larger individual of the same species. Since the outer border of the sockets does not swell out beyond the outer wall of the jaw, the fragment has been part of the jaw situated behind the anterior swelling caused by the proportionally large prehensile teeth; and as, from the analogy of known Pterodactyles, the teeth succeeding those anterior ones are not of larger size, but are usually smaller, at any posterior part of the jaw, we may therefore, with due moderation, frame an idea of the Pterodactyle to which the present maxillary fragment belonged, as surpassing in size that to which the portion of the jaw of Pter. Sedgwickii belonged, in the proportion in which the socket in the present exceeds the last socket in that fragment. Such an idea impels to a close scrutiny of every character or indication of the true generic relation of the present fragment in the reptilian class: but the evidence of the large and obviously pneumatic vacuities, now filled by the matrix, and the demonstrable thin layer of compact bone forming their outer wall, permit no reasonable doubt as to the pterosaurian nature of this most remarkable and suggestive fossil. All other parts of the flying reptile being in proportion, it must have appeared, with outstretched pinions, like the soaring Roc of Arabian romance, but with the demoniacal features of the leathern wings with crooked claws, and of the gaping mouth with threatening teeth, superinduced. Teeth of the large Pterodactyle. -Various teeth, but few quite entire, have been rescued by the care and perseverance of Mr. Lucas Barrett, from the rubbish of fragmentary fossils accumulated during the diggings for phosphatic nodules in the Greensand deposits near Cambridge. Guided by the proportions of length to breadth, by the elliptic section, and the concordance of the minute markings on the crown and base with those on the portions of teeth remaining in the above-described jaws of Pterodactylus, many of the above-detached teeth can be satisfactorily referred to that genus. The base or implanted part of one of the largest of these teeth has belonged to a Pterodactyle as large as that represented by the fragment of jaw last, described; it presents the same elliptical transverse section as the implanted base of the tooth in that fragment, shows a widely excavated pulp-cavity at the base, and gradually tapers to the crown: the cement, about ard of a line in thickness, is roughened by longitudinal grooves, not continuous for any great length, but uniting, or bifurcating, in an irregular reticulate pattern, forming long and very narrow meshes, the raised interspaces being equal in breadth to the grooves. In a few teeth the base shows an oblique depression, evidently due to the pressure of a successional tooth; in these the basal pulp-cavity is more or less filled up by ossification of the pulp. The enamel of the crown seems smooth and polished; and, under the lens, shows only extremely delicate, slightly and irregularly wavy, longitudinal, but often interrupted or confluent ridges. Portions of the scapular arch, the humerus, antibrachial and carpal bones were next described. The distal end of the metacarpal of the fifth or winged finger is trochlear; but the pulley is more complex than in other animals with similar joints, there being three convex ridges traversing the articular surface from behind forward, and describing more than half a circle; the middle ridge less produced than the lateral ones which form the sides of the pulley. The direction of the ridges is rather oblique. The outer ridge is rather more produced and of a less regular curve than the inner ridge. The outer ridge begins by a rising at the middle of the fore-part of the distal end of the shaft, which bends obliquely outward and meets the outer angle of that part of the shaft where the outer trochlear ridge begins to be prominent; this ridge then extends with a feeble convex curve to the back part of the trochlea, where the convexity of the curve increases, and it terminates by projecting a little beyond the level of the outer almost flattened side of the trochlea. The articular surface, as it extends from the margin of this element of the trochlea inward, is first gently convex, then sinks to a concave channel by the side of the low median convexity. The inner ridge begins from the inner side of the fore-part of the bone, and describes a pretty regular semicircular curve as it extends backward and a little outward, to terminate near the middle of the back part of the distal end of the shaft; thus, owing their obliquity to a termination of the inner ridge near the middle of the back part, and to the beginning of the outer ridge near the middle of the fore part, of the metacarpal bone, these principal ridges of the trochlear joint recede from each other at the middle of the joint, and approximate at the fore and back ends of the joint. As the back ends of the two lateral ridges are on the same transverse line, and the front end of the inner ridge rises higher upon the shaft than that of the outer ridge, this is by so much the shorter of the two. The low middle ridge is much shorter than either of the lateral ones, being confined to the lower and middle part of the trochlea, to which it gives