204 proceedings of the geological society. [jail. 25, 



Jantjaey 25, 1865. 



William Grjils Adams, Esq., M.A., Fellow of St. John's College, 

 Cambridge, Lecturer on Natural Philosoj)hy in King's College, 

 London ; and Capt. Stewart Smyth Windham, 14 Connanght Place, 

 W., were elected Fellows. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. On the Climate of the Pleistocene Epoch in New Zealand. By 

 Julius Haast, Ph.D., F.G.S. 



[This paper was printed in No. 82, p. 135, by order of the Council.] 



2. On the Order of Succession in the Drift-beds of the Island of 

 Arran. By James Bryce, M.A., LL.D,, F.G.S. 



The island of Arran has long been celebrated for the number of 

 rock-formations, sedimentary and plutonic, which it contains, and 

 for the varied relations in which they are displayed. A new interest 

 has lately been imparted to it by the discovery of fossils in its super- 

 ficial beds. Deep accumulations of clay, gravel, and sand had long 

 been known to exist in its southern glens ; but no one had examined 

 them, either in the hope of finding fossils or with the view of 

 woi'king out an order of succession among the beds. 



The fossils are shells chiefly of Arctic species ; and the fortunate 

 discoverer was the Rev. E.. B. Watson, of Edinburgh. An account 

 of the discovery was laid by him before the Eoyal Society of Edin- 

 burgh, on the 4th of January, 1864, and pubhshed in brief abs- 

 tract in the ' Proceedings ' of the Society in April of that year. 

 The paper itself did not appear until five months later*. From this 

 abstract, which came into my hands soon after its publication, it 

 appeared that the entire mass of beds, often above 100 feet thick, 

 was designated as Boulder-clay, and that the shells were not as- 

 signed to any particular place in the deposit. Now as this -vdew 

 was opposed to that which I held in common with most geologists , 

 of the west of Scotland, namely, that the entii-e mass of beds ought 

 not to be embraced in one term " Boulder-clay," and that the Arctic 

 shells have a peculiar position, I was anxious to examine the Arran 

 beds for myself, in order to test the accuracy of the view, under the 

 favourable circumstance of having a district wholly isolated from 

 connexion with any other. It is but justice to Mr. Watson to 

 say that whet I mentioned to him my intention of visiting Arran 

 in order to examine the beds, he at once, in the most frank and 

 cordial manner, made known to me all the locaHties in which he 

 had found the shells, and gave me other information which saved 

 me much time and labour on my first visit in May last. I foimd in 

 a few hours ten of the seventeen species discovered by Mr. Watson. 



* " On the Great Drift-beds with Shells in the South of AiTan," by the 

 Eev. Robert Boog Watson, B.A., F.R.S.E.,Trans. R.S.E. vol. xxiii. part 3. 



