8 
out of which it was resolved to give a donation to the funds of the 
Society's Library. The ballot was then taken for the officers of 
the section, Mr. Sanders being re-elected President, and Mr. F. Ashmead 
the Hon. Secretary. 
Mr. W. L. Carpenter made a short communication on behalf of his 
father, Dr. Carpenter, on the oldest known fossil, Eozoon Canadense, 
showing the cumulative evidence, from a great variety of separate proba- 
bilities, that its structure was one of animal growth, although its organic 
nature had been lately called in question, and also announcing the discovery 
of the same fossil in the limestone beds of the great fundamental Gneiss 
of central Europe, which Sir R. Murchison had shown on other grounds 
to be the equivalent of the Canadian Laurentian rocks. 
Mr. W. W. Stoddart read some notes on Devonian Palaeontology. 
Remarking that the beginning and end of this system were not character- 
ised by the accession or disappearance of any peculiar fossils, he observed 
that Silurian fossils were found in the lower Old Red beds, and Carboni- 
ferous in the upper, and this was especially the case with the corals, which 
were very abundant, belonging chiefly to the Cyathophyllidae. One kind 
of coral, Calceola sandalina, had by some writers been mistaken for a 
Brachiopod. In the upper part of the series was a band filled with the 
valves of Cypridina, an Entomostracon. After giving a general view of 
the number of species in the system, Mr. Stoddart noticed some as being 
peculiarly Devonian, e.g., Stringocephalus, Megalodon, Anodonta Jukesii, 
Clymenia, and others. The Devonian fishes were then described, as all 
belonging to two of Agassiz's orders, Placoid and Ganoid, and as having 
generally heterocercal tails, the most curious being the winged fishes, 
Ptericthys and Coccosteus. No reptiles had been discovered in the 
Devonian rocks, nor any animal organisms lower than zoophytes. Mr. 
Stoddart illustrated his paper with a number of the fossils he described, 
and Major Austin exhibited several also, as well as a sketch and map 
of the junction of the Devonian and Cambrian rocks in the county of 
Waterford. 
