Fossils from the Old Bed Sandstone. 37 



by about -J in its greatest breadth, and exhibits a transverse, or rather 

 radiating, series of eight depressions, gradually increasing in depth, and 

 showing lines of punctures, corresponding, he supposed, to the rows of the 

 projecting teeth ; and the fossil was all the more strikingly displayed 

 from the colour of the sandstone being completely discharged around 

 the cast, which appears as a patch of white, in the dull red of the sur- 

 rounding stone. He sent the fossil for examination to Mr Hugh Miller 

 a few months before his lamented death, and received, in reply, the fol- 

 lowing interesting note : — 



" Shrubmount, 30th June 1856. 

 " My dear Sir, — Your fossil is the Old Red Ctenodus of Agassiz (his 

 Coal Measure Ctenodus belongs to a different genus) ; but though he 

 gives it (his Old Red Ctenodus) a generic standing of its own, it is in 

 reality a portion of the previously described Dipterian genus. The Dip- 

 terus had two triangularly arranged groups of teeth on its palate, and 

 your specimen is a remarkably distinct impression made by one of these 

 I could show you groups of teeth, were you to do me the pleasure of look- 

 ing in upon me here, that would fit into your impression well nigh as 

 exactly as a seal would into the wax which it had stamped. Your speci- 

 men is the second of Dipterus which I have now seen from the Upper Old 

 Red Sandstone. The first, — a gill cover, — is in the collection of Mr 

 Patrick Duff of Elgin. I have been prostrated by another attack of my 

 old enemy, inflammation of the lungs, and, after being confined to my bed 

 for a fortnight, am but slowly recovering. Portobello has many visitors 

 at present ; but I have seen little of scientific men, and have had little 

 of scientific conversation for the last three quarters of a twelvemonth ; 

 and should you chance to come this way, it Avould gratify me much to 

 have half an hour's talk with you among my fossils. Some of my Old 

 Red ones would, I am sure, cast not a little light on the detached organ- 

 isms of your south-country beds. — I am, my dear Sir, yours very truly, 



" Hugh Miller. 



" Dr John A. Smith." 



Wednesday, 22d December 1858. — William Rhind, Esq., President, 

 in the Chair. 



J. W. Laidlay, Esq. of Seacliff, and John M. Mitchell, Esq., Mayville, 

 Trinity, were elected members of the Society. 



The Office -Bearers for the session were elected as follows : — 



