BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. 



501 



described the deposit as Carboniferous ; while Mr. Jukes had gone so far on the 

 wrong side as to declare his conviction that ' the whole of the fish-beds of Scotland, 

 and the similar rocks in Glamorganshire and South Wales, might belong to the 

 ('arboniferous system.' This confusion arose, he believed, from the confusion in 

 the rocks themselves, where, through means of the intrusive traps, they are 

 all greatly upheaved and disturbed in their positions and their relations to each 

 other. But in Dura Den the whole series are in the closest juxtaposition, and 

 can be read off with the ease of letter-press for sectional descriptions. I will 

 only further add, upon the question of age and position, that no Pterklithys has 

 ever been found in any of the series immediately above the yellow deposit 

 of Dura Den, and will challenge the detection of one from any of the 

 ' Cephalaspis,' or the grey sandstone beds beneath either in Forfarshire or in 

 Caithness." Passing from this point, now, he thought, coraj)letely established, 

 the doctor proceeded to a description of the fossils so abundant in the deposit. 

 He said — "they had now obtained about four new genera and seven or eight new 

 species of fish and Crustacea. The beautiful drawing of the large specimen before 

 them was that of Iloloptychius nohilisdmm, adding thus a new member to the Dura 

 Den family of the genus, and placing it higher in the series than the rocks of 

 Clashbennie, or those of Cromarty and Elgin in the north. He held in his hand 

 a specimen of the two bones of the head, which he had just been informed by Sir 

 Philip Egerton, now present, were termed the ylosso-h)/al plates that supported the 

 lower jaw, and resembled very much the plates in the existing Sudis yif/'/s of the 

 American rivers. The huge Megalichthys of our Scottish coal-fields had, he was 

 informed by the same high authority, three of the glosso-hyal supporters, as if 

 Nature in her arrangements had made size a condition of organic structure. The 

 whole organisms in the Dura Den deposit were in general very entire, of a deep 

 pink enamelled colour, and when lying in their stony bed suggested the idea that, 

 instead of the long series of geological terms to be counted, they were the crea- 

 tions of yesterday, the relics of living things ihat had just ceased to breathe. His 

 eye, while speaking, glanced at thie large section in the opposite wall, in which he 

 observed the DipUrus and Diplopterus fiimily marked, in the accompanying descrip- 

 tion, as confined to the Middle series of the Old P».ed. Now he begged to inform the 

 section and members around him that the specimens of both these genera, now in 

 his cabinet at Newburgh, were both found in the yellow deposit or upper series of 

 the formation. Upen the whole, he concluded there was in Dura Den a classic 

 field for geologists of the deepest interest ; much has been obtained, much remains 

 to be detected in future researches." 



The Alluvial Laxds and Submarine Forests of Lincolnshire. — By the 

 Rev. Edward Trollope, F S.A., General Secretary to the Associated Midland 

 Architectural and Archseological Societies. — A great contest between 

 the sea and the land had been raging upon the Lincolnshire coast for 

 centuries before the arrival of the Romans in that part of Britain, whilst a 

 similar conflict had also been very obstinately carried on between portions 

 of the soil of that country and the fresh waters flowing from the interior 

 of England at the same early period with varying success and attended by more 

 or less permanent consequences. Traces of the sea's former conquests may still 

 be observed at inland spots now removed twenty miles from its present boundary, 

 and yet remains of forests are occasionally revealed sixteen feet below its usual 

 level, and at some distance from the existing coastal line, equally indicative of 

 losses sustained by the land. Above the wavy subsoil of Oxford clay, once forming 

 the surface, has swept a violent rush of waters charged with boulders, large 

 flints, remains of elephants and other pachydermata, silt, and gravel, in wild and 

 eccentric profusion, and over these for the most part, has been deposited a funeral 

 pall of peaty earth covering innumerable trunks of oaks, fir, alder, hazel, and 

 other trees accompanied by their berries, nuts, and leaves. To prevent such 

 aggressions on the part of the sea the Romans, entering into an alliance with 

 the land, surrounded the Lincolnshire coast with a vast sea-bank pierced 

 at intervals, and with due precautions, for the purpose of allowing an exit 

 for the fresh water ; at the same time they forme i an immense catch -water drain 



