Itejjorts and Proceedings — Royal Microscoincal Society. 373 



3. "Notes on the Lowest Beds of the Lower Lias at Sedbury 

 €liff." By Arthur Vaughan, Esq., B.A., B.Sc, F.G.S. 



The author examined this section in company with Mr. Eichardson. 

 The two chief points of interest are, the relation of the basal con- 

 glomerate to the Gotham Marble and White Lias of neighbouring 

 districts, and the examination of the faunal sequence, with^ view 

 of testing the absolute value of Ammonite zones. The conglomerate 

 resembles the so-called ' False Gotham,' and both may be explained 

 by the breaking up of Gotham Marble, in one case at intervals 

 during a continuous phase of deposition, in the other after the 

 phase of deposition which produced it had entirely ceased at that 

 place. The break thus represented in the Sedbury area may be 

 considered to correspond roughly to the time of deposit of the 

 White Lias in the areas to the south and east. The succession of 

 events appears to require a tilting, the axis of rotation being 

 a nearly east-and-west line a little south of Sedbury, with gradual 

 and uniformly increasing depression towards the south, followed 

 by a period of horizontal equilibrium. On the other hand, the 

 succeeding Psilonotus, Angulatus, and Arietes zones indicate 

 a gradually increasing depression towards the north with a change 

 of axis. 



A range-graph is given, showing the times of appearance and 

 disappearance, the abundance or rarity, of several fossils within 

 and below the zone of Ammonites psilonotus ; and on account of the 

 beginning of five forms at a given horizon and the disappearance 

 of several forms immediately below it, this level is chosen as the 

 base of the zone of A. psilonotus, rather than the point of appearance 

 of A. planorbis, 4 feet higher up. It is hoped that the construction 

 of range-graphs will be of use in testing the value of a series of 

 Ammonite ages as divisions of relative time. 



III. — Royal Microscopical Society. 

 Some Ideas on Life. Being the Presidential Address to the 

 Eoyal Microscopical Society by Henry Woodward, LL.D., 

 F.K.S., late of the British Museum (Natural History). From 

 the Journal of the Eoyal Microscopical Society, 19U3, ser. ii, 

 vol. xxiii, pp. 142-157. 



AFTEE some prefatory remarks Dr. Henry Woodward said : — 

 Perhaps the oldest themes which are to be found broidered 

 into the later history, legends, and traditions of all races of mankind 

 are those which relate to the creation of the world and its inhabitants 

 and their destruction by the Flood. 



Apart from the sacred writings of the Hebrews, we have 

 Assyrian tablets and Egyptian hieroglyphs, while the Greeks have 

 given us in charming fables, and in many versions, the account of 

 Prometheus forming men of clay and stealing fire from the chariot of 

 the sun to endow them with life ; of Deucalion and Pyrrha rescued 

 from the flood, and afterwards renewing the human race by throwing 

 stones behind them, which became men; of Epimetheus and his 



