GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

[Continued from p. 310.]

April 13th, 1870.-Sir P. de Malpas Grey Egerton, Bart., M.P., F.R.S., Vice-President, in the Chair.

The following communications were read :—

1. A letter from Dr. Gerard Krefft, dated Sydney, 29th January, 1869, accompanying a model of the left lower incisor of Thylacoleo carnifex, Owen, and the original fragment from which the model was made. Dr. Krefft also referred to the fossil remains of Herbivorous Marsupials in the Museum at Sydney, which included, according to him, besides a great number of Wombats (Phascolomys), many wombat-like Kangaroos or Wallabies (Halmaturus). He proposed to divide the Kangaroos into the following groups :—

(1) Macropus, dentition as in Macropus major.

(2) Halmaturus, with the premolar permanent, divided into two subgroups :

a. True Wallabies, with the premolars long, narrow, and compressed, and the rami of the lower jaw but slightly anchylosed.

b. Wombat-like Wallabies, with the premolars compact, rounded, and molar-like, and the rami of the lower jaw firmly anchylosed.

Illustrative sketches and photographs accompanied this paper.

2. "On the Fossil Remains of Mammals found in China." By Prof. Owen, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S.

The specimens of teeth described by the author were obtained by Robert Swinhoe, Esq., late H. M. Consul at Formosa, chiefly by purchase in the apothecary's shops at Shanghai. They included two new species of Stegodon (named S. sinensis and S. orientalis), a new Hyana (H. sinensis), a new Tapir (Tapirus sinensis), a new Rhinoceros (R. sinensis), and a species of Kaup's genus Chalicotherium (C. sinense). The author remarked that the whole of these teeth presented an agreement in colour, chemical condition, and matrix which led to the conclusion that all belonged to the same period. But for the presence of the Chalicotherium, they would have been referred either to the Upper Pliocene or to the Postpliocene period. The author did not consider that the occurrence of one Anoplotherioid species need affect the determination of the age of these fossils, especially as Chalicotherium departs in some respects from the type genus Anoplotherium, and is not known from deposits older than the Miocene.

Mr. Busk on the Species of Rhinoceros from a Fissure-cavern. 381

3. "Further discovery of the Fossil Elephants of Malta." By Dr. A. A. Caruana. Communicated by Dr. A. Leith Adams, F.G.S.

The author described a new locality in Malta in which the remains of Elephants had been found recently-the Is-Shantiin fissure at the entrance of Micabbiba. It was filled with a compact deposit of red earth containing fragments of limestone, many teeth and fragments of bones of Elephants, associated with bones of large birds. The author found three small shark's teeth, and a small tooth which he regarded as belonging to Hippopotamus. He indicated the nature of the teeth and bones of Elephants found by him in the newly discovered fissure. The whole of the five localities in which ossiferous fissures have been discovered are in the same part of the island; and the author concluded with some remarks upon the geological conditions under which the remains of mammalia must have been accumulated, and upon the probability that a connexion then existed between Malta and Africa.

In a note appended to the paper Dr. A. Leith Adams stated that the supposed tooth of Hippopotamus was a germ true molar of one of the pigmy elephants, and that the Shark's teeth have probably been derived from the Miocene deposits.

April 27th, 1870.-R. A. C. Godwin-Austen, Esq., F.R.S.,
Vice-President, in the Chair.

The following communications were read :—

1. "On the Species of Rhinoceros whose remains were discovered in a Fissure-cavern at Oreston in 1816." By George Busk, Esq., F.R.S., F.G.S.

6

The object of this paper was to show that the Rhinoceros whose remains were discovered by Mr. Whidbey in a fissure-cavern at Oreston, near Plymouth, in the year 1816, and described by Sir Everard Home in the Philosophical Transactions" for 1817, belonged, not as has hitherto been supposed by every one except the late Dr. Falconer, to Rhinoceros tichorhinus, but to Rh. leptorhinus, Cuv. (R. megarhinus, Christ.).

