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tained near Deenair a species resembling one found in the scaglia of 
the Ionian Islands. 9. Igneous rocks are much more rare towards 
the south, and do not appear so often associated with the scaglia as 
with the older limestones. 3. Trachyte and other igneous products 
almost constantly accompany the blue semi-crystalline limestone, as 
at Erythrea and Boodroom. 4. In the absence of organic remains, 
Mr. Hamilton hesitates to state positively whether the blue lime- 
stone is an altered rock, or is an older formation which has been 
raised to the surface; but he is inclined to adopt the latter opinion, 
in consequence of the resemblance of the limestone to that near 
Constantinople, which is associated with schists, containing trans- 
ition fossils. 
A letter from Mr. Ottley, of Exeter, was then read, “On some 
specimens from the new red sandstone,” considered by the writer to 
be casts of Alcyonia. 
The specimens alluded to in this letter were found by Mr. Par- 
ker in a quarry about two miles from Exeter, in the road towards 
Bath. In the lower part of the quarry coarse sandstones and fine 
conglomerates occur, and in the upper a flat, flaggy sandstone. The 
beds dip 10° or 12° to the south-east. Interstratified with the con- 
glomerate is a looser red sandstone, in which the branched conere- 
tions, considered to be of aleyonic origin by Mr. Ottley, principally 
occur; but they have been found also in the conglomerates, and the 
sandstone of the upper part of the quarry. 
A paper was afterwards read, entitled, “ Description of the re- 
mains of a Bird, Tortoise, and Lacertian Saurian, from the chalk ;” 
by Richard Owen, Esq., F.G.8. 
Bird.—The three portions of Ornitholite were obtained by Lord 
Enniskillen from the chalk near Maidstone, and were recognized by 
him and Dr. Buckland as belonging to some large bird. One of 
the bones is nine inches in length, and has one extremity nearly en- 
tire, though mutilated, but the other is completely broken off. The 
extremity, partially preserved, is expanded. The rest of the shaft 
of the bone has a pretty uniform size, but is irregularly three-sided, 
with the sides flat and the angles rounded : its circumference is two 
inches and a quarter. The whole bone is slightly bent. The spe- 
cimen differs from the femur of any known bird, in the proportion 
of its length to its breadth; and from the tibia or metatarsal bone, 
in its triedral figure, and the flatness of the sides, none of which are 
longitudinally grooved. It resembles most the humerus of the Al- 
batross in its form, proportions and size, but it differs in the more 
marked angles bounding the three sides. ‘The expanded extremity 
likewise resembles the distal end of the humerus of the Albatross, 
but it is too mutilated to allow the exact amount of similarity to be 
determined. . 
On the supposition that this fragment is really a part of the hu- 
merus, Mr. Owen says, its length and comparative straightness would 
prove it to have belonged to a longipennate natatorial bird, equalling 
in size the Albatross. 
