THE COUNCIL, 
13 
cera, and plants, and a very extraordinary species of fish, 
different entirely from those in the collection of the Leeds 
Society, which were obtained from a higher part of the coal 
series of Yorkshire. 
It has also been long known that in connection with coal- 
seams, at a considerable height above this layer of marine 
remains, there occur in Yorkshire and Derbyshire, several 
bands, as they are termed, of shells admitted to belong to the 
fresh-water genus, unio. 
To these distinct zoological indications of a marine origin 
for the lower part of the carboniferous series, and a fresh-water 
origin for the upper parts, Mr. Phillips has added the important 
fact, that, in the neighbourhood of Halifax, shells referred to 
the fresh-water genus, unio , occur in a layer at some depth 
below the layer of marine shells, parallel thereto, and separated 
therefrom by two seams of coal. 
This is therefore a case analogous to some examples in the 
series of tertiary strata, from which it has been inferred that 
the same basin has experienced periodical alternations of 
marine and fresh-water currents. And, if the zoological cha¬ 
racters may be depended on, we are assured that, of the old 
carboniferous formation in the north of England, the whole of 
the lower part associated with limestone, is of marine origin, 
but that the whole of the upper part , which has no limestone, 
is of fresh-water origin, while the intermediate series shews, 
in one situation, a definite alternation of the deposits of the 
sea and fresh waters. 
The mineralogical collection has been enriched with many 
additions, and especially by the valuable contributions of Mr- 
Loscombe and Mr. Carne. The latter gentleman, residing in 
Cornwall, having had his attention directed to one of the So¬ 
ciety’s Reports, in which the deficiency of the Museum in the 
