os BN ely ely eo eecite ating é on ek “bea tal be heya et ‘ im Pray “Va et For nee jaa o at ee ae tere ea WN ee » errr yy Sa te eb da F whee tifns &- FOR THE PEOPLE FOR EDVCATION FOR SCIENCE LIBRARY OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY THE GEOLOGIST; A POPULAR ILLUSTRATED MONT EUL.Y MAG AA TNE oF GHOLOGY. EDITED BY S. J. MACKIE, F.G.S., F.S.A. LONDON : “GEOLOGIST” OFFICE, 22, SOUTHAMPTON-STREET, STRAND. 1860. g4-1325% eae PRINTED AT THE “‘GEOLOGIS2’’ OFFICE, 156, sTRAND PORE FP AcG As the snowball gathers weight and size in its rolling, so from the first hour I took charge of The “Guonocisr” has it incessantly gathered strength in rolling on, until now it stands, if my information be correct, unrivalled in circulation by any British scientific periodical. I may be permitted some gratification in this result; and this feeling of pride is enhanced by the knowledge that of two previous attempts by others, one failed to accomplish a seventh number, and the other died at the third, although aided by lberal donations of plates and absolute gifts of money. The unvaried success, continued uninterruptedly to the present hour, augurs well and, to me, hopefully for the future. I trust my readers will support me by endeavouring to extend still more the circulation of the magazine, and thus to supply the necessary “sinews of war’ for its further improvement and enlargement. My fire burns brightly in the grate; the wind gently whistles at amy window; the moon tips the ripples of the pond in my garden with pearls of silvery light; the air is just keen. By-and-bye the bright coals will burn blue between the flaring flames of the Yule log; old Boreas will lustily howl his hurricane; the pale moon will anly illuminate the smooth-surfaced ice: and skaters will blow PREFACRK, their tingling fingers through their woollen mits. Christmas again is coming ; and a merry, hearty, jovial, happy time may it be to all and every of my friends and readers—aye, and to my enemies, too, if IT have any ;—on that one day, at least, God bless them. My thanks are again due to my good and sincere friend, Thos. Davidson, Esq., for his excellent contributions on the Scottish Brachiopoda, and to my other excellent friends, H. C. Salmon, Esq., F. E. Edwards, Esq., Dr. Gibb, T. Rupert Jones, Esq. G. V. Du Noyer, Esq., C. Moore, Esq., Major Austin, and my other contributors. T ought also to return my best thanks to my very numerous kind querists for the many gratifications they have given me in the pleasures I have had in replying to their interesting questions. Nothing seems to make my editorial labours so light as these kindly communications ; they seem a homely family link between us that binds us together in the great brotherhood of geologists. On the Ist of January, 1861, I shall again hoist the old colours, when our ship will appear with fresh decorations, handsome to look at, and in thorough repair. Some new and agreeable passengers will be on board amongst the old sailors, and we shall start vigorously on our fourth voyage. S. J. MACKTE. December, 1860. A Abbeville, Section of Strata at, 407 Acheul, St., Gravelsof, Query on Geologi- cal Character of, by F. Thompson, 73 , Section of Strata at, 405 Alabaster and Lignite in Tuscany, 463 Alton Museum, note on, by W. Curtis, 422 American Fossils, Exchange of, 417 _ Ammonites, Classification of, 396. , from the Gault, 353 ~ Anca, Baron, on Ossiferous Caves in Sicily, 312 Answer to Hugh Miller and Theoretic Geologists, by Thos. A. Davies, re- view of, 277 Archaia, by Dr. Dawson, review of, 158 _ Archeology, General Views on, by A. Morlot, 45 “Arrangement of Minerals, note on, 417 “Arrow-heads, Ancient Canadian, note ~ _ on, by Dr, Gibb, 422 Bicow Heads and M ammalian Remains, in Languedoc, BH. Lartet on, 454 _ Asphalt of Trinidad, 411 Auckland, New Zealand, Geology of, Dr. Hochstetter on, 184 , ——., Volcanic Country of, C. Heaphy on, 30 Austin, Fort-Major, on New Genus of Eechinoderm, 446 Austin, R. Godwin, on Fossils from Grey Chalk, Guildford, 381 —____——., ona Mass of Coal in Chalk in Kent, 381 Australia, South, Geology of, T. Burr on, 31 ———., Tertiary Deposit in, Rey. J. E. Woods on, 31 Bahia, South America, Fossils from, ‘5S. Ehitport on, 33 INDEX. Barrett, L., on Cretaceous Rocks in Jamaica, 381 Basalt, Du Noyer on, 5, 9, 13 Beach, Raised at Mewslade Prestwich on, 413 Beads, Fossils at St. Acheul, 406 Belemnites, former opinions of, 355 Bergh’s Theory of Periodic Inunda- tion, 423 Bigsby’s Cavern, Murray Bay, 174 Brachiopoda, New, C. Moore on, 438 Brachiopoda of Scottish Carboniferous System, Davidson on, 14, 99, 179, 219, 258 Bay, , Lists of Scottish Counties in which found, 259 , Scottish, Explanation of Plates of, 265 , Remarks on the Distri- bution of, by Prof. E. Suess, 285 —, Belgic compared, 235 British Brachiopoda, 459 Bones of Quadrupeds, with marks of Incisions of Instruments, 411 Bosco’s Den, Gower, 414 Boucher de Perthes, Antiquité Ante- diluviennes, notices of, 370 Boulder Clay on Cefn-y-burn, Gower, Prestwich on, 413 Bowen’s Parlour, Gower, 415 British Association Meetings, 26, 298 Bronze Age, M. Morlot on, 49 Bronze Relics in Auriferous Sands in Siberia, T. W. Atkinson on, 30 Bury Cross, near Gosport,a Well-Section at, Pilbrow on, 409 C Cabinets for Fossils, Letter from E. Wood, F.G.S. on, 351 Camarophoria, Carboniferous, David- son on, 24 ————— crumena, 25 Canadian Caverns, Dr. G. D. Gibb on, 131, 161, 213, 341 422, Canoes, Ancient, Note on, 196 il INDEX. Carboniferous System of the Lothians, 239 Catalogues of Fossils, note on, 318 Cephalopoda, Classification of, 395 Chaleur, Bay of, Caverns at, 164 Chalk, Grey, near Guildford, Fossils from, R. Godwin-Austen on, 381 -—, Red and White, of Yorkshire, note on Foraminifera in, by Major- Gen. Emmett, 419 Channel, British, Formation of, Mackie on, 255 Cheirotherium, Footsteps of, in Upper Keuper, Warwickshire, Rev. P. B. Brodie on, 34: Chinese Fossils, Hochstetter on, 419 Chonetes, Carboniferous, Davidson on, 184, 219 —— Hardrensis, 219 ——— Buchiana, 221 Clay Slate and Granite, at Halifax, Nova Scotia, note on, 420 Clinometer, Elliott’s, note on, 418 Coal-field, South Wales, Dr. Bevan on, 90 , the Tynedale, J. A. Knipe on, 315 Coal Formation of Nova Scotia, Ter- restrial Mollnse, Chilognathous My- riapod, and some new Reptiles, Dr. Dawson on, 83 Coal Measures, Upper, Fish and Ento- mostraca in, note on, by G. EH. Roberts, 319 , Fish from, query res- pecting works on, 392 Coal, Mass of, in Chalk, in Kent, R. Godwin-Austin on, 381 Coal Mines at Nagasaki, note on, 421 Collections, Tennant’s Mineralogical and Geological, 40 Common Fossils, 8. J. Mackie on, 1 Comparative View of Human and Animal Frame, by B. Waterhouse Hawkins, 200 Corals, Upper Silurian, Roberts on, 55 Cornwall, Geology of, notes on, 199, 350 Corrugation of Strata in the Vicinity of Mountain Ranges, Rev. J. Dingle on, 314 * Crag Shells, Aberdeenshire, 454 Craniade, Carboniferous, 222 Crania, Davidson on, 222 quadrata, 223 Creation Redemptive, by Rey. 8. Lucas, review of, 155 Cretaceous Period, the Probable Events which Succeeded the Close of, 8. V. Wood, jun., on, 382 Cryolite in Manufactures, 466 Cyrena Dulwichiensis, C. Rickman on, 211 D Damon, R., Geology of Weymouth, Review, 432 Davidson, T., On Scottish Carboni- ferous Brachiopoda, 14, 99, 179, 219, 235, 258 Dawson, Dr., on Fossil Fern from Nova Scotia, 456 Delesse’s Researches on Pseudomorphs, 396 Denudation of Soft Strata, Rey. O. Fisher on, 455 Denudation of the Wealden Area, Mackie’s Theory of, 203 Devonian Fossils of Cornwall, Geolo- gical and Chronological Distribution of, by W. Pengelly, 309 Discina, Davidson on, 225 nitida, 226 Discinide, Carboniferous, Davidson on, 225 Drift, C. B. Rose on, 137, 317 , I. F. Jamieson on, 383 Dulwich, Tertiary Strata at, C. Rick- man on, 456 Du Noyer, on Limestone in Old Red Sandstone, 272 , on Giant’s Causeway, 3, 142 , on Slickensides, 39 E Edwards, F. E., mani, 209 Envelopment of Minerals, Table of, 398 Evidences of Geelogical Age of Human Manufacture of Fossil Flint Imple- ments, Mackie on the, 404 Exchanges of Fossils, 459 on Pitharella Rick- i Falconer, Dr., on the Ossiferous Caves of Gower, 413 — ,Fauna of the Bone Canaa 416 Fern, Fossil, from Nova Scotia, Dr. Dawson on, 456 Fire by Friction, note on, 120 First Traces of Life, by 8. J. Mackie, review of, 160 Flints, Professor J. Tennant on, 35 Flint Implements, 35 ; in the Museum at Beauvais, 79; at Hoxne, 348 » Fossil, in America, 351 Flint Implements, Evidence of Geolo- gical Age and Human Manufacture of, Mackie on, 4.04 , Notices of at Grenoble, by E. Lartet, 412 Flora of the Silurian, Devonian, and Lower Carboniferous Formations, Prof. Goeppert on, 115 Flower, J. W., Flint Instruments found by, at St. Acheul, 405. _ Folkestone, Geology of, Mackie on, 41, 81, 121, 201, 281, 321, 353, 393 ~ Foraminifera in Red and White Chalk of Yorkshire, Major-Gen. Emmett on, 419 ,In Upper Lias Clays, near Derby, Jones and Parker on, 409 Formations below the Stonesfield Slate in Oxfordshire, Hull on, 303 Fresh-water Deposits of Bessarabia, 115 Frome, Small Vertebree from, Prof. P Owen on, 454 _ Fruit, Fossil, from Upper Coal Mea- sures, note on, by J. Taylor, 198 q G Gainford,ncarDurham, Fossilsfrom, 120 ~ Gems of Private Collections, 448 Gems in Situ, 118 Geological Examinator, the, by David Page, review of, 279 Gossip, by Prof. Ansted, review of, 320 Habitats of Some Rare British Plants, Rey. W. 8. 8ymonds on 313 —— Localities, 41, 81,121, 201, 281, 321, 353, 393 Society of Manchester, 135 ——— of Liverpool, 70, in? 116, 134 _-——______—. of London, 30, 69, 115, 133, 379, 408, 454 Topics, 371 Works, New, note on, 199 Geologists’ Association, 34, 270, 416 _ Geology in the Garden, by Rev. H. Eley, review of, 79 Giant's Causeway. 3 Gibb, Dr. G. D., on Canadian Caverns, s 131, 161, 213, 341 SeAaciors, the Old, of Switzerland and North Wales, by Prof. A. C, Ramsay, review of, 278 alasgow Geological Society, 457 d Depusits, Dr. Genth’s views on, 63 Gold Drifts of Ballaarat, note on, by W. J, Morgan, 153 Du Noyer on, INDEX. ii Gower, Ossiferous Caves of, Dr. Falco- ner on, 413 Great Oolite of Stonesfield, Thickness of Formations Below, H. Hnll on, 303 H Hammers of Stone and Flint, 385 Harkness, Prof. R., on Metamorphic Rocks of North of Ireland, 311 , on Old Red Sandstone and Metamorphic Rocks on Southern Margin of the Grampians, 379 Heat, Theory of Gradual Withdrawal of, by J. Curry, 273 Heterostegina Bed at Malta, 137 Hibberti on Fossil Fish, 350 Hodge, H. C., on the Oreston Caverns, 343, 377 Hoxne, Flint Implements at, 347 Hull, E., on Blenheim Iron Ore and. Thickness of the Strata below the Stonesfield Slate, 303 Human Remains, Fossil, Accounts of, 39 Published at Knaresborough, REZ Skeleton in Old Sea Margin, T. Austin on, 70 I Ice-Action, Hvidences of Ancient, at Liverpool, G. H. Morton on, 197 Tnundations, Periodic, an Essay on, by A. Bergh, review of, 423 Tron Ore at Blenheim, E. Hull on, 303 , Remarkable Property of, 351 Isomorphism of Stannic, Silica, and Zirconic Acids, 62 J Jamaica, Cretaceous Rocks in, 381 Jervis, W. P., on the Geology of Tus. cany, 413 Jewstone, G. E. Roberts on, 319 Jones, T. Rupert, on Outliers of Ter- tiary Ironstone on the North Downs of Kent, 339 ——____—__—-_ and W. K. Parker on Rhizopodal Fauna of the Mediter- ranean, 69 , on Triassic Foramini- fera, 409 K KeuperFormation, G. H, Morton on, 116 iv INDEX. Kirkby, J. W., on Sandpipes in Mag- nesian Limestone, 293, 329 L Lamellar Structure of Rocks, 391 Lapis Lazuli, note on, by G. EH. Ro- berts, 319 Lepidotus and Lepidosteus, Scales of, Lee on, 458 Leptzena Davidsonii, 445 Lias, Lower, of South of England, Dr. Wright on, 310, 133 at Whitchurch, note on, 392 Lingulide, Carboniferous, 227 Lingula, Davidson on, 227 ————., Anatomy of, 228 squamiformis, 232 scotica, 232 mytiloides, 234 Lingula-flags, Mackie on, 1 Lingula Credneri, in Coal-Measures of Durham, J. W. Kirby on, 384 London Clay, in Norfolk, 409 Ludlow, New Fossils from, 462 M Mackie, S. J., on Common Fossils of Lower Silurian Rocks, 1 , on First Traces of Man, 370 — , on the Geology of Folke- stone (the Gault), 41, 81, 121, 201, 281, 321, 353, 393 ——,, Geology of the Sea, 241 Malta, Geology of, notes on, 198, 421 , Fossiliferous Localities in, 276 Malvern Field Club, 35 Mammalian Remains at Bridlington, 119 at Folkestone, 282 at Frogmore, 421 at Petteridge,421 —____—___—__—— at Salisbury, 77 Man, Biblical Chronology of, 136 , Co-Existance of with certain ex- tinct Quadrupeds, HE. Lartet on, 411 , First Traces of, Mackie on, 307 Maps, Geological, Reynold’s, reviewed, 472 Metalliferous Deposits, Current Notes on, by H. C. Salmon, 62 Saddles in Lower Carboni- ferous Rocks in Derbyshire and Staffordshire, Dr. Watson on, 357 Metamorphic Rocks of North of Ire- land, Prof. Harkness on, 311 Metamorphism of Rocks, Delesse on, 65 Meteorite of Agram, 459 Mineralogical Notes, by H. C. Salmon, 62 Minerals, Arrangement of, note on, 417 , Envelopment of, 397 , Tables of, 398 Mitchell, Rev. H., on New Fossils from Lower Old Red Sandstone, 275 Mongrel Words, note on, 377 Monoliths, at Boroughbridge, 390 Moore, C., on the Contents of Three Cubic Yards of Triassic Earth, 315 , on Wealden Beds, at Linksfield, 409 Morlot, M., on some general views on, Archeology, 48 Mountain Limestone Works, on Fossils, 463 Museum, Alton, note on, by W. Curtis, 422 Museums, Provincial, Suggestions Respecting, by E. Charlesworth, 117 ——___—_—____,, by G. Horner, 136 N New Red Sandstone of Wolverhamp- ton, Rev. Wm. Lister on, 308 Nagasaki Coal Mines, 421 Nicker Pits at Canterbury, 277 Norfolk, London Clay in, Prestwich on, 409 Norwegian Lakes, Probable Glacial Origin of, T. Codrington on, 383 Notes and Queries, 36, 70, 117, 135, 184, 271, 317, 347, 385, 416, 458 O Old Red Sandstone of Forfarshire, Fos- sil Fish of, W. Powrie on, 336 , Fossiliferous Lo- calities of, in East of Scotland, note on, by J. R. Gregory, 142 —______—__, Fossil Fishesin, 147 , Limestone Veins in, 135, 273 —_——- , New Fossils from, Rey. Hugh Mitchell on, 273 ——_—_——— and Metamorphic of Rocks the Grampians, Prof. Hark- ness on, 379 Oolites, Lower, of Oxfordshire, Inver- tebrata of, J. Whiteaves on, 307 Operculum of an Ammonite in Situ, S. P. Woodward on an, 328 Oreston, Ossiferous Caverns at, H. C. Hodge on, 26, 343, 377 Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, by C. Darwin, Review of, 464, Orthis, Carboniferous, Davidson on, 99 resupinata, 99 Michelini, 101 Ossiferous Caves in Sicily, 312 Owen, Prof., on Polyptichodon, 32 Oxford, New Geological Map of, 302 , Strata at, Phillips on,379 iP Page’s Handbook of Geological Terms, Incorrectness in, 36, 135 Palzchinus, Austin on, 447 Palzeontographical Society’s Works, 277 Paradoxides Bennettii, 2 Peckham Rye, New Fossils at, 77 “Peckham and Dulwich, Fossil Remains in Tertiary Strata, 151 Pengelly, W., on Distribution of Deyo- nian Fossils, 309 Phillips, Professor, on Some Sections of Strata, near Oxford, 379 Pictured Rocks, Lake Superior, 169 Pilbrow, J., on a Well-Section at Bury Cross, Gosport, 409 Pillar Sandstones, North Coast of Gaspe, 166 Pitharella Rickmani, Edwards on, 209 Phosphate of Lime, 87 Plant, from Coal-Measures of South Wales, Dr. Bevan on, 460 Plants, Coal, Preservation of, 199 Pleistocene Deposits at Liverpool, 277, 349 Polyptichodon, Prof. Owen on, 32 Poole Harbour, Letter on, by P. Bran- non, review of, 430 Powrie, W., on Pteraspis from Old Red Sandstone of Forfarshire, 336 Pre-adamite Man, review of, 155 Prestwich, J., on a Raised Beach in Mewslade Bay, 413 , London Clay in Norfolk, 409 Proceedings of Geological Societies, 30, 69, 115, 133, 271, 379, 454, 408, 454 Productidz, Carboniferous, Davidson on, 105 -Productus, Carboniferous, 105, 179 ——— fimbriatus, 114 costatus, 179 Youngianus, 180 aculeatus, 181 spinulosus, 182 mesolobus, 182 pustulosus, 182 giganteus, 106 INDEX. Productus latissimus, 107 — semireticulatus, 108 longispinus, 110 carbonarius, 111 cora, 112 ———— undatus, 112 scabriculus, 113 punctatus, 113 , De Koninck’s groups of, 183 Protoechinus, Austin on, 446 Pseudomorphs, Delesse’s on, 396 Pteraspis and Coccosteus, 460 Pteraspis, in Lower Ludlow Bed, Dis- covery of, 79, 151 Punjab, Geological Notes on the, by J. Calvert, F.G.S., 348 Q Quaternary Geology, by S. R. P., 136 R Reading, Geology of, note on, 350, 390 Red Chalk of Yorkshire, 110 Gen. Emmett on, 419 Re-Oceurrence of Fossil Species at Various Stratal Horizons, 149 Reptiliferous Strata, near Elgin, Rev. W.S. Symonds on, 410 Reviews, 40, 79, 117, 155, 200, 377, 320, 377, 423, ‘464, Rhinoceros, Extinct Species of, Dr. Falconer’s Researches on, 148 Rhizopodal Fauna of the Mediter- ranean, Jones and Parker on, 69 Rhynchonellidee, Carboniferous, Dayid- son on, 22 Rhynchonella, Davidson on, 22 pugnus, 23 —————_—— plurodon, 24 Roberts, G. E., on Severn Valley Rail- way, 433 , on Upper Silurian Corals, 55 Rose, C. B., on the Divisons of the Drift in Norfolk and Suffolk, 137, 317 , on the Strata Containing Flint Implements at Hoxne, 347 ) Sahara, Geological System of, 305 Salmon, H. C., Mineralogical Notes, 62 ——————,, on Pseudomorphs, 396, 450 Salter, J. W., ou Ludlow Pteraspis, 79 , Silurian Rocks of Ireland, 151 Sandpipes in Magnesian Limestone of Durham, J. W. Kirkby on, 298, 329 V1 INDDX. Scotland, Highlands of, Rocks, Ores, &e., on the Property of the Marquis of Breadalbane 385 Sea, the Geology of the, Mackie on, 241 Severn Valley Railway, Roberts on, 433 Sicily, Ossiferous Caves in, 312, 410 Silurian Rocks, Abergele, 76 —_— , Lower, Mackie on, 1 of South-east of Treland, T. Austin on, 70 of Ireland, Letter 151 Silver in California, note on, 351 Slickensides, 37, 38, 76, 117 Sligo, Geology of, 317, 350 Skipton, Map of, review of, 200 Smoking Pipes in Alluvium 78,119 Spirifera, Carboniferous, Davidson, 15 duplicicosta, 16 ——_—— hisulcata, 16 trigonalis, 17 pinguis, 17 ——— oyalis, 18 glabra, 18 Carlukiensis, 19 ——— Urii, 19 —— lineata, 20 Spiriferina, Carboniferous, on, 20, cristata, 21 insculpta, 22 —laminosa, Davidson on, 234 Spitzbergen, Goology of, J. Lamont on, 408 Spongeous Nature of Flints, Chemical Evidence of, 271 Steinhauer Cavern, the, 171 Stone-Age, M. Morlot on, 49 Stone Axes, Manufacture of, 349 Implements, Manufacture of, 392 Stonesfield Slate, W. 8. Horton on, 249 Streptorrhynchus, Carboniferous, Da- vidson on, 103 Davidson é crenistria 103 Strophomena, Davidson on, 102 — rhomboidalis, 102 Strophomenida, Carboniferous, 99 Succession of Life, First Traces, 1 Suess, Prof. E., on Distribution of Bra- chiopeda, 285 Symonds, Rey. W. S., on Geological Habitats of Some Rare Plants, 313 , on Reptiliferous Sandstone, near Elgin, 410 T Tate, C., on Carboniferous Strata, 238 Terebratella, Development of Loop in, Moore on, 441 Terebratella Buckmanii, 441 furcata, 442 Terebratula maxillata, 440 ———— hemispheerica, 440 Terebratulina radiata, 443 Tertiary Ironsand of North Downs of Kent, 339 Plants of Austria, 460 Toads, Living when Shut in Plaster for Years, note on, by M. Seguin, 421 Travertine, at Kinder Scout, 416 Triassic Earth, the Contents of Three Cubic Yards, Moore on, 315 Trinidad, Geology of, G. P. Wall on, 410 Tuscany, Geology of, 413 U Unio and Paludinz of Wealden Mar- ble, 448 Vv Vegetable Fossils in Flint, 197 Verstegan’s Observation on the former Connectionof Franceand England, 204 W Warp, Deposition of, E. Tindall on, 39 Waste of Land in Yorkshire, 421 Watson, Dr., on Metalliferous Saddles, 357 Wealden Area, Denndation of the, Mackie on, 203 — Beds at Linksfield, C. Moore on, 409 Wexford Schists, T. Austin on, 391 Weymouth, Geology of, by R. Damon, review of, 432 Woodward, 8. P., on an Operculum of an Ammonite in Situ, 328 Worcestershire, the Rocks of, by G. E. Roberts, review of, 279 Worms, Influence of, in Formation of Soils, Rev. H. Eley on, 80 Wright, Dr. T., on Avicula Contorta Bed and Lower Lias of the South of England, 310 Z Zellania, C. Moore on, 444 —— globata, 444 —— oolitica, 444 ~~ S Q & Chalk Cliffs capped by Basalt 4 Junction of Basalt and Chalk 5 Irregularly Deposited Basalt 6 View of Giant’s Causeway. a The “Organ”. . “ual Ge ahs! . Cliffs South of Portnoffer Ag Ay The Whin Dyke. . . + 10 . Coast of Giant’s Causeway oy nl . Grouping of Basaltic Columns 13 . Interior of Athyris ambigua 15 . Interior of Spirifera striata . 15 . Rhynchonella psittacea . . 23 . Interiors of Camarophoria. . 25 . Fragment of Slickensides. . 39 . Eastwear Bay, Folkestone . 41 . The “ Warren,” at Folkestone 43 . Section at Waterford Haven. 72 Lo OOIAMS wry Z [8. Ammonites Lautus .. . 81 . Ammonites varicosus . . . 82 . Ammonitestuberculatus . . 82 . Ammonites auritus. .. . 83 . Rostellaria Parkinsonii . . 83 . Hamites rotundus a Oe . Ammonites interruptus. . . 85 . Fragment of Dicotyledonous Wood bored by Toredo . . 86 . Copt Point, Folkestone . . 87 . Ammonites mammilaris . . 88 . Interior of Productusgiganteus 106 . Belemnites Listeri ER. . Solarium ornatum . 124 West Cliff, Folkestone, with capping of Mammaliferous DEG. ses . 125 . Sandgate, Kent . . . 126 Kentish Rag and Wealden Beds ... Le or ehae . “ Jill’s Pipe,” Lympne . . 128 . Shrinkage Joints in Trap. . 142 . Nodule from Tynet . . . 145 Disjointed Nodule in Old Red Sandstone . 146 . Fruit from Bolton . . 198 . Small Fruit fromBolton . . 198 Map of the Denudation of the Pen 5 +s 208 41. Crania Ignabergensis 222 42. Animal of Discina 225 Lingula anatina . . |. 228 Carboniferous aes of the Lothians . INDEX. Vil PAGE, . Vertical Veins of Limestone in Red Shale, at Templemore 272 . Explanatory View of Sea-bed forming the Strata at Tem- plemore . . 278 . Bone of Bos primigenius 2 tetZBE . Chalk Downs, near Folkestone 282 “ Bull-dog” Steps, Folkestone 283 . Section, showing Sandpipes . 294 . Pipes in Magnesian Limestone 296 . Tubular Sandpipes c 297 . Ammonites Bouchardianus 321 . Inoceramus sulcatus 322 . Inoceramus concentricus . 322 . Nucula pectinata . 322 . Nucula ovata . 322 . Nucula bivirgata. 323 - Nucula ornatissima . 323 . Plicatula pectenoides 323 . Ostrea Rauliniana 323 62. Lima parallela Gault . . . 324 » Arca carimata. . . . » «824 64, Turritella vibrayeana . 324 65. Scalaria Clementina. 325 66. Cast of Scalaria Dupiniana . 325 67. Acteon vibrayeana 326 68. Ringinella Clementina . 326 69. Natica gaultna . . . . . 326 70. Solarium dentatum . 327 71. Solarium conoideum. 372 72. Dentalium decussatum. 327 73. Bellerophina vibrayeana . 827 74, Ammonites subradiatus, with the Opereulum in Situ 328 75. Oblique Sandpipes . . . 329 76. Decomposed Limestone sur- rounding a Sandpipe . 330 77. Pipe in Rubble . 2 . 331 78. Hinder Portion of Pterygotus 337 , Contorted Beds of alternating . Sandstone Hammer ., . Sandstone Hammer. . Ideal Section explanatory of the Driftand “Kentish Crae”’ 340 . Plicated Strata, North Stafford- shire . 358 Limestone and Shale. . 360 . Ideal Section of Limestone Strata in North Staffordshire 363 - Mode of Deposition of Ore, North Staffordshire . . . 365 . 386 . 386 yi INDEX. FIG. PAGE. 86. Stone Hammer... . . 887 87. Vesuvian Leucite . . . 400 88. Parallel Zones of Ripidolite . 401 89. Ferro-magnesian Mica enve- loping Aluminous Mica. . 402 90, Ordinary Pear-shaped Flint Implement, from the Gravel of St. Acheul . . . 405 91. Flint Implement found by Mr. J. W. Flower . -. . 505 92. Fossil Bead, formed of the little Chalk-sponge, Cosci- nopora globularis . . . . 406 FIG. PAGE. 93. Flint Implement fixed to a Stout Pole, in illustration of its probable use as a Spear- or Javelin-head. . . . 406 94, Travertine deposited by stream near Kinder Scout, Derby- shire . . 417 95. New Plant. from Coal Mea, sures, South Wales. . . 461 96. Section of Rocks, Pedwardine 462 97. New Fossil Bryozoan (?), from Wenlock satis near Adfor- Worle 5c +) *ee WZ Lil S Poe P nA Pass PLATE To Face Page I. Scottish Carboniferous Brachiopoda . ..... =: ». « « «| 2 II. Scottish Carboniferous Brachiopoda ...... .. =. . ~ 104 III. Scottish Carboniferous Brachiopoda ...... +... =~. . 180 IV. Scottish Carboniferous Brachiopoda PI, che an et VY. Pitharella Rickmani and Cyrena Theat . . (Frontispiece) 212 V*. Bryon Island and “The Old Woman” of Gaspe .* ... . . 164 VI. View of the Pierced Island, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. . . . . 182 VI*. Caverns and Arched Rocks at Percé, Gaspe. . ... =... « 162 VII. Basaltic Caverns at Henley Island . ae ella VIII. Basaltic Dykes of Mecattina . rrenc ys cL IX. Bigsby’s Cavern . Poe te we ie alg) Me ete es le tt an X. Bouchette’s Cavern, Kildare, Camada . . =. . 9. © « os ueennlao XI. Murray’s Cavern and Subterranean River, Ottawa . ... . 218 XII. Sections of Bones of Recent Lepidosteus of the aia and of Lepidotus Fittoni from the Wealden of Sussex . . . ~ Voe aos: XIII. Development of Loop in Terebratula . . . . PMerees) oh: Salah XIV. Slab of Bethersden Marble, with Unio and Paludina . 2 0 2 eR Sas es fs f i | | } THE GEOLOGIST. JANUARY, 1860. THE COMMON FOSSILS OF THE BRITISH ROCKS. By S. J. Mackin, F.G.S., F.S.A. (Continued from vol. ii., page 427.) Cuar. 7.—First Traces of the Succession of Life-—The Lower Silurian Rocks. OsscurE as are the animal remains of these old Lingula-flags, the traces of vegetation are yet more difficult to make out and to describe. Lasier, too, are they to describe than to figure; for, mere shallow impressions and stains as they are upon the cleaved rock, it is easier to see their remote resemblances to some known forms than to convey an idea of them by the finest lines that the graver will cut upon the wood. And then how unsatisfactory to spend days in elaborating the representation of a mere fragment, the very charac- ters of which we are in doubt about. We shall shortly present our readers, however, with figures of the most illustrative specimens we can obtain of those sea-weeds of the primeval shores, the Cruziana semiplicata, the Chondrites (?) acutangulus, and Chondrites (?) informis. In North Wales, near Tremadoc, an upper portion of the Lingula- flags, consisting of dark grey or blackish schists with thin layers of grit, has been made out by Mr. Salter. This upper zone, in addition to the Lingula awisii and Agnostus pisiformis, presents us with two other forms of trilobites, Conocephalus invitus (Salter), and Elipso- cephalus (?) depressus (Salter), with a bryozoan (plate ii.), the oldest of the group yet known, supposed to be allied to Fenestella, and VOL, Il. A 2 THE GEOLOGIST. intermediate between the Fenestellida and the Graptolites, and named Dictyonema (Graptopora) socialis by Mr. Salter; also a small Orthis and a Scandinavian trilobite, Olenus alatus of Beck. The fossil Dictyoneme completely cover the surface of a black slaty layer at that place; and near Maentwrog and Ffestiniog the same bed has been observed overlying the lighter coloured and more sandy mass of the Lingula-flags proper, and apparently forming a conformable bed of passage into the lowermost portion of the Llandeilo group. Such then, and so scanty, are all the trophies as yet obtained from these ancient silurian rocks—the Lingula-flags. Let us cast our eyes over the equivalent rocks in other lands. In North America vast is the development of the Potsdam sandstones which represents them, but in these the fossils are like, and few. In Bohemia, Scandinavia, France, Georgia, and other places it is the same. From Newfoundland, during the past year, we have indeed been presented with a giant trilobite nine inches and a-half across, and named by Mr. Salter Paradowides Bennettii. But this difference only of size from the other species of the same genus in these rocks, con- firms rather than depreciates the conclusion which Sir Roderick Murchison has come to of the paucity of life-forms at this early stage of the elaboration of the stratified crust of our planet. Whether the geographical distribution of particular species in particular regions at that remote era will be established as a fact or not, it is certain that the range of organic forms was at its maximum then; while the similarity of the forms presented in regions far remote and apart, seems certainly to indicate more equitable condi- tions of climatal relations. This is what we should expect from the general low oosy character of those tide-washed lands, and the still warm and reeking atmosphere in which the whole globe was pro- bably enveloped. Let us pause for one moment on the strange scene. That great