504 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Feb. 24, 



stones were shown to be the true equivalents of the Cephalaspis-beds 

 of torfarshire, and of the lower cornstone-strata of Herefordshire 

 which there graduate downwards, through the tilestones, into the 

 uppermost Silurian rocks of Ludlow. 



The Old Red rocks of the North Highlands were described in 

 some detail by the author, who showed that the group, as seen in 

 Caithness and the Orkney Islands, is composed of— 1st, lower red 

 conglomerate and sandstones; 2nd, grey and dark-coloured flag- 

 stones and schists, both bituminous and calcareous (this portion 

 being m Elginshire and Murrayshire represented by Cornstones)- 

 and 3rd, upper red sandstones. The North Scottish Old Red con- 

 tains one great inferior portion which has no representative in the 

 Devonian rocks of some foreign countries, though it is completely 

 represented m all its parts in other tracts both of Britain and the 

 Continent. 



Having next described the conditions under which many of the 

 species of fish (at least twenty-one) found fossil in Caithness, Cro- 

 marty, and Morayshire, occur in Russia commingled with the middle 

 Devonian mollusks of Devon, the Boulonnais, and the Rhine and 

 having pointed out that the lowest member of the Devonian series 

 with its Cephalaspides, is wanting in Russia, Sir Roderick insisted 

 on the importance of the Devonian series in the scale of forma- 

 tions, and on the fact that the Old Red conglomerates, ichthyolitic 

 schists, and cornstones, with the overlying sandstones, of Scotland 

 and Herefordshire fully represent in time the Devonian rocks of the 

 fcouth of Eng and and the Continent, so full of corals, crinoids, and 

 marine mollusks. 



Some brief observations on the Newer Red Sandstone of the West 

 Coast of Ross-shire, and the Lias and Oolitic deposits of the North 

 of Scotland and the Western Isles, concluded this paper 



February 10, 1858. 



ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING. 



[For Reports and Address see the beginning of this volume.] 



February 24, 1858. 

 T Ashford Sanford, Esq., Nynehead Court, Somerset; C. E. 

 Austen, Esq., C.E Grove House, Croydon ; and Thomas R. Polwhele, 

 £sq., l*eol. burv. Great Britain, were elected Fellows. 



The following communications were read : 



1. On the Gradual Elevation of the Coast of Sicily from the 



mouth of the Simeto to the Onobola. By Gaetano Giorgio 



Ltemmellaro. Communicated by Sir C. Lyell, F.R.S.,F.G.S. 



A Recent alluvial soil which forms the plain of Catania is composed 



ot rolled blocks (ciottoli) of sandstone, limestone, and basalt, with 



