PROCEEDINGS 
OF 
THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 
Vou. III. Parr Il. 1841. No. 77. 
April 7.—John Forbes, M.D., F.R.S., Old Burlington Street ; 
Edward Bilke, Esq., Stamford Street; Thomas Chapman, Esq., 
Arundel Street, Strand; Frederick Walter Simms, Esq., Bletchingley, 
Surrey; John Lee, LL.D., F.R.S., Hartwell House, Buckingham- 
shire; and Viscount Alford, M.P., Carlton Gardens, were elected 
Fellows of this Society. 
A paper was first read, entitled «‘ A Notice on the Occurrence of 
Triassic Fishes in British Strata,” by Sir Philip Grey Egerton, Bart., 
M.P., F.G.S. 
Were the muscheikalk abstracted from the continental series of 
beds called the Trias, and the keuper made to rest on the bunter 
sandstone, Sir Philip Egerton says, it would be difficult, if not im- 
possible, to define the proper limits of these formations. The new 
red sandstone of England, the equivalent of the trias, presents this 
difficulty, every endeavour to find the muschelkalk having failed ; 
and therefore geologists are compelled either to consider the keuper, 
the upper member of the trias, to be also wanting, or to be merged 
in the mass of alternating marls and sandstones comprising the new 
red series. Lithological structure, consequently, being of no value, 
paleontological evidence, the author says, becomes of great import- 
ance. The beautiful results arrived at by Mr. Owen respecting the 
Batrachian remains found near Warwick, tend, Sir Philip Egerton ~ 
states, to render the existence of the keuper extremely probable, 
though a specific identification with the analogous fossils of the 
German keuper has not been ascertained. The only instances on 
record of muschelkalk fishes found in Great Britain, are scales from 
the Bone Bed at Aust Cliff, and referred by Professor Agassiz to 
Gyrolepis Albertii and G. tenuistriatus, common continental muschel- 
kalk fishes. This bed it is well known occurs at the base of the lias, 
and rests conformably on the green and red marls of the new red 
sandstone. A thin stratum replete with remains of saurians and 
ichthyélites occupies a similar stratigraphical position near Axmouth ; 
and Prof. Agassiz, during his visit to England in the autumn of 1840, 
identified in a series of specimens obtained by Miss Mary Anning, 
one Placoid, two Lepidoid, and one Sauroid fish, with well-known 
VOL. III, PART II. 2M 
