Geological Society of London. 41 



of strangers who now (1863) visit Amiens and Abbeville, attracted 

 by the general interest which the subject has of late years 

 excited. The supply of genuine implements proved insufficient, 

 and the natural result followed. Considering the facility with which 

 counterfeits can be made, half a franc per liaclie would upon a con- 

 siderable sale be amply remunerative, apart from the larger sum 

 derived from specimens professing to occur in situ " {ibid, p. 613). 



A better argument in favour of the human origin of these imple- 

 ments than their now being successfully reproduced by human, 

 though fraudulent, agency can hardly be conceived. 



As regards the selection of such names for criticism as those 

 of Sir Charles Lyell and Sir John Lubbock, it seems both necessary 

 and expedient to a man of the Eobinson type that he should associate 

 his unknown name with those of men of mark and high repute ; 

 but peacocks' feathers do not conceal the jackdaw beneath ; and the 

 character of lion sits as ill on the author as it did on Snug the Joiner 

 in Midsummer Night's Dream. Indeed, the part played by our 

 author is very much like Snug's, " for it is nothing but roaring." 



Geologial Society of London. — Nov. 22, 1871. — The Eev, 

 Thomas Wiltshire, M.A., F.L.S., in the Chair. The following com- 

 munications were read : — 



1. "Notes on some Fossils from the Devonian Eocks of the 

 Witzenberg Plats, Cape Colony." By Prof. T. Eupert Jones, F.G.S. 



In this paper the author noticed some Devonian fossils like those 

 of the Bokkeveld, found on Mr. Louw's farm on the Witzenberg 

 Plats, Tulbagh. Orihoceras vittatiim, Sandberger, was added to the 

 South- African list of fossils. The fossils under notice were stated 

 by the author to help to substantiate the late Dr. Eubidge's view, 

 that the old schists termed " Silurian" by Bain are of Devonian age, 

 and continuous across the Colony. Their presence in the Witzenberg 

 Plats was also shown to be conclusive against the idea of Coal- 

 measures being found there. 



Discussion. — Mr. Godwin-Austen remarked that the presumed Devonian species 

 of South Africa appeared not to have been completely identified with those of 

 European origin. Although, judging from the range of European marine moUusca, 

 some of which were found of precisely the same species both in Europe and at the 

 Cape, there was nothing surprising in the extension of any old deposit, yet it seemed 

 unreasonable to suppose that the whole district over which the wide-spread Devonian 

 rocks extend could have been submerged at the same time. He traced the original 

 foundation of the Devonian system to the late Mr. Lonsdale, who, in the fossils found 

 in the deposits of Devonshire, thought he traced sufficient grounds for a marked dis- 

 crimination between those beds and those of Carboniferous age. Mr. Austen had, 

 however, always regarded the Devonian system as merely an older member of the 

 Carboniferous, holding much the same relation to it as the Neocomian to the Cre- 

 taceous ; and he would be glad to see it recognized, not as an independent system, 

 bat merely as the introduction of that far more important system the Carboniferous, 

 during the deposit of which the globe was subject to the same physiographical 

 conditions. 



Mr. Etheridge did not agree with Mr. Austen as to the suppression of the nameof 

 Devonian system, and commented on its wide-spread distribution, and on the peculiar 



