XXXVni PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



there is a perfect physical gradation between the first two. He 

 considers that the New Red Sandstone and New Eed Marl were 

 formed in inland waters — the latter in a salt lake of great extent. 

 These conditions, and the abundance and peculiar condition of the 

 oxide of iron, would, Prof.Eamsay thinks, be in accordance with those 

 chemical characters of the waters, while he considers that the fossU 

 footprints occurring in these beds are evidences of the absence of 

 tides in the waters. He gives stratigraphical and palseontological 

 reasons in proof of the New Eed Marl being more closely related 

 to the Rhsetic beds, and even to the Lias than to the Bunter, and 

 traces the sequence of events during the accumulation of these 

 several formations. 



Palceozoic and MetamorpMc RocTcs. 



From Dr. Nicholson we have a paper on a part of the " Lower 

 Green-slates and Porphyries" of the Lake district. They were so 

 named by Prof. Sedgwick, and underlie his Skiddaw Slates. Over 

 these are felspathic rocks, succeeded by a series of ash-beds, brec- 

 cias, and amygdaloids, which are often worked as slates. 



Mr. Jamieson divides the older rocks of Banffshire into three 

 groups : — first, a lower arenaceous series more or less altered by 

 metamorphic action into quartz-rock, gneiss, and mica-schist ; next, 

 a series of clay slates, with a subordinate bed of limestone ,; thirdly, 

 an upper group of arenaceous strata. A main object of his commu- 

 nication is to give his reasons for considering that the granites of 

 Banffshire are due to the fusion and reerystallization of the arena- 

 ceous beds. 



Palceontology . 



In tlie palseontological papers, — 



Mr. Busk has pointed out that the Oreston fissure-cavern Ehino- 

 ceros is not the JR. tichorJiinus, but R, leptorJiinus. 



Three species cf Elephant are now ascertained to have lived in 

 Malta during the Cave-period. Dr. Caruana draws attention to the 

 abundance of their remains in a particular part of the island, in- 

 cluding one new locality. 



Mr. Hulke has described an Ichthyosaurus supposed to have been 

 found in the Isle of Gozo ; and if so, it is the first one discovered in 

 beds of Tertiary (Eocene ?) age. He has also described two species 

 of Plesiosaurus from the Kimmeridge Clay of Dorsetshire ; one of 

 these is a slender-necked species 16 feet in length, and with Plio- 

 saurian-like limbs, which are much larger, compared with the whole 

 length, than those of the typical Liassic forms of this genus. 



