April 14, 1870] 
NATURE 
617 
were read :—Professor Huxley communicated a letter received 
by him from Dr. Emanuel Bunzel, of Vienna, giving a short 
account, illustrated with figures, of the posterior portion of a 
skull obtained by Professor Suess from a coalmine of Upper 
Cretaceous (Gosau) age. Dr. Bunzel stated that at the first 
glance this skull appeared to possess Reptilian characters, but 
that the convexity of the occiput, and its gentle passage into the 
roof of the skull, the presence of a transverse ridge in the 
occipital region, the absence of sutures, the globular form of the 
condyle, and some other peculiarities, prevent the animal to 
which this skull belonged from being referred to any known 
order of reptiles. The author compared this fragment of a skull 
with that of a bird, and suggested the establishment of a new 
order of fossil Reptiles (Orzzthocephala), closely related to Prof. . 
Huxley’s Ornithoscelida. He proposed to refer his fossil to a 
new genus, which he named S¥rzthiosaurus. 
“On the discovery of organic remains in the Caribean Series 
of Trinidad.” By Mr. R. J. Lechmere Guppy, F.L.S., F.G.S. 
The author described the rocks of the ‘‘Caribean group” as 
consisting of gneiss, gneissose, talcose, and micaceous slates and 
crystalline and compact limestones, and remarked upon the pro- 
bable distribution of rocks of the same series on the continent of 
South America. In Trinidad the uppermost member of the 
series is a compact dark blue limestone, which contains obscure, 
but very abundant fossils; in the subjacent clay-slates and 
quartz rocks calcareous strings and bands containing more 
distinct traces of organisms occur. The author believed 
that he had detected an Zoz00n (which he called Z. caribeum), 
a Favosites (named F. fenestralis), a coral, and fragments 
of echinoderms. He considered it probable that the Cari- 
bean series was pre-silurian. Dr. Carpenter, from the slight 
examination he had been able to make of the fossils, was unwill- 
ing to speak decidedly about them. There was, however, no 
doubt of numerous organic remains occurring in the rocks, and 
among them serpuline shells and echinoderms. As to the sup- 
posed Zozoon, he had not been able to recognise any of the 
characteristics of that fossil; and by treating the Trinidad 
specimens with acid, he found no traces of structure left, and yet 
there had not been sufficient metamorphism to destroy other 
organisms. In some dredgings from the /Xgean Sea he had 
found fragments of echinoderms and other organisms, in which 
a siliceous deposit had replaced the original sarcode in the same 
manner as had occurred in the Canadian £ozoo, thus proving 
the possibility of this form of substitution, which had been 
warmly contested. Mr. Tate offered some suggestions as to the 
age of these beds, which were certainly older than Neocomian. 
The Californian gold-bearing beds appear to be Jurassic. Similar 
beds occurred in New Mexico, Guatemala, and were observed 
by him in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. These present lithological 
and mineralogical affinities to the Venezuelan and Trinitation 
metamorphic series, and were conjectured to be of the same age. 
“©On the Paleontology of the Junction-beds of the Lower 
and Middle Lias in Gloucestershire.” By Mr. R. Tate, A.L.S., 
F.G.S. The object of this paper was to show that the attach- 
ment of the zone of Ammonites raricostatus to the lower lias 
and that of A. Famesoni to the middle lias harmonises with the 
distribution of the organic remains : 50 species were catalogued 
from the united zones of A. oxynotus and A. raricostatus, 8 of 
which pass up into the middle lias, whilst 13 occur in the lower 
horizons; 115 species were enumerated as occurring in the 
zone of Ammonites Famesoni, 60 of which pass to higher 
zones, whilst 11 made their first appearance in the lower 
lias; the number of species common to the contiguous 
zones being 14. The author inferred that, as the conditions of 
depth and deposit of the upper part of the lower lias are re- 
peated in the lower part of the middle lias, accompanied by a 
total change in the fauna, a break in the stratigraphical succession 
existed between the lowerand middle lias, This view is supported 
by the fact of the numerical decrease of species in passing up through 
the several stages of the lower lias, and that of the introduction 
of many new generic types with the zone of Ammonites Fame- 
soni. Many new species were described. Prof. Boyd Dawkins 
had attempted to test these liassic zones as a means of 
classification of the rocks in Somersetshire, and the result 
had been that he had been unable to accept them as fixing hard 
and fast lines of demarcation ; for he had found three of the dis- 
tinctive Ammonites together in one bed. On our present shores 
the change of one form of molluscan life for another seemed to 
take place in limited areas, and to be dependent on some slight 
variation of physical conditions rather than on any great change. 
