fieports and Proceedings. Tas 
should be devoted to the study of one special class of fossils, so that 
ultimately the members might become familiar with many, if not all, 
of the extinct remains, and therefore he, in conjunction with Mr. 
Stoddart, exhibited, as a commencement, examples of the oldest 
known forms of animal life, indicating their locality in this neigh- 
bourhood. Thus, at Tortworth all the characteristic Lower Silurian 
fossils, as found in Wales, might be obtained ; and there also, as 
well as at a point between Longhope and Grange Court Stations, 
on the South Wales Railway, a large number, if not all, of the 
Upper Silurian corals were to be found. A slab of stone from 
the Wren’s Nest, Dudley, was thus shown, containing a great 
number and variety of Wenlock limestone (Upper Silurian) fossils, 
among which we may name Cenites labrosus, Alveolites repens, 
Atrypa reticulata, Retzia cuneata, R. defiexa, Fenestella asimilis, 
and Rhynchonella borealis. After some discussion upon these, Mr. 
Stoddart exhibited a perfect specimen of Calymene Blumenbachit, 
found at Martley, Worcestershire; also Nummulina levigata, and 
Alveolina Boscii, which he had obtained in the Eocene beds of 
Sussex; and, lastly, Pusulina cylindrica, from the Russian Carboni- 
ferous Limestone. 
HiIl. At the Monthly Meeting, January 12th, Mr. W. Sanders in 
the chair, Mr. Hanpret CossHam read a paper On the Pennant 
Formation of the Bristol Coal-field. The term ‘ Pennant’ was applied 
to a well-defined band of sandstone occurring between the Upper 
and Lower Coal-measures, varying very much in colour—dark- 
brown, reddish, and grey—but easily worked for paving and other 
purposes, and remarkable for the quantity of water it contains, 
which rendered the working of coal in or under the Pennant more 
difficult than above it. The Coal-measures might be roughly 
divided into three series :—1, the coal itself, of which there were 50 
seams at Radstock, with an aggregate thickness of 90 feet; 2, the 
coal-shales, argillaceous strata, which contained the most delicate 
fossils ; and, 3, sandstones, of which the Pennant was one, specially 
defined, and below which they were not so numerous, thick, or 
coarse as above it. The author then stated his belief that the 
Bristol, South-Wales, and Forest of Dean Coal-fields had in former 
times been part of one and the same, and he showed that the coal 
itself might be divided into five series—Radstoeck and Faringdon 
Gurney, under which came the Pennant; and then the Kingswood, 
Bedminster, and Ashton series, lying upon the Millstone-grit, which 
embraced the whole. With the aid of a map, Mr. Cossham traced 
the course of the Pennant round the Coalpit-heath field, and pointed 
out how entirely its dip was everywhere conformable with the dip 
of the coal-strata, and that, with a slight exception, the circuit was 
complete at the surface of the ground; while in the Somersetshire 
coal-field the Coal-measures were covered by Oolite, Lias, and New 
Red Sandstone ; and the Pennant only appeared at the surface in 
two places, owing to upheavals. Near Kingswood a great upheaval 
had taken place, due east and west, and the Pennant had even been 
denuded: it appeared again, however, at Crew’s Hole, and dipped 
