6 



SIR R. OWEN ON A TRIASSIC SAURIAN. 



Mesozoic, and he expressed his doubts as to the Palaeozoic fossils 

 which were alleged to have been found. 



Mr. Lydekker confirmed the remarks of Prof. Seeley, and ex- 

 pressed his regret that Sir R. Owen had not described one other 

 specimen in the British Museum. It would be sufficient to regard 

 these fossils as constituting a suborder only. 



Dr. Woodward thought that thanks were due to Dr. Exton, and 

 remarked on the difficulty of getting specimens from Bloemfontein ; 

 exchanges of this kind were valuable. He instanced the acquisi- 

 tion of Tritylodon and fish-remains not previously known. He 

 differed as to the Carboniferous age of the beds, and considered that 

 the Trias would represent the extreme of their possible antiquity. 



Dr. Blanford said that he had protested against the term Triassic 

 on the last occasion when Sir R. Owen had described a mammalian 

 skull from the Stormberg beds, and he still thought it a matter for 

 regret ' that these interesting fossils were definitely assigned to a 

 particular geological system, although it was notorious that the 

 evidence of age was far from clear. The speaker pointed out that 

 some remarkable similarities in Indian beds, and the asserted pre- 

 sence in the Stormberg beds of plants common to the Jurassics of 

 Australia, indicated that the beds from which Galesaurus was ob- 

 tained were at least as likely to be Jurassic or even Neocomian as 

 Triassic. * 



Mr. Cruttwell referred to the abundance of Carboniferous plants 

 which might be observed at Newcastle and Dundee, in Natal, and 

 he repeated that the Karoo beds may be seen to overlie these in 

 sequence on the route from Camden to Pretoria. 



The President regretted that the Author, through illness, was 

 not able to be present to reply to the criticisms as to the systematic 

 position of these forms and the geological age of the beds in which 

 they occur. 



