TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 87 
of equal value with the lode-stuff. Specimens of quartz have been found showing 
gold as rich as any that has been found at Clogau, where £32,000 has been realized 
om the gold-produce of less than 1300 tons—a result, he believed, unparalleled in 
the world’s history of gold-quartz mining. Operations have been commenced at 
the mine, by driving an adit into the face of the hill to cut the lode at a depth of 
about 20 fathoms. This level has been driven to within six feet of the lode, which, 
if found as rich at that depth as the sample exhibited, very probably may give as 
satisfactory results as the St. David’s Lode at Clogau. The gold is not associated 
with sulphurets in excess, so that its extraction is exempted from the difficulties 
enerally attending the various processes of amalgamation. This is an important 
fret, and greatly enhances the commercial value of the discovery*. 
On some Remains of Bothriolepis. By G. E. Roszrrs. 
The fossils described consisted of two casts of the central cephalic buckler, pre- 
viously unknown, and several other bones and plates of the head of this great fish. 
Agassiz, Pander, and Eichwald had described the dorsal scutes; but no portion of 
the head, save the jaws, had come under their notice. The position of Bothriolepis 
among the Dendrodic Ccelacanths was noticed; and although its affinity with 
Asterolepis seemed probable, too little was known about the family to warrant the 
setting up of any one species as a type. The plates covering the head were a quarter of 
an inch in thickness and of great strength, the external ornament consisting of ex- 
cessively fine radiating lines and sinuous ridges. The specimens were obtained from 
the yellow sandstones of Alves and Newton in Elginshire, their exact stratigra- 
hical position being beneath the reptiliferous and footprint beds, of presumed 
pper Devonian age, and in the lower part of the section described by Professor 
Harkness. Bothriolepis exceeded Asterolepis in size, the length indicated by the 
fossil remains being from twenty to twenty-five feet. 
The specimens exhibited were collected by Dr. Taylor, of Elgin, the Rev. Dr. 
Gordon, of Birnie, and Mr, Smith, of Inverness. 
On the Discovery of Elephant and other Mammalian Remains in Oxfordshire. 
By G. E, Roserts. 
A considerable number of elephant and other mammalian bones have recently 
been met with in a cutting upon a new line of railway passing through Thame, in 
Oxfordshire. By the kindness of Mr. J. J. Wilkinson, a gentleman connected with 
that line, a large portion of those exhumed has been forwarded to the Geological 
Society. They were taken from a coarse rubbly gravel, mixed with stiff clay, about 
13 feet from the surface. The section forwarded by Mr. Wilkinson gives a surface- 
clay, lightish yellow in colour, and with a sandy bottom 11 feet in thickness, lying 
upon the gravel, the average thickness of which is 2 feet 6 inches, and which passes 
downwards into a light-coloured sand. About 10 feet down in the clay a vase was 
found, of coarse earthenware, full of small bones; and just above the gravel another 
vase of coarse brown ware. The gravel extended linearly for 60 yards, and was 
slightly dome-shaped. Part of the bones have been submitted to Dr. Falconer, who 
has recognized Elephas primigenius of the Siberian type,—teeth and other remains 
rather abundant ; Elephas antiquus; a large species of Bos (primigenius? or pris- 
cus ?),—top of radius, tibia, and horn-core; many bones and teeth of Equus Caballus 
fossilis, including a finely preserved tibia of great size, and a portion of another still 
arger; and some good fragmentary specimens of the horns of Cervus elaphus. Still 
more important mammalian remains have been obtained by Mr. Codrington, F.G.S. 
On a Help to the Identification of Fossil Bivalve Shells, 
By H. Seerey, #.G.S. 
The author suggested that, if the number of hinge-teeth possessed by these shells 
was written down in formule, similar to the plan in use for mammalian teeth, much 
* February 1864, the lode is cut in the level 18 fathoms below where the gold was found. 
It is 3 feet wide, and shows gold occasionally.—T. A. R. 
