Proceedings of Learned Societies. 459 



shire. The building, which was sixty-six feet long and thirty-eight 

 wide, and was divided into two rooms and a kind of lobby, appeared 

 to be mediaeval. But the objects met with in the course of digging 

 presented a mixture of mediaeval with more ancient, among which 

 flint implements were found. T. W. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



BY W. B. TEGETMEIEE. 



GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF GLASGOW.— Nov. 10. 



Reptiles of Carboniferous Strata. — Mr. J. Russell exhibited a 

 very interesting set of specimens of the newly discovered Coal 

 Reptiles from the Airdrie blackbands, including the Anthracosaurus 

 Russelli of Huxley, and one or two jaws with teeth, not yet de- 

 scribed, but with characters, showing them to be true Labyrintlw- 

 donts. The reptiles now known to have existed in the Carboniferous 

 age, were not poor, small, feebly-developed creatures, but powerful 

 and highly organized. Within a few years the range in time of 

 reptiles has been extended from the Permian downwards, a proof 

 that it is impossible to generalise, on negative evidence, upon the 

 range in time of any class of Vertebrata. 



At the same meeting some new species of Chitons from the 

 Carboniferous limestone of the west of Scotland were exhibited. 



GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.— Nov. 23. 



The Organic Remains in the Laurentian Rocks of Canada. — 

 Sir Charles Lyell, in his inaugural address at the British Associa- 

 tion, alluded to the recent discovery of a fossil Mliizopod in tbe 

 lower series of Laurentian Rocks in Canada, which are as old or older 

 than any of the European formations termed Azoic. The occurrence, 

 structure, and the mineralogy of this fossil, now termed the 

 Eozobn Canadense, were the subjects of several papers by Sir W. 

 Logan, Dr. Dawson, and Mr. Sterry Hunt, read before the Geolo- 

 gical Society, on November 23. The oldest known rocks of North 

 America, composing the Laurentide Mountains in Canada, and the 

 Adirondacks in the State of New York, have been divided into two 

 unconformable groups, which have been called the Upper and 

 Lower Laurentian respectively. In both divisions zones of lime- 

 stone are known to occur, and three of these zones have been ascer- 

 tained to belong to the Lower Laurentian. From one of these 

 limestone bands, occurring at the Grand Calumet on the River 

 Ottawa, Mr. J. McCulloch obtained, in 1858, specimens apparently 

 of organic origin, and other specimens have also been obtained 

 from Grenville and Burgess. These specimens consist of alternat- 

 ing layers of calcareous spar, and a magnesian silicate (either ser- 

 pentine, white pyroxene, pyrallolite, or Loganite) — the latter mine- 

 rals, instead of replacing the skeleton of the organic form, really fill- 

 ing up the interspaces of the calcareous fossil. Dr. Dawson carefully 



