50G PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Jlllie 17, 



June 17, 1863. 



Frederick George Finch, Esq., B.A., Tudor House, Blackheath, 

 was elected a Fellow. 



M. Boucher de Perthes, of Abbeville ; Dr. M. Homes, Keeper of 

 the Imperial Mineral Cabinet of Vienna ; M. N. von Kokscharow, 

 of St. Petersburg; M. S. Loven, of Stockholm; General della 

 Marmora, President of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of Turin ; 

 F. A. Graf Marschall von Burgholzhausen, Archivist of the Imperial 

 Geological Institute of Yienna ; M. H. Nyst, of Antwerp ; Dr. F. 

 A. Quenstedt, Professor of Geology at the University of Tubingen ; 

 Dr. F. Senft, of Eisenach ; Prof. Edouard Suess, of the University of 

 Vienna ; Dr. B. F. Shumard, of Louisville ; and the Marquis de Vi- 

 braye, of Paris and Abbeville, were elected Foreign Correspondents. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. On the Relations of the Ross-shire Sandstones containing Repti- 

 lian Footprints. By the Rev. George Gordon, LL.D., and the 

 Rev. J. M. Jo ass. With an Introduction by Sir R. I. Murchison, 

 K.C.B., F.R.S., F.G.S.* 



[Communicated by Sir R. I. Murchison, K.C.B., &c] 



In the introduction Sir R. I. Murchison gave a sketch of the geology 

 of the Tarbatness promontory, which is composed of variously 

 coloured sandstones, having a conformable dip to the N.W. In 

 these strata the authors had found footprints f (of animals believed 

 to be Reptiles) similar to those found in the sandstones on the coast 

 of Elgin ; and it was therefore desirable to prove whether these 

 rocks really belonged to the Palaeozoic series, or, as some geologists 

 suppose with regard to the Elgin sandstones, to the Trias. In 

 order to solve this problem, if possible, the Rev. Mr. Joass made a 

 careful survey of the coast from Geanies to Tarbatness Lighthouse, 

 and round along the north shore of the promontory to the inlet at 

 Inver ; and he found a conformable succession between the undoubted 

 Old Red Sandstone of Geanies and the track-bearing sandstone of 

 Tarbatness. 



The Rev. Dr. Gordon gave a description of the various tracks : 

 the smaller kind were referred by him to an unknown Crustacean ; 

 the larger and more definite impressions, however, he considered to 

 be the footsteps of some kind of Reptile. He also stated, as con- 

 firmatory of the ' Old Red ' age of the beds, that the Oolitic beds of 

 Shandwick are unconformable to the Old Red Sandstone. 



Mr. Joass then described the beds and their stratigraphical rela- 

 tions as follows : — In a paper published in the ' Transactions of the 



* The description of the beds by Mr. Joass, and a statement of their relation 

 to the Oolitic deposits by Dr. Gordon, are given in full, the Introduction and 

 the remainder of the paper in abstract. 



f Footprints in the Tarbatness Sandstones were first discovered by the Rev. G. 

 Campbell, in the summer of 1862. 



