Reports and Proceedings—G'eological Society of London. 575 
does not violate the still higher law, ‘“‘the survival of the fittest” ; 
it only serves to show that, under certain circumstances, even in 
the Organic world, the most inert may be the fittest to survive. 
Whilst: admitting that no force or forces, exactly similar to Life, 
are known in Nature, Mr. Ridsdale observes, that one or.two of 
them are not so “utterly unlike as to render it necessary to postulate 
a supernatural interference with the course of Nature to account for 
its occurrence.” Certainly, a logical evolutionist need not summon 
such a Deus ex machina as Creation to account for any phenomenon, 
even the admittedly obscure one of Life. The author thinks it may 
be possible in the future to bring yet closer the analogies between 
the Organic and Inorganic worlds, though up to the present time 
nothing very conclusive has been pointed out. Perhaps the nearest 
parallel is that force which determines crystalline structure. A 
similar idea, it will be remembered, was brought forward in a recent 
address to the Geological Society. W. H. H. 
devas Ouse 8S) AN AB) ASNS4@\ SA as DAN SS 
ee 
Nov. 6, 1889.—W. T. Blanford, LL.D., F.R.S., President, in the 
Chair.—The following communications were read :— 
1. “Contributions to our Knowledge of the Dinosaurs of the 
Wealden and the Sauropterygians of the Purbeck and Oxford Clay.” 
By R. Lydekker, Hsq., B.A., F.G.S. 
The first section of this paper was devoted to the description of 
the remains of Iguanodonts from the Wadhurst Clay near Hastings 
collected by Mr. C. Dawson. They were considered to indicate two 
species, for which the names Iguanodon hollingtoniensis and I. Fittoni 
had been proposed in a preliminary notice. 
In the second section an imperfect metatarsus of a species of 
Megalosaurus from the Hastings Wealden was described, and shown 
to indicate a species quite distinct from the one to which a metatarsus 
from the Wealden of Cuckfield belonged. Two cervical vertebree 
of a Sauropterygian from the Purbeck of the Isle of Portland were 
next described, and referred to Cimoliosaurus portlandicus, Owen, sp. 
The concluding section described an impertect skeleton of a large 
Pliosaur from the Oxford Clay, in the collection of Mr. A. N. Leeds, 
which indicated a species intermediate between the typical Kime- 
ridgian forms and the genus Peloneustes. These specimens were 
considered as probably referable to Pliosaurus ferow. Evidence was 
adduced to show that Pliosaurus Evansi, Seeley, should be trans- 
ferred to Peloneustes. 
2. “Notes on a ‘Dumb Fault’ or ‘Wash-out’ found in the 
Pleasley and Teversall Collieries, Derbyshire.” By J. OC. B. Hendy, 
Esq. Communicated by the President. 
The “Top Hard” Seam of the district is being worked in these 
collieries at a depth of 500 yards, where it has an average thickness 
of five feet, with a band of cannel in the middle. In the working it 
was found that the coal began to thicken, until it became double the 
