Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 25.djvu/246

152 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Jan. 13, siosauria, and perhaps Ichthyosauria; of Amphibia, a great number of Labyrinthodonts, some of which were of enormous size; of fishes, Ganoids and Elasmobranchs.

So long as mammals and birds were known to occur no further back than the older Tertiaries, or the middle Mesozoic rocks, it might be legitimate to imagine that they came into existence somewhere between that time and the end of the Palaeozoic series. But now that both are to be traced back to the Trias, that it is known that the Crocodilian and Lacertian types of reptiles were then in existence, and that the Amphibia were elaborately represented, I confess it is as possible for me to believe in the direct creation of each separate form as to adopt the supposition that mammals, birds, and reptiles had no existence before the Triassic epoch. Conceive that Australia was peopled by kangaroos and emus springing up ready-made from her soil, and you will have performed a feat of imagination not greater than that requisite for the supposition that the marsupials and great birds of the Trias had no Palaeozoic ancestors belonging to the same classes as themselves. The course of the world's history before the Trias must have been strangely different from that which it has taken since, if some of us do not live to see the fossil remains of a Silurian mammal.

Discussion, see p. 157.

2. On the Succession of Beds in the "New Red" on the South Coast of Devon, and on the Locality of a New Specimen of Hyperodapedon. By William Whitaker, B.A. (Lond.), F.G.S., of the Geological Survey of England.

The following account of the successive beds that are shown in the "New Red" cliffs of South Devon, is from notes taken during a holiday-walk along that coast last September, and it has been drawn up at the request of Prof. Huxley, in order to mark the stratigraphical place of the Hyperodapedon jaw from near Budleigh Salterton.

I believe that the only paper which treats of the order of these beds is a full report of two lectures by Mr. Pengelly, F.R.S.* To this I refer the reader for a more detailed account of the composition of the various "red rocks."

Owing to the dip, lower and lower beds rise to the surface south- westward, so that an almost continuous section is given.

The occurrence of the uppermost part of the "New Red" near the eastern boundary of the county, and its passage upwards into the Lias, have been noticed by Sir H. De la Beche†, a^id more fully by Mr. Pengelly‡; but the cliffs here are so much hidden by fallen


 * Trans. Plymouth Inst, for 1862-63 and for 1864-65.

† Trans. Geol. Soc. Ser, 2, vol. i. p. 42, and Plate 8 (1822). Report on the Geology of Cornwall, Devon &c. p. 209 (1839).

‡ Trans. Plymouth Inst, for 1864-65, pp. 33-36.