587 
the bone-bed the two-feet band of white micaceous sandstone six 
feet above the top of the green marl, as it contains the same inde- 
terminable small bivalve. He has also examined sections of the 
lias escarpment at Norton near Kempsey, and Cracombe Hill near 
Evesham, and has invariably detected, a few feet above the base of 
the lias clay, a thin band of white sandstone containing the same 
shell. 
The bone-bed at Axmouth, Watchett, Aust, Westbury, and other 
southern localities, occupies precigely the same geological position, 
or a few feet above the top of the greenish marls which terminate 
the New Red system, though much more rich in organic remains ; 
and Mr. Strickland draws attention to this remarkable instance of a 
very thin stratum ranging over a distance of about 112 miles. 
The great abundance of fossils in some parts of this stratum the 
author considers an indication that a much longer period probably 
elapsed during its deposition, either on account of the clearness of 
the water or of a gentle current which prevented the precipitation of 
muddy particles, than while an equal thickness of the less fossiliferous 
clays above or below it was accumulated. 
The list of organic remains given in the paper includes scales 
of Gyrolepis tenuistriatus ? and Amblyurus ; teeth of Saurichthys api- 
calis, Acrodus minimus, Hybodus minor, Pycnodus? ; others bearing 
an analogy to those of Sargus; portion of a tooth with two finely 
serrated edges, and considered as probably belonging to a saurian 
allied to the genus Palegosaurus ; a tooth of Hybodus De la Bechet 
(H. medius, Ag.), a ray of Nemacanthus monilifer ; small vertebra 
of a fish ; bones of an Ichthyosaurus ; coprolites ; and the casts of the 
bivalve before mentioned. 
Mt. Strickland next alludes to Sir Philip Egerton’s paper on the 
Ichthyolites of the bone-bed (ant, p. 409), and he states that the 
bed cannot be of the age of the muschelkalk, as it overlies the red 
and green marls, which he considers to have been satisfactorily 
shown to be equivalent to the Keuper sandstein of Germany; and 
that the occurrence of muschelkalk fishes associated with lias Ich- 
thyolites only justifies the inference that certain species survived 
from the period of the muschelkalk to that of the bone-bed. There 
are yet stronger grounds, Mr. Strickland states, for placing the 
bone-bed in the liassic series in the remarkable change a few feet 
below it, from black laminated clay to compact ‘‘ angular” marl, 
greenish in the upper part and red below; and he adds, the trans- 
ition is so sudden that it may be defined within the eighth of an 
inch ; moreover no marl oceurs above the line nor black laminated 
clay below it ; and although, in the case of the bone bed, an arena- 
ceous deposit similar to the Keuper sandstein is repeated, accom- 
panied by some triassic organic remains, yet, the author adds, this 
does not invalidate the evidence of the commencement of a new 
order of things, or of*an interesting passage into the liassic series 
from the triassic system. 
Lastly, Mr, Strickland notices the occurrence of precisely analo- 
