■580 REPORT— 1889. 



sure indication of stratigrapliical succession, as inversions with very sharp axes are 

 prevalent, reversing the order of apparent superposition. Thrusts or reversed faults 

 on a small scale have frequently resulted from the crushing, and as lithological 

 horizons cannot he regarded as persistent, the difficulties encountered in decipher- 

 ing the structure of these areas are at once apparent. 



The table of classification on the preceding page shovi^s the relations of the strata 

 in the three areas, and their foreign equivalents. Altliough to a great extent merely 

 provisional, especially as applied to Cornwall, it is hoped that this may afford a 

 useful basis for further researches in the British Devonian rocks. The author ex- 

 presses his grateful thanks to MM. Gosselet and Barrois for their identifications of 

 fossils sent to the former from time to time. 



Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the Cleveland and South Durham Salt 

 Industry, and on the Extension of the Durham Goal-field.^ By Pro- 

 fessor Gr. A. Lebour, M.A., F.Q.S., and John Marley. 



3. Fifteenth Report on the Circtdation of Underground Waters. 

 See Reports, p. 71. 



4. On the Spinal Column of Loxorama Allmanni, Huxley, from the 

 Northumberland Coalfield. By D. Embleton, M.D., F.R.O.P. 



Mr. Alderman Barkas, F.G.S., who presented the specimen now before the 

 Section to the Museum of the Natural History Society of Northumberland and 

 Durham in the year 1887, informed me that it had been discovered about seventeen 

 years before by a miner, in the black shale of the roof of the Low-JNIain seam of 

 ■coal at Newsham Colliery near Blyth, and brought to Newcastle to Mr. Barkas. 



This fossil consists of a much longer series of vertebrae of the spinal column of 

 Loxomma Allmanni than has hitherto been got from our coal-fields. It lies on its 

 right side. 



It is made up of two fragments of very unequal length ; the longer is an un- 

 interrupted series of thirty-two vertebrae, with their intervertebral discs, and a 

 small portion of an anterior zygapophysis of another. 



In connection with these vertebrae are several broken portions of ribs. This 

 fragment measures 4 ft. H in. in length. 



The shorter fragment is only six inches long, and is separated from the longer by 

 an artificial or arbitrary space, not at all that which in the complete spine would 

 Lave existed between the parts. 



The skull, an unknown number of vertebrae at each end of both fragments, the 

 sternum, and by far the greater number of ribs (indeed there is no entire rib), the 

 thoracic and pelvic girdles, and their limbs, are absent. 



These two fragments are assumed to be the remains of an adult Loxomma 

 Allmanni, for the bones closely resemble those which have been, on the authority 

 of Huxley, declared, or acknowledged, to have belonged to that Labyrinthodont 

 amphibian. 



There is no evidence adducible to demonstrate that Loxomma was furnished 

 with any defensive armour. 



The bodies of the vertebrae are strongly made, longitudinally grooved, and have 

 their anterior and posterior surfaces concave. 



As to the vertebrae marked 1, 2, 3 on the specimen, it is difficult to say 

 whether they are posterior cervical, or anterior dorsal ; each has on its left side a 

 small ovoid, concave, articular facet, it is therefore presumable that they are 

 dorsal ; if they are not, then the animal has had cervical ribs. 



■ This paper will be published in full in the Transaction of the Federated Iiisti' 

 tiition of Mining Engineers. 