The remains in question are in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, and consist of between thirty and forty more or less broken portions of the teeth and of numerous bones of the skeleton. The greater number being hardly in a condition to afford satisfactory diagnostic specific characters, the remarks in the paper were limited to the teeth and to a perfect metacarpal bone, which appeared amply sufficient for the purpose.

The teeth mainly relied upon were the first or second upper molars (m1 or m2) of the right and left sides. Both the teeth were broken, but what was wanting in one was supplied by the other. The characters exhibited were shown to be unlike those of R. tichorhinus, and quite in accordance with those of R. leptorhinus. These were the thinness and smoothness of the enamel, the configuration of the dorsal surface, the form and size of the columns, and the dis

position and relations of the “uncus” and “pecten” (“ crochet” and "anterior combing-plate,” and the consequent absence of the characteristic "tichorhine pit" or fossette. The less strongly marked characters by which the teeth could be distinguished from those of R. hemitochus, Fale., and R. etruscus, Falc., were also pointed out. The metacarpal bone selected for the illustration of the diagnosis is 94 inches long, and remarkable for the compression of the shaft and its comparative slenderness, as contrasted with the same bone in R. tichorhinus, specimens of which were exhibited on the table, and which, in no case within the author's knowledge, ever exceeds 7 or 8 inches in length, and is proportionally much thicker than in R. leptorhinus or any other extinct species. The size and form of the bone also showed that the species could not be either R. hemitochus or R. etruscus; for although the means of direct comparison with the third metacarpal of those species did not, to the author's knowledge, exist in London, its probable general dimensions and proportions could be deduced from those of the corresponding metatarsal, of which bone numerous specimens were available. It was further shown that the Oreston metacarpal exactly corresponded with those of R. leptorhinus, from Grays Thurrock, in the British Museum.

The determination of the species appears to be of considerable interest, inasmuch as it affords an additional instance of the occurrence in England of the great southern Rhinoceros. This is also the only example of the discovery of that species, except in river or other deposits, either in this country or on the Continent.

2. "On two Gneissoid series in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, supposed to be the equivalents of the Huronian (Cambrian) and Laurentian." By H. Youle Hind, Esq., M.A.

This paper described the relations of two gneissoid series in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, which have hitherto been regarded as intrusive granites and syenites, and have been thus represented on the published geological maps of those provinces. The author considered that these gneisses were in the main of Laurentian age, the Huronian or Cambrian rocks occurring only in patches over a vast area of Laurentian porphyroid gneiss.

The old gneiss was stated to be brought to the surface by three great undulations between the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia and the Laurentian axis of America north of the St. Lawrence. These axes were rudely parallel to one another; and in the troughs which lay between them the Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous series occurred in regular sequence, the New Brunswick Coal-field occupying the central trough. On the line of section, in the troughs to the north-west and south-east, the Lower Carboniferous was stated to be the highest rock series which has escaped denudation.

The gold-bearing rocks of Nova Scotia are of Lower-Silurian age, and rest either on Huronian strata or, where these had been removed by denudation, on the old Laurentian gneiss. The gold is

found chiefly in beds of auriferous quartz of contemporaneous age with the slates and quartzites composing the mass of the series, which, in Nova Scotia, is 12,000 feet thick; and the auriferous beds are worked, in one district or another, through a vertical space of 6000 feet. Besides auriferous beds of quartz, intercalated beds and true veins are found to yield gold, and are worked.

A series of sharp and well-defined anticlinals ridge the province of Nova Scotia from east to west, while another series of low broad anticlinals of much later date have a meridional course. At the intersection of these anticlinals the gold-districts are situated, because there denudation has best exposed the upturned edges of the auriferous beds of quartz, and rendered them accessible, sometimes exposing also the underlying gneiss. Plans of Waverley and Sherbrooke gold-districts were exhibited, showing the outcrop of the edres of the slates and auriferous beds of quartz in semielliptical forms, with the gneiss at the base of the ellipse. On this ground it was suggested that a correct mapping of the gneisses of Nova Scotia would have an important influence on the development of the mineral resources of the province.

