THE GEOLOGIST. 



15 



power of fixing itself at will, as Dr. Buckland imagined to be the 

 case with the Pentaerinus of Lyme Regis ; or the stems may have 

 had a fixed point of attachment; while this form was adapted 

 to give the utmost amount of flexibility, so as to rise and fall in 

 a tidal sea. In any case, whether floating or with the power 

 of attaching and detaching themselves at will, or broken from 

 their base, the fact that they were cast upon the beach when dead 

 would accomit for the confusion with which they are thrown 

 together, and for the absence of any fixed base to their stems, 

 in case the last conjecture was found to be correct. 



The remains of these creatures have been collected by hundreds, 

 but, so far, only in this solitary district. Specimens are in most of 

 the public and private Museums throughout England ; thus prov- 

 ing that our conclusions have not been arrived at hastily. Many 

 of the specimens are in a beautiful state of preservation, as the 

 series before the meeting will fully illustrate. 



On Bone Beds and their characteristic Fossils. By W. 8. 

 Symonds, F.G.S., President of the Malvern Natural History Field 

 Club. 



"Fourteen years have now elapsed," says Sir R. Murchison, 

 "since I proclaimed that the fishes of the Upper Ludlow Rock 

 " appeared before Geologists for the first time as the most ancient 

 " beings of their class ; and all the subsequent researches in the 

 "various parts of the world over which Silurian Rocks have 

 "been found to extend, have failed to add to or modify this 

 " generalisation."* 



The Upper Ludlow fishes hold their position still, but time and 

 experience have added somewhat to our knowledge, and whereas 

 we formerly held that " bone beds " were boundaries of Creation, 

 — universal phenomena, — and that they marked out a certain 

 horizon where whole tribes and races of animals were extin- 

 guished, never to be renewed, it may be useful to Geologists 

 to sum up shortly the evidence as it noiv stands, respecting these 

 most interesting platfonns of death. 



* Siluria, p. 239. 



