576 



Proceedings of the Asiatic Society, 



[No. 5, 



only been refound lately after much, search. Mr. Blanford now exhibit- 

 ed it to the Meeting, in the hope that some of the older Members of 

 the Society might be enabled to throw some light on its history. The 

 stall, so far as could be judged from the fragments preserved, was 

 well formed, and not unlike that of some of the recent native skulls 

 in the Society's Museum. Until something was known of its history, 

 no inference could be drawn as to its antiquity. 



Mr. Blanford then read to the Meeting a note by Professor John 

 Phillips, of Oxford, on the supposed Spiti fossils in the Oxford Mu- 

 seum, prefacing the reading with the following remarks : — - 



" It will be remembered by those Members who w T ere present at the 

 December Meeting of the Society last year, that Mr. Oldham read 

 a paper c on the reputed Spiti fossils/ in the Society's Museum, in 

 which I was called to account for having rejected on insufficient 

 grounds the genuineness of certain of the fossils in that collection, 

 more especially a few species of Ammonites which differed from those 

 forming the majority of the collection in apparent geologic age, as 

 well as in matrix, &c. ; while they were absolutely identical in species, 

 matrix, and every other point with the well known Lias fossils from 

 Whitby in Yorkshire. Some of them were figured as forming part of 

 Dr. Gerard's Spiti collection, by Mr. James Prinsep, in the Gleanings 

 in Science of 1831, and again in the 18th vol. of the Asiatic Re- 

 searches ; but as this was the only evidence that I could discover of 

 their genuineness, and as similar fossils had not been discovered by 

 any other collectors in Spiti or elsewhere in the North Himalaya, I 

 considered it probable that the specimens in question had been acci- 

 dentally intermixed with the genuine Spiti fossils subsequent to the 

 receipt of the latter by the Society. Mr. Oldham endeavoured to 

 combat this view by adducing the fact that fossils of the same species 

 and similar in character to those rejected by me existed in the Oxford 

 Museum, where they were labelled as Spiti fossils ; and that it was 

 absurd to suppose that a similar accidental intermixture of "Whitby 

 and Spiti fossils had taken place at Oxford and Calcutta. 



" In replying to Mr. Oldham's remarks, I pointed out that the 

 Oxford specimens could not be received as independent evidence, unless 

 it could be proved that they had been despatched by Dr. Gerard to 

 England as an independent series, and under circumstances which 