an undulating transverse outline. The portions of the wing-bones of the Pterodactyles of the Cambridge Greensand, here described and figured, show the same superior proportions over those of the great Pterodactyles from the Kentish Chalk, as do the portions of jaw-bones and teeth. The long diameter of the expanded end of the largest of the wing-bones of a Pterodactyle from the Cambridge Greensand is 3 inches. The transverse diameter of the distal end of the humerus of the Pterodactylus grandis, Cuv., the largest species hitherto obtained from the Lithographic Slates of Germany, is 1 inch 3 lines; neither the radius, ulna, nor metacarpal of the wing-bone of the same species presents a diameter of its largest end equalling 1 inch. The articular end of the long wing-bone, 3 inches thick, being most probably that of an antibrachial bone, and the total length of the bone, whether radius or ulna, being, according to the proportions of either of these bones in the Pterodactylus suevicus, 16 inches, the following would be the length of the other large bones of the wing in the large Pterodactyle to which the above-cited specimen belonged, according to the proportions which the other wing-bones bear to the radius or ulna in the Pterodactylus suevicus : Humerus Radius Metacarpus or wing-finger First phalanx of wing-finger. Second phalanx of wing-finger.......... Third phalanx of wing-finger Fourth phalanx of wing-finger......... ft. in. lines. 100 140 180 230 190 150 1 10 Total length of long bones of one wing.. 10 6 0 Supposing the breadth of the Pterodactyle between the two shoulder-joints to be 8 inches, and allowing 2 inches for the carpus and the cartilages of the joints of the different bones in each wing, we may then calculate that a large Pterodactylus Sedgwickii would be upborne on an expanse of wings of not less than 22 feet from tip to tip. The author looks forward with confidence to future acquisitions of remains of the truly gigantic Pterodactylus of the cretaceous periods, more especially from the Greensand locality near Cambridge, as a means of throwing more light on the peculiar osteology of the extinct flying reptiles. For the opportunities at present afforded him, he expressed grateful acknowledgments to his old and much esteemed friend the Rev. Professor Sedgwick, F.R.S.; to the acute and active Curator of the Woodwardian Museum, Mr. Lucas Barrett, F.G.S.; to James Carter, Esq., M.R.C.S., Cambridge; and to the Rev. G. D. Liveing, M.A., of St. John's College, Cambridge. On the Skeleton of a Seal from the Pleistocene Clays of Stratheden, in Fifeshire. By D. PAGE, F.G.S. The Springfield brick-works, where the only remains of the Seal family which had yet been discovered in any of our post-tertiary deposits were found, are about nine * Since the meeting at Leeds, portions of the skulls of two seals have been found by Mr. Jamieson in the Pleistocene beds of Aberdeenshire, and the pelvic bones of another in the brick-clays of Kirkcaldy, Fifeshire. It would also appear from the Transactions of the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh, that about thirty years ago "the remains of a quadruped, supposed to be those of a seal," were discovered in the brick-clays of Falkirk, in the upper basin of the Forth. miles from the open sea of St. Andrew's Bay, more than five from the highest influence of the tide in the estuary of the Eden; and the clay hills rise from 120 to 150 feet above the medium tide-level of the German Ocean. There are several well-marked ancient sea-margins in the valley of the Eden, whose estuary, now only about three miles long, and and less than a mile in breadth, must have extended fully twenty-five miles inland, and ranged from two to five miles in width. The most marked of these old sea-levels are at 20, 40, 60, 90, 150, and 200 feet above the present sea-the lowest yielding shells, &c. wholly of the existing shores, though overlying a well-marked submerged forest of pine, oak, birch, hazel, alder, and other British trees; the second containing bones of the whale, and several shells of boreal species; the third and fourth rarely containing remains, and the fourth bones of whales and the skeleton now in question. The clay in which the skeleton was imbedded is a bright red plastic clay, evidently derived from the waste of the Old Red Sandstone of Upper Stratheden, when the waves washed the bases of the present hills, and the streams brought down from the Lower Ochils the débris of the same formation. It contains no boulders or pebbles, and appears to have been a tranquil deposit in water of considerable depth and removed from the influence of drift, either vegetable or animal, from the adjacent shores. It rests on the true boulder clay, which is there a dark blue tenacious mass of great thickness, and replete with boulders of granite, syenite, greenstone, gneiss, quartz, and other primary formations. The descending section shows-arable soil and sandy clay 3 feet; laminated sand 1 foot; from 15 to 20 feet of red plastic clay, in which the skeleton was imbedded at a depth of 12 feet-the whole being underlaid by blue boulder clay of unknown depth. From the position of the red clay, and the disposition of the associated gravel mounds, it is