TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 121 



arises from its having a stout vertebral column running from the head to the tail, and 

 also strong internal supports to the tin rays. "Whether these and the vertebral column 

 areof bone is still an open question. The scales are large and coarse : it is about ten 

 inches in length, and came from the red and blistered sandstones near John O'Groat's. 

 There is an especial interest attaching to this fish, for Hugh Miller says in his 'Old 

 Red Sandstone ' : — " In no case, however, have I succeeded in finding a single joint of 

 the vertebral column, or the trace of a single internal ray.'' This has not been con- 

 tradicted in any of his works. Mr. Peach mentioned that he had at different times 

 found in Caithness several other fishes with vertebral columns, all much smaller than 

 the above, and shown principally towards the tail. The next was taken from the 

 impure limestone at the south head of Wick; he also got it in the bed of the river 

 at Halkirk, and in the limestone of Balagill, near Strathy in Sunderland. The 

 last produced is peculiar, differing from both Dipterus and Diplopterus, in having a 

 narrower but stouter snout, and the front part of the upper jaw armed with short 

 conical teeth, the eye orbits nearer together and placed on the upper part of the head. 



On the Ossiferous Fissures at Oreston near Plymouth. 

 By W. Pengelly, F.G.S. 



Mr. Pengelly commenced this communication by reminding the Section that he 

 had called attention, during the meeting at Leeds, to some of the results of the 

 exploration, then in progress, of the cavern which, early in the year 1858, had 

 been discovered on W indmill Hill, at Brixham, in Devonshire ; and remarked that 

 though, perhaps, none of the facts then communicated were new to science, the 

 circumstances of the case gave them a peculiar value, as being perfectly reliable and 

 unquestionably good in evidence, and as furnishing a test or measure of the credi- 

 bility of, at least, some of the facts on record in connexion with other caverns. 



After stating that the case to which he had now to call attention had no such 

 claims, that the facts, such as they were, had come into his possession almost by 

 accident and mainly from the quarrymen, and that no attempt had been made to 

 direct or control the excavation, the author stated that when Mr. Whidby en- 

 gaged to superintend that most arduous undertaking, the Plymouth Breakwater, Sir 

 Joseph Banks requested him to examine narrowly any caverns he might meet with 

 in the rock, and have the bones or any other fossil remains that were met with 

 carefully preserved *. The Oreston quarries were opened to furnish material for 

 the Breakwater on August 7th, 1812 ; in November 1816 Mr. Whidby sent up to 

 Sir Joseph Banks his first consignment of bones, with a statement that " they had 

 been found in a cavern in the solid limestone rock." The fossils were described 

 by Sir Everard Home in a paper read before the Royal Society, and published in 

 the Philosophical Transactions for 1817 ; in November 1820 Mr. Whidby disco- 

 vered a second ossiferous cavern, and sent up the bones found in it to Sir Everard 

 Home, who described them in a paper read before the Royal Society, and published 

 in the Philosophical Transactions for 1821 ; in 1822 a third bone-cave was found at 

 Oreston ; the fossils found in it were forwarded to Sir John Barrow, and described 

 by Mr. Clift in a paper which was read before the Royal Society, and published in 

 the Philosophical Transactions for 1823. 



On the authority of Professor Owen, the ossiferous caverns and fissures of De- 

 vonshire have yielded remains of the following species of mammals, namely : — 



EXTINCT SPECIES. 



TJrsus prisms Ke. O. 



Urstis spekeus Great Cave Bear. Ke. O. Ki. G. M. D. 



Hycetia spel&a Cave Hyama. Ke. O. Ki. G. M. D. 



Felis spelcea Great Cave Lion. Ke. O. Ki. M. 



Machairodus latidens Ke. 



Lar/omys spclcca Cave Pika. Ke. 



Elephcis primiijenius Mammoth. Ke. Ki. M. 



Rhinoceros tichorhinus .... Tichorhine Two-homed Rhinoceros. Ke. 0. Ki. 



Equus fossilis Fossil Horse. Ke. 0. Ki. G. M. 



Equus plicidens 0. 



* Philosophical Transactions, 1817, p. 176. 



