.376 MISCELLANEA. 



Wightman of Wooler, which has recently been figured in the 

 Berwick Transactions, but the surfaces were so weathered that 

 it was impossible to determine without breaking a piece off what 

 rock it was, but it had much the ai)pearancc of porphyry. Many 

 also have been found on the Mica-Schist of Argyle, and these 

 occur chiefly, as I think they also do in ]N"orthumberland and near 

 Ilkley, on glaciated surfaces, and if this observation can be veri- 

 fied, it goes far to prove their natural origin and remote antiquity. 

 The fact that the pattern of these circles is often crossed by hard 

 veins which interfere with the continuity of the grooves and 

 sometimes render a circle imperfect is perhaps the strongest 

 proof that can be offered of their natural origin, and the figures 

 referred to above, especially those from the ncighboiu'hood of 

 Loch Gilphead, occurring as they do on glaciated Mica-Scliist 

 and crossed as they are by ridges of quartz, bear incontestable 

 evidence of their natural foimation. The contact of two or more 

 circles destroying the shape of one or both, and the ii-regularity 

 of many of the figures, can be best explained by the natural 

 theory of lichen-formed rings, and that some lichens do cut or 

 erode the stone over which they spread is not to be questioned. 



I conclude these remarks nearly in the words of oui- former 

 President, the llev. William GreenwcU, who fii'st directed the 

 attention of the members of this Club to these mysterious con- 

 centric rings in his Anniversary Address, 1863, and who more 

 than all others has investigated the remains of the first inhabi- 

 tants of this part of the British Isles. '* I recoixl tliis theory (of 

 the natural origin) of these circles (at present) merely as a ten- 

 tative view, because, in a question of mysteiy like tins, anything 

 that strikes an independent obsener is worthy of consideration," 

 but I hope the time is not far distant when further discoveries 

 may either substantiate the \iew proposed in this paper or prove 

 it to be wholly untenable. — Richard Uowsey Neiccastk-on-Tyne, 

 July 25th, 1879. 



I^ote on the Priority of Discovery of Archanodon (^Anodon) 

 Jukesii, Forbes, in the Lower Carboniferous Hods of North North- 

 umherland. — As tjtutud on page 173 of this volume 1 had the 



