Vol.  49.]  AHHTVEESAEY  ADDEESS  OE  THE  PEESIDEXT.  13I 
as  border  or  transitional  beds.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
rich  and  characteristic  fauna  of  the  Inferior  Oolite  begins  with 
the  J lurchisonce-zcme ,  to  which  the  opcdinus- zone  is  little  more  than 
an  appendage.  If  I  may  venture  to  express  an  opinion,  it  is  that  the 
classification  of  the  Gloucestershire  Sands,  which  lie  below  the 
so-called  Cephalopoda-bed,  with  the  Inferior  Oolite  is  scarcely  to  be 
justified  without  some  qualification. 
Miscellaneous  Subjects. — So  much  time  has  been  spent  on  strati- 
graphical  papers  that  but  little  remains  for  those  devoted  to  pure 
palaeontology.  I  must  not,  however,  fail  to  remind  you  of  the 
recognition  by.  Dr.  Hinde  of  a  new  genus  of  Siliceous  Sponges  in  the 
Lower  Calcareous  Grit  of  Yorkshire.  The  exceptional  character  of 
these  fossils  consists  in  their  having  the  siliceous  skeleton  composed 
almost  entirely  of  globular  spicules  or  £  globates.’  The  nearest 
living  form,  he  says,  is  Plcicosjponcjia ,  in  which  both  the  axis  and 
the  dermal  crust  are  formed  of  globates  with  an  interspace  built 
up  of  numerous  pin-like  spicules.  Assuming  the  absence  of  pin-like 
spicules  in  the  Scarborough  fossil,  the  differences  are  more  than 
generic.  Considerable  interest  attaches  to  this  discovery,  because 
many  persons  had  noticed  the  scattered  globates  in  the  Lower 
Calcareous  Grit  and  also  in  portions  of  the  Coral  Bag,  and  in  this 
condition  they  were  a  puzzle  both  to  Sorby  and  to  Blake.  It  is 
only  right  to  mention  that  some  years  ago  I  showed  a  section  full 
of  similar  granular  bodies  to  Prof.  Sollas,  who  then  maintained 
them  to  be  globates  of  a  siliceous  sponge  such  as  Geodia.  Yow 
that  the  spouge  itself  has  been  described,  we  know  that  this  re¬ 
cognition  was  a  step  in  the  right  direction. 
Mr.  Carter,  of  Cambridge,  has  materially  increased  our  knowledge 
of  the  Decapod  Crustacea  of  the  Oxford  Clay.  The  fossils  described 
by  him  occur  immediately  beneath  the  St.  Ives  rock,  and  therefore 
presumably,  he  says,  in  the  uppermost  zone.  Yo  more  than  three 
or  four  species  had  been  previously  recorded  from  the  Oxford  Clay 
of  this  country.  Mr.  Carter  has  been  able  to  add  at  least  fourteen 
species  to  that  number,  seven  of  which  are  identified  as  foreign 
forms,  and  seven  are  new  to  science. 
The  Polyzoa  of  the  Inferior  Oolite  and  Lias  have  received  a 
considerable  amount  of  attention  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Malford.  Prom 
the  first-named  formation  he  described  a  series  collected  in  the 
ParJcinsoni-zoioe  of  Shipton  Gorge,  Dorset,  and  the  number  of  forms 
from  that  one  horizon  and  locality  was  stated  to  be  equal  to  the 
whole  of  those  described  by  Jules  Haime  from  the  Lias  to  the 
