from the Falklaiid Islands hrought home 

 hy the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition in 1904- 

 By E. T. Newton, F.R.S. [Plate X.] 



(Read 26th February 1906.) 



Mr W. S. Bruce, the leader of the Scottish National 

 Antarctic Expedition, has sent me for examination several 

 blocks and smaller specimens of a buff-coloured sandstone 

 containing numerous casts of fossils, which were obtained 

 from Port Louis South, in the Falkland Islands. These 

 fossils were presented to Mr W. S. Bruce by the Governor 

 of the Islands, Mr (now Sir) Wm. Grey- Wilson, when the 

 Expedition visited that place in 1904. 



The largest of these specimens is a block of buff-coloured 

 micaceous sandstone, measuring about 20 inches in length by 

 about 18 inches in width and 9 or 10 inches thick: one surface 

 of this is covered by many casts of Brachiopod shells, most 

 of which are referable to the genus Spirifera. Numerous 

 smaller examples of a similar rock exhibit casts of other 

 Brachiopods and Crinoid stems. The matrix of all the 

 specimens is so similar that, without opposing evidence, they 

 may be regarded as from one horizon. 



On two previous occasions fossils have been brought to 

 this country from the Falkland Islands, namely, by Charles 

 Darwin on the return of the " Beagle" in the year 1844, and 

 by the " Challenger " when she returned from her expedition 

 in the year 1876. 



The earliest account of the geology of the Falkland Islands 

 was by Charles Darwin about sixty years ago,^ and on 25th 

 March 1846 he read a paper on the subject before the 

 Geological Society 2; and this was followed by descriptions 

 and figures of the fossils by John Morris and Daniel Sharped. 

 The fossils illustrating these papers were deposited in the 

 Museum of Practical Geology, and many years afterwards 



^ Voyage of the Beagle, 1844. 



2 Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc, vol. ii. p. 267. 



^ Ibid., vol. ii. p. 274, pis. x., xi. 



