Geological Society of London. 375 



carried down the Irish Channel on bergs, and been thrown up by 

 the sea to their present position at any period subsequent to their 

 transportation southwards by ice ; but their presence does not imply 

 any local glaciation, 



4. " Notes on the Formation of Coal-seams, as suggested by evi- 

 dence collected chiefly in the Leicestershire and South Derbyshire 

 Coal-field." By W. S. Gresley, Esq., F.G.S. 



The author's principal object in this paper was to bring forward 

 evidence in opposition to the view now generally accepted that coal- 

 seams were formed from vegetation growing on the spot. 



He showed that during a very extensive experience he had only 

 once or twice detected stems passing into a bed of coal and con- 

 nected with the Stigmaria-roots in the underclay. If, as was 

 generally stated, the Stigmarise were the roots of the trees that 

 formed the coal, such instances ought to be common. Not only, 

 however, were they very rare, but the abundance of the Stigmariee was 

 extremely variable, and these roots, instead of becoming more thickly 

 matted together in the uppermost part of the underclay, as they 

 should be if they were roots of the coal-forests, were generally dis- 

 tributed, as a rule, throughout the clay in a manner that showed 

 them to have been in all probability independent organisms. Stig- 

 marian roots, when found connected with a stem, were more often 

 on the top of the coal-seam than at the bottom. 



Other reasons assigned for rejecting the hypothesis that coal- 

 seams were formed of plants that grew upon the spot were the 

 occasional absence of underclays, the sharp division between the 

 coal-seams themselves, and the beds above and below them ; the 

 distinct lamination of every seam and its division into layers of 

 different mineral character that are persistent over large areas ; the 

 presence of foreign bodies in the underclay, and especially of pebbles 

 and boulders transported from a distance ; the presence of similar 

 fish, etc., in the coal itself; and the circumstance that many coal- 

 seams are impregnated with salts, and are associated with beds 

 containing marine fossils. 



5. "Note on some Dinosaurian Eemains in the Collection of A. 

 Leeds, Esq. Part I. Ornithopsis Zeedsii. Part II. Omosauriis, sp." 

 By J. W. Hulke, Esq., F.E.S., F.G.S. 



"Part I. Ornithopsis Leedsii, nov. sp., from the Kimmeridge Clay 

 of Northamptonshire. 



The author described a pelvis, vertebrse and cost^ referable to 

 this genus, of a stature far surpassing that represented by the 

 pelvis in the Fox Collection from the Isle of Wight Wealden, which 

 he brought under the notice of the Society a few years since. The 

 ilium has a very long preacetabular process. A rib is three times 

 as large as the largest rib of an elephant of average stature.^ The 

 trunk vertebrse show the characteristic large chamber opening in 

 the side of the centrum, under the platform supporting the neura- 

 pophyses. There is no post-pubis. The pubis and ischium diverge ; 

 their close resemblance to those of Ceteosaurus oxoniensis, figured by 

 J. Phillips, in the ' Geology of Oxford,' is obvious when each figure 



