PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 



223 



A Victorian geologist (M. Blandowski), in a paper read before the Eoyal 

 Society of Victoria, explains the absence of the above-named sub-king- 

 doms, by suggesting that the higher development and superior locomotive 

 powers possessed by their various members, allowed of escape during the 

 deposition of that muddy sediment completely enveloping the more slug- 

 gishly moving of their contemporaries. Such an hypothesis would of 

 course involve a supposition of the muddy sediment having been suddenly 

 deposited ; a circumstance hardly reconcilable with the fact that the beds, 

 where fossiliferous, appear to contain shells pretty equally distributed 

 throughout a considerable thickness, and are not, as would result from a 

 sudden deposition like that supposed, made up of a thick layer of un- 

 fossiliferous clay reposing upon a stratum of shells and organisms. Among 

 the fossils, too, which I have by me, is a pecten, having an incrustation of 

 bryozoa upon its inner surface — proof positive. I imagine that the shell 

 must, after the death of its inmate, have lain during some time uncovered, 

 or the growth of such parasite, in such position, could not possibly have 

 taken place. And again, although every shell appears perfect and unworn 

 by friction, yet in all conchifers and brachiopods the valves are disunited, 

 and in univalves the operculum is invariably absent. If it is allowable to 

 strain a point, I would suggest that previous convulsive movements had 

 totally destroyed or greatly diminished the number of all the superior 

 marine tribes in these waters ; and that the lower classes, escaping the 

 catastrophes by virtue of their less sensitive organizations, and subse- 

 quently multiplying greatly, simply that their enemies had been destroyed, 

 had grown to be more than ordinarily numerous. 



PKOCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 



Geological Society. — March 9. — W. J. Hamilton, Esq., President, 

 in the chair. 



1. " On the Discovery of the Scales of Pteraspis, with some Eemarks 

 on the Cephalic Shield of that Eish." By Mr. E. Eay Lankester. 

 The successive steps by which the genus Pteraspis came to be established, 

 and the grounds on which the prevalent opinion as to its ichthyic nature 

 rests, having been noticed, the author proceeded to describe in detail the 

 scales, — which have lately been discovered at Cradley, near Malvern, and 

 which alone were required to remove all doubt a3 to the affinities of the 

 genus, — comparing them with those of Cephalaspis, to some of which they 

 bear a great resemblance ; and he concluded by giving a description of 

 the markings on the surface of the cephalic shield of Pteraspis rostratus. 



2. "On some Eemains of Bothriolepis from the Upper Devonian Sand- 

 stones of Elgin." By Mr. G. E. Eoberts. Eemains of a large Dendro- 

 doid Caelacanth obtained by the author in Elgin were referred by him to 

 the genus Bothriolepis. These consisted of two large casts of a central 

 head-plate, with portions of the test ; a natural cast considered by him to 

 represent the parietal, squamosal, scapular, and coracoid bones ; casts of 

 the nasal bones, and teeth of the upper ja^ ; together with tooth-like 

 bodies, which were suggested to be teeth, originally situated in the poste- 

 rior region of the mouth. The ornament borne upon the head-plate was 

 next described by the author ; and, in conclusion, the affinities between 