He had not been able to trace any stratigraphical unconformity 
between the middle and lower lias in many parts of England, 
whatever might be the case in Gloucestershire. Mr. Tate, in 
reply, gave an account of the manner in which he had arrived 
at his conclusions, and expressed his assent to the view that 
ammonite-zones were only of value over limited areas, but con- 
sidered that a triple division in the lower and a dual division in 
the middle lias were well established on paleontological and 
lithological features. The break which he had pointed out was 
palzontological rather than stratigraphical, though the one 
might be inferred from the other. 
“Geological Observations on the Waipara River, New 
Zealand.” By Mr. T. H. Cockburn Hood, F.R.S. In this 
paper the author described the general features of the locality 
from which he has obtained bones of Plesiosanrus, [chthyosaurus, 
and Zeleosaurus. The bones were not obtained 77 s#¢u, but from 
large boulders and blocks scattered in the ravines of the Waipara 
and its tributaries. Professor Boyd Dawkins remarked on the 
presence of Crocodilia in New Zealand being proved by the 
procelian vertebra. 
Mr. R. H. Scott, F.G.S., communicated an extract from a 
letter addressed to him by M. Coumbary, Director of the Imperial 
Observatory of Constantinople, containing an account received 
from M. L. Carabello of the reported fall of a large meteorite 
near Mourzouk, in the district of Fezzan, in lat. 26° N., and 
long. 12° E. of Paris. Tt fell on the evening of the 25th 
December last, in the form of a great globe of fire, measuring 
nearly a metre in diameter ; on touching the earth it threw off 
strong sparks with a noise like the report of a pistol, and exhaled 
a peculiar odour. It fell near a group of Arabs, who were so 
much frightened by it that they ‘‘immediately discharged their 
guns at this incomprehensible monster.” 
Paris 
Academy of Sciences, April 4.—The following mathe- 
matical papers were read :—Description, with plans, of an instru- 
ment, by which spherical triangles may be solved without the 
aid of tables of logarithms, by M. Blanqui ; On the fundamental 
points of two surfaces, of which the points correspond one by 
one, by M. H. G. Zeuthen; on the theory of equations with 
partial derivatives, by M. G. Darboux (second memoir) ; and On 
a mode of approximation of the functions of several variables, 
by M. Didon.—M. de Saint-Venant presented a memoir on a 
second approximation in the rational calculation of the pressure 
exerted against a wall of which the posterior surface has a certain 
inclination, by incoherent soil rising in a talus from the top of 
this surface of the wall; and M. Boussinesq an integration of 
the differential equation which may furnish a second approxima- 
tion in the calculation of the same pressure.—M. Jamin communi- 
eated a note on the latent heat of ice, and presented a note by 
MM. Wecker and Robin on an objective with prisms, to be used 
in an ophthalmoscope which will enable two persons to observe 
the eye at the same time.—M. Phillips presented 2 memoir by 
M. Martin de Brettes on an apparatus for the demonstration of 
the phenenomena of the trajectory of oblong projectiles driven 
by rifled guns.—M. Delaunay communicated an extract from a 
letter from M. G. Oltramare on the existence of a law of reparti- 
tion, analogous to Bode’s law, for each of the systems of satel- 
lites of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus; and a note by M. 
R. Wolf on the frequency of the sun’s spots, and _ its 
relation to the variation of magnetic declination. The 
author gave a table of his observations of solar spots during 
the years 1864-1869, showing a minimum in 1867, in con- 
formity with his period of 11} years. He also applied his 
formula for the calculation of the magnetic variation in relation 
to the solar spots, to the results of observation at,the Observatory 
of Christiania, and cited the data of several years to show at all 
events a close approximation.—A paper was read by M. Chapelas 
on the centres of mean position of shooting stars, which is the 
name he gives to the points from which the groups of meteors 
seem to issue.—M. C. Viollette presented a paper on the exist- 
ence of selenium in commercial copper. The author stated that 
by oxydising copper in a mufile-furnace and then heating the 
oxide to redness for several hours in a current of dry pure air, 
crystals of selenious acid are obtained. The copper operated 
upon by lime was probably from Chili ; he proposes to examine 
other coppers, and requests manufacturers to forward to him, at 
the Faculty of Sciences of Lille, specimens of copper of known 
origin. M. Viollette also presented a note on the cause of the 
acidity of the water of organic analyses, which he ascribes to the 
