Reports and Proceedings. 133 



wketlier tlie oil, which many of the shales contained, might not 

 have been partly due to the enormous quantity of these minute 

 crustaceans that died in these beds. This idea, he said, was not 

 new, for several Greologists had stated that the bituminous and 

 carbonaceous matter found in many rocks, had been due to the 

 great number of organic remains that had been entombed therein. 

 Of course, many rocks, full of fossils, contain no oil ; but this 

 may be entirely owing to the peculiar nature of the sediment 

 in which the fossils are embedded, and to other causes acting 

 upon the strata, allowing the organic elements of their bodies to 

 pass away by percolation through the strata or otherwise, leaving 

 us nothing but their hard skeletons. The question, therefore, of 

 the oil in these Entomostracan shales being due to those animals, 

 is one of considerable interest. Mr. Young then said that he had 

 seen in summer, in certain states of the weather, large shoals of 

 the recent species of this crustacean swimming about in the Glasgow 

 and Monkland canal, their numbers actually making the water 

 appear of a reddish-brown or mahogany colour : and by dipping 

 in a wide-mouthed net among them they could be lifted out in 

 thousands ; but thickly as he had here represented them, in recent 

 times, they must even have swarmed to a greater extent in many 

 of the waters of the Coal-period, as their abundant remains in 

 certain strata now clearly show. Many of the smaller fishes of 

 the Cai'boniferous strata, seemed to have preyed to a large extent 

 upon those minute crustaceans, as many of the fish-coprolites testify. 

 In a fish-coprolite sent to him by Dr. Eankin, of Carluke, he found 

 upwards of 300 specimens of a very rare species, Cypridina 

 Eankiniana, of which only a single specimen had previously been 

 found. If the fishes lived upon the Entomostraca, they, in their 

 turn, seem to have preyed on the dead bodies of many of the fish 

 as they lay on the sea-bottom. Mr. Young, in conclusion, gave a 

 minute description of the twelve genera of Entomostraca, or Phyl- 

 lopod crustaceans, that have been found in our Scotch Coal-measures. 

 2. Mr. E. a. Wunsoh, of the Geological Society of Glasgow, 

 then read a paper on "The Discovery of Fossil Trees buried in 

 Volcanic Ash in the Island of Arran." 



II.— 1st February, 1866 ; E. A.F. A. Coyne, Esq., C.E., in the chair. 



The Society unanimously resolved to transmit a memorial to 

 Government, praying for the establishment of a chair of Geology 

 in the University of Edinburgh. Mr. D. J. Brown read a paper 

 on " The Denudation of Upper Aunandale, and the Erosion of 

 ' The Devil's Beef-Tub.' " 



Geological Society op Glasgow.— Monthly Meeting, January 

 11th, Dr. John Scouler, F.L.S., V.P., in the chair. Mr. William 

 Cameron read a paper on " The Gold Drifts and Kocks of Victoria." 



Granite is to be found in the vicinity of all gold-fields, cropping out 

 in high ranges and upheaving the Silurian rocks ; and it is generally 

 near the junction of the granites with these that gold is most plenti- 



