Aj^niversauy address of the president. XXXIX 



Professor Huxley communicates a letter from Dr. Buuzel, of 

 Vienna, giving an account of a skull of Cretaceous age, belonging to 

 a new order of reptiles with bird-like heads, for which the author 

 proposed the name of OmithocepJiala. 



Messrs. Hancock and Howse describe a new Labyrinthodont am- 

 phibian from the Magnesian Limestone of Durham, and a new 

 Proteroscmrus (P. Huxleyi) from the marl-slate of the same district, 

 associated with the P. Speneri. They also announce the discovery 

 in the same rock of specimens of that peculiar fish the Dorypterus 

 Hofmanni, showing the ventral fins and hetcrocercal tail. 



A very interesting palseontological discovery has also been made 

 by Mr. Maw of a fine skull of a Labyrinthodont in the middle of the 

 Coalbrook-Dale Coal-measures. 



Mr. H. Woodward has drawn attention to some new Crustaceans, 

 including a species of the curious Secondary genus Palceocorystes, and 

 also to two new forms referable to the family of Portanidse, in the 

 lower beds of the London Clay of Portsmouth, of which the sec- 

 tion has been described by Mr. Meyer. Mr. Carruthers has de- 

 scribed a silicified fern-stem, probably from the sands under the 

 London Clay at Heme Bay. In structure this specimen agrees most 

 closely with the living Osmunda regalis. The minutest structure of 

 the original specimen is preserved in a remarkable manner, even 

 showing the starch-grains and the delicate mycelium of a fungus 

 contained in its cells. 



Colonial and Fot^eign Geology. 



"We have had some excellent papers on Colonial Geology ; and we 

 are especially indebted to our correspondents in South Africa. 



Dr. Sutherland describes an ancient Boulder-clay in Natal. It is 

 an argillaceous deposit with boulders, reposing upon old sandstones, 

 the surface of which is often deeply grooved and striated. He con- 

 siders that this deposit may possibly be of Permian age, 



Mr. G. W, Stow describes the Jurassic beds (with their Trigonia- 

 limestones) and the Saliferous beds of Uitenhage, between the Cape 

 and Natal. These are succeeded by Tertiary deposits, the newer 

 of which follow the coast-line, and run in raised terraces up the 

 river-valleys — the one being characterized by a large Panopcea, 

 and the other by a species of Akera. The Karoo formation of the 

 Stormberg, which is of Triassic age, with its plant-beds and Bicyno- 

 dont fossils, are described in another memoir. The present sur- 

 face-conditions of this part of the interior Mr. Stow considers espe- 