expanse of sea, those wide, flat, muddy shores, over which the un- checked tides ran rippling with rapid speed in a thin sheet, waving into life the silken weeds, and ebbed as quickly, triturating in their unctuous passage the fine material particles finer and finer, leaving tiny pools innumerable, shallow lagoons, and mimic lakes for Hymenocarides and Trilobites to sport and grovel in. How glori- DU NOYER—NOTES ON THE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY. 3 ously the pale “ queen of night” must have shed her rays along that glistening tract, and how fair and white the long curling shore-waves must have looked, as they caught with their rolling crests her silvery beams, and perchance reddened in the glare of some raging volcano. Over the endless ocean the glittering flood of light ranged away, until far, far off in the grey and misty horizon, it mounted to the clouds, and seemed to mingle earth with heaven. How beautiful must have been the moon’s light then, when only the trilobites turned their hundred-lensed eyes towards her, and skipping Hymenocarides in their sportive progress, spattered out of the shadowy pools sparks and flashes of bright light. What a world of silence, unbroken save ~ by the rushing of the wind, or the murmurs of the sea. No beast upon that oosy land, where nor grass nor herbage grew. No birds nor insects in that dewy air; nor waves nor ripples landed the glit- tering fish upon those slimy shores ; the wide expanse of waters was untenanted by the scaly tribe, and the sluggish shell-fish, worms, and three-lobed crabs, and their shrimp-like congeners, were the sole tenants of the earth. (To be continued.) NOTES ON THE STRATIGRAPHICAL POSITION OF THE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY, AND THE STRUCTURE OF THE BASALTIC CLIFFS IMMEDIATELY ADJOINING IT. By Geo. V. Du Noysr, M.R.1.A., Senior Gronocist oF THE GEOLO- GICAL SuRVEY OF IRELAND. Duriné a visit to the Giant’s Causeway in the month of September, 1857, I made a few notes and sketches on the spot, having reference more particularly to the determinating of the stratigraphical position of the Causeway itself, and to get if possible a clear idea of the struc- ture of the exposed cliff-sections of the basalts in the immediate neighbourhood. On comparing my observations with an account of the causeway and the adjoining coast given by the Rev. John Dubourdien in his statistical survey of the county of Antrim in 1812, I was struck with the discrepancies which exist between them, the 4 THE GEOLOGIST. author’s idea being that the bed of Basalt forming the Causeway ex- tended eastward to Portmoon, a distance of two-miles (page 46), and that the whole of the strata are parallel to each other. These sup- positions are, as far as I am aware of, adopted by all subsequent writers on the Causeway ; and as they are errors, a transcript of my notes may not be unacceptable to the readers of the “ Gronocisr ;” they tend at least to illustrate more fully the structure of the Basaltic deposits to which I allude, and are a few additional facts added to our present information on this interesting subject. Proceeding to the Causeway from Portrush, when we arrrive at Dunluce Castle the views of the coast are remarkably striking and instructive. That to the west, from a window in Dunluce Castle (Fig. 1) shows the junction of the Basalt and Chalk Lign. 1.—View looking west, from a window in Dunluce Castle. Chalk Cliffs capped by Basalt. most admirably. The Basalt, which for the height of some hundreds of feet above the Chalk is quite amorphous, is seen capping all the low chalk promontaries along the coast. Between Portrush strand and the stream adjoining Dunluce Castle on the west, the absolute junction of the two rocks can be closely studied in many places on the road which passes over the cliffs alluded to, the surface of the chalk on which the basalt rests beg very uneven, and in some places excavated into wide and deep gullies like the transverse sections of river-courses; at others it presents bluffs or possibly headlands against which the basalt has flowed, and which it eventually com- pletely overlays. In this view the cliff close to the spectator is DU NOYER—NOTES ON THE GIAN1’S CAUSEWAY. 5 formed of bedded basalt which rises from the sea, the adjoining head- land beyond it being chalk; thus we have an example of the latter kind of junction between these two rocks, as the supposition of their being brought together by a fault is not tenable. To make this paper more complete I have introduced the accom- panying sketch of the junction of the basalt and chalk on the Port- rush shore, as showing that fact more in detail. NAY !> Nee , 00 Co® % © L) Lign. 2.—Junction of Basalt and Chalk, Shore of Portrush, Co. Derry. a. Amorphous basalt, becoming so decomposed in its lower portion as to resemble dark brown earthy shale. b. A layer of drift-flints, water-worn, enclosed in what is now hardened, or baked chalk-mud—the flints being most numerous at the bottom of the deposit. This rests on the erroded surface of the chalk proper (¢), showing that before the deposition of the basalt, that rock had been subjected to forces of sub-marine denudation, and that the basalt flowed over it while so submerged. The chalk, though not distinctly bedded, exhibits numerous lines of lamination, which are parallel to the direction of the layers of flint (d). Numerous joinis rather wide apart traverse the chalk layers at their upper part, vertically. The view (fig. 3) also from Dunluce Castle is in the opposite direction to the former, or looking east towards the Causeway- 6 THE GEOLOGIST. headlands ; the low promontary in the foreground is formed entirely of bedded basalt apparently of different degrees of hardness, and is exceedingly interesting, as affording an insight into the true manner in which basaltic flows of unequal compactness are de- posited, a single bed of harder basalt being observed to branch a — = == ——— TR > Ni i ae = ge te j ili Hill Nae -- SE hm itn, wr i Ny hee om = 2 SSS AST 5 = Lign. 3.—View looking east from a window in Dunluce Castle, the Causeway-headlands in the distance. Irregularly deposited Basalt. off so as to form two beds, each equal in thickness to the first; while in another part of the cliff two beds join into one bed, which then equals their united bulk. These are facts that we must bear in mind when examining and describing the Causeway and the adjoining cliffs. To the spectator who stands on that bed of columnar basalt called “The Giant’s Causeway” the view presented on the north-east, across _ Portnoffer Bay, embraces the profile of the Chimney-headland, half a mile distant and three hundred and eighty feet in elevation, as well as that of the nearer and less lofty projection of the coast east of Portnoffer, three hundred and twenty-seven feet above the sea. Adjoining this is the group of columns called “The Organ,” part of which is shown at the extreme right of the view (fig. 4); th distance between the “ Chimney”’-head and Portnoffer-point is only two hundred and fifty yards. GIANT’S CAUSEWAY. DU NOYER—NOTES ON THE “SUTINION-UBSIO OY} JO Jw *X “Spoq omTpIO SAA A ‘OTTO B [BY JuVISIp pus “WN suLreoq puvyproy-AouunyO oy} ‘KBMOSNBD SJUBLD OY} WOT, MOLA—'f ‘UST Lip ete EEE a= LYLE NEED YFP F?” 8 THE GEOLOGIST. The section at the Chimney-headland is as follows: commencing at the top, two thick beds of columnar basalt, closely resembling ‘ each other in appearance, a few columns of the top one being left standing apart fioni the main mass at the edge of the cliff, thus sug- gesting the idea of the “chimney ;” the floor of the upper bed is re- markably level. These columnar basalts rest on what is known as the great ochre bed—a well marked feature in the section. Below this ochre layer the remainder of the cliff consists of possibly four deposits of amorphous basalt, each separated from the other by a thin layer of ochre. In the lesser headland, east of Portnoffer Bay, the section is very similar to that just described; the two upper columnar beds are again recognized, and together rest on the ochre bed, which here, however, has become considerably thinner, and, owing to a steady dip of about five degrees to the west in all the beds at that side of the Chimney-head, it is now much nearer to the sea than before; this may be the result of a slight upheaval en masse of the beds at the Chimney-headland. a a ae Samii —— <r f Pris ou or i cm My oy \ Nive yi ny i a Niet Fs Fy li Wg a, a i it Nigaifl caut Lign. 5.—The “‘ Organ.” Tf we attempt to follow the great ochre bed towards the Cause- way, or in its western extension, it appears to thin out, and to be easily concealed by the debris from the cliffs above, and eventually a very marked change is observed in the superimposed DU NOYER—NOTHES ON THE GTANT’S CAUSEWAY. 