Cvi PKOCEEDINGS OF THE aEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [JvLXie igi2, 



Director of the Geological Survey to exhibit the specimens. He 

 drew attention to many points of interest which came up for con- 

 sideration. The red rocks reached by the liichmond, Streatham, 

 and Crossness boreholes had been originally classed, with some 

 doubt, as Poikilitic or New Eed Sandstone. He had himself, 

 however, always held to the opinion that they were of Old Red 

 Sandstone age and had so entered them in the Table of Borings 

 published in the Eoport of the Eoyal Commission on Coal-Supplies ; 

 the recent borings at Willesden, Chiswick, and Southall confirmed 

 this view. 



Another point of interest to which he specially directed attention 

 was the existence of rocks of Old Eed Sandstone aspect, in the same 

 region as rocks with Devonian fossils and of Devonian appearance. 

 It would be of the greatest interest to ascertain the relations of the 

 two types one to the other. 



The exhibits included three of particular interest : namely, the 

 rock from the Harwich boring showing a structure which Avas 

 mistaken for a ^Posidonia; but which Prof. Watts had shown to be 

 an accidental fracture ; the Upper Old Eed Sandstone fishes which 

 had been obtained by Mr. Procter from the Southall cores ; and the 

 Carboniferous Limestone from Ebbsfieet, the first recorded occur- 

 rence of that formation in the South-East of England. 



Prof. E. Hull, in opening the discussion, expressed pleasure in 

 having an o])portunity of examining the specimens of cores brought 

 up from the borings under and arouud London. The specimen of 

 reddish grit from Eichmond he considered to be of Devonian age ; 

 the depth of the boring was 1445 feet — but it was waterless and 

 disappointing. Of similar age was the formation at Meux's brewery, 

 where Upper Devonian red shales and sandstones were passed 

 through at 1144 feet, and contained numerous characteristic 

 fossils such as JSjnrifer disjunctiis, etc., described in the Society's 

 Journal by Prestwich (vol. xxxiv, 1878). Similar Devonian rocks 

 were reached under Jurassic beds at Streatham, but the most 

 important were those at Ware in Hertfordshire, where shales at a 

 depth of 800 feet yielded characteristic Wenlock fossils described 

 by Etheridge. This gave a definite starting-point for the series of 

 Paloeozoic rocks which form the pre-Triassic ridge, and consist 

 of Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous strata in succession from 

 Hertfordshire to Kent. 



The speaker wished to call attention to the remarkable fact that 

 in none of the borings in the London area had the Carboniferous 

 Limestone been proved. He believed that this limestone would 

 most probably be found by boring under Croydon, and to form the 

 base of the Carboniferous series of Kent and Surrey; but the 

 borings at Croydon had not gone sufficiently deep to determine 

 the point. 



Mr. E. Peoctee stated that the red rocks exhibited by him came 

 from a borehole at Southall on the Great Western Eailway, midway 

 between Paddington and Windsor, They were struck at a depth 

 of 1130 feet, and were still present at 1261 feet, the lowest level 



