262 VERTEBRATE REMAINS IN THE TRIAS OF DEVONSHIRE. 
his opinion is therefore deserving of attention. To indicate, how- 
ever, the precise position of the ossiferous horizon whence the 
‘ bones found by Mr. Carter, at High Peake Hill, were derived, is 
necessarily a matter of difficulty. The Sandstones forming the 
lower portion of the cliff, at that spot, are not only homogeneous 
in character, but quite vertical and only accessible at low tide. 
Researches in other and more accessible sections in the neighbour- 
hood may hereafter set this matter at rest. 
While treating of the foregoing locality, I would call attention to 
the interesting fact that, in the Transactions of the Devonshire 
Association (vol. xi. page 383), Mr. Hutchinson has figured and 
described the remains of several plants found by him, half 
way between High Peake Hill and Sidmouth, at the very base 
of the Upper Marls, and now deposited in the Exeter Museum. 
These interesting specimens bear every appearance of belonging 
to some one of the subdivisions of the Calamitex, but it does not 
seem possible to say to which. As the true Calamite seems to have 
disappeared in the Permian period and to have been replaced by 
Equisetites and other forms more nearly ailied to the living Equiseti- 
form type, the probability is that the remains represent some one of 
these. It is manifest that the remains had a verticillate ramification, 
which presupposes a verticillate foliage—facts pointing towards the 
Equisetiform type. As, however, the specimens are structureless 
their precise character cannot be determined with certainty. Mr. 
Hutchinson thus describes the specimens :—‘‘ Stems of lacustrine 
plants, discovered in May 1878, by a fall of some of the cliff. The 
appearance on the slab of soft clayey and sandy rock was that of a 
number of reed-like stalks, lying across one another, as if they had 
fallen into the water as they grew. I secured a few pieces of the 
stems with a joint or two in each, and the waves destroyed the 
slabs soon after. The stems are an inch to an inch and a quarter 
in diameter, oval by pressure; jomts at every six or seven inches, 
with indications that 8, 9, or 10 side-branches grew out of each 
joint. The interior of the fossils is soft sand rock, and the outside 
is clay of a greenish colour.” 
In conclusion, I have to thank Mr. Carter for having afforded me 
an opportunity of previously examining the vertebrate remains now 
deposited in the British Museum, as well as for his kind assistance 
in the preparation of this paper. The rareness of fossils in Triassic 
strata seemed to me to demand a note of Mr. Carter’s discovery and 
observations. 
Discussion. 
The Prestpent said that the author, in this interesting commu- 
nication, had proved that there was an abundant vertebrate fauna 
in the Triassic strata of Devonshire, and we could only regret that 
the specimens found up to the present time were all so fragmentary 
and imperfect. 
