124 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
tend naturally to render less surprizing the impressions of birds' feet 
in the variegated sandstone on the banks of the Connecticut ; * and 
these observations are in perfect harmony with the discoveries of the 
remains of Saurians, which, after stopping for a long while at the German 
Zechstein, and reaching afterwards to the coal-formation, have at last 
furnished us with hones of crocodiles in the uppermost Old Red Sand- 
stonet of Scotland, without speaking of the impressions of footmarks 
already observed in the old red sandstone^ of the AUeghanies, and in 
certain sedimentary rocks, probably more ancient still, on the borders 
of the great lakes of North America. § And again, by a sort of contrary 
progression, certain organic forms, originally regarded as characterising 
some of the most ancient sediments {07-thoceratites, Spirifer, &c.), 
have lately taken an incontestable place in the Couches Keuperiennes 
of St. Cassian, and in the Lias of other countries. Far from lessening 
palaeontology, these discoveries, on the contrary, enlarge its boundaries, 
which were formerly established on a plan both narrower and less 
rational than that which progressive observation points out to us." 
A new Saurian has just been discovered in the Permian strata of 
Lodeve, in France. The slate-rocks of Lodeve, essentially formed of 
Permian schists, had never before presented us with any but vegetable 
fossils. M. Paul Gervais, the distinguished naturalist of Montpellier, 
has, however, just discovered in them a new species of lizard, which he 
calls Aphelosaurus Luferensis. This animal belongs to Paul Gervais' 
family of Homeosaurides, a family formerly established for certain 
reptiles which, up to the present time, had not been found out of the 
more modern of the Jurassic strata. 
The size of the Aphelosaurus is about that of the largest occelated 
lizards that have hitherto been found in the south of Europe ; it 
may also be compared to that of the Varans and Iguanas of average 
dimensions. 
PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 
Geological Society of Londo.v, February 2d, 1859. — The following commu- 
nication was read : — 
" On the Mode of Formation of Volcauic Cones and Craters." By G. Poiilett 
Scrope, Esq., M.P., F.R.S., F.G.S. 
The author commenced by saying that he should not have referred again to this 
subject, already briefly treated by him in a paper read to the Society in April, 
* See our article in the Geologist for January and Febraary, 1858. — T. L. P. 
t The exact age of the sandstone at Elgin, in which the remains of Stagondepis 
occur, is as yet a question among the best geologists acquainted with the district. 
— Ed. Geol. See al.so the Geologist, Vol. II. mi. 46 and 89. 
t This red sandstone, termed " Old Red" liy Dr. I. Lea, belongs to the Lower 
Carboniferous series, according to tlie Professors Rogers. — En. Geol. 
§ M. E. de Beaumont probal)ly here alhides to the tracks in the Potsdam sand- 
stone, and described as bemg those of Cinstaceans by Owen and Logan.— Ed. Geol. 
