Edinburgh Geological Society. 371 



Discussion. — Sir P. Egerton mentioned that the Secretary of Mr. Burlinghame, 

 the Chinese Ambassador, had informed him that the course of the Yellow River had, 

 within a comparatively short period, changed its course by nearly 600 miles, and by 

 cutting off the supply of water to the Great Canal of China, had brought on the 

 Taeping rebellion in consequence of the employment of the people being lost. 



12. " On a new Acrodont Saurian from the Lower Chalk." By 

 James Wood Mason, Esq., E.G.S., of Queen's College, Oxford. 



The author described this reptile, for which he proposed the name 

 of Acrodontosaurus Gardneri, as differing from Mosasaurus in the ap- 

 parently persistent distinctness of the premaxill^ and their small 

 development in the middle line, in the more anterior position of the 

 nasal aperture, which is directed upwards and forwards, in the total 

 obliteration of the maxillo-premaxillary suture, and in the absence 

 from the cylindrical teeth of opposite denticulated ridges. The speci- 

 men was obtained from the Lower Chalk of Folkestone, about ten 

 feet above the Chalk Marl. 



13: " Eodentia of the Somerset Caves." By W. Ayshford Sanford, 

 Esq., F.G.S. 



The author hals examined the Eodents from the caves of Somer- 

 setshiTe contained in the Taunton Museum, and found that many of 

 them cannot be referred to species hitherto regarded as belonging to 

 the fauna contemporary with the Mammoth in Britain. He enu- 

 merated species of Arvicola (incliiding A. glareola, (Schreb., and A. 

 ratticeps, Bias. =iemmMS medius, Nilsson, and a species which may be 

 new, and for which he proposed the provisional name of A. Gulielmi), 

 Lemmus (L. norvegicus, Desm.), Lagomys (L. speloeus, Owen), Lepus 

 (L. diluvianus, Pict., L. (imidus, Linn., L. hibernicus, Bell, and H 

 cuniculus, Linn.), Spermopliilus (S. erythrogenoides, Falc. : the citation 

 of S. citilliis by the author and Mr. Boyd Dawkins is founded on a 

 mistake), and Cricetus (C. songarus, Pall). 



The next evening meeting of the Society will be held on Wed- 

 nesday, the 10th November. 



EniNBUKGH Geological Society. — The tenth meeting of this 

 Society was held on 1st April, when the following communications 

 were read : — " 1. Note on Craig Phadrich, a vitrified fort near 

 Inverness," by George Anderson, Esq. Craig Phadrich occupies 

 the terminal rocky ridge (about 520 feet high) of the long chain of 

 mountains which skirt the west of the great glen of Scotland, with 

 the frontlet opposite to it on the Ross-shire coast, that of the Ordhill 

 of Kessock, also a vitrified fort. It constitutes the advanced beacon 

 station on the Moray Firth, from which signals might be passed by 

 all the links of the chain of natural telegraphs stretching away into 

 the recesses of the country beyond the head of the Beauly Firth, in 

 Eoss-shire, Glenstrathfarar and Strathglass, as well as in the great 

 glen. Six or seven vitrified summits are visible from Craig Phadrich, 

 and if the ordinary hill forts, having huge ramparts of stone round 

 their tops, though not known as yet to contain vitrified substances, 

 belong to the same class of antiquities, that number might be nearly 

 doubled. On the western or easiest approach to the summit of the 

 Ordhill of Kessock, we meet a wall of loose stones (now much 



