580 Reports and Proceedings. 



raneous, must be referred to the Lower Carboniferous. Hence be 

 argued that the line of separation between the Carboniferous and 

 Devonian formations must be drawn below the Yellow Sandstones. 

 The presence of fishes of Old-Eed-Sandstone type in the overlying 

 slates he regarded as furnishing no argument to invalidate this con- 

 clusion. The Sandstones of Parry Island and Melville Island are 

 also regarded by the author as belongiug to the '' Ursa-stage," which, 

 by these additions, presents us with a flora of seventy-seven species 

 of plants. The author remarked upon the singularity of plants of 

 the same species having lived in regions so widely separated as to 

 give them a range of 26|^° of latitude, . and indicated the relations 

 of such a luxuriant and abundant vegetation in high northern 

 latitudes to necessary changes in climate and in the distribution of 

 land and water. 



Discussion. — Sir Charles Lyell remarked that the Yellow Sandstones of Dura Den 

 in Fife, and of the county of Cork in Ireland, contain Glyptolepis and Asterolepis, 

 genera of fish exclusively Devonian, or belonging to the middle parts of the Old Eed 

 Sandstone — also the genus Coccosteus, which is abundantly represented in the Middle 

 Old Red Sandstone, and sparingly, or only by one species, in the Carboniferous 

 formation. The evidence derived from these fishes inclined him to the belief that the 

 Yellow Sandstone, whether in Ireland or Fife, should be referred to the Upper 

 Devonian, and not to the Lower Carboniferous, as Sir Richard Griffiths contended, 

 and as Heer now thinks. 



As to the argument founded on the plants, he considered it an important and 

 truly wonderful announcement, that many well-known Carboniferous species are 

 common to Bear Island (in lat. 74° 30' N.), in the Arctic regions, and to Ireland and 

 other parts of Europe (26° of latitude further south). But fossil plants are supposed 

 to have a wider range in space and time than fossil fish ; and we know that the 

 cryptogamic flora of the ancient coal is remarkable for the wide horizontal spread of 

 the same species, extending from North America to Europe, so that we need not be 

 surprised if many species should extend vertically from the Devonian into the Car- 

 boniferous strata. 



Mr. Carruthers remarked on the bearing of the paper on the Kiltorkan beds, and 

 considered that Dr. Heer had completely established the correlation of the deposits. 

 He differed, however, as to the numerical proportions of the species. He could not 

 recognize Cydostigma as a genus, but considered it founded on insufficient grounds, 

 in which view Prof. Haughton now agreed. It was, in fact, founded on fragments of 

 the bark of Lepidodendron Griffithsii, Brongniart, to which species the Lepidodendron 

 indicated by Prof. Heer as L. Veltheimianum, really belonged. Other detached 

 portions of this same plant had been described by various authors under no less than 

 seven different specific names,- and referred to nearly an equal number of distinct 

 genera ; and Prof. Heer had reckoned these as species in his comparison of the Bear- 

 Island and Irish floras. Prof. Heer had been led, chiefly by the erroneous determi- 

 nation of the Kiltorkan Lepidodendron by the Irish palseontologists, to refer these 

 beds to the Carboniferous rather than to the Devonian formation, the Kiltorkan fossil 

 having been established as a very distinct species by Brongniart and Schimper. Mr. 

 Carruthers considered that both the Irish and Bear-Island deposits belonged to the 

 Devonian. 



Mr. Boyd Dawkins pointed out that the proximity of land was exhibited by the 

 presence of terrestrial plants in the deposits, and believed that this might have much 

 to do with the difference in the proportion in the beds. As the marine fauna decayed 

 more rapidly than the teiTestrial, it was preferable for classificatory purposes. He 

 mentioned forms of vegetable life which had been recently discovered in America in 

 beds of Cretaceous age. He did not believe that corals could have existed in those 

 high latitudes under anything approaching to the present condition. Prof. Nor- 

 denskj old had failed to discover any traces of glacial action in these beds; and the 

 question arose whether there had been any change in the position of the Pole or in 

 the radiated heat of the sun. 



