1872.] MEYER PUNFIELD SECTION. 75 



covery. Its position should be somewhere between the hard bands 

 G and E of my section. 



The letters C and B on diagram fig. 1 indicate respectively the 

 " marine band " and the " laminated clays and sands with lignite " 

 of the Punfield strata. Of these I have nothing new to say. 



The diagram fig. 2 illustrates in full my present reading of the 

 Punfield section. It shows at a glance the comparative thickness and 

 succession of the various groups of strata between the Gault and the 

 Middle Wealden, and their (probable) respective relation to the 

 Wealden and ISFeoconiian (Lower Greensand) of the Isle of Wight. 



The points involved in this question, " as to the relation of the 

 Punfield strata to the Wealden and ISTeocomian," are at the present 

 moment necessarily of considerable interest ; but, while feeling that 

 I am but doing my duty as a student of Secondary geology, in once 

 more bringing this subject before the Geological Society, I must 

 disclaim any desire that the question should remain to be decided on 

 my evidence alone. 



Discussion. 



Mr. Jtjdd congratulated the author on the interesting nature of 

 his discoveries, which in his opinion bore out most completely his own 

 views and those of others who had worked before him in the same 

 field. He cited Dr. Fitton, Mr. Godwin-Austen, and Sir Charles 

 Lyell as regarding the beds as unquestionably Wealden, though with 

 some marine bands accidentally intermingled. Prof. Ed. Forbes, 

 Prof. Phillips, and the Geological Survey had also regarded these 

 beds as Wealden, notwithstanding the temptation there existed from 

 stratigraphical reasons to place them in the Lower Greensand. These 

 authors had supported their views of the Wealden nature of these 

 beds by collections of freshwater fossils, some of which were figured, 

 and are still preserved in public collections. He had himself re- 

 garded the Punfield series as JNeocomian, though still closely con- 

 nected with the Wealden, and, in fact, forming a transitional series 

 of beds between the two, though absolutely belonging to neither, and 

 therefore worthy of a distinctive name, in this respect resembling 

 the Purbeck and Rhsetic. He accepted the author's view, as carry- 

 ing the boundary of these transitional beds to a lower level than 

 that previously assigned to them. In correlating the Punfield beds 

 with those of the Isle of Wight, he disputed the value of the evidence 

 of the lobster-beds, which, as had been pointed out by Edward 

 Forbes, must of necessity have varied in character at points any 

 considerable distance apart. 



Mr. Seeley had regarded the Punfield beds from the same point 

 of view as Mr. Meyer, and had all along felt objections to the 

 opinion of Mr. Judd. This had been partly the result of his obser- 

 vations of the section, partly the result of the pakeontological evi- 

 dence. By following the beds westward he had arrived nearer the 

 source of the materials of which they were composed, and had 

 noted more particularly a certain grit-bed which he thought could 

 be recognized through the whole series, and therefore afforded a sort 



