UPPER SILURIANS OF LESMAHAGOW. 63 



Proceedings of Child's Asylum, opened December 1846. 



Boys. Girls. Total. 



Dec. 1846 to Dec. 1847 police brought up 56 39 95 



„ 1847 ,,1848 „ .... 30 16 46 



„ 1848 „ 1849 „ .... 22 6 28 



„ 1849 „ 1850 „ .... 10 2 12 



„ 1850 „ 1851 „ .... 11 6 17 



Making in five years 129 boys and 69 girls, — in all 198. 



It soon became apparent that the operations of police were so effective, 

 that they must soon cease to supply sufficient numbers of pupils to the 

 schools, and the Child's Asylum Committee resolved to receive and investi- 

 gate applications from the parents or friends of neglected juveniles. 



The first four years of this mode of proceeding gave the following results: 



Boys. Girls. Total. 



1848. Applications on behalf of 92 57 149 



1849. „ „ 103 32 135 



1850. „ „ 82 30 112 



1851. „ „ 88 21 109 



The general result of the first five years' operations of the asylum is that 



703 cases of neglected children were investigated by means of it, most of 

 whom were sent to one or other of the industrial schools; e.g. in 1851, of 

 the 109, 54 boys were sent to the boys' school; 42 boys and girls to the 

 juvenile school; 2 to Inspector of Poor; and 10 refused as unsuitable. 



The Child's Asylum continues in constant operation, and a full record is 

 made and preserved of each case ; but no reports or tables have been printed 

 since 1851. 



On the Upper Silurians of Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire. 



The interest excited at the Glasgow Meeting, in 1855, by the announce- 

 ment of a highly fossiliferous tract of Upper Silurian strata in the parish of 

 Lesmahagow, and by the exhibition of their new and rare fossil forms at the 

 Leeds Meeting in 1858, induced the Association to vote the sum of ^20 

 towards the further exploration of these beds by their original discoverer, 

 Mr. Robert Slimon. This sum was placed under the direction of a Com- 

 mittee consisting of Sir Roderick I. Murchison, Mr. Page, and Professor 

 Ramsay ; and under the condition that the specimens should be given in the 

 first place to the public Museum of Edinburgh, and duplicates thereafter to 

 the Museums of Economic Geology in London and Dublin. In terms of 

 this grant, the Committee, through their resident member, Mr. Page, have 

 now to report : — 



That during the past summer Mr. Slimon and his son have shown great 

 industry in exploring the various sections exhibited in the channels of the 

 Logan, Nethan, Priesthall Burn, and other streams that flow from the Nitberry 

 Hills, and cut through the strata in question. As these strata consist for the 

 most part of brittle slaty mudstones, wholly unfit for any economic purpose, 

 and rendered still more brittle by the intersection of numerous felspathic 

 dykes, there was no other mode of exploration than by quarrying directly 

 for the fossils, and this at as many points as were accessible, and as far as 

 the limits of the grant would allow. 



