Rev. A. H. Mitchell exhibited a pebble of chalcedony with 

 ■one side polished, and showing beautiful concentric rings. It 

 was found at Bellerive. 



OCTOBER i8, 1909. 



The Monthly General Meeting of the Society was held at 

 ■the Museum on Monday evening, October 14, 1909. 



Mr. R. M. Johnston, F.L.S., I.S.O., in the chair. 



Mr. T. Stephens (V.P.) reported that, in response to an in- 

 vitation from the Council, His Excellency the Governor (Sir 

 Harry Barron) had informed them that it would give him great 

 pleasure to assume the office of President of the Royal Society. 



THE FOLLOWING PAPER WAS READ : 



Notes on the Glacial Beds of Freestone Bluff, near Wyn- 

 jard. By Fritz Noetling, M.A., Ph.D., etc. 



The author gives a historical summary of the papers which 

 Jiad been previously written on this interesting and; important 

 subject, and describes in detail the glacial drift and the fossil- 

 iferous sandstone of Freestone Bluff, with remarks on the basalt 

 ■capping which overlies the latter. Attention is called to the 

 intermingling of what appear to be portions of the glacial drift 

 with the fossiliferous sandstone, evidence of which is shown by 

 Plates illustrating the lowermost strata of Frtiestone Bluff. The 

 general conclusion arrived at is that there is no sufficient evi- 

 'dence to prove that the glacial drift was deposited at or near 

 the base of the Permo-Carboniferous series, and that it really 

 belongs to the same epoch as the Turritella sandstone. 



Mr. T. Stephens said that all who had any personal know- 

 ledge of the locality would be greatly interested in the new 

 theory that had been broached by Dr. Noetling as to the prob- 

 able contemporaneity of the glacial drift and the fossiliferous 

 sandstone. For his own part he did not yet see any reason to 

 modify the opinion expressed in a paper that had been quoted by 

 Dr. Noetling, to the effect that the " inlayers "' of drift inter- 

 mingled with bands of the fossiliferous sandstone were really 

 moraine matter that had been dislodged from the surface of the 

 .'glacial drift and re-deposited at the time where the lower beds 

 of the sandstone formation were being laid down. 



The Chairman, in complimenting Dr. Noetling" on the inte- 

 resting and valuable paper read by him, stated that, notwith- 

 standing the new puzzle of the interstratification of the elements 

 of glacial erratics with what Dr. Noetling describes as " small 

 lenticular layers of fossiliferous sandstones . . . undistinguishable 

 from the sandstones above " (Turritella beds), he, Mr. Johnston, 

 was still firmly of opinion that the prevailing conglomerates, 

 imconformably underlying the Table Cape marine tertiaries, 

 were, as originally suggested by Mr. Stephens, of truly Permo- 

 Carboniferous age, and of the) same horizon as the numerous 

 glacial drift conglomerates everywhere abounding in the lower 



