PROCEEDINGS 



OF 



THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



Vol. XL 1835—1836. No. 42. 



Nov, 7, 1835. — The Society assembled this evening for the Session. 



William Sisson, Esq., of Parliament-street; and William Forster, 

 Esq., of Bridport, were elected Fellov^^s. 



A paper was first read, entitled "A notice on the Fossil Beaks of 

 four extinct species of Fishes, referrible to the genus Chimsera, which 

 occur in the oolitic and cretaceous formations of England," by the 

 Rev, William Buckland, D,D,, F.G.S., &c. 



About six years ago, Sir Philip Egerton procured from the Kim- 

 meridge clay of Shotover Hill, near Oxford, five fossil bodies of most 

 curious configuration, in some degree resembling beaks of cuttle-fishes 

 and turtles, but not reducible to any known form in either of these 

 families. In 1832 the Rev, C.Townsend of Great Milton, Oxfordshire, 

 discovered in the Portland stone of that village another series of bones, 

 resembling those found in the Kimmeridge clay, but very much larger, 

 and evidently of a different species. In Mr. Mantell's collection are 

 also three similar bones, one from the chalk marl of Hamsey, and two 

 from the chalk near Lewes, but belonging to two other distinct spe- 

 cies of the same genus*. 



After fruitless research through the best collections in London, the 

 author showed his specimens, but in vain, to some of the most distin- 

 guished anatomists of Germany, at the meeting of the Naturforscher 

 at Bonn in September last. Professor Carus made the nearest ap- 

 proximation to their true nature, by suggesting that the two smaller 

 bones might be the beaks of a Tetrodon. 



In pursuance of this suggestion, Dr. Buckland compared his fossils 

 with the Tetrodons in several museums on the Continent, but with 

 no successful result. At last, in the museum at Leyden, he found a 

 skeleton of the Chimaera, and immediately perceived in the upper and 

 lower jaws of this fish the object of his long research. The two in- 

 termaxillary bones corresponded with the pair of fossil tooth. like bones 

 from the Kimmeridge clay; the superior maxillary bones corresponded 

 with a second pair of bones from the same clay ; and the inferior max- 

 illary bones presented the form of the inferior maxillary bones of the 



* Since the above communication was read, M. Agassiz has found, in the 

 collection of G. B. Greenough, Esq., and in the Museum of the Geological 

 Society, I'emains of two other species. The specimen in the possession of 

 the Society was procured from the gault near Cambridge. 



VOL. 11. S 



