Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 26.djvu/89

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1869.]
HUXLEY—HYPSILOPHODON.
3

world, and doubted whether, if these fossils were examined from the purely Australian point of view, the same age would be assigned to them.

Mr. Seeley agreed with Mr. Dawkins, and argued, from the existence of natural groups in different areas of the globe, and from the succession of life in time, that in no distant locality could the age of a rock be known from the resemblance of the fossils to an English type.

Mr. R. Tate remarked that if Mr. Moore had compared the Jurassic fauna with those of India, Africa, and Chili, he would have found the same mixture of forms belonging apparently to different horizons. He considered that the Australian fossils probably represented our Middle Oolite. He did not quite agree with the author as to some of the specific determinations.

Dr. Duncan remarked that the same combination of forms separated in Europe was found among the Tertiary fossils of Australia. He thought that further facts were necessary before forming a decided opinion as to the succession of the beds in that continent.

The President remarked that when we talked of identity of fauna in Australia and this country, improbable as it might appear, we must remember that at the present time identical species and, to a great extent, a similar fauna were to be found in our seas more than 180° apart.

Mr. Moore, in reply, argued that it was the safest plan to follow the well-established standard of Europe even in remote parts of the world. He was inclined to refer the bulk of the specimens rather to the Lower than to the Middle Oolite, but otherwise he agreed in the main with Mr. Tate.


3. On Hypsilophodon Foxii, a new Dinosaurian from the Wealden of the Isle of Wight. By T. H. Huxley, LL.D., F.R.S., President of the Society.

(Plates I. & II.)

During the meeting of the British Association at Norwich in 1868, Mr. F. Fellows, on behalf of the Rev. W. Fox, read a paper on, and exhibited the skull of, a fossil reptile discovered by that indefatigable explorer of the rocks of the Isle of Wight in a bed of the Wealden formation, "which forms the floor of Cowleaze Chine, and rises to the top of the sea cliff at Barne's High, in the parish of Brixton." Mr. Fox considered the reptile to be a "young Iguanodon" or more probably a "new small species of Iguanodon" and stated that he had found "several other skeletons" of the animal in the same locality.

In accordance with a wish expressed to me by Mr. Fellows, I made as careful an examination of the specimen as the circumstances would permit, and embodied the results of the investigation in some observations, accompanied by extemporaneous illustrations, which I made before Section C when the paper was read.