﻿I860.] 



BR0DIE LIASSIC CORALS. 



151 



the east far out into the German Ocean, as we know by the Bell 

 Rock. We have tracts of the Old Red, more or less continuous, 

 along the shores of Aberdeenshire, Banffshire, Moray, Nairn, Inver- 

 ness, Cromarty, and Caithness — covering this entire county and then 

 grasping all the Orkneys in its wide embrace, and stretching out even 

 to the remote Shetlands. 



It is quite possible that some of the Old Red beds north, of the 

 Grampians were laid down contemporaneously with the beds to the 

 south, and therefore that we have in the respective faunas or floras 

 of both a life existing in the same era, but placed in different regions 

 and in somewhat different conditions. But, even after this reduction 

 of the vertical depth of the entire system, there would yet remain 

 two great divisions, an Upper and a LoAver, which cannot be put 

 into parallel ages. If our interpretation of the obscure vegetable 

 remains and the sea-shore-markings be correct, we have, from the 

 very commencement of the era of the Old Red Sandstone, indications 

 of the existence of land-surfaces ; while in the waters there was such 

 an abundance of piscine life as to mark the period, throughout, as one 

 of the most memorable in the past history of our globe. 



January 9, 1861. 



William Charles Lucy, Esq., Gloucester ; Robert Dukinfield Dar- 

 bishire, Esq., B.A., 1 Heald Grove, Rusholme, Manchester • George 

 Charles Wallich, M.D., 17 Campden Hill Road, Kensington, were 

 elected Eellows. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. On the Distribution of the Corals in the Lias. By the Rev. P. B. 

 Brodie, M.A., F.G.S. 



[Abstract.] 



From observations made by himself and others, the author was en- 

 abled to give the following notes : — In the Upper Lias some Corals 

 of the genera Thecocyathus and Trochocyathus occur. The Middle 

 Lias of Byfield, Northamptonshire, and Ilminster, Somersetshire, has 

 yielded a few Corals. The uppermost band of the Lower Lias, viz. 

 the zone with Ammonites raricostatus and Hippopodium ponderosum, 

 contains a Thecocyathus, numerous at Cheltenham and Honeybourne 

 in Gloucestershire ; and a Monilivaltia in considerable abundance at 

 Down Atherley in Gloucestershire, at Fenny Compton in Warwick- 

 shire, and more rare at Aston Magna in Worcestershire, and at Kilsby 

 Tunnel in Northamptonshire. The middle members of the Lower 

 Lias appear to be destitute of Corals. In the zone with Ammonites 

 Bucklandi, called also the Lima-beds, a GladophyUia is found at 

 Down Hatherley and Bushley in Gloucestershire ; and in the same 

 beds at Inkberrow, Evesham, Binton, Wilmcote, and Harbiuy, in 



m 2 