9 columnar beds; they also become thinner, and lose their remarkable parallelism of deposition, as well as distinct columnar structure ; The upper one is now but rudely columnar, and the columns are much thicker than those of the bed below; the underlying ochre- layer is wanting, and its place is supplied by a deposit of amorphous basalt, which now attains a thickness equal to that of the super- imposed columnar beds. This change of structure in the cliff-section occurs in a distance of less than three hundred yards. Below this amorphous basalt a new columnar bed of trap appears, the pillars of which are exceedingly symmetrical in every respect, and of great beauty ; they are exposed for the distance of about two hun- dred feet, and are all inclined to the eastwards ; while their upper surface, which is very even, slopes to the westward at about six to eight degrees. This group of columns is called “The Organ’’ (see figs. 4 and 5). Below this bed, though not absolutely seen, the missing ochre- layer is presumed to be. If we now follow the cliff section west- ward, we find that the “organ-bed” in its extension to that direction, and with its dip of six to eight degrees would eventually be brought so low that more than one-half of its thickness would be emersed below the level of the sea, leaving the remainder to project above the water, and thus to form that singular looking natural pier called “The Giant’s Causeway.” At this spot the thickest and very nearly the most central portion of this particular lava-flow is reached, and it is worthy of remark that here the columns on the east side of the Causeway, which is about one hundred and sixty feet across, in- cline to the east, while on the west side they slope to the west, thus showing in their vertical arrangement a radiation from a series of centres, all following a given line, which would have very nearly a meridional direction, or in other words that of the longest axis of the lava-flow. This structure, I have no doubt, would be apparent throughout the entire of this particular bed if we had the power to examine it throughout, indeed the view which the cliffs afford of it is almost conclusive on this point, as it exposes a transverse section of it in two of its most important positions, viz., at the “ Organ-” columns, near its eastern termination, and at the Causeway, close to its centre. VOL. II. B 10 THE GEOLOGIST, Tn the cliffs to the south of Portnoffer, adjoining the Causeway, which average from two hundred and seventy feet to three hundred and seven feet in elevation (fig. 6), the two columnar beds, which 280 feet : aga STOLE TALEO Ue) fer fll ae 97 py. Lign. 7,—The Whin Dyke. are so distinct at the summit of the “ Chimney-” headland, are repre- sented by not less than possibly four separate deposits of trap; the DU NOYER—NOTES ON THE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY. two lowest, which occupy the central position of the cliff, are rudely and mas- sively columnar, and are separated from each other by an irregular layer of rotten black shale, which at one period was searched for coal, and is still known as the “coal-mine ;” the lower portion of this shale is a dull brownish-red earth. Above these columnar beds the re- mainder of the cliff is composed partly of amorphous trap and a group of small columns, which are bent out of the per- pendicular, being overlaid by a thin layer of horizontal columns, which ter- minate the chief section. At this locality the cliff is traversed from its base to its summit by a whin dyke, fifteen feet thick, the strike of which is about north-west and south- east (Lign. 7). The projection in the coast directly south of the Causeway and overhanging it, called ‘“ Ard snoot,” is three hundred and seven feet above the sea. It ex- hibits two well-marked columnar beds, most probably the representatives of those at the Chimney-headland. They appear to be of equal thickness, but the upper bed, which forms the summit of the cliff, exhibits small, well-formed, but partially bent, or irregularly bulged columns; while those of the lower bed are unusually large, rudely formed, and more vertical. From the observations which I have been able to make, it would appear that the bending of basaltic columns in situ may be accounted for in two ways: Weirs Snoot, 43 fo} (o} ad n— 5! Lo} m 4 % f FE SH Fat ey 4A lo} 4 a qe A # Oo ay Chimney Head, N.E, Organ-columns. Great Steucan Point. Amorphous Basalt below the Ochre bed. Causeway, with Whyn Dyke. a, amorphous trap, columnar at its base; d e, great ochre bed. Amorphous Basalt below the Ochre bed. Lign. 8.—Diagrammatic Section of the Coast at the Giant’s Causeway, from the Chimney Head to the Steucan Point; view looking S8.E. 11 Scale, 6 inches to 1 mile for distance and height. 12 THE GEOLOGIST. first, as the result of vertical pressure applied to the columns after their perfect formation, and before the mass had quite lost its plasticity from heat; secondly, the effect of a re-heating and compression on the columns by an incandescent mass of trap being poured out on them, thus rendering them plastic to a certain depth only, an idea not improbable when it is recollected that basalt fuses at a less heat than that required to melt pig-iron. Near Portrush, on the Coleraine road, an excavation into a low knoll of amorphous trap, the base of which is formed of a thick bed of columnar basalt, affords a striking example of perfectly formed vertical columns being bent over at the top to the depth of a few feet, most likely the re- sult of their having been re-heated and compressed by the super- imposed amorphous trap. The foregoing remarks have of course no reference to columnar masses which exhibit a radiating structure, as this may be merely a rude zeolitic form of columnar arrangement, or crystallization in the basalt. Leaving the Causeway, and proceeding along the base of the cliffs south west towards the headland called “ Weirs snoot,” (two hundred and eighty-five feet in elevation), we soon pass off the Causeway-bed, as it rises to that direction, or, in other words, slopes to the east- ward; and, as we get near the Hotel, the pathway under the cliffs ex- poses the lost ochre bed of the Chimney-headland ; it is here, however, very thin, and is overlaid by the western extension of the amorphous trap which was described as resting on the “ Organ’’-bed, or that which forms the Giant’s Causeway. The base of this amor- phous trap is rudely columnar to the height of from eight to ten feet from the ochre-bed, the sides of the imperfectly formed pillars being deeply waved or curved, giving them a pinched look. Many of these columns if detached would resemble a long irregularly shaped wedge or pyramid, the base or apex being up or down as chance would have it. The exceedingly close resemblance of this rudely columnar mass to that of the Rowley Hill, near Dudley, in Staffordshire, is very striking, though they are of different geological age. The rugged headland to the north of the Causeway Hotel, called | “the Great Steucan,’’ and the cliff called “ Weirs snoot,” are formed — of the amorphous basalts which underlie the ochre-bed, and con- DU NOYER—-NOTES ON THE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY. 13 sequently in them we have regained the same geological horizon or the beds equivalent to those forming the base of the Chimney- headland. From the foregoing , remarks we may infer Ist, That lava-flows are much less regular and parallel to each other in their deposition than matter deposited to form an aqueous rock. 2nd, The Basalt which forms the columnar bed known as the “ Giant’s Causeway” is quite a local deposit, measuring at the most two thou- sand six hundred feet in width, or from east to west, and appearing along the coast as alen- ticular shaped bed, thin- ning out at either side; and it occupies a flat- tened trough in the amorphous basalts which underlie the great ochre- bed of the “ Chimney-” headland. 3rd, The section af- forded by the coast ad- joining the Causeway is a cutting transverse to the longest axis of, at least, this lava-flow. 4th, The columns of this particular bed ap- Lign. 9.—Grouping of Basaltic columns. Figs. 1 and 2.Three sided columns surrounded by their associated pillars. Fig. 3.—The largest perfect column at the Causeway; a nonagon surrounded by its adjoining pillars. Fig. 4.—Possibly a decagon column, surrounded by nine other columns. It may, however, be merely ahex- agon, and a heptagon attached by one side longer than the others—no means of proving whether the central division e prolonged below the articulation of the pillar shown in e view. 14 THE GEOLOGIST. pear to radiate from aline of imaginary centres, which are coincident with the longest axis of the flow; the imner circumference of these radiations being defined by the upper surface of the lava-bed, and hence the upright planes of columnar crystallization strike at right angles downwards from what must have been the primary cooling surface of the mass, that surface from the first having been slightly depressed in its centre. 5th, The columns which form the “Giant's Causeway” exhibit a peculiar beauty and accuracy of form, being in every respect more symmetrical than those of any of the other columnar basalts of the district, with the one exception of the “Organ-”columns, and on this account alone an observer would be led to identify them as be- longing to the same bed. THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM IN SCOTLAND CHARAC- TERIZED BY ITS BRACHIOPODA. By Tuomas Davinson, Esq., F.R.S., F.G.S., Hon. Member of the Geological Society of Glasgow, ete., ete. (Continued from vol. ii., page 477.) Genus Sprrirera. Sowerby. 