(82 &EOLOGX AND MINEEALOGY. 



vinced would have met every exigency of the case ; and under careful 

 supervision and due watchfulness against lire, if properly construct- 

 ed, -would have been free from all the objection as to flexure, and 

 consequent decay, which Mr. Stephenson urges against wood as 

 applied to suspension bridges, and would have endured until a more 

 complete development of the railway traffic might warrant the 

 enormous expenditure now being incurred ; — thus saving a present 

 outlay of upwards of £300,000. 



A. B. 



SCIENTIFIC AND LITEKAET NOTES. 



GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY 



NEW CRCSTACKANS FROM THE SILURIAN ROCKS OF SCOTLAND. 



The February Number of the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of 

 London, contains a series of papers of much interest on several new forms of Crus- 

 tacea from the Parish of Lesmahago in Lanarkshire. These were discovered by 

 Mr. Robert Slimon. The beds in which they occur have been examined by Sir 

 Roderick Murchison and Professor Ramsay, who consider them to belong to the top 

 band of the Upper Silurians — the equivalents of the " Tilestones " or Upper Ludlow 

 series, previously unrecognised in that part of the country. The fossils discovered 

 by Mr. Slimon have many apparent affinities with Eurypterus or Pterygotus. As 

 shewn by Mr. Salter, however, they constitute no less than five distinct species of 

 a new genus, named by him, Himantoptcrus, from the peculiar thong-like aspect 

 of the swimming feet. The eyes are apparently situated on the extreme lateral 

 margin of the anterior portion of the head-shield : a character serving to distinguish 

 these new forms very readily from Eurypteri, which, otherwise, in general appear- 

 ance they much resemble. Of the chelate antenna?, however, there appears to have 

 been only a single pair. The largest of the discovered species is considered to have 

 been at least three feet in length. Professor Huxley has appended some very able 

 remarks to Mr. Salter's descriptions, in which he points out many striking relations 

 between this new genus Himantopterus, and a particular section of the Stomapods 

 on the one hand, and certain larval forms of Macroura (the " zoaja" of a few years' 

 back) on the other. Amongst the Lanarkshire specimens also, discovered by Mr. 

 Slimon, were some very complete forms of the genus Crratiocaris of M'Coy. pre- 

 viously very imperfectly known 



ASAPHUS CANADENSIS. 



Specimens of Asaphus platycephalus — the Isotelus gigas of many authors, are well 

 known to abound amongst the trilobites from the Utica Schist of Whitby, Port Hope, 

 Ac, in Canada West. After Triarthrus Beclcii, the species in question is perhaps 

 the most abundant fossil of these localities. The principal feature in Asaphus platy- 



