94 REPORT—1858. 
codont order which includes the Thecodontosaurus and Paleosaurus. Of the former, 
the author has obtained several teeth and vertebre, and also several bony scutes 
or scales, which renders it probable one of the saurians of this period was covered 
with a bony armour like the Teleosaurus of the lias. These genera were originally 
described by Messrs. Riley and Stutchbury, from fragmentary specimens obtained 
from a conglomerate near Bristol, which has hitherto been considered to belong to 
the Permian period or to the dolomitic conglomerate, but from its precise litholo- 
gical similarity to that of Holwell there can now be little doubt it belongs to the 
Triassic period. - In referring to the absence of the Muschelkalk in this country, the 
author stated he had the pleasure of announcing, that, although the precise equivalent 
of that formation had not yet been satisfactorily made out, still in the presence of 
the teeth of another saurian—the Placodus—he had obtained the first indications of 
the fauna of that deposit being represented in England. 
Important as were these indications of Reptilia, the fish remains from these con- 
glomerates were probably of equal interest. They belong to the genera Acrodus, 
Hybodus, Saurichthys, Lepidotus, Gyrolepis, probably the Ctenoptychius or Peta- 
lodus of Owen, and some minute palates allied to Chomatodus, a genus not yet found 
higher than the carboniferous limestone. Teeth of the Acrodus, of several species, 
are very abundant, the next prevailing genus being the Hybodus. There are also 
some very peculiar thorn-like spines of not less than ten distinct varieties, belonging 
to some fish as yet undetermined, to the dermal coverings of which they were pro- 
bably attached. So wonderfully preserved are some of these fish remains, that the 
author had been enabled to extract a jaw from the matrix, which, taough not more 
than the eighth of an inch in length, contains all its teeth, thirty-four in number ; 
and in another instance, a palate a quarter of an inch in length still retains seventy- 
four teeth, and shows blank spaces from which sixteen others had been lost. 
The only evidence the author has yet obtained of regularly stratified Triassic beds 
is in the Vallis Vale, where there are several large quarries of carboniferous lime- 
stone, on the up-turned edges of which the inferior oolite lies horizontally, and is 
usually in immediate contact. This, however, is not the case in one near Hapsford 
Mills, where the following thin bands of Trias are found. Immediately on the 
carboniferous limestone, which is here quarried to the depth of 20 feet, occurs a 
bed of blue clay 4 inches in thickness, which yielded part of a Thecodont vertebra, 
fish remains identical with some from the Holwell conglomerate, and the teeth of 
several spines of Acrodi peculiar to this bed. It also yielded valves of Chiton and 
Pollicipes, with spines of Pseudodiadema and stems of encrinites, together with 
Ostrea, Lima, Avicula, and other shells. Succeeding this blue clay, is a bed of hori- 
zontal conglomerate 2 feet thick, made up of rounded pebbles, from the size of an 
egg downwards, and containing a few fish teeth and scales. Above is another band 
of blue clay 4 inches in thickness, passing into a grey concretionary clay 12 inches 
thick, neither of which has yielded any organic remains; and resting on these next 
succeed rubbly beds of inferior oolite, having a thickness of 12 feet. 
Various other Mollusca have been obtained by the author from the beds above 
noticed, including Spirifer, Terebratula, Rhynchonella, Lingula, fragments of the 
large Discina Townshendi, which the author believed to be a triassic shell, Pecten, 
Belemnite, &c., and a single claw of a crustacean. 
Note.—Since reading the above: paper, it has been the author’s good fortune to 
discover three unmistakeable mammalian teeth identical with the Microlestes an- 
tiquus of the Upper Trias of Wirtemberg, being the earliest evidence of mamma- 
lian remains yet found in this country. 
Some Results of recent Researches among the Older Rocks of the Highlands 
of Scotland. By Sir R. 1. Murcuison, F.R.S. 
The first part of the paper consisted chiefly of a confirmation and extension of views 
which the author had laid before the Geological Society in the preceding session. 
These views are, that the fundamental gneiss of the N.W. Highlands, being older than 
any stratified rock of England and Wales, is overlaid unconformably by sandstones 
and conglomerates of great thickness, which, occupying lofty mountains, represent the 
Cambrian rocks of South Britain ; that these are surmounted transgressively by quartz 