evident that it is younger than the boulder bed on which it rests, and that it is as old at least as the 150-feet beach, and greatly older than the silts and gravels which in the Forth, Clyde, and Tay have yielded remains of whales, antlers of gigantic red deer, skulls of the Bos longifrons, wolf, bear, and beaver, and shells, many of which are of boreal species. How much younger than the boulder clay we have no direct means of determining, though evidently much older than the human occupation of Britain, which must have then been sunk to a depth of from 150 to 200 feet below its present level. As regards the skeleton itself (which is that of a young animal, and in a wonderful state of preservation), it seems to be a pretty widely divergent variety of the common seal (Phoca vitulina), if not a distinct species; a point, however, that yet awaits the precise determinations of the comparative anatomist. If the same as the existing seal, then it invests that creature with a high degree of antiquity; if of a different species (boreal or more southerly), then it shows the high age of these brick-clays, and may assist to identify their position in other localities. Farther Contributions to the Paleontology of the Tilestones or SilurioDevonian Strata of Scotland. By D. PAGE, F.G.S. Without entering on the stratigraphical relations of these tilestones (which would be discussed at a subsequent meeting), he might simply mention, that part of them, as in Lanarkshire, seemed to cap and form portion of the Upper Silurians, while the larger portion, the Forfarshire flagstones, undoubtedly constituted the basis of the Old Red Sandstone; hence, with a view to avoid all discussion in the mean time, he had ranked the whole as "Silurio-Devonian," or "Pterygotan Beds." Beginning with the Lanarkshire beds, he had, since the Glasgow meeting, been enabled to add several new forms to the fossil Fauna of that district, for as yet no trace of vegetation had been detected in these strata. In addition to Trochus helicites and Lingula cornea, which were then known, he had now to add Pterinea, Orthonota, Nucula, Avicula, Orthoceras, and other well-marked Ludlow or Upper Silurian shells. To the Crustaceans then known, viz. Beyrichia, Ceratiocaris, and Himanthopterus, he had now to add several discoveries which rendered the structure of these curious crustaceans more apparent, besides the detection of two entirely new forms, which he would venture to term provisionally Stylonurus spinipes and S. clavipes, in allusion to their pointed styleshaped caudal termination, and to the characteristic form of their swimming paddles, or third pair of organs which spring from the under side of their cephalo-thorax. Turning to the Forfarshire beds, which in 1855 were known to yield little more than obscure vegetable forms, Parka decipiens of Lyell, Pterygotus, and Cephalaspis, he was now enabled to add several new and gigantic forms of Fucoids, a Cyclopteris, and a Lepidodendroid stem, which was clearly of terrestrial origin. To the Fauna he has added gigantic Foralites and Scolites, or annelid burrows and annelid tracks, and an organism which appeared to be the remains of an annelid itself. There had also been discovered several new portions of Pterygotus, which rendered the true structure of that gigantic crustacean much more apparent; and he had also been enabled to describe and figure two new crustaceans under the names of Kampecaris and Stylonurus, the latter closely related in structure to Eurypterus, and approaching the forms of those found in the Lanarkshire strata. To Cephalaspis, of which little more was known than the head and bony ring-plates of the body, he had now to add a wellmarked corneous eye-capsule, a pair of pectoral fins (or rather swimming paddles), a subdorsal fin, and the true form of the large heterocercal tail;-so that, instead of figuring this much-caricatured fish as had hitherto been the case, as a saddler's knife for the head, and a parsnip with a few radicles for the body, we could now restore it as a legitimate and elegant fish, much resembling in general contour the armed bullhead or Aspidophorus of our present shores. There had also been discovered a vast number of fin-spines or Ichthyodorulites, which were yet undescribed; and a small fish with fin spines and shagreen-like scales, to which he had given the name of Ictinocephalus granulatus, in allusion to its kite-shaped head and shagreen-covered body. For the discovery and preservation of these new fossil forms, palæontologists were mainly indebted to James Powrie, Esq., of Reswallie, Forfar, and to Mr. Simon, surgeon, Lismahagow. On the Relations of the Metamorphic and Older Paleozoic Rocks in Scotland. By D. PAGE, F.G.S. As was well known, a large development of Silurian strata occurred in the south of Scotland, dipping northward under the Old Red Sandstone, which in turn underlaid the coal-fields of the Forth and Clyde. On the northern side of the coal-basin, the Old Red dipped southward, again underlying the coal-measures; but between the Old Red and the Grampians, no true representative of the Silurian system had as yet been detected. What, then, were the relations of these rocks? He had made many sections during the last two