62 
BRITISH ASSOCIATION.- 1835. 
conditions of the earth’s surface. In estimating the effects of such 
changes, it is necessary, M. Agassiz observed, to distinguish between 
general phenomena affecting, as it were, the laws of nature, and 
those of a mere local character, such as volcanic eruptions. The 
local phenomena may indeed have been similar to those of the pre¬ 
sent time, but the elevations of mountain chains are evidences of a 
more general class of phenomena, which have affected organic life, 
constituting thereby the various zoological epochs which may be 
traced in the earth’s strata. It was in such periods of violence and 
change that the beds of any one system were deposited, the animals 
coexisting at the time being, according to the more or less suscep¬ 
tible nature of their organization, more or less completely annihi¬ 
lated ; and it was in the tranquillity which followed, that new T beings 
were formed, and lived to tenant in like manner the strata of another 
system, which should result from another epoch of disturbance. 
M. Agassiz produced, as an example of sudden destruction, a draw¬ 
ing of fossil fishes crowded together in a very confused manner, 
such as could only have arisen from an instantaneous catastrophe, 
arresting them, as it were, in a moment. 
M. Agassiz then, at the request of Professor Sedgwick, explained 
those characters, such as the position of the fins, the arrangement 
and size of the scales, &c., by which the fishes of different geological 
eras may be distinguished, referring especially to those of the old 
and new red sandstones. 
1. On British Fossil Astacidae, their Zoological and Geological Re¬ 
lations. 2. On British Belemnites. By John Phillips, F.R.S., 
G.S ., Professor of Geology in King s College , London. 
[The leading results of these two communications, which form 
part of a general investigation of British organic fossils, undertaken 
at the request of the Association, will be given in the next volume 
of Transactions.] 
Notice of a newly discovered Tertiary Deposit on the Coast of 
Yorkshire. By John Phillips, F.R.S., Sfc. 
Two hundred yards north of the harbour of Bridlington, near the 
situation where Professor Sedgwick and the author and other ob¬ 
servers had suspected and looked for tertiary beds, a wasting of the 
low cliff had disclosed to a small extent layers of greensand and 
clay, both, but especially the former, containing shells, &c. Diluvial 
clay and pebbles cover and partially confuse this deposit. Of 55 
species of fossils from these beds, which are in Mr. Bean’s cabinet 
at Scarborough, a very small number (four) belongs to the crag, a 
very small number (five or six) to recent species, and the greater 
proportion is extinct. On comparison of the facts known concern¬ 
ing this deposit, the crag, the Touraine beds, and certain other fo¬ 
reign tertiaries, Professor Phillips founded an argument concerning 
