376 Proceedings of the British Association. 



when the surface had been dry land, but that the operation must 

 have been effected under the sea, as proved by the presence of these 

 marine shells, and by the fact of boulders having been found on the 

 summits of the sides of valleys, which could not have been brought 

 to those positions save by the agency of currents of the ocean. This 

 later period of the elevation of Siluria, must have produced also the 

 present course of the Severn. In concluding his remarks, Mr. Mur- 

 chison mentioned the possibility of icebergs assisting in the transport 

 of diluvium. — Mr. Conybeare mentioned the fact of chalk boulders 

 being found upon Fiat Holm, near Bristol, which stones must have 

 been brought down by the Avon. 



Section D. — Zoology and Botany. 



Dr. Moore announced his having procured a fish in Plymouth 

 Harbor, new to Great Britain, the Trigla cataphractes, and Mr. 

 Yarrell confirmed the accuracy of the observation, and stated the 

 species to be common in the Mediterranean. 



Dr. Richardson then read the concluding portions of his report. 

 The order Edentata is eminently South American, and only three 

 or four species are met with in North America. The fossil species 

 of Megatherium and Megalonyx, however, are found in both Amer- 

 icas. — The order Pachydermata is remarkable for the size of most 

 of its species, and the number of the extinct species is more than 

 double the recent ones in the New World. Only two genera and 

 three or four species belong both to North and South America. 

 Fossil elephants and mastodons occur in the most distant parts of 

 North America. Although the present race of horses is certainly 

 of European origin, yet fossil bones of this quadruped are met with 

 in Kotzebue's Sound. — Thirteen species of Ruminantia were enu- 

 merated, two of which are common to the old and new continents, 

 and have a high northerly range. The North American deer are 

 very imperfectly known. The reindeer reach to Spitzbergen and 

 the most northerly of the American islands, and range southwards 

 as far as Columbia River on the Pacific coast, and to New Bruns- 

 wick on the Atlantic. Although the musk-ox ranges from the bar- 

 ren lands over the ice to Parry's Islands, it is not found either in 

 Asia or Greenland. — There appears to be nine species of Cetacea, 

 known as North American, and those on the east coast are mostly 

 inhabitants of Europe also, under the same parallels of latitude, 

 especially those of the Greenland seas. On the western side ihe 



