92 Reports and Proceedings — 



valley not less than a mile across. The Ardtun gravels indicate 

 a less rapid but m,ore extensive river. The section at Burgh is very- 

 like that at Ardtun, with the addition of an extensive ash-bed at the 

 base, with sand instead of gravel, and with many hundred feet of 

 Trap above. In the Wilderness there is a small outcrop of Chalk- 

 rubble, less than 300 square feet in extent, and evidently redeposited. 

 Some distance under this is Greensand in situ, then Lower Lias, and 

 lastly Poikilitic sands. This descriptive part of the paper concluded 

 with some remarks on the estuarine formation between the Chalk 

 and Upper Greensand at Beinn Jadain in Morven, which the author 

 investigated in the hope of finding plant-remains belonging to that 

 interesting age. He doubts that the Chalk is in situ, and considers 

 the evidence of age to be not quite conclusive. 



The second part of the paper deals with the palEeontological 

 evidence. The evidence, if confined to the plants of Ardtun, was 

 said to be scarcely worth serious discussion, and the analysis was 

 extended to the far richer plant-bed at Atanekerdluk. The identi- 

 fications of these with Miocene plants of Europe were discussed 

 seriatim, and shown to be groundless, or only applied to such pre- 

 vailing types of leaves as are common to widely distinct genera, and 

 occur in floras recent as well as fossil, and which cannot be super- 

 ficially distinguished in even a living state. The strong resemblance 

 and even identity of the best-characterized forms with the older 

 Eocene plants has been, on the other hand, hitherto ignored. The 

 most strongly marked types of Greenland, and which recur in 

 Antrim, are met with in the Heersian of Gelinden and at no other 

 horizon, and amply suffice to fix the date of the Antrim floras. The 

 Mull flora, as its aspect indicates, is still older, and consequently 

 earlier than the Thanet Beds of England. Independently of positive 

 evidence, the absence of any late Tertiary types, even of the Legu- 

 minos^, which abound as low down as the Beading Beds, sufficiently 

 indicates their extreme antiquity. 



2. " On the Echinoidea of the Cretaceous Strata of the Lower 

 Narbada Eegion." By Prof. P. Martin Duncan, M.B., F.R.S., F.G.S. 



A collection of fossils from the Limestone near Bag, in "Western 

 India, made by Colonel Keatinge, was described by the author in 

 the Quarterly Journal of the Society for 1865, and shown to be of 

 Upper Greensand or Cenomanian age. The country was subse- 

 quently examined, and a sketch-map made by Messrs. Blanford and 

 Wynne, who found near Bag the following beds in descending order 

 beneath the Deccan and Malwa traps : — Coralline limestone. Argilla- 

 ceous limestone. Nodular limestone. Sandstone. All were conform- 

 able, the whole thickness of limestone did not exceed 50 feet, and 

 the fossils obtained by Colonel Keatinge were shown to have been 

 exclusively derived from the Argillaceous limestone. All the beds 

 were referred to the same Cretaceous sub-division. 



Good topographical maps having been prepared, the area was 

 remapped by Mr. Bose, who obtained several additional fossils from 

 the Coralline and Nodular limestones, and a few from the upper beds 

 of the Sandstone. He accepted the Cenomanian age for the Argil- 

 laceous limestone, but referred the overlying Coralline limestone to a 



