forms the east side of Plymouth Sound, as well as the western side 

 from Mount Edgcombe to Pudding Point, animal remains are im- 

 bedded in the slate. On the eastern side the superior beds are occa- 

 sionally of an ochreous clay-slate containing thin veins of iron with 

 trochites and stems of encrinites : these are associated with some 

 peculiar fossil remains, resembling the head of some plant or animal. 

 The lower beds consist of compact white or light gray slate inclo- 

 sing remains like those found in the limestone and slate. An iron- 

 stone bed occurs here which is used for pavements, and fragments 

 of the same animal relics are discoverable in it : a great fissure in 

 the cliff develops fossils of a new character, the nature of which 

 has not been determined. 



From the above facts the author infers, that the slate which is 

 prolonged beyond the Plymouth limestone, even as far southward 

 as Whitesand Bay, is not primitive: but he remarks that he has 

 never perceived animal remains in the slate north of that limestone. 



Extracts were read from letters from Captain Franklin, R.N. and 

 Dr. Richardson, to Dr. Fitton, V.P.G.S. dated 5th of November, 

 1825, at Fort Franklin, on the Great Bear Lake, North America. 

 Lat. 65° 12' N. ; long. 123° 5' W. 



Capt. Franklin states, that the expedition under his command 

 had been so much favoured by the season of 1825, as to have ac- 

 complished some objects which he scarcely hoped to have attained 

 within that time. Of these the most important were his having 

 reached the sea in latitude 69° 29', and longitude 135° 40'; and 

 having been enabled to see the direction of the coast, both east and 

 west from the mouth of the Mackenzie River : — and while he was 

 thus engaged on the Mackenzie, Dr. Richardson went round the 

 northern shore of the Great Bear Lake, for the purpose of becoming 

 acquainted with that part of it to which his course is to be directed 

 in returning from the mouth of the Copper Mine River. — Capt. 

 Franklin gives a general account of the structure of the tract on the 

 course of the Mackenzie, through which he had passed ; and Dr. 

 Richardson describes the principal physical and geological features 

 of the country traversed by the expedition, — the total distance being 

 about 5100 miles. — The party, at the date of the letters, were es- 

 tablished in their winter quarters. 



Nov. 17. — A notice was read " On some beds associated with the 

 magnesian limestone, and on some fossil fish found in them," by the 

 Rev. Adam Sedgwick, Woodwardian Professor, F.G.S. 



This notice professes to be an abstract of a longer paper hereafter 

 to be presented to the Society. (1.) It first describes a deposit 

 which extends through Yorkshire and Durham, and separates the 

 magnesian limestone from the coal measures. This is principally 

 composed of sand and sandstone: but in one or two instances red 

 marl and gypsum have been found associated with it. Its general 

 character in Yorkshire is intermediate between the gritstone of the 

 carboniferous order, and the harder beds of the new-red-sandstone. 

 In the county of Durham it is said to appear in the form of a yel- 

 low incoherent sand of very variable thickness, which throws very 



