280 Reports and Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 



argon, or helium are referred to ; and under the head of minerals 

 bearing tantahim, mention is made of Giesecke's discoveries in 

 Greenland. Among these is fergusonite, one of the richest sources 

 hitherto known for obtaining that mysterious gas, or mixture of 

 gases, which on our planet seems to be almost exclusively confined 

 to minerals containing rare earths. " The group of earths, as well 

 as the group of gases, of which we are here speaking, might 

 therefore be compared with certain genera among organic beings, 

 whose species, having not yet fully differentiated, offer to the 

 descriptive zoologist or botanist difficulties analogous to those with 

 which chemists meet in endeavouring to separate the rare earths and 

 rare gases." 



III.— April 25, 1900.— J. J. H. Teall, Esq., M.A., F.E.S., President, 



in the Chair. 

 The President, having requested all present to rise from their 

 seats, read the following resolution which had been passed unani- 

 mously by the Council : "That this Council desire to place on record 

 their deep sense of the loss which both science and literature have 

 sustained in the death of the Duke of Argyll, who was the oldest 

 surviving past-President of the Geological Society : " and stated that 

 on behalf of the Council he proposed to communicate a copy of the 

 resolution to the Duchess of Argyll, coupled with an expression of 

 respectful sympathy. 



The following communications were read : — 

 1. " On a complete Skeleton of an Anomodont Eeptile from the 

 Bunter Sandstone of Eeichen, near Basel, giving new Evidence of 

 the Eelation of the Anomodontia to the Monotremata." By Professor 

 H. G. Seeley, F.E.S., F.L.S., V.P.G.S. 



This skeleton was originally described by Wiedersheim under the 

 name of Lahyrinthodon Butimeyeri in 1878. The bones are now 

 differently interpreted : 



The reputed humerus is the interclavicle. 

 ,, „ scapula is the humerus. 



„ „ supra-scapula is the left coracoid. 



„ „ ^ „ „ right scapula. 



„ „ right and left clavicles are the ribs. 



„ „ right and left coracoids are the pre-coracoid and 



coracoid of the right side. 



Five digits are identified in place of four in 1878. These osteo- 

 logical identifications are inconsistent with reference of the type to 

 the Labyrinthodontia, and it is accordingly described as a new genus, 

 which is placed in association with ProcolopTion as a separate family 

 in the tribe Procolophonia. 



The author discusses various views which have been expressed 

 with regard to the position of the Labyrinthodonts. He has already 

 separated these animals from the Amphibia and combined them with 

 the Ichthyosauria in a group of reptiles named Cordylomorpha, and 

 he enumerates a series of characters which constitute so close a link 

 Tsetween the two types " that it is not possible, in the absence of 



