554 Geological Society, 



brought out by its action, and proves the theory of binocular vision 

 in the most effective manner. 



A truth is never better established than when it can be shown 

 that the same principles are capable of producing contrary effects 

 when they are applied in a contrary way. 



Professor Wheatstone, by adding the pseudoscope to the stereo- 

 scope, has thus in the most scientific and ingenious manner com- 

 pleted his splendid discovery, and left very little (we might almost 

 venture to say that he has left nothing) for further investigations in 

 the physiology of binocular vision. 



GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 

 [Continued from p. 397-] 



February 20, 1 867.— Warington W. Smyth, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., 



President, in the Chair. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. "On the British Fossil Oxen." — Part II. Bos longifrons, 

 Owen. By W. Boyd Dawkins, Esq., M.A. (Oxon.), F.G.S. 



The author analyzed the characteristics usually assigned to JBos 

 longifrons, and concluded that there were none of specific value to 

 separate it from the smaller varieties of JBos taurus. The large 

 series of skulls in the Dublin and Oxford Museums show that Bos 

 frontosus of Nilsson is a mere variation from the more usual type. 

 Professor Owen, on the faith of its occurrence on the Essex shore, 

 along with the remains of extinct animals also washed up by the 

 Waves, ascribes to this species a Pleistocene age. This inference, 

 on a rigid examination of the premises, turns out to be faulty ; and 

 there is no evidence anywhere in Europe that it coexisted with any 

 of the extinct mammals, the Irish elk being excepted. It is very 

 commonly associated with the remains of man, of a date anterior 

 to the Saxon invasion. It was kept in great herds during the 

 Roman occupation, and supplied the Legionaries with beef. On 

 the Continent, as in Britain, it is found around the dwellings and in 

 the tombs of the Bronze and Stone folk. Nowhere is there evidence 

 of its having a higher antiquity than the Neolithic age of Sir John 

 Lubbock. It, along with its Keltic masters, disappeared before the 

 Saxon invaders, from the more fertile portions of Britain, and took 

 refuge in the Highlands of Scotland and Wales, where it still 

 survives in the smaller domestic races. In no case has it been 

 found in association with Saxon remains. The inferences to be 

 drawn about it are : — first, that it has not yet been proved to have 

 existed before the Prehistoric age ; and second, that it is the 

 ancestor of the small Highland and Welsh breeds. It is essentially 

 the animal with which Archaeologists have to deal, and its only 

 claim for insertion in Geological catalogues is the fact of its occur- 

 rence in the most modern of all the stratified deposits. 



