NOTES A1SD QUERIES. 



117 



are accompanied by the catkins of hazel, and the leaves of waterflags and 

 other plants, which show that they could not have been transported far 

 from the place in which they grew. The thickness of the peat-bed is from 

 four to five feet, and it is some feet below the level of high-water mark, 

 covered by brick- earth, of the same character as that still deposited by the 

 Severn, to the depth of ten or twelve feet, indicating that it must have 

 been submerged to a sufficient depth for this accumulation to have been 

 formed upon it, and subsequently uplifted to its present position. The 

 same deposit is found on the opposite bank of the river, in the parish of 

 Awre, and, as we are informed, on Walmer Common, in the parish of 

 Westbury-on- Severn, at Whitminster, and in other places near Gloucester, 

 from which its extent may be inferred. We are not aware that these facts 

 have been previously noticed by other writers. 



" The trees, when fairly uncovered in excavation, occur in great numbers, 

 and very large ' stag horns ' were found amongst them, some of which are 

 said to have been taken to Berkeley Castle. 



" An entire skull of the Bos primigenius was found in the Severn, not 

 very far from Sharpness Point, near the spot where the fresh water of the 

 Royal Drough, on the bank-cuttings of which these trees are now best 

 seen, and which runs in places through the peat-bed, still keeping open a 

 channel through the sands." 



Restoration of Pteraspis.— Dear Sir, — In the May of last year I 

 addressed a brief note to you, partly concerning the restoration of the 

 test of Pteraspis, and which has been several times discussed by other 

 correspondents and myself in the pages of your valuable magazine. Since 

 then I have got from our Scottish rocks various additional fragments of 

 Pteraspis, and a nearly complete specimen ; and as it seems to cast light 

 on some points already mooted and made matter of controversy, I trust 

 you will allow it to be figured along with this communication. 



I may say that I have both the specimen and its cast in the stone, and 

 have attempted the outline of the test according to actual measurement. 

 It will be observed by your readers, who take the trouble of looking back 

 to previous numbers of the ' Geologist,' that this outline-figure closely re- 

 sembles that contributed by Mr. Powrie to your February number of 1863. 

 The specimen now before us differs from that of Mr. Powrie in size, although 

 akin to each other in the relative proportions of their component parts. 

 They differ however considerably in two other features which I am about 

 to notice. First, the terminal edge on either side of the central prolonga- 

 tion or spine is not continuous in this new specimen, but is broken into 

 segments ; and, secondly, there is evidence of a protuberance, or it may 

 be perforation (a, a), which I have not observed figured in any of the pre- 

 vious diagrammatical restorations of Pteraspis. I cannot certainly deter- 

 mine from my specimen whether it is perforation or protuberance, although 

 I incline to think the former. I have no doubt however of what have been 

 called the eye-orbits (b, b) being perforations, as the bony substance is ex- 

 ceedingly well preserved at that part of the test in the specimen before 

 me, and the matrix is seen piercing the distinctly-defined orbital space. It 

 has been thought by some that these anterior perforations are the nostrils, 

 and if so, a conjecture may be hazarded that these posterior perforations 

 are the eye-holes ; but they may have served some other end in the eco- 

 nomy of the organization of this curious old-world fish. This specimen 

 exhibits very beautifully the characteristic internal structure of the plates 

 as so well described by Professor Huxley. When looked at through a 

 glass of feeble magnifying power, nothing can exceed the beauty of the ex- 



