G6 . REPORT— 1806. 



Gradual Change of Form and Position of Land on the South End of the Isle 

 of Walneif. By R. A. Peacock, Jersey. 



Sheets Nos. 27 and 28 of tlie Ordnance Map of Lancashire are referred to in the 

 follo^nng account. The Map is now in the Map Department of the British Museum, 

 and shows the coast lines of 1797, 1833, and 1847, respectively, the two first in MS. 



The land, consisting mostly of sand and water-worn pebbles, continues to be 

 washed away on the west coast, at the average rate of nearly eight feet in width 

 per annum, roimd Hilpsford Point, and gradually progresses as gi-avel (the sand 

 disappearing) along the beach towards south-east and north-east points, at and 

 between which it remains, and gradually becomes covered over with loose sand 

 drifted from the Rabbit Warren. The breadth of the land at the narrowest part 

 on the west was about 1610 feet in 1847 ; and it follows that at the then rate of 

 waste the sea will make a breach through the island about the year 2060. The 

 gi-avel-bed at the south-east point, between 1833 and 1847, extended on an average 

 nearly 12 feet annually, at which rate of progress it would fill up Haws Hole, 

 and reach Seldom Seen Scar about the year 1930 ; thereby fiUiug up the water- 

 way leading to Peel Harbour, but in the meantime another water-way will pro- 

 bably have been scooped out by Peel Channel (which is in fact a river conveying 

 to the sea the drainage of a considerable tract of country) across Far-hiU Scar, so 

 as to continue to give coasting-vessels access to Peel Harbom-. If this process of 

 removal of land has been going on, say since Ptolemy's time — and it would appear 

 that it must have been, for the west side of the Rabbit Warren consists of sand, 

 intermixed with rounded pebbles — it follows that more than 2| miles in breadth of 

 laud must have been washed away during the last seventeen centuries, and depo- 

 sited fm-ther east. A sufiicient consideration of these and similar events elsewhere, 

 would often assist in explaining difiicult passages in the descriptions given by 

 ancient geographers and historians. 



0)1 Raised Beaches. By W. Pengellt, F.R.S., F.G.S., 4-c. 



The author stated that, " instead of aiming at description, his object in this com- 

 munication was to call attention to certain facts which, perhaps, have scarcely 

 received all the attention to which they are entitled." 



The substance of the paper may be gathered from the following recapitulation, 

 with which it concluded : — 



" 1st. That accumulations of blown sand occasionally assume the character of 

 raised beaches. 



" 2nd. That it is not safe to conclude, in the absence of other evidence, that 

 raised beaches, diflering in height by as much as even 30 feet, necessarily belong to 

 distinct periods. 



" 3rd. That it is possible that what, in a small vertical cliff section having the 

 direction of the coast line, appears to be one raised beach, may really be two. 



" 4th. That, all other things being the same, raised beaches are likely to be 

 most numerous on a coast composed of durable rocks." 



On the Occurrence of Fells Lyux as a British Fossil. By W. H. Ransom. 



The author showed a lower jaw and part of the cranium of a species of Felts 

 which had been submitted to Prof. Owen, and by him declared to belong to Felt's 

 cerraria, a north Asiatic variety of the Lynx. He recoimted the circumstances of 

 their discovery in a fissure in Magnesiau Limestone at Pleasley, near Mansfield, 

 associated with remains of wolves, deer, pigs, voles, and other food-animals. The 

 jaw is preserved in the Museum of the Society of Naturalists at Nottingham. 



On some Characters of the Brain and Skidl in Plesiosaimis. 

 By GoviER Seeley. 