summers, and found that everywhere, from Stonehaven on the east to Bute on the west, a thick mass of trappean conglomerate succeeded the crystalline schists, that this was succeeded by the fissile grey strata of Perth and Forfar, containing Pterygotus and Cephalaspis, these by the "Great Pebbly Conglomerate," and then the middle Old Red with Holoptychius, and the upper yellow beds with Holoptychius and Pterichthys. The Pterygotan beds, though evidently approaching the upper Silurians of Lanarkshire in fossil characters, were still the basis of the Old Red; and if Silurian strata did exist on the southern slopes of the Grampians, geologists must seek for them either in the trap conglomerate and grits below, or in the clay-slates and mica-schists which might be the metamorphosed equivalents of the Silurians of Peebles, Roxburgh, and Dumfriesshire. Two conclusions thus presented themselves: either the physical geography of the north had been such during the Silurian era, as not to admit the deposition of strata; or having been deposited, as in the south, they had been subsequently metamorphosed and all traces of organic life been obliterated in their crystalline structure. Whichever view might be adopted, we had in the mean time no fossil evidence of Silurian strata on the southern flanks of the Grampians, though in the south of Scotland, and on the south side of the great basin of the Clyde and Forth, a vast development of lower, middle and upper Silurians had been traced and pretty closely examined. Grouping, therefore, the older rocks of Scotland according to the present state of our information, we had something like the following succession : PERMIAN.......... Breccia conglomerates of Annandale. CARBONIFEROUS.... Yellow Sandstone of Stratheden and Elgin. Red Pebbly Sandstones of Perth, Forfar, and Berwickshire, Dark Flagstones of Caithness and Orkney. OLD RED SANDSTONE Great Conglomerates and Pebbly Sandstones. Greyish Red Flagstones of Forfar, Perth, &c. Trappean Conglomerate and Gritstones (thick-bedded SILURIAN........... METAMORPHIC..... and fissile), flanking the South Grampians. Upper Silurians of Lanarkshire. Lower Silurians of Peebles and Roxburgh, Hornblende Schist and Quartzitic Group. On a recently-discovered Ossiferous Cavern at Brixham, near Torquay. By W. PENGELLY, F.G.S. Notice of some Phenomena at the Junction of the Granite and Schistose Rocks in West Cumberland. By Professor PHILLIPS, LL.D., F.R.S. The author referred in the first place to some excellent observations-the only ones he had met with-of Professor Sedgwick on the little visited region of slate and granite in the extreme south-west of Cumberland. Following in his steps, Prof. Phillips had found an extremely interesting variety of phenomena, from which a few were selected for the present communication, and illustrated by maps and sections. He described three orders of phenomena, all due to some form of heat action, observed by himself in the slate district of Black Comb, and on the north-west border of that mountain. In the mountain of Black Comb, the black slates, much contorted, are not in a metamorphic state. Several dykes or interposed bands of granite (elvan) lie in the slates of the north-western part of Black Comb; they very slightly affect the condition of the slates. Round a considerable part of Black Comb the green slate series is metamorphic, and the series of changes is such, that from unaltered slate at one end, new structures appear and augment (not very regu larly), so as at the other end to complete a green or black porphyry. Agate concretions appear in some places in long pipes parallel to cleavage dip. This remarkable series of changes is traced with great precision in a bold narrow ridge of rock near Bootle, one end of which almost touches the black slate, the other is met by a tongue of granite. Near the junction the granite is hornblendic (syenite); it enters the metamorphic series in veins of fissure, and produces on that series further small changes of colour and texture apparently proportioned to the mass of the introduced rock. Thus in one district, possibly due to one general cause, the earth's internal heat, but operating through long time, under different conditions, three distinct orders of phenomena appear, for each of which a special investigation is necessary, and to which, when fully understood, a special explanation may be applied. On the Hæmatite Ores of North Lancashire and West Cumberland. By Professor PHILLIPS, LL.D., F.R.S., and Mr. R. BARKER, Jun. Prof. Phillips embodied in his remarks on the iron-ores of North Lancashire, the substance of a communication from Mr. R. Baker, jun., 'On the Hæmatite Deposits of West Cumberland.' The districts of North Lancashire and West Cumberland, to which reference was made, were rich in deposits of peroxidated iron ore, and were now producing, probably, not less than one million of tons per annum. Notwithstanding their value, they had not been carefully examined until a recent period, but some interesting geological phenomena had now been observed, which threw considerable light on the age of the iron-ore formations of West Cumberland and North Lancashire. The iron ore of these districts was found in immediate connexion with |