MlSCiiLLANEA. 3l 



feel it due to myself to bring the followirLg points before their 

 Members. 



The paper consists of charges against me founded upon the 

 lines now quoted : — 



" In 1873 the writer found broken fragments of this shell in a bed of grit 

 near the base of the Lower Bernician (or Carboniferous Limestone) series, 

 near Holystone, in Northumberland. In June, 1876, more perfect specimens 

 were obtained by Mr. Ralph Waldie, of Doddington, an intelligent quarry- 

 man, in sandstone occupying a somewhat similar position to the above, near 

 Chillingham. The writer saw these specimens in the late Mr. Wightman's 

 collection at Wooler a day or two after their discovery. The Holystone 

 specimens are in the Jermyn Street Museum. The interest of this find lies 

 in the fact that the beds which this shell characterizes in Ireland belong to 

 the Upper Old Red or Kiltorcan series, an horizon which in the North of 

 England has usually been paralleled with the lower portion of the Tuedian 

 beds, sometimes known as the Upper Old Red Conglomerate. Near Chill- 

 ingham Ancdonta Jukesii is of more elegant and elongated form than the 

 Irish type, and occurs associated with many plant-remains." 



This paragraph appeared as an Appendix to the " Catalogue of 

 the ITutton Collection of Fossil Plants,''^ published early in 1878 

 by the jN^orth of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical 

 Engineers, and its only object was to call attention to the co-ex- 

 istence of the freshwater shell mentioned with Ulodendron at a 

 certain horizon in the Lower Carboniferous Eocks of the North of 

 England. It was in no sense regarded or meant by me as a claim 

 to the discovery of the fossil, the interest of the matter being en- 

 tirely centred upon the fact of the find and in no wise upon that 

 of the time or manner of it. In a little book entitled " Outlines 

 of the Geology of Northumberland" and published in October, 

 1878, I took care to give a reference to the notice of the discovery 

 which had by that time been printed in the Transactions of the 

 Eield Club and E'atural History Society, this reference being, it 

 may be remarked in passing, but one out of six or seven made in 

 that book to papers by Mr. E. Howse. 



With regard to the paragraph as quoted above I have only to 

 say that the date '1876' is an error — an error of no importance 

 in a note which was not a claim of priority, but one which I 

 deeply regret having made, since it has rendered the present ex- 

 planation on my part necessary. It was, in fact, on the evening 



