•432 CERTAIN UPPER JURASSIC STRATA OF ENGLAND. [Oct. I913, 



western shores. While in Inverness some seven years ago he 

 obtained from Eathy Shore on the coast of Cromarty, in an in- 

 durated shale, a number of small specimens which were referred by 

 Mr. G. C. Crick to the Haplites-eudoxus group. All are small, some 

 very small, and more or less crushed, but the shell is still pearly. 



The President (Dr. A. Strahan) pointed out that this was a 

 purely palseontologieal research on a region in which the strata were 

 strougly differentiated by their lithological characters, and in which 

 they formed conspicuous and characteristic features. In such a 

 region the stratigraphical method of classification was forced upon 

 the observer. But it was to be remembered that, while the strati- 

 graphy was locally paramount, the palseontological method became 

 essential in dealing with areas of a continental order of magnitude. 



The part of Dorset with -which the Author dealt was classic 

 ground, inasmuch as it had given to the world such names as 

 Purbeckian, Portlandian. Kimmeridgian. If Kimmerid- 

 gian meant anything, it should have meant the Kimmeridge Clay 

 of Kimmeridge and the neighbourhood. Yet, on palseontological 

 grounds, a not inconsiderable part of that formation had been 

 transferred to the Portlandian, in order to harmonize with other 

 parts of Europe. 



Similar difficulties in reconciling the results of the stratigraphical 

 and palseontological methods had arisen in the correlation of other 

 formations, and Avould continue to arise so long as the strati- 

 graphical and palgeontological methods of nomenclature were 

 confused. In the Table before him he saw a zonal classification 

 founded solely on the palaeontology, but into it had been introduced 

 a nomenclature for the grouping of the zones which had been 

 misappropriated from the stratigraphical column. The term 

 Kimmeridgian was, in his opinion, a misuse in such an asso- 

 ciation. These remarks were not to be taken as an adverse 

 criticism of the palaaontological results which the Author had 

 obtained. On the contrary, it appeared that a notable advance 

 had been made in our knowledge of the sequence and correlation of 

 the palseontological zones. 



Mr. Buckman, in reply, heartily thanked the Fellows on behalf 

 of the Author for their kind reception of the paper: he would 

 like to add his personal appreciation of its value. The President's 

 suggestion that he (the speaker) should invent a dual nomenclature 

 — one for the stratigraphical and another for the zoological se- 

 quence — appealed strongly to him, as he had done this in a paper 

 published by the Society so long ago as 1898 : that it was not 

 carried on was due to intimation from 'the powers that be' that 

 it was unnecessary. So he certainly commended the President's 

 opinion. Various points raised in the discussion were dealt with 

 in the paper itself, especially the questions of stratigraphy. The 

 fault lay with the speaker and not with the Author, if the ex- 

 position had not dealt quite fully with these matters. 