A plan of some of the lodes in the Waverley gold-district showed the result of operations in 1869, subsequently to the publication of a geological map and sections of the district furnished to the Department of Mines by the author in 1868. Citations were made from the annual reports just issued of the Chief Commissioner of Mines and of the Inspector of Mines, confirming the correctness of the author's plans exhibiting the geological structure of Waverley, which is a type of all the Nova Scotian gold-districts.

May 11, 1870.—Joseph Prestwich, Esq., F.R.S., President,
in the Chair.

The following communications were read:

1. "Notes on some specimens of Lower-Silurian Trilobites." By E. Billings, Esq., F.G.S., Palæontologist of the Geological Survey of Canada.

(1) The author first described a specimen of Asaphus platycephalus, of which not only was the hypostome preserved in situ, but also the remains were more or less well preserved of eight pairs of legs, corresponding with the eight segments of the thorax, to the underside of which they had been attached. The appendages take their rise close to the central axis of each segment; and all curve forwards, and are thus most probably ambulatory rather than natatory feet. They appear to have had four or five articulations in each leg.

Three small ovate tubercles on the pygidium may perhaps indicate the processes by which the respiratory feet were attached.

Mr. Billings referred to the large number of Tribolites which have been examined, and expressed his belief that only the most perfectly

preserved specimens are likely to have the organs on the underside preserved.

(2) Mr. Billings next described the doublure or pleura in the Trilobites, comparing it to that of Limulus. He then proceeded to describe a row of small scars and tubercles on the underside of the pleura, to which both Dr. Volborth and Dr. Eichwald believed soft swimming feet or hard horny legs had been attached. As these were first seen by Dr. Pander in a Russian Trilobite, Mr. Billings has called them "Panderian organs." He thinks, soft natatory appendages may have been attached to these scars.

(3) Mr. Billings directed attention to the Protichnites and Climactichnites, which he thinks may now be referred to Crustacea, belonging to the division Trilobita.

(4) Finally, Mr. Billings described a section of a rolled-up Calymene senaria, the interior cavity of which appears to be full of minute ovate bodies, from to of an inch in diameter. These small ovate bodies the author believes to be eggs.

2. “Note on the palpus and other appendages of Asaphus, from the Trenton Limestone, in the British Museum." By Henry Woodward, Esq., F.G.S., F.Z.S.

Mr. Woodward, when comparing the Trilobite sent over by Mr. Billings with specimens in the British Museum, presented by Dr. J. J. Bigsby, F.R.S., discovered, upon the eroded upper surface of one of these, not only the hypostome exposed to view, but also three pairs of appendages, and what he believes to be the palpus of one of the maxillæ. This furnishes an additional fact to Mr. Billings's most interesting discovery, besides confirming its correctness.

Mr. Woodward considers the so-called “ Panderian organs" to be only the fulcral points upon which the pleuræ move, and showed that such structures exist in most recent Crustacea.

He considered that the evidence tended to place the Trilobita near to, if not in, the Isopoda Normalia.

He remarked that the prominence of the hypostome reminded one strongly of that organ in Apus, and suggested that we might fairly expect to find that the Trilobita represented a more generalized type of structure than their representatives at the present day, the modern Isopoda.

3. "On the Structure and Affinities of Sigillaria, Calamites, and Calamodendron." By J. W. Dawson, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., Principal and Vice-Chancellor of M'Gill University, Montreal.

The object of this paper was to illustrate the structure and affinities of the genera above named, more especially with reference to the author's previous papers on the "Structures in Coal" and the "Conditions of Accumulation of Coal," and to furnish new facts and conclusions as to the affinities of these plants.

Wih reference to Sigillaria, a remarkably perfect specimen of the