Devonian to beds containing undoubted marine fossils, lying between the top of the Old Red Sandstone and the base of the Coalmeasures. Taking their wide range over the world into account, he would even regard the Devonian rocks and fossils as the most general type of that portion of our series, and consider the Carboniferous Limestone of the British Islands and Belgium as the local and exceptional peculiarity. The following specimens were exhibited :-Pterygotus, Stylonurus, Eurypterus, and Cephalaspis, from the Old Red Sandstone of Forfarshire; exhibited by James Powrie, Esq., F.G.S. Encrinus moniliformis, from the Muschelkalk, Saxony; exhibited by E. Charlesworth, Esq., F.G.S. Mineral oils and rocks associated with them from Pisa; presented by St. John Fairman, Esq. Specimens of Woodwardite,' a new mineral from Cornwall; exhibited by Bernard H. Woodward, Esq. A miscellaneous collection of rocks; presented by W. T. Black, Esq. LIVERPOOL GEOLOCICAL SOCIETY.-March 13th, 1866. H. Duckworth, Esq., F. G. S., F. L. S., the President, in the chair. The following papers were read:-"The Mineralogical Characters of Rocks," by Mr. F. P. Marratt. "The Geology of the neighbourhood of St. David's, Pembrokeshire," by Mr. R. A. Eskrigge, F.G.S. "The Coal-fields of Flintshire and Denbighshire," by Mr. Edward Nixon, Mining Engineer. The latter communication was elucidated by a section of the Coalmeasures of the district around Mold. The author expressed his opinion that the Coal-seams of North Wales were continued under the New Red Sandstone of Cheshire, and that the time is not far distant when means would be adopted to prove the fact. So far as the Coal-seams could at present be correlated with those of Lancashire, the beds worked in North Wales appear to represent the central portion of the middle productive measures. The upper and lower part of the series are not clearly developed, though it is probable that the whole Coal-series occur in the neighbourhood of Mold, and along the border of the river Dee. The Main Coal is considered to represent the Wigan, nine-feet; but there is no bed worked so low as the Arley Mine of Lancashire. Reference was also made to the oil-producing cannel and associated shale at Leeswood, Coed Salon, and Coppa Collieries, where over one thousand retorts have been erected, showing the importance and wealth of the district. Mr. T. J. Moore exhibited a fine series of the bones of the Dodo, from the Mauritius, collected and presented to the Liverpool Museum by Mr. Henry P. Higginson.-G. H. M. DUDLEY GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.-On Friday, March 9th, a Conversazione and Exhibition of objects of scientific interest was held at the society's rooms, Dudley, under the presidency of Mr. F. Smith, M.A. There was a large attendance of members, and an extensive collection of microscopes, microscopic objects, including several thousand sections of igneous rocks; Ansell's diffusiometer; models of coke ovens, machinery, etc., revolving stereoscopes; Silurian, Carboniferous, and Drift fossils from the district, in addition to the large collection in the society's museum; mining and scientific diagrams; photographs of leading members at recent meeting of British Association. Mr. David Forbes, F.R.S., delivered an address "On the Igneous Rocks of South Staffordshire," in which he stated that he believed all the igneous rocks of the district belong to the same class, and that they were erupted at a later period than the Carboniferous age. Altogether a very agreeable evening was spent. BATH LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION.-A Meeting of the Members of this Association was held on Friday evening, January 12th, the President, the Rev. Prebendary Scarth, in the chair. Mr. W. Boyd Dawkins, M.A. (Oxon), F.G.S., of London, read a paper on "Bone Caverns and River Deposits." In the course of the making of the Great Western Railway that winds along the banks of the Avon Valley, many gravel beds were intersected, and a large quantity of remains found preserved in them. Those in the cutting at Newton St. Loe prove to belong to the elephant and horse. In the cutting at Freshford Station, besides these two animals, the great musk-sheep had been found by Mr. Moore, F.G.S., the reindeer by the Rev. H. H. Winwood, and the bison by himself. He stated that both the gravel and the included remains at Freshford appeared to have been deposited under conditions, to a certain extent, arctic; that the Avon in those days was heavily burdened with ice, and, perhaps, frost-bound for the greater part of the year; and that the pebbles of unequal size, some angular, some waterworn, and none sorted, as in the rivers of Britain now, were then embedded in ground-ice, and floated down till the miniature bergs melted, and their burden of pebbles, sand, and brick-earth was deposited. The gravel-pit at Locksbrook, near Bath, has added three more animals to the list of those from the ancient deposits of the Avon. The Rev. H. H. Winwood, to whom Natural History owes so much in Bath, has obtained from it, remains that belong to the lion, Irish elk, and the tichorhine rhinoceros. Mr. Dawkins then referred to the exploration of the Wookey Hole Cavern by Mr. Ayshford Sanford and himself, an account of which is printed in the eighteenth Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London. The list of the animals obtained from it comprises the cave-hyana, cave-lion, and cave-bear, the brown bear, the wolf, fox, mammoth, two species of extinct rhinoceros, horse, urus, Irish elk, red deer, reindeer, and, last of all, man. The rude flint implements, and the fragments of calcined bone-the relics of his fires-underneath the old floors of the cave, prove that he co-existed with the other animals found in the cave. The whole number of animals living in Britain during Pleistocene times consist of fifty-three species; of these all but seventeen are proved by their remains to have inhabited Somerset, viz:-man, the cave-lion, the cave-panther, the wild cat, the cave-hyana, the wolf, the fox, the glutton, the marten cat, the otter, the badger, the cave-bear, two species of bat, the bison, the urus, the reindeer, the red deer, the