90 REPORT 1860. 



superintendence of Mr. Brewster and myself : already a considerable portion has 

 been carefully looked over, and has yielded to our researches some most interesting 

 remains : these lie scattered through the whole deposit, but in the upper and coarser 

 beds are for the most part both badly preserved and very fragmentary ; in the lower 

 fissile portions they are more perfect, and the state of preservation is generally very 

 fine : no painting could equal the beautiful appearance some of the smaller fishes 

 exhibit when the Httle slab in which they have been entombed is first opened up, and 

 still damp. From the fragile nature of the matrix, great care is required in splitting 

 it up ; and in afterwards fitting up the specimens for preservation they are exceedingly 

 apt to be destroyed. 



The Parca decipiens is the most abundant organism found; finely sculptured frag- 

 ments of Pterygotus Anglicus and other Pterygoti are by no means uncommon ; and 

 one or two varieties of as yet unnamed Eurypteridce have been found, and are now in the 

 collections of Mr. Brewster and Mr. Mitchell. But by far the most interesting feature 

 of this deposit is the comparative abundance of small-sized fishes not found elsewhere 

 in Forfarshire ; although Cephalaspis is frequently found in other localities along with 

 Pterygotus, as yet not a fragment of this fish has been disinterred. All the fishes I 

 have as yet examined, in a state of preservation sufficient for identification, belong to 

 the family Acanthodii, and, in so far as I am able to ascertain, to the genera Acanihodes 

 and Diplaccuithus. Of the latter genus (DipUtcanthus), two, if not more, very distinct 

 species have, up to this time, been found; unfortunately these are very rarely entire, 

 the deposit being a good deal fractured and faulted; although the largest of the 

 Diplacanthus yet found does not seem to have been over 6 inches in length, only one 

 nearly complete fish of that genus has as yet turned up ; the other specimens show 

 merely portions of the body, tail, &c. Of Acanihodes, the fishes, being small, are 

 generally much more entire : of this genus I can only discern one species, and this, 

 although provisionally named at the Aberdeen Meeting " A cant h odes antiquus," in 

 no way differs, in so far as I can see, from the specimens of Acanihodes pusilhis I have 

 been able to procure for comparison (these, however, have all been very imperfect), 

 further than the condition of the sediment in which they had been laid down, and 

 similar natural causes might readily explain. 



Although by no means prepared to assert the positive specific identity of the Far- 

 nell fishes with those of the same genera found in Cromarty, Morayshire, &c, yet their 

 general resemblance to these fishes found in our more northern deposits, in my 

 opinion, strongly points to the probability of our Forfarshire flagstones belonging to an 

 epoch more nearly approximating in geological time to the fish-beds of the northern 

 counties than has as yet been generally thought likely. 



Besides these, some very imperfect remains of fishes, evidently belonging to other 

 families, have been found; it is to be hoped that further explorations may throw some 

 additional light on the nature of these fragments (see p. 78). 



Sir R. I. Murchison exhibited the New Geological Map of the Vicinity of Oxford. 



On the Geology of the Vicinity of Oxford. 

 By Professor Phillips, M.A., F.R.S. 



On some New Facts in relation to the Section of the Cliff at Mundesley, 

 Norfolk. By Joseph Prestwich, F.R.S. fyc. 



The object of the author was to correct an opinion which prevailed regarding the 

 superposition of the freshwater deposit at Mundesley. In the interesting sections 

 of the Norfolk coast, given by Sir C. Lyell in the ' Philosophical Magazine ' for May 

 1840, the freshwater beds of Mundesley are represented as intercalated in the Boulder 

 Clay. The wearing away of the cliff since that period has exposed a clearer section, 

 from which it appears to the author that there is no intercalation of the beds; but 

 that the freshwater beds overlie the Boulder Clay, and that they are newer than any 

 portion of the cliff except a bed of the gravel which passes over them. They lie in a 

 hollow worn through the upper beds and the Boulder Clay down to the sands beneath, 



