BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING AT NEWCASTLE. 
389 
48. Salt rock, very light (3) 0 3 6 
49. Do. rather dark (4) 4 3 4 
50. Do. very light (5) 7 16 
51. Do. rather light (6) 13 0 
Total depth up to and with Saturday, 29th of August, 
1863 217 4 0 
The six items = 100 feet of salt (but not yet 
through) equal to 1306 feet. 
Mr. Marley thought it premature to speculate upon the beneficial ejSects 
of the discovery, or as to its bearing upon the possibility of there being 
coal under the Lias in Cleveland. 
Mr, Pattinson, analytical chemist, said that the importance of the discovery of this 
rock-salt at Middlesbro' would he appreciated when it was stated that the Newcastle 
district consumed annually 100,000 tons of salt, which was chietly obtained from the 
Cheshire district. The alkaU manufactures of this country existed in two districts — 
those of Lancashire and the Tyne. The manufacturers of Lancashire had a iirent ad- 
vantage in the Cheshire salt being so near at hand ; but this discovery at Middlesbro' 
would give the Tyne manufacturers a decided advantage. Another advantage would 
also be gained. There was a large quantity of heat wasted at present : one-third of the 
coal was wasted in producing coke, and in the iron manufacture a large quantity of 
heat was wasted in the blast, puddling, and other furnaces ; and great economy might 
be efFected by evaporating the brine, which he hoped would be pumped from this bed of 
rock-salt. It would be an excellent method of economizing the waste heat from coke- 
ovens, the loss of which had been so long lamented by every one anxious about the coal 
of the district. 
On some Remains of Bothriolepis feom the Upper Devonian 
Sandstones of Elgin. By Mr. G. E. lioberts. — The genus was instituted 
in 1840 for the reception of fossil remains evidently belonging to a large 
Dendrodic Celocanth allied to the Asterolepis. Although the shape 
and aiTangement of the dorsal scutes of this great fish vrere tolerably well 
known from the abundance of specimens collected in Eussia and Scotland, 
the plates covering the head have not hitherto been found, save in frag- 
ments too insignificant for determination. The author had obtained, 
during a recent visit to Scotland, some of the missing data. They con- 
sisted of two large and nearly perfect casts of the cranial buckler from the 
Upper Devonian Sandstones of !Newton, by Elgin, for the loan of which 
he was indebted to Dr. Taylor, of that town ; three considerable portions 
of the thick enamelled head-plates from the same locality, belonging to 
the Elgin Museum ; a cast of a portion of a hyoid bone from the collec- 
tion of the Rev. Dr. Gordon ; three casts of opercular and mastoid bones 
from the yellow grits of Alves, and three portions of head-plates from the 
same locality, preserved imder slightly dill'erent conditions to the speci- 
mens from the Newton zone, both lent by Mr. Smith, of Inverness. In 
183G, Dr. Malcomson, of Elgin, called attention to fish-remains in a cal- 
ciferous conglomerate discovered by the Rev. Dr. Gordon, of Binnie, 
and assigned a stratigraphical position to them, which the recent labours 
of Professor Harkness have verified. The author accompanied that gen- 
tleman to the quarries which gave the deciding data, and he placed the 
grey and yellow sandstone grit of Newton and Alves immediately beneath 
the fossiliferous sandstones of Scat crag. Upon these latter beds lie the 
Holoptychius yielding sandstones of Bishop's Mill, covered in turn by 
pebbly beds and the famous sandstone of Lossiemouth, which contains 
the Stagonolepis. The whole series he regarded as true Upper Devonian. 
After detailed description of the head, the author remarked that Bothrio- 
