ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. cix 
of Europe. It may be here observed, that upon an examination of a 
fine collection of fossil plants, obtained by Mr. David Williams from 
the Burdwan coal district of India, and transmitted to the Geological 
Survey, Dr. Hooker was also struck with the forms which corresponded 
with those observed in the oolitic coal deposits of Great Britain. 
Respecting the animal remains of the rocks underlying the coal 
of this Australian district, Mr. M‘Coy determined 83 species. 
These belong to 39 genera, all of which, with the exception of four, 
(Tribrachyocrinus, Pachydomus, Notomya and ELurydesma, forms 
up to the present time only known in Australia,) are abundant 
in the carboniferous rocks of the British Islands. Eleven of the 
species are considered to be identical with those im the same rocks, 
and nine more to be so closely allied that no difference of character 
can be observed, though from their imperfect state of preservation 
they cannot be absolutely identified. From the difference in paleeo- 
zoic character, Mr. M‘Coy infers, as not improbable, that there was 
a wide interval between the consolidation of the fossiliferous beds 
underlying the coal, and the deposit of these coal-measures them- 
selves. This forms a subject of interest for further investigations, 
and it will be remembered that in his communication Mr. Beete Jukes 
considered the upper and lower series to graduate into each other, 
an opinion apparently participated in by the Rev. W. B. Clarke. 
Considering the conditions under which the remains of insects are 
likely to be entombed, notices of any large accumulation of them in a 
fossil state possess much geological importance. In a communication 
by Prof. Heer to Prof. Bronn respecting the insects discovered in the 
tertiary deposits of Giningen and Radoboj, he states that 100 species 
of insects found at CEningen may be referred to 68 genera and 34 
families ; that 51 of these genera occur in the present Swiss fauna, 
5 genera are absent in the Swiss fauna and discovered in the south 
of Europe, 1 is found in North America, 4 cannot be well determined, 
and the remaining seven appear extinct, these seven being Gleno- 
pterus, Escheria, Protractus, Coprologus, Prologenia, Fusslinia, and 
Pristorhynchus. By comparing the fossil coleoptera of Ciningen 
with those now existing, they are found more to resemble the coleo- 
ptera of Southern Europe than of the district in which they are now 
found. They are considered to offer the general characters of the 
Mediterranean region combined with some American forms. 
Sir Roderick Murchison, during his present absence on the con- 
tinent, has not neglected the paleozoic rocks; and we find that, 
accompanied by M. de Verneuil and Count Keyserling, he traversed 
Bohemia for the purpose of still further examining that country, in 
which M. Barrande, whose labours on the trilobites of this region 
are so well known to us, had shown the occurrence of Silurian 
rocks. The Silurian rocks of Bohemia are described by our col- 
league as extending from N.E. to S.W. for about ten German miles, 
with a maximum transverse breadth of about three miles and a 
half. ‘This mass is considered to be divisible into Upper and Lower 
Silurian rocks, and according to a section across the whole, from 
Ginetz on the one side to Skrey on the other, forms a great trough 