1815. The shells of which this genus is composed differ much in their external shape and appearance, hence the great difficulty of correctly determining the limits of certaim species. The character of this extinct genus are now so well understood that 1t is scarcely necessary to make any further allusion to the subject ; but we may briefly repeat, for the sake of the less initiated, and in order to shorten the descriptions of the various species, that all possess a straight hinge-line, and a triangular or sub-parallel area, which is divided by a triangular fissure, this last bemg more or less covered, or contracted, by the means of one or two curved plates, to which the term pseudo-deltidium has been applied. The pseudo-deltidium is rarely preserved in the carboniferous specimens, but did certainly exist in the perfect or living individuals. The valves are articulated by the means of curved teeth developed on either side of the fissure in the ventral valve, and which fit into corresponding sockets in the opposite or dorsal one. In the larger valve the teeth are supported by vertical fates of greater or lesser dimensions, and in the space between these on the pottom of the shell are situated the muscular impressions. The adductor, or occlusor muscle leaves a narrow mesial oval-shaped scar, and on either side are situated the cardinal, or divaricator muscular nnpressions. In the interior of the smaller, or dorsal yalve there exists two large conical spiral coils, which nearly fill the interior of the shell, the ends being directed outwardly towards the cardinal angles, while the bases of the hollow conical spires nearly meet at DAVIDSON—SCOTTISH CARBONIFEROUS BRACHIOPODA, 15 the hinge side, but are wide apart in front. The hinge-plate is divided into two portions, to which the principal stems are attached, and in the notch wader the extremity of the umbonal beak there exists a calcareous projection, to which the term “cardinal” process has been applied, and to which was attached one of the extremities of the divaricator muscle. A little lower down, on the bottom of the valve, are seen four large elongated impressions, produced by the adductor, and which have been recently designated as the anterior and pos- terior occlusor muscles by Mr. Hancock. ¥ “lt S ‘ ‘in! Uhl chal” Lign. 5,—Interior of the dorgal valve of Spirifera striata, All the species referred to the genus Spirifera proper possess a fibrous non- perforated shell-structure. The species of carboniferous Spirifera that appear to have been hitherto dis- covered in Scotland, are not so numerous as those of England or of Ireland ; and, after a careful examination of many specimens, I could determine with certainty but the nine following :—Sp. duplicicosta, Sp. bisulcata, Sp. trigonalis, 16 THE GEOLOGIST. Sp. pinguis, Sp. ovalis, Sp. glabra, Sp. Carlukiensis, Sp. Urii, and Sp. lineata ; and it must also be further noted that some of these have hitherto proved exceedingly rare, and that good examples of several others are with difficulty obtained. VIII.—Spirirera pupticicosta. Phillips. Pl. xii.,* figs. 14, 15. Spirifera duplicicosta, Phillips, Geol. York., vol. ii., p. 218., pl. x., fig. 1, 1836; and Dav. Carb. Mon., p. 24, pl. iii., figs. 7—10, pl. iv., figs. 3, 5—11.+ This shell varies much in external shape, being either transversely sub-rhom- boidal or somewhat longer than wide. The valves are moderately convex, with a more or less elevated mesial fold in the dorsal, and a corresponding sinus in the ventral one. The hinge-line is shorter than the width of the shell, the area of moderate breadth, and the beak more or less incurved. ‘The valves are orna- mented by numerous radiating ribs, which augment in number at various dis- tances from the beaks by intercalation and bifurcation. The ribs vary, how- ever, somewhat in general appearance in different specimens, being only here and there duplicose, or having three or four ribs clustered together; the term duplicicosta is, therefore, very inappropriate, since many species of the genus present the same peculiarity. Sp. duplicicosta is the largest Scottish spirifer with which I am at present acquaimted, some specimens measuring twenty-one lines in length by about thirty in width; and it has also been sometimes con- founded with Sp. striata of Martin—a closely allied species, but of which I am not acquainted with any well authenticated Scottish example. Perfect specimens of this shell are rarely found, alikon h thousands of crushed or broken valves occur in a bed of limestone, four feet in thickness, near Campsie, at Balgrochan, and Corrie Burn, in Stirlingshire. In Ayrshire it is found at West Broadstone, near Beith; at Craigie, near Kilmarnock ; and at Auchenskeigh, near Dalry. In Lanarkshire it has been collected at Brockley, near Lesmahago. It has been also found in West Lothian and Bute. IX.—Sprrirera BisutcaTa. Sowerby. Pl. xii., figs. 19—25. Spirifera bisulcatus, J. de C. Sow., Min. Con. Tab., 492, figs. 1, 2, 1825; Spirifera bisulcata, Dav. Mon. Carb., p. 31, pl. iv., fig. 1, pl. v., fig. 1, pl. vi., figs. 1—19, and pl. vi.., fig. 4. This shell is either transversely semi-circular or obscurely sub-rhomboidal, the valves being almost equally deep or convex. The hinge-line is sometimes rather shorter than the greatest width of the shell, with the cardinal angles rounded; or as long, with angles of variable projection. The area is sub- parallel, of moderate width, and divided by a triangular fissure, the beaks meurved, and at times very approximate. In the dorsal valve the fold is some- what angular, and of greater or lesser elevation, but is at times so flattened that it hardly rises above the general convexity of the valve. The sinus is of moderate depth. Each valve is ornamented with from thirty to fifty obscurely- rounded ribs, which increase in number by the occasional bifurcation or inter- calation of smaller ribs at various distances from the beaks. On the mesial fold they are arranged into three groups, separated by sulci of greater depth, the whole surface being also regularly covered with imbricating strie. The variations in shape presented by this species are quite perplexing, and it is probable that several so termed species will require to he added to its synonyms. Among these we may mention Sp. semicircularis, Phillips, and Sp. crassa, de Koninck, certainly ; and possibly Sp. grandicostata of M‘Coy. * This plate forms part of the second volume of the ‘‘ Gronoatst.”” + For list of synonyms, &c., see my monograph published by the Paleontographical Society, all details not absolutely required haying been omitted in the present monograph. DAVIDSON—SCOTTISH CARDONIFEROUS BRACHIOPODA. 17 Sp. bisulecata is one of the most abundant of our Scottish spirifers, the largest example with which I am acquainted measuring cighteen lines in length by twenty-eight in width and thirteen in depth. ] This shell has presented an extensive vertical range; in Lanarkshire it is found at Gare, at a depth of two hundred and thirty-nine fathoms below the horizon of the “Ell coal;” at Races Gillat three hundred and forty-three ; Lang- shaw Burn three hundred and fifty-four ; Mosside three hundred and seventy- three; and at Braidwood Gill three hundred and ninety-seven fathoms. Ure gives us a good figure of a specimen he had found at Lawrieston.* ~ It has been collected at Birkwood, near Lesmahago, and at Robroyston, to the north of Glasgow. In Stirlingshire it is not rare at Craigenglen, Balglass Burn, Mill Burn, Corrie Burn, and in the Campsie main limestone. In Dumbartonshire, at, Castlecary ; in Renfrewshire, at Barrhead, and Arden quarry, Thornliebank ; in Ayrshire,-at Roughwood, and West Broadstone, near Beith; Auchenskeigh, near Dalry; Craigie, near Kilmarnock; Monkredding and Golderaig, near Kilwinning ; and Neathernewton, parish of Loudon, &c. It has also been ob- tained from Arran and Bute. X.—SPIRIFERA TRIGONALIS. Martin. PI. xii., figs. 16—18. Conchyliolithus anomites trigonalis, Martin, Petrif. Derb. tab. 36, fig. 1, 1809 ; and Day. Mon. Carb., p. 29, pl. v., fig. 28—33. In shape it is transversely trigonal, with its hinge-line as long, or slightly shorter, than the greatest breadth of the shell; the area is sub-parallel, and of moderate width, the valves being almost equally deep; the mesial fold is ele- vated, angular, and often produced beyond the frontal margin of the lateral portions of the valve; it is also more often divided by three principal ribs, of which the central one is at the same time the largest and most extended; the sinus is deep, and divided by from three to five longitudinal ribs, of which the central one is also the most developed. Besides these, the surface of each valve is ornamented with from fourteen to twenty-two simple ribs. This is also a common shell in Scotland, and does not appear to attain the dimensions of Sp. bisulcata, with which it has been sometimes confounded. Dr. Fleming was certainly mistaken when, at p. 374 of his “ History of British Animals,” he referred Ure’s pl. xv., fig. 1, to the species under description. In Lanarkshire, Sp. ¢rigonalis is found at three hundred and forty-three fathoms below the “Ell coal” at Waygateshaw, and at Braidwood at three hundred and seventy-five. It occurs also at Brockley, near Lesmahago; at Moodies Burn, north-east of Glasgow, and in the main limestone near Camp- sie; and Renfrewshire, at Arden quarry, near Thornliebank; in Ayrshire, at West Broadstone, near Beith ; Craigie, near Kilmarnock ; and at Auchenskeigh, near Dalry. In Midlothian, at Dryden, near Edinburgh; and at Courland, near Dalkeith. It has also been found in West Lothian and in Bute. XJ.