236 Reports and Proceedings. 



III. March 2nd, 1871. — Mr. John Young, Vice-President, in the 

 Chair. 



Coast Section at Arran. — Mr. B. A. Wiinsch, V.P., read a paper on 

 a section of the northern shore of Arran, giving an account of some 

 transported blocks of Limestone which he had observed there during 

 the previous summer. After describing the remarkable succession 

 of deposits which had made that part of Arran classic ground for 

 the geologist, he referred more particularly to a characteristic bed of 

 Limestone found near the Salt Pans, on the north-eastern shore of the 

 island. This Limestone is of a deep red colour, and is full of the 

 shells of ProductcB — especially Producta latissima — together with 

 fragments of Encrinites and other organisms. The bed is very 

 regularly jointed, and breaks up into beautiful cubical masses. He 

 had noticed several detached boulders and smaller fragments, down 

 to minute pebbles, of this Limestone at various distances along the 

 shore, sometimes in sheltered bays, and as far as four or five miles 

 from the parent bed. One block of considerable size, to which at 

 present he wished to call attention, he had observed a little above 

 high-water mark, fully a mile from the original deposit, and withia 

 a quarter of a mile of the beds of volcanic ash which he had 

 formerly described. It had been drifted, most probably by floating 

 ice, over a massive ledge of sandstone and indurated shale inter- 

 vening between it and the sea, and projecting above the general 

 inclination of the shore. 



The Chairman said there could be little doubt that the various 

 boulders of Arran rocks found perched on the old raised sea-beach 

 which fringes the coast of the island had been carried and dropped 

 into their present position by coast-ice during the G-lacial period, 

 when the land stood at a lower elevation than at present. Many of 

 the boulders are of large size, and have been carried by drifting ice 

 to various parts of the coast, distant from where the rocks occur in 

 situ. 



Mr. James Thomson, F.G.S., read a paper on the occurrence of 

 Stigmaria stellata (Eichwald) in the Lower Carboniferous series, at 

 Wildshaw, in the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire. 



Natural History Society of Montreal. — The fifth monthly 

 meeting of this Association was held on Monday evening, 27th 

 February, the President, Principal Dawson, F.E.S., in the Chair. 



Principal Dawson exhibited illustrations of " some new facts in 

 fossil Botany." The following is an abstract of his remarks : — 

 The first point mentioned was the occurrence in the Devonian Shales 

 of Kettle Point, Lake Huron, of beds containing immense quantities 

 of spore-cases, probably of Lepidodendron. These beds are referred 

 by the Geological Survey to the horizon of the Genesee shales of 

 New York, and are stated to be twelve or fourteen feet in thickness, 

 and to extend over a considerable area of country. Specimens in the 

 collection of the Survey show that the bituminous matter which 

 causes the combustible quality of the shale is due entirely to the 

 immense quantities of spore-cases present, which under the micro- 



