TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 85 
On Fossil Fishes from the Old Red Sandstone of Caithness. 
By C. W. Pracn. 
The author introduced the subject by stating that at the Meeting of the Associ- 
ation at Aberdeen in 1858 he laid before the members some fishes from tke Old 
Red Sandstone which he thought not only new to Caithness, but one of which he 
believed new to geology. These had since been examined by Sir P. Egerton, and 
figured and described in Decade X. of the Government Geological Survey. The 
one he had considered new, and which proved to be so, had a true bony vertebral 
column, and thus differed from the fishes of the Old Red period previously dis- 
covered. He expressed the great gratification that he felt at being relieved from 
the painful position of standing alone, as he had done for some years, in the opinion 
that true bony fishes occurred in the Old Red of Caithness. He then entered into 
a description of several species (fine specimens of which he laid on the table) that 
he had further collected, and which he considered also as new to Caithness—some 
new altogether; these have long lobated fins, bony ribs and processes, &c. One 
species was evidently Gyroptychius of M‘Coy; and although some of the others be- 
long to that genus, they are new species. In this opinion he was to a great extent 
supported by Professor Huxley, to whom the whole of the specimens will be sent 
for examination and description. 
On the Correlation of the Slates and Limestones of Devon and Cornwall with 
the Old Red Sandstones of Scotland, §c. By W. Prneeuty, F.G.S. 
The distinguished author of ‘ Siluria,’ as geologists well know, has made a tri- 
partite division of the slates and limestones of Devon and Cornwall, as well as of 
the Old Red Sandstones of Scotland, &c., and given chronological equivalency to 
the Upper, Middle, and Lower groups of each respectively. Thus, he places the 
Barnstaple and Petherwin beds (the latter characterized by the presence of Cly- 
menia and Cypridina) on the horizon of the Upper Old Red, with its Holoptychius 
and Phyllolepis ; the limestones of Torquay, Newton, and Plymouth, in which are 
found Stringocephalus, Calceola, Bronteus, Acervularia, &c., are made to synchro- 
nize with the deposits of Caithness, &c., containing the remains of Asterolepis, Coc- 
costeus, &c. ; whilst the slates of Meadfoot, &c., in South Devon, and Looe, &e., in 
Cornwall, distinguished by the remarkable coral Pleurodictyum problematicum, are 
regarded as the equivalents in time of the Lower Old Red rocks of Forfar and the 
North-east Highlands, which are charged with Cephalaspis, Pteraspis, and Onchus*. 
Though this co-ordination may be said to have found a large acceptance, it is 
not in keeping with the opinion of some who laboured long and sedulously amongst 
the older rocks of Devon and Cornwall,—for example, the late Sir H. De la Beche + 
and the Rey. David Williams}; nor is it unchallenged by some existing writers, 
amongst whom may be mentioned Mr. Page§ and Mr. Jukes |j. 
That some diversity of opinion should exist respecting the true relations of the 
two systems of rocks now under notice is what might be expected when their 
lithological and palzeontological dissimilarities are remembered. The northern beds 
are eminently arenaceous, whilst those in the south are almost exclusively argilla- 
ceous or calcareous; the former teem with fossil fish, and the latter with the 
exuvie of molluscous and radiate animals: but, according to our fossil registers, 
Scotland does not yield the shells, corals, or sponges so abundant in Devonshire ; 
nor are the ichthyolites of the former found in the latter area: they have no 
organic remains in common. 
t will doubtless be remembered, however, that, in his ‘Paleozoic Fossils of 
Cornwall, Devon, and West Somerset’§, Professor Phillips has figured and de- 
scribed, as a scale of Holoptychius, a fossil found in the slates of Meadfoot, near 
* Siluria, 3rd edition, p. 483. 
+ Memoirs of Geol. Survey, vol. i. p. 103. 
{ Report of Royal Geol. Soc. of Cornwall, 1843, p. 123. 
§ Advanced Text-Book of Geology, p. 123. 
|| Manual of Geology, 2nd edition, 1862, p. 492. 
§| Pal. Foss. pl. 57. fig. 256, and p. 133. 