—Srimirera prneuis. Sowerby. Pl. xii, fig. 28. Spirifera pinguis, Sow. Min. Con., vol. iii., p. 125, tab. 271, 1820; Spirifera pinguis, Dav. Mon. Carb., p. 50, pl. x., figs. 1—12. When full grown (under favourable circumstances) it is transversely oval, but is also sometimes as wide as long, or even (though more rarely so) longer than wide. The hinge-line is usually shorter than the greatest breadth of the shell, the cardinal angles being rounded, and the area narrow. The dorsal valve is not quite so deep nor so convex as the opposite ; the fold is moderately * It may be as well to mention that Mr. Bennie has ascertained that Lawrieston is the old name for a place a few hundred yards from the Capel Rig quarry, and now known by the denomination of Brankamhall, East Kilbride. VOL. III. C 18 THE GEOLOGIST. wide and produced, smooth, and slightly depressed along its centre. In the ventral valve the sinus is regularly concave and smooth, each valve being orna- mented with from sixteen to thirty rounded or flattened ribs. This species appears to be rare in Scotland, for I am acquainted with but a single small example, which was derived from carboniferous limestone to the north of Glasgow, and now belongs to the Museum of Practical Geology. measures eleven lines in length by twelve in breadth and ten in depth. XII.—Sprrirera ovaris. Phillips. Pl. xii, figs. 26, 27. Spirifera ovalis, Philips, Geol. of York., vol. ii, p. 219, pl. x., fig. 5, 1806; and Day. Mon. Carb., p. 53., pl. ix., figs. 20—26. This shell is, transversely or elongatedly oval, with a very short hinge-line, and rounded cardinal angles ; the area is triangular, and more often wider than high. The dorsal valve is moderately convex, and much less deep than the opposite one, with a smooth, broad, flattened, mesial fold. In the ventral valve the beak is small, tapering, and incurved; the sinus rather shallow, com- mencing at the extremity of the beak, it extends to the front and is orna- mented with one or two longitudinal ribs placed on either of its sides. From eighteen to twenty simple flattened ribs ornament the surface of each valve. Sp. ovalis appears to be an uncommon species in Scotland, and to which Prof. Fleming, in 1828, had applied the name ezarata ; but as the last named author never figured his shell, and that the description, ‘“ Perforated valve, with broad, smooth, flattened ribs, divided by shallow, narrow furrows; beak gibbous, in- curved; hinge very short,” might apply equally well to several other species, I should question the propriety of adopting the term erarata (notwithstanding its priority of date) in preference to the well-known one by Phillips, an especially so as Dr. Fleming further observes that, although he has frequently found the perforated valve, it was always mutilated or without the other valve, with which he was not acquainted, as may be seen from the original fragment represented in our plate, and which was kindly communicated by the author. Sp. ovalis has been found in the Corrie Burn beds, Stirlingshire; also in West- Lothian and at West Broadstone in Ayrshire. In Lanarkshire at Brockley, near Lesmahago. XII1.—Srrriversa GuasBra. Martin. PI. xii, figs. 32—34. Conchyliolithus anometes glaber, Martin Petrif. Derb., pl. xlvii., figs. 9, 10, 1809, and Dav. Mon. Carb., p. 59, pl. xi., figs. 1—9, pl. xii., figs. 1—5, 11, 12. This shell varies to such an extent, that it is difficult to assign any perma- nent character; the shape is, however, more often transversely oval, and rarely longer than wide. Both valves differ in degree of convexity, the ventral one being generally the deepest. ‘The hinge-line is shorter than the greatest width of the shell, with rounded cardinal angles and the beak more or less approxi- mate and incurved. The ventral hinge area is triangular and of moderate dimensions, the dorsal one being narrow and sub-parallel, the mesial fold is either slightly and evenly convex, rising gradually from the lateral portions of the valve, or abruptly elevated with a longitudinal depression along its middle ; the sinus varies like- wise in depth according to the specimens. Externally both valves are gene- rally smooth, but sometimes a few obscurely marked flattened ribs may be observed on the lateral portions of the shell. This species, at times, attains thirty-two lines in length by forty-three in width, and twenty-six in depth; but no Scottish specimens I have hitherto seen attain half those proportions. At Harestanes and Langshaw Burn in Lanarkshire, Sp. glabra is found at DAVIDSON—SCOTTISH CARBONIFEROUS BRACHIOPODA. 19 three hundred and seventy-five fathoms below the “Ell coal ;” occurs also at Middleholm, near Lesmahago and Hast Kilbride. In Stirlingshire at Corrie Burn and Campsie main-limestone. In Renfrewshire at Orchard-quarry, near Thornlicbank. In Ayrshire, at West Broadstone, Beith, and at Auchenskeigh, near Dalry, ete. XIV.—Sririvera Cartvxrensis. Davidson. Pl. xii, fig. 29. Spirifera Carlukiensis, Day. Mon. Carb., p. 59, pl. xiii., fig. 14, 1857. Shell minute, nearly circular and smooth; valves almost equally deep ; dorsal valve regularly convex, most so at the umbone. Ventral valve convex, with a narrow mesial depression or fwrrow commencing at a short distance from the extremity of the beak and extending to the front, where it indents the margin of the opposite valve. The beak is small, pointed, and but slightly incurved ; the hinge-line much shorter than the greatest width of the shell, with its cardinal angles rounded, area small, triangular. This little shell does not appear to have ever greatly exceeded two lines in length by two and a-half in breadth. It was discovered for the first time at Hill Head in Lanarkshire, at about three hundred and fifty-six fathoms below the “ Ell coal,” along with Sp. Urii, but it is a rare species, for in every hundred or more specimens of the last named shell that is collected, a single example of Sp. Carlukiensis would occur. It has also been recently discovered near Strathavon in a bed of shale oe entirely composed of Sp. Urii, and is there nearly as rare as at Hill ead. XV.—Spririrera Urn. Fleming. PI. xii, fig. 30. Spirifer Urii, Fleming, British Animals, p. 376, 1828; Spirifera Urii, Dav. Mon. Carb., p. 58, pl. xi, figs. 13, 14. This little species is sub-orbicular, and rather wider than long; the hinge- line shorter than the greatest breadth of the shell, and the cardinal angles rounded. The dorsal valve is semicircular and slightly indented in front, with a narrow hinge area; it is nearly flat or slightly convex, especially at the um- bone, from whence a shallow mesial furrow extends to the front. The ventral valve is much deeper and more convex than the opposite one, with a lengthened incurved beak anit longitudinal furrow, which, originating at the extremity of the beak, is continued to the front. The area is small and triangular in shape ; when perfect the exterior of the shell was covered with numerous closely im- planted spines, but which are rarely preserved in the fossil, so that the shell is generally found smooth or covered with minute pustulate markings, which are produced by the fracture of the spines close to their bases. This abundant and interesting little species was noticed, and figured for the first time by Ure, in 1793, (History of Rutherglen and Kast Kilbride, p. 313, fig. 12.) but named only thirty-five years later by Dr. Fleming. Ure’s figure is not, however, very correct, for it does not represent the incurvature of the beak which is always present, nor is the area ever as wide as is there depicted. Sp. Urii has received several other names, for it is highly probable (if not per- fectly certain) that the Sp. Clannyana, King,* from the Permian formation, and * The re-occurrence of several carboniferous species in the Permian strata appears to be almost certain, although such has been doubted by several paleontologists. It is therefore probable that the following carboniferous (C), and Permian (P) shells are identical, notwith- standing that they have received distinct specific names according to the strata in which they have been discovered. Thus Terebratula sacculus, 0., = Sp. sufflata,P;? Spirifera Urii, C, = Sp. Clannyana, P ; Spiriferina octoplicata, C., = Sp. cristata, P. ; Camarophoria crumena, C., = 0a. Schlothermi, P.; Ca. globulina, P., = Ca. rhomboidea, P, ; and the Lingula Credneri, P., have been found in the carboniferons strata by Mr. Kirkby. The re-occurrence of species is asubject that has been too often supposed impossible, and treated accordingly. 