4 FORMATION OF THE SOCIETY : UNPUBLISHED RECORDS. 
present, and after the lecture adjourned with the lecturer to 
Mr. Nunneley's to supper. Prof. Johnston expressed his pleasure that 
the Society was to be formed, and in a note written to Mr. Embleton 
the same evening he offered to the new Society a lecture " On the 
most important objects of such an institution in this district, and the 
best means of attaining them." 
Prof. Johnston at this time exhibited much interest in the geology 
of the West Riding Coal-field. Along with Mr. Embleton, Mr. West, 
Mr. J. Garth Marshall, and Dr. Teale he descended several coal-pits 
and examined the coals in situ. It was during a visit to the Deep 
Coal at Middleton that the earliest record is made of the discovery of 
fossil fish remains. An examination of the shale forming the roof of 
the pit and immediately above the coal disclosed the presence of 
teeth and spines of fish, and further researches resulted in the dis- 
covery of numerous other examples. Amongst them the head of a 
large fish, now in the Museum of the Literary and Philosophical 
Society at Leeds, which a few years afterwards served as the type of 
the genus Megalichthys when Prof Louis Agassiz visited the museum 
in search of material for his great work on Fossil fishes. Fish- 
remains were also found above the Better Bed Coal at Low Moor and 
the Middleton Little Coal and the 40 yards Coal at the same place. 
Meanwhile active steps were taken to formulate a code of Rules, 
and those of the Natural History Society of Northumberland, 
Durham, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, supplied by Mr. Hutton served 
as a good model. Incorporated with the Rules a scheme for the 
conduct and government of the Society was devised. For these 
results the new Society was principally indebted to the Honorary 
Secretary, Mr. Thomas Wilson, Messrs. Embleton, Field and Charles- 
worth. On the 11th December a meeting of the Committee was held 
at the Museum of the Philosophical Society at Leeds, and the Rules 
were presented, passed and adopted in the following form : — 
I. — That a Society be formed for collecting and methodising 
Geological and Mechanical Information in connection with the Coal- 
Field of Yorkshire ; and that it be called " The Geological Society 
of the West-Riding of Yorkshire." 
II. — That the Members of the original Committee, and the 
