114 



A letter was next read from Woodbine Parish, Esq., addressed to 

 George Bellas Greenough, Esq., P.G.S., accompanying a suite of 

 specimens from the neighbourhood of Bognor. 



The collection, referred to in ihis letter, contained a series of all 

 the fossils hitherto described as occurring in the Bognor Rock, and 

 a suite of specimens of Choa?iites Kcenigii obtained from the rolled 

 shingle on the beach. Mr. Parish also points out for the first time 

 the existence of chalk on the shore opposite Felpham, between high 

 and low water mark. He states that it may be traced for upwards 

 of a mile in the direction of Middleton j that at the point where it 

 first appears, it is hard and thickly interspersed with flints, but that 

 further on it becomes soft and the flints are less numerous. Mr. 

 Parish procured from it many of the characteristic chalk fossils. He 

 states also that near Middleton, chalk marl has been long dug at 

 low water. 



A notice on the want of perpendicularity of the standing pillars 

 of the Temple of Jupiter Serapis near Naples, by Capt. Basil Hall, 

 R.N., F.G.S., was afterwards read. 



Capt. Hall observes that the three pillars of the Temple of Serapis 

 now standing, each of which is formed of a single piece of stone, are 

 not strictly perpendicular, but all slope towards the south-west, that 

 is, towards the sea, and from the temple where the statue of Jupiter 

 is supposed to have stood. It is well known the columns of ancient 

 Greek temples, the Parthenon for instance, have an inclination in- 

 wards. The slope of the columns in that of Serapis is not great, 

 but very decided, and was established by measurement and by ob- 

 servations on the angle formed by the reflection of the columns in 

 the water, which covers the pavement of the temple at hieh tides. 

 The floor of the temple is also slightly inclined, for Capt. Hall ob- 

 served, that on the recession of the tide, the northern side was left 

 dry, when the water was still some inches deep on the southern 

 side. 



January 21. — Edward William Bray ley, Esq., F.L.S., Librarian 

 to the London Institution, was elected a Fellow of this Society. 



A paper was first read " On an outlying basin of Lias on the bor- 

 ders of Salop and Cheshire, with a short account of the lower Lias 

 between Gloucester and Worcester," by Roderick Impey Murchison, 

 Esq., V.P.G.S. 



Having heard from Mr. Dod of Cleverly that frequent trials for 

 coal had been made in a part of North Salop situated between the 

 Hawkstone Hills and thet owns of Whitchurch and Market Dray- 

 ton, the author visited that district during the autumn of last year. 

 He found that the strata, supposed to be coal shale, belong to the 

 lias, and that they range over a considerable area resting upon red 

 marl and new red sandstone. With the assistance of the Rev. T. 

 Egerton, F.G.S., he has ascertained that this lias occupies an ellip- 

 tical basin, the length of which from S. W. to N. E. is 10 miles, and 

 the breadth about 4 to 6, the surrounding strata dipping inwards at 



