234 Reports and Proceedings — 



Island). In forty years (1780) it was believed to have been entirely 

 extirpated. It was a toothless Herbivore, living along the shore in 

 shallow water, and Avas easily taken, being without fear of man. Its 

 flesh was good, and it weighed often as much as 3 or 4 tons. 



The author then described some of the leading points in the 

 anatomy of Bhijtina, and indicated some of the characters by which 

 the order is distinguished. He referred to the present wide dis- 

 tribution of the Sirenia: — Manatus with three species, namely, M. 

 latirostris, occupying the shores of Florida and the West Indies ; 

 M. americanus, the coasts of Brazil and the great rivers Amazon 

 and Orinoco ; M. senegalensis, the West Coast of Africa and the rivers 

 Senegal, Congo, etc. Halicore with three species, namely, H. taher- 

 oiaculi, the Red Sea and East coast of Africa; H. dugong, Bay of 

 Bengal and East Indies ; H. australis, North and East Australia. 



The fossil forms number thirteen genera and twenty-nine species, 

 all limited to England, Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, 

 Italy, Malta, and Egypt, and to the United States and Jamaica. 



The author noticed the dentition of the fossil species, of which 

 Halitlieriimi and Frorastomus are the two most remarkable types. 



Lastly, with regard to the geographical area, occupied at the 

 present day by the Sirenia, the author pointed out that two lines 

 drawn 30° N. and 30° South of the Equator, will embrace all the 

 species now found living. Another line drawn at 60° N. will show 

 between 30° and 60° N. the area occupied by the fossil species. 



He looked upon Hhytina as a last surviving species of the old 

 Tertiary group of Sirenians, and its position as marking an " outlier " 

 of the group now swept away. The greater northern extension of 

 the group seems good evidence of the once warmer climate enjoyed 

 by Europe, Asia, and America in the Tertiary epoch. 



II. — German Geological Society. 



The following is an abstract of a paper " On the Limits of the 

 Zeohstein Formation and of the Dyas in General,"^ by Geh. 

 Hofrath Professor Dr. H. B. Geinitz, etc., read before the 

 German Geological Society in September, 1884. 



1. The Upper Limit of the Zechatein Formation. — The uppermost 

 member of the Zechstein is defined as the " Plattendolomit " with 

 Schizodus Schlotheimi (Gein.), AuceUa liausmanni (Goldf.), and a 

 few other rarer fossils ; not the overlying Bunterschiefer of Murchison 

 or the so-called upper variegated shales (Z. o. 3) of the maps of the 

 Geological Surveys of Saxony and Prussia. Extensive erosion of 

 the upper beds of the Plattendolomit produces a general discordancy 

 between them and the overlying shales and thin-bedded sandstones ; 

 it is only where this is not observable or is observable to only 

 a slight extent that anything like concordancy between them is to 

 be observed. The published works of previous observers (Gutbier, 

 Naumann, von Cotta, and Emmrich) are quoted as establishing these 

 facts. The author then proceeds to describe additional sections 



^ See Nova Acta Acad. Leopoldina xxi. 1885. 



