BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING AT NEWCASTLE. 



389 



48. Salt rock, very light (3) 0 3 6 



49. Do. rather dark (4) 4 3 4 



50. Do. very light (5) 7 16 



51. Do. rather light (6) 13 0 



Total depth up to and with Saturday, 29th of August, 



1863 217 4 0 



The six items = 100 feet of salt (but not yet 

 through) equal to 1306 feet. 



Mr. Marley thought it premature to speculate upon the beneficial effects 

 of the discovery, or as to its bearing upon the possibility of there being 

 coal under the Lias in Cleveland. 



Mr, Pattinson, analytical chemist, said that the importauce of the discovery of this 

 rock-salt at Middlesbro' would be appreciated when it was stated that the Newcastle 

 district consumed annually 100,000 tons of salt, which was chiefly obtained from the 

 Cheshire district. The alkali manufactures of this country existed in two districts — 

 those of Lancashire and the Tyne. The manufacturers of Lancashire had a great ad- 

 vantage in the Cheshire salt being so near at hand ; but this discovery at Middlesbro' 

 would give the Tyne manufacturers a decided advantage. Another advantage would 

 also be gained. There was a large quantity of heat wasted at present : one-third of the 

 coal was wasted in producing coke, and in the iron manufacture a large quantity of 

 heat was wasted in the blast, puddling, and other furnaces ; and great economy might 

 be effected by evaporating the brine, which he hoped would be pumped from this bed of 

 rock-salt. It would be an excellent method of economizing the waste heat from coke- 

 ovens, the loss of which had been so long lamented by every one anxious about the coal 

 of the district. 



On some Remains of Bothriolepis from the Upper Devonian 

 Sandstones of Elgin. By Mr. Gr. E. Roberts. — The genus was instituted 

 in 1840 for the reception of fossil remains evidently belonging to a large 

 Dendrodic Celocanth allied to the Asterolepis. Although the shape 

 and arrangement of the dorsal scutes of this great fish were tolerably well 

 known from the abundance of specimens collected in Russia and Scotland, 

 the plates covering the head have not hitherto been found, save in frag- 

 ments too insignificant for determination. The author had obtained, 

 during a recent visit to Scotland, some of the missing data. They con- 

 sisted of two large and nearly perfect casts of the cranial buckler from the 

 Upper Devonian Sandstones of Newton, by Elgin, for the loan of which 

 he was indebted to Dr. Taylor, of that town ; three considerable portions 

 of the thick enamelled head-plates from the same locality, belonging to 

 the Elgin Museum ; a cast of a portion of a hyoid bone from the collec- 

 tion of the Rev. Dr. G-ordon ; three casts of opercular and mastoid bones 

 from the yellow grits of Alves, and three portions of head-plates from the 

 same locality, preserved under slightly different conditions to the speci- 

 mens from the Newton zone, both lent by Mr. Smith, of Inverness. In 

 1838, Dr. Malcomson, of Elgin, called attention to fish-remains in a cal- 

 ciferous conglomerate discovered by the Rev. Dr. Gordon, of Binnie, 

 and assigned a stratigraphical position to them, which the recent labours 

 of Professor Harkness have verified. The author accompanied that gen- 

 tleman to the quarries which gave the deciding data, and he placed the 

 grey and yellow sandstone grit of Newton and Alves immediately beneath 

 the fossiliferous sandstones of Scat crag. Upon these latter beds lie the 

 Holoptychius yielding sandstones of Bishop's Mill, covered in turn by 

 pebbly beds and the famous sandstone of Lossiemouth, which contains 

 the Stagonolepis. The whole series he regarded as true Upper Devonian. 

 After detailed description of the head, the author remarked that Bothrio- 



