308 British Association for the Advanceonent of Science. 



sey, at a considerable depth from the surface, by two intelhgent 

 persons, Forrester and Home, connected with the quarry, and an 

 account of the circumstances was drawn up on the spot by Messrs. 

 Cunningham and Dwyer. The specimens found were casts of 

 the impression of the foot, and nothing could be more perfect and 

 characteristic. There are two sets of footsteps ; one set being 

 those of an animal of which traces have been before observed, 

 and which has been called Cheirotherium, from its hand-like 

 foot : the other, those of smaller animals, which seem to have 

 been land tortoises, similar to those which have been long known 

 in the Dumfries quarries, and which are fully described in Dr. 

 B.'s Bridgewater Treatise. A space of between 20 and 30 feet 

 horizontal, is exposed in the quarry, on which these footsteps are 

 distinctly seen, and where the animals do not appear to have 

 been Avalking in the ordinary way, but to have been performing 

 gambols. He stated also that from the appearance of the surface 

 of the sandstone, covered with minute spherical elevations quite 

 different from any ripple mark, it was manifest that a shower of 

 rain had fallen, and its traces had been preserved upon this pri- 

 meval surface ! 



Rev. G. Young presented a paper on the antiquity of organic 

 remains, to which Prof. Sedgwick replied. 



Dr. Buckland read a paper on the application of small coal to 

 eco7iomical purposes. Mr. Oram had succeeded in agglutinating 

 the small particles of coal into a firm mass by a process at once 

 simple and cheap. There would even be economy in using this 

 coal for many purposes, as it occupied one third less space, when 

 packed, than coal in its ordinary state, 



A letter was read from Mr. Fox, of Cornwall, stating the im- 

 portant fact, as a result of some new and most careful experi- 

 ments, that he had at length obtained, hy voltaic action upon 

 mineral substances, a mineral vein, namely, carbonate of zinc, 

 in its natural position between two layers of earthy matter. 



Mr. D. Milne read a paper on the Berwick and North Durham 

 Coal-field. It is a basin, 15 miles in diameter, and has 15 seams 

 of coal, of the average thickness of 2 or 3 feet. 



Major Jervis gave an account of the progress and present state 

 of the trigonometrical survey ifi British India. Capt. Washing- 

 ton then gave an account of the government surveys of Austria, 

 England, France, Saxony, Tuscany, &c. 



