458 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 2, 



Conclusion. — Having thus pointed ont that, judging from these 

 specimens ohtained at Chellaston, the minute Nodosarince and other 

 Foraminifera of the Triassic period have continued to exist through 

 the intermediate ages to the present day without losing any of their 

 essentially specific features, we will observe that the Nodosarice 

 are present in rocks of still greater age than the Trias — namely, the 

 Permian and Carboniferous, and probably even the Lower Silurian. 

 Nodosarice and Dentalince abound in some of the Permian limestones 

 of Durham and the Wetterau in company with Teoatularice. Nodo- 

 saria occurs also in the Carboniferous Limestone of Ireland, according 

 to M'Coy ; and the green sand of the Lower Silurian series near 

 St. Petersburg has yielded to Ehrenberg casts of chambers something 

 like those of Dentalina, together with unmistakeable casts of Tex- 

 tularian and Rotalian shells. We may remark, too, that the Fusidina 

 of the Russian, North American, and Arctic Mountain-limestone 

 carries back the pedigree of the Nonionina-gvoup to the palaeozoic 

 periods, and that it is accompanied with other Foraminifera of known 

 types, amongst which the Nummulina is not absent. This last-named 

 type has rare representatives in the Lias and the Oolite ; it acquired 

 great potency in the Tertiary seas, and is not extinct now. 



Altogether we have here some remarkable instances of the per- 

 sistency of life-types among the lower animals. Though the specific 

 relations of the Palaeozoic Foraminifera require further elucidation, 

 we feel certain that the 6 genera represented in this Upper Triassic 

 clay of Chellaston by about 30 varieties stand really in the place of 

 ancestral representatives of certain existing Foraminifera, that they 

 put on their several subspecific features in accordance with the con- 

 ditions of then' place of growth, just as their posterity now do, and 

 that although we have in this instance met with only the minute 

 forms of a 700-fathoms mud-bottom, yet elsewhere the contempo- 

 raneous fuller development of these specific types may be found by 

 careful search in other and shallower-water deposits of the Trias 

 period. 



May 2, 1860. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. On the Physical Relations of the Reptiliferous Sandstone near 

 Elgin. By the Rev. W. S. Symonds, F.GKS. 



[This paper was withdrawn, by permission of the Council.] 

 (Abstract.) 

 Referring to Sir R. Murchison's sections of the Elgin district, pub- 

 lished in the Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. No. 59, pp. 424 and 428, 

 which show a conformable sequence of strata from the Old Red 

 Sandstone of Eoths to the yellow sandstone and cornstone of Lossie- 

 mouth and Burgh Head, the author first stated that the siliceous 

 marly rocks, or so-called " cornstones " of Glassgreen, Linksfield, 



