British Association. 293 
with a very long snout, were then given ; and Cyathaspis Symondsii, 
a new species found in the Cornstones of Herefordshire, and named 
by the author after the Rev. W. Symonds, of Pendock, was charac- 
terized. 
On THE OccURRENCE OF FISH-REMAINS IN THE OLD RED SANDSTONE OF PoRTISHEAD, 
NEAR Bristor. By W. H. Barry, Esq., F.L.8., F.G.S., Paleeontologist of the Geol. 
Sury., Ireland. 
rE headland to the north of Woodhill Bay consists of a steep 
ridge of the Carboniferous Limestone (lower part ?), dipping at 
about 60° to the NNE., and fossiliferous. The lower beds, of a pink 
colour, and full of Crinoidal joints and Corals, appear for a short 
distance at the northern extremity of the bay. The shores of the 
bay beyond this become flat for about a quarter of a mile, and are 
covered with shingle, principally derived from the Old Red Sand- 
stone cliffs, which commence a little beyond Beach Cottage, con- 
tinuing with tolerable uniformity to a distance of a little more than 
eleven chains, the greatest elevation being thirty-four feet. The 
ground above this, however, which forms the commencement of 
Portishead Down, rises to a much greater height, its highest point, 
near Down Farm, as shown on Mr. Sanders’s map, being 364 feet. 
The section exposed consists of alternations of deep-red, micaceous, 
flaggy beds, of various thicknesses, with shales and compact sand- 
stones, the sandstone predominating, and sometimes becoming con- 
clomeratic: the dip, near the cottage, is about 20° S. This tract of 
Old Red Sandstone, as shown by the maps, extends along the coast, 
to the SW., for about four miles, appearing occasionally on the beach, 
and sometimes covered by the Dolomitic Conglomerate, once thought 
to be Permian, but now recognized as a member of the New Red 
Sandstone. Fish-remains occur both in the conglomerate and mica- 
ceous flags. Specimens have been obtained by the Rev. B. Blenkiron 
from the loose shingle of the beach, one of them being evidently 
from a conglomerate, the other from the micaceous flags. Mr. Baily 
obtained a scale of Holoptychius, two years since, from the base of a 
conglomerate in the cliff. At a recent visit he found scales of what 
he believes to be the same species of Fish, associated with Plant- 
remains, also im sit#, in the micaceous flags which appear on the 
beach at a little below high-water mark. A peculiar bone on one of 
these slabs probably belonged to the head; with it is a scale of 
Holoptychius nobilissimus. On the other slab is a scale probably of 
Glyptolepis elegans, and another fragment having a structure like 
Bothriolepis or Asterolepis. ‘The occurrence of these fish, which 
Agassiz includes in his Ceelacanth division—a division which, as he 
observes, takes the place, in the Old Red Sandstone, of the Ganoids, 
which more especially characterize the Carboniferous epoch—may 
serve, Mr. Baily suggested, to point out the relations of the beds in 
which they occur with those of Scotland, described by Sir R. Mur- 
chison as the conglomerates of Scat-Craig, which, he observes, may 
be referred to strata of a rather younger age than the lowest fish- beds 
of Lethen Bar, Clune, &c., or the @anness strata-in which we first 
meet with the Holoptychius nobilissimus. 
