Meeting of the Cotswold Club. 371 



America the first remains of fishes are found in the Corniferous 

 Limestone, where they appear in great force, consisting of several 

 genera and species, some of which attain gigantic dimensions. Of 

 the origin of this fauna we know nothing, and probably never shall 

 know much. With the Devonian seas in their retreat, departed all 

 the group of great bucklered fishes, never more to return. In the 

 sea of the Carboniferous age, sharks abounded in great numbers ; 

 along the shores, and in the lagoons and rivers of the Coal-measure 

 epoch, a multitude of Ganoids abounded ; in the same strata and 

 localities, another and higher class of vertebrates, the Amphibians, 

 have left abundant remains. The Ganoids shade so gradually into 

 these Amphibians, that it is impossible to draw any well-defined 

 line between them. And there is little doubt that a connected 

 chain of being leads from the Ganoids through the Amphibians up 

 to the true Eeptiles. With the retreat of the Carboniferous sea, 

 most of the interval between the Mississippi and the Atlantic was left 

 dry land, and has never since been submerged. On this land, or 

 the lakes and rivers of the Canadian continent, which has remained 

 as land since a period anterior to the Silurian age, the Ganoids of 

 the Coal-period have continued to exist, and in our Lepidosteus and 

 Amia we probably have the lineal descendants of Palcgoniscus, 

 Ccelacanthus, etc., of the Cai'boniferous age (p. 289). A great 

 portion of the volume is occupied with the description of the Inver- 

 tebrate fossils by Mr. F. B. Meek, the well-known palaeontologist, 

 and for some years connected with the Illinois Geological Survey. 

 The work is further illustrated by 48 well-executed plates of the 

 fossils, and although many of these beautifully preserved forms 

 from the rich localities near Cincinnati had previously been de- 

 scribed by Professors Hall, Winchell, Meek, and others, yet this 

 appears to be the first collected systematic description of the fossils 

 of the State of Ohio. J. M. 



Cotswold Naturalists' Field-club at Bath. 



On Thursday, June 25th, by invitation of Handel Cossham, Esq., 

 F.G.S., the Cotswold Field-club met at Weston, near Bath. The 

 programme for the day included an examination of the Eheetic and 

 Lower Lias sections near Weston ; of the Coal-sinkings near Penny- 

 cuick Bottom, the most easterly point of the Bristol Coal-basin ; the 

 ascent to the Great Oolite plateau at Odd Down, and descent thence 

 to the Midford valley, for the purpose of examining the " Midford 

 Sands," returning to Bath by way of Beechen CliS". 



A party, nearly fifty in number, assembled at the Weston Station 

 on the arrival of the 12.32 train, and proceeded at once along the 

 line of rail to examine a quarry and section about a quarter of a 

 mile distant. At the quarry Mr. C. Moore drew attention to a band 

 of shale or marl overlying the thickly-bedded rocks of the " Buck- 

 landi " zone, as marking a special horizon and as traceable in all 