roedeer, the musk-sheep, the Irish elk, the wild boar, the horse, two species of rhinoceros, two species of elephant, the water-rat, the hare, the rabbit, the marmot, and the extinct hippopotamus. CORRESPONDENCE. ON THE DISCOVERY OF A BED OF DEVONIAN CORALS AT WITHYCOMBE, WEST SOMERSET. To the Editor of the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. SIR,-There is a band of Limestone, mentioned by Sir H. de la Beche, in his Geological Report on Cornwall, Devon, and West Somerset, which is traceable at intervals from Ilfracombe to Withycombe, the intervening localities being Combe Martin, Simonsbath, Cutcombe, Duxborough, and Treborough, and to quote his words, "if we be right in referring the Limestone of the Quantocks to the same band, it is carried round by Doddington, Asholt, and Cothelstone Park, the connection being concealed by the Red Sandstone series, the Lias, and the Sea." The existence of Coral-beds in the portion of this Limestone band exposed in the Quantocks has been ascertained by Mr. J. D. Pring, of Taunton, and the only genera and species that I at present know to have been found in them-though doubtless there are many others are the following: viz., Alveolites suborbicularis, Favosites polymorpha (cervicornis, M. Edwards), Favosites reticulata, Heliophyllum Halli (?), Endophyllum abditum, and an Acervularia. Of these species, specimens, presented by Mr. Pring, are to be seen in the Museum, at Taunton, and in the Collection of the Geological Society, at Somerset House. In the spring of 1860 I was so fortunate as to discover that a Coral-bed existed in the Withycombe portion of this Limestone band, partially exposed in the fields above Sandhill Farm. I was very much interested in the discovery, as I had never expected to meet with Fossils in the Devonian Rocks of the neighbourhood, and from this time, till Ileft the district in 1863, I made occasional visits to the spot, and searched every part of the bed, which is exposed over a very small area, repeatedly and thoroughly, and succeeded in collecting a great number of specimens. These I have named chiefly by means of polished sections, and the following is a list of their genera and species. List of Corals from Withycombe. vc., very common; c., common; r., rare. 1. Fenestella antiqua, c. 2. Stromatopora concentrica, c. 8. Amplexus (tortuosus?), r. 9. Cyathophyllum (Damnoniense?), r. 10. Cyathophyllum Boloniense, vc. 11. Cyathophyllum cæspitosum, vc. 12. Heliophyllum Halli, c. 13. Endophyllum abditum, r. 14. Cystiphyllum vesiculosum, vc. The Withycombe Corals are of various colours, red, yellow, grey, and black, and are usually more or less impregnated with iron. Red and yellow specimens are the commonest, and the latter generally show the structure best, which is also the case with the Carboniferous Corals of Clifton. With reference to the shales which occur in the Withycombe Limestone, I may mention that Spirifers are common in the quarry referred to above, and in another, on the left side of the valley which leads from Withycombe to Dumbledear, are to be found examples of Terebratula, Spirifer, joints of Encrinite-stems, and a large species of Cuculloa, but no trace of the Corals of Sandhill Farm. In the Limestone of this quarry there are cavities containing a substance like decomposed manganese. I also discovered, in a field upon the same farm (Sandhill), a portion of the conglomerate band, which a reference to the Map of the Geological Survey will show to be frequently observable in the New Red Sandstone of the district. It is visible for a few yards as an artificial section of no great depth, below the surface of the ground that has been worked for farm purposes. The conglomerate at this point abounds in Carboniferous Corals, amongst which I have observed Syringopora (ramulosa?), a Zaphrentis, Lithostrotion Martini, and a Cyathophyllum; also other characteristic Mountain Limestone Fossils. It is singular that Devonian and Carboniferous Corals should be found in such close propinquity. Previous to my ascertaining the occurrence of the conglomerate at this spot, I had found a specimen of a Carboniferous Syringopora, in a cart-track, beside some Devonian Corals, and was much puzzled, on learning that it belonged to a distinct formation, how to account for its presence in such a locality; but on the bed being pointed out to me, the mystery was explained. Yours truly. SEVERN HOUSE, HENBURY, BRISTOL. SPENCER GEORGE PERCEVAL. THE LOWER NEW RED SANDSTONES OF CENTRAL YORKSHIRE. To the Editor of the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. SIR,-Perhaps the following notes on the so-called Lower New Red Sandstones, lying between Fountain Abbey and Ripley, may be of use in illustration of Mr. Binney's interesting paper in the February Number of the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE: as they refer to that portion of the district, in which, he says, Professor Sedgwick appears to have lost sight of" the formation. In the quarry at South Stainley, to which reference is made, and of which the following is a section, the upper beds consist of flaggy Grits, separated from the more compact Grits below by a bed of Red Sandy Clay, about a foot in thickness. The dip is to the N.W. at an angle varying from 30 to 6°. 5 yards. FIG. 1.-QUARRY AT SOUTH STAINLEY. 1. Drift-gravel. 4. Red grit. About a mile and a quarter due west is a quarry, now disused, in which the beds as they lie, with an inclination 30° S., are broken and split at their edges, and covered with a gravel of disintegrated Sandstone. Half a mile to the S.W. of this quarry is another at Kettlespring, of which the upper beds consist of flaggy Grits, to the thickness of about 5 feet, lying upon the Red Grit, the beds of which become gradually harder as they descend. In this quarry, and in the one at South Stainley, and also on the rock to the north of Fountain's Abbey, the face of the rock is occasionally covered with Calcareous Spar, indicating the former presence of overlying Manganesian Limestone. A little above the village of Shaw Mills, in the same valley, is another quarry, in which the strata dip to the S.W. at an angle of 45°. There the Grit contains small pieces of Coal, evi |