TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 497 
those nearest the head and belonging to the abdominal region being merely indi- 
cated; towards the extremity, however, they clearly show the attached superior and 
inferior spinous processes ; the chain of vertebree curves towards the tail, which is 
deficient. 
Sixteen ribs may be counted on each side of the vertebral column, the greatest 
breadth of this, the abdominal portion, being ten inches. 
About four and a half feet from the snout is shown the greater portion of one 
of the hind limbs, the femur, tibia and fibula, somewhat displaced, tarsal bones, and 
the first bones of the five digits. 
Evidence of the dermal armour is also exhibited on this fossil, as impressions 
of elongated osseous scutes arranged in oblique rows. 
This specimen as preserved measures nearly eight feet in length, and would 
have been ten or more feet to the extremity of the tail. It is impressed upon the 
smooth surface of a bed of impure coal, the slab containing it weighing several cwt., 
and its preservation reflects great credit upon the bailiff, Mr. John Bradley, who 
took the greatest care of it, considering the friable character of its matrix. 
Another fossil obtained from this colliery at the same time, is a head, which the 
author believes to be also identical with Anthracosaurus Edge: ; it is in a better state 
of preservation, although squeezed quite flat ; it presents a profile view, and appears 
to be closely allied to a well-preserved head from the Shropshire coal-field in the 
collection of G. Maw, Esq., F.G.S., originally described as ZLoxomma, but which 
the author believes Prof. Huxley afterwards referred to his genus Anthracosaurus. 
A rough drawing of the natural size of this head (from the cast in plaster) 
was exhibited to compare with the specimen from Jarrow Colliery, Kilkenny, 
which is much larger, the Dudley head measuring 13 inches in length, whilst the 
other is 15? inches long. 
2. On Basalt apparently overlying Post-Glacial Beds, Co. Antrim. 
By W. J. Know es. 
The author drew attention to a mass of basalt about 50 feet long, 20 feet wide, 
and 3 to 9 feet in thickness resting on a portion of what is known as Interglacial 
beds near Cullybackey, County Antrim. This is only a portion of a larger mass, a 
part having been removed a few years ago for road-making. 
3. Recent Opinions on the Loess Deposits of the Valley of the Rhine. 
By Marx Stirrup, F.G.S. 
Mr. Stirrup criticised adversely some recent opinions of Mr. H. H. Howorth, 
F.S.A., which have been published in the ‘Geological Magazine,’ wherein Mr. 
Howorth has attempted to prove a ‘great post-Glacial flood’ by the evidence 
afforded by the mammoth and that of several post-Glacial or drift deposits. Mr. 
Stirrup pointed out that several facts connected with the loess of the Rhine 
valley were not consistent with the interpretation given to them by Mr. Howorth, 
nor was the assumption that the materials of the loess were derived from volcanic 
muds borne out by the evidence. 
From the cumulative evidence of the paleontological and geological data Mr. 
Howorth infers a great diluvial movement over the larger part of the northern 
pean: which was accompanied by an equally sudden and violent change of 
climate. 
Mr. Stirrup maintained that the proofs advanced in support of this deluge were 
inconclusive and fallacious; for if the extinction of the mammoth were due to such 
a cataclysm, how are we to account for the survival of the reindeer, musk ox, 
lemming, and other animals whose fossil bones are found with those of the mammoth 
and whose descendants still inhabit Northern Europe ? 
It would have been impossible for any terrestrial animal to have survived a 
deluge of the character and magnitude postulated by Mr. Howorth. This attempt 
to resuscitate some of the obsolete doctrines of Cuvier and Buckland (whose 
1883. KK 
