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which we are indebted to Mr. Owen, without remarking how well 
our anticipations have been verified, when, in awarding him the 
Wollaston medal last year, we considered the labours which we thus 
distinguished as only the beginning of an enlarged series of scientific 
successes; and how well also Mr. Owen’s own declaration, that he 
should lose no available time or opportunity which could be applied 
to paleontological research, has been borne out by the services he 
has rendered that branch of our science. 
In the remainder of my review of what has been done among us 
in Paleontology I must necessarily be very brief. I have already 
mentioned the discovery of fossil fishes in the Bagshot sand. These 
fishes have supplied three new genera, which Dr. Buckland has 
distinguished and has named Edaphodon, Passalodon, and Ameibo- 
don; of which the two first offer combinations of the cl.aracters o1 
bony and cartilaginous fishes. Mr. Stokes has given us his views of 
the structure of the animal to which belonged those fossils with 
which we are so familiar under the name of Orthoceratites. He is of 
opinion, that these fossils, in their living condition, existed as a shell, 
enveloped within the body of the animal to which they belonged. 
He has distinguished three genera of these shells, to which he as- 
signs the names Actinoceras, Ormoceras, and Huronia. ‘The Mar- 
quis of Northampton also has examined those minute spiral shells 
which occur in the chalk and chalk flints, and have been termed 
Spirolinitess And, finally, under this head I must mention Mr. 
Alfred Smee’s paper on the state in which animal matter is usually 
found in fossils. 
Mr. Austen’s hypothesis of the origin of the limestone of Devon, 
though belonging in some measure to Geological Dynamics, may 
perhaps be mentioned here, since he explains the position of those 
beds by reference to the habits of the coral animal. Mr. Austen 
has already shown himself to us as an excellent observer ; and in con- 
structing geological maps, a task requiring no ordinary talents and 
temper, he has earned our admiration. We shall therefore not be 
thought, I trust, to depreciate his labours if we receive with less 
confidence speculations in their nature more doubtful. As we can 
hardly suppose the calcareous beds of Devon to have had an orig‘n 
different from those of other countries, we cannot help receiving 
with some suspicion a doctrine which would subvert almost. the 
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