34 REPORT 1860. 



superior and inferior vertebral elements. The scales remind one of Holo- 

 ptychius, but are much thinner and differently sculptured. The fins are more 

 nearly of the structure of this genus in theirgeneral facies, though they differ in 

 details. They are lobate iu the lateral pairs, a character now regarded by one 

 of our most eminent ichthyologic authorities, Sir Philip Egerton, as belonging 

 to the entire family of Ccelacanths, and which Agassiz has also described 

 in his elaborate account of the Glyptolepis of Clashbennie in the ' Poissons 

 Fossiles.' 



This locality, so richly stored with these and other forms of fossil remains, 

 has now contributed largely to our stock of palaeontological knowledge. 

 Should the researches be continued, your Committee are sanguine, not only 

 in the recovery of the long-lost bed of the disputed Pamphractus, but like- 

 wise of new genera and new species still sealed up in the yellow sandstone 

 museum of Dura Den*. Trilobites of a small type, Productse and Spirifers, 

 are very numerous in the carboniferous shales of Ladeddie, which are in 

 immediate superposition and stretch along the southern opening of the Den. 

 About three miles to the eastward, in the ironstone deposits of Denbrae 

 and Mount Melville, large jaws, teeth, bones, and scales of the genus 

 Rhizodus are in the greatest abundance and the most beautiful preservation. 

 Thus the geologist may here study successively the upper beds of the Old 

 Red Sandstone, the Mountain Limestone, Ironstone shales, and the Coal-mea- 

 sures on the most northern limits of the Carboniferous system. Trap-rocks 

 everywhere penetrate the series of sedimentary deposits, indurating the sand- 

 stone, fusing the limestone, roasting the coal, and exhibiting proofs of those 

 destructive agencies and deleterious impregnations by which the fishes of 

 Dura Den were suddenly overtaken, silted up, and preserved in such num- 

 bers and perfect forms in their stony matrix. 



Report on the Experimental Plots in the Botanical Garden of the 

 Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. By James Buckman, 

 F.L.S., F.S.A., F.G.S. fyc, Professor of Botany and Geology, Royal 

 Agricultural College. 



In presenting our Report for 1860, it will be necessary to remark, that on 

 account of the peculiarities of the season, particularly its lateness, and the 

 fact of the unusual period of the Oxford Meeting, the Report before the 

 Section at Oxford was made verbally, permission having been obtained to 

 make a more full and written report when the experiments had attained to 

 something like completion. It was reported before the Section that 200 

 plots were in operation, which were classified as follows: — 



Plots. 



Agricultural Plants 50 



Medicinal Plants 30 



Esculent Vegetables 20 



Grasses, old and new plots 60 



Miscellaneous Plants 40 



Total 200 



Of these, at the Oxford Meeting it was reported that more than half were 

 either new seeds only just germinated, while for the others they had made 



* See Reports of the British Association for 1858 and 1859. 