20 THE GEOLOGIST. the Sp. unguiculus, Phillips, from the Devonian series, are only synonyms of the present species, and to which must also be added the Sp. Goldfussiana of Prof. de Koninck. It does not appear to have often exceeded about four lines in length by four and a-half in width and two in depth, but is usually a much smaller shell, at least so in Scotland. Sp. Urit is certainly the most abundant of Scottish spirifers, and may be picked up by thousands in several localities, such as at Hill Head, in Lanarkshire, where it occurs at three hundred and fifty-six fathoms below the “ Ell coal,” and three hundred and seventy-five at Kileadzow. It is found plentifully on the east bank of the Avon, near Strath- avon; and at Coalburn, near Lesmahago. In Stirlingshire it has been found in three different stages, viz., the Craigenglen beds, under the main-limestone, and in the black-limestone and shale of South Hill, Campsie. XVI. Spreirera LinzatTa. Martin. Pl. xii, fig. 31. Conchiliolithus anomites lineatus, Martin, Petrif. Derb., tab., xxxvi., fig. 3, 1809; and Dav. Mon. Carb., p. 62, pl. xiii, figs. 1—13. Tn shape this shell is either transversely oval or sub-orbicular, the hinge-line bemg much shorter than the width of the shell, and the cardinal angles rounded ; the beaks are incurved and more or less approximate, the area small. Ventral valve evenly convex, and rarely possessing any mesial elevation, or fold, while the dorsal valve is rather deeper than the opposite one, and either uniformly convex, or presenting a shallow longitudinal depression, which becomes most apparent towards the front. Externally the surface was covered with numerous concentric ridges, rarely in any place more than a line apart, but usually very much closer, and from each of which departed numerous con- tiguous closely packed spines, which thus formed a series of rows, or fringes over the shell. When the spmes are absent, which is the general condition in which the shell is found, the surface appears marked by numerous and regularly imbricated lines, the radiating ones beg produced by the small elevations from which each spine took its birth, as I have attempted to show in the enlarged representation, fig. 31¢, and which is very different from the irregular manner in which the spines are scattered over the surface of Sp. Urit, of which fig. 30e. is an enlarged illustration. Sp. lineata is a common shell in the carboniferous limestone and shales of Scotland; but none of the examples I have yet seen attained the dimensions presented by some which occur both in England and Ireland. At Gare in Lanarkshire Sp. dizeata occurs at two hundred and thirty-nine fathoms lower than the “ Ell coal ;? at Braidwood, three hundred and forty- three ; at Harestanes, three hundred and seventy-five ; and at Nellfield, four hundred and ten. It may also be collected at Brockley, and Middleholm near Lesmahago. In Ayrshire it occurs at Roughwood, and West Broadstone near Beith; Hallerhirst, Stevenston; and Craigie near Kilmarnock. In Renfrew- shire, at Barrhead; and at Arden and Orchard quarries near Thornliebank. In Dunbartonshire, at Castlecary. In Stirlingshire, under the main limestone and in the Calmy limestone or Balquarhage beds, Campsie, as well as at Corrie Burn. In Mid Lothian it is not rare at Dryden, near Edinburgh; and at Courland, near Dalkeith. Dr. Fleming mentions Dreghorn and Ayr, and it was also found in Arran by Prof. Ramsay. Sup-crnus Sperrirertna. D’Orbigny. 1847. The species located in this sub-genus differ from Spirifera (which they re- semble in external shape) by the perforations or canals which traverse their shells, as well as by the development of a large elevated mesial septum in the interior of the ventral valve, to the sides of which was attached the adductor, or occlusor muscle. DAVIDSON—SCOTTISH CARBONIFEROUS BRACHIOPODA. PAL Spiriferina cristata vax. octoplicata, and Sp. insculpta are the only two species belongmg to this sub-genus that have been hitherto discovered in our Scottish carboniferous rocks. XVII.—SprreivERINA CRISTATA, var. OcToPLIcATA. J. de C. Sowerby. Plate xii, figs. 36-38. Spirifer octoplicatus, Sowerby, Min. Con., p. 120, pl. 562, figs. 2, 3, 4: 1827. Spiriferina cristata var. octoplicata, Dav. Mon. Carb., p. 38, pl. vil, figs. 37-47. In external shape this shell is more often transversely sub-rhomboidal, with nearly equally convex valves, the hinge-line being either as long or rather shorter than the greatest width of the shell, with acute or rounded cardinal angles ; the area is triangular, slightly concave, and of variable width. In the dorsal valve the mesial fold is usually composed of a single rib, which is often flattened along the middle; but in some rare examples there exists a rudimen- tary one on either of its slopes, so that in some instances the fold assumes to- wards the front an obscurely biplicated, or triplicated appearance. In the ventral valve the sinus is deep and acute, while both valves are ornamented with from eight to twelve angular ribs, which are (as well as the sinus and fold) closely covered with numerous small granular (spimose) asperities, which give to the shell a rough feel and appearance. The shell-structure is also per- forated by minute tubuli, of which the external orifices may be readily detected by the aid of a common lens. In the interior of the ventral valve a sharp mesial septum rises from the bottom of the valve, and partly divides the spiral cones. ‘The species we are at present describing varies much in general shape, as well as by the number of its ribs; it is never a large shell, although some English specimens have been found more than double the size of any Scottish one that has come under my observation, none of these last having exceeded some six lines in length by about seven in breadth. I am also still inclined to maintain the opinion expressed in my monograph, namely that the shell under description bears so close a resemblance to the Permian Sp. cristata of Schlo- theim that it cannot be specifically separated, and could not in any case claim more than a varietal distinction. Sp. octoplicata has been found at Gare, in Lanarkshire, at two hundred and thirty-nine fathoms below the “ Ell coal ;” at Braidwood Gill, three hundred ; at Halleraig Bridge, three hundred; and at Raes three hundred and forty-one fathoms. The shell has also been collected in the same county at Brockley, near Lesmahago; Auchtentibber and Calderside, High Blantyre; Capel Rig, Hast Kilbride; Strathavon; and Robroyston, north of Glasgow. in Ren- frewshire, at Arden- and Orchard-quarries, Thornliebank; in Stirlingshire, in the Corrie Burn beds; in Ayrshire, at Roughwood and West Broadstone, Beith; Auchenskeigh, near Dalry; Hallerhirst, Stevenston; Craigie, near Kilmarnock ; and Meadowfoot, near Drumclog. It has also been found in West Lothian, as well as in the Island of Arran.* * Sp. cristata var. octoplicata is a common shell in the lower red carboniferous sandstone of Kildress ; in Ireland Sp. partita of Portlock being a synonym. Since the publication of the first pages of my paper in the December number of the “ Grotoaist,” Mr. Kelly has informed me that the quotation at p. 465 relative to the arrange- ment of the Carboniferous system in Ireland does not represent his views, and he has kindly furnished me with the following note. **My subdivisions are, 1, Old Red Sandstone; 2, calciferous-slate; 3, limestone; 4, coal measures, The Kildress red and yellow sandstone, which is one, is not lower coal-measures ; it lies’’ (as I have stated) ‘‘below the calciferous-slate. Again, the Old Red Sandstone is not that which predominates. This rock averages about one thousand feet thick in Ireland, and is not much exposed, being covered with limestone. Our calciferous slate is considerable in thickness, and in the best developed places (Clonea, near Dungarvan) is half of it made up of thin bands of limestone, the other half calcareous shale. The fossils in both inseparable, so that the calciferous slate and mountain-limestone might be considered as one division, but it 22 THE GEOLOGIST. XVIII.—Spirtrertma inscutreta. Phillips. PI. xii, fig. 35. Spirifera insculpta, Phillips, Geol. of Yorkshire, vol. ii., p. 216, pl. ix., figs. 2, 3, 1836; and Dav. Mon. Carb., p. 42, plate vii, figs. 48-55. In shape it is more or less semi-circular, and about one-third wider than long ; the hinge-area is straight and as wide as the greatest width of the shell. The area large, triangular, and but slightly curved; beak small, and not much produced. Both valves are about equally convex; the ventral one is ornamented with five (rarely seven) large bold angular ribs, of which the central one exceeds the others somewhat in proportion, and corresponds with a deep angular sinus in the opposite valve. All the ribs are sculptured, or closely intersected with small concentric lamin, which give to the perfect shell a very elegant appearance. This is a rare Scottish shell; it occurs at cat Lanarkshire, at two hnndred and thirty-nine fathoms below the “ Ell coal.’ Faminry RuyNcHONELLIDA. Of this family the genera Rhynchonella and Camarophoria alone have been hitherto discovered in the Scottish carboniferous strata. Of the first we know but two species, and one only of the second ; while in England eight of Rhyn- chonella and three of Camarophoria have been found. Grunus RuyNcHONELLA. Fischer. 1809. The shells composing this genus vary much in their external shape and appearance, some being transverse, others rounded or angular, smooth, variously ribbed, or striated. The valves are generally convex, with or without a mesial elevation or sinus; the beak is acute, promment, or so greatly incurved as to touch and even to overlie the umbone of the opposite valve; the foramen is variable in its dimensions and shape, being placed under the extremity of the beak, and entirely or partially surrounded by a deltidium. ‘The shell-structure is fibrous and not perforated; and the valves articulate by the means of two teeth in the ventral, and corresponding sockets in the dorsal valves. The is perhaps more correct to separate them into two. The Carboniferous, or Hibernian lime- stone is fifty feet thick at Drumguin in Tyrone, it is about fifteen hundred feet thick at Black Head in Clare, and occupies above twenty thousand square miles in Ireland. This greatly predominates ; the coal-measures are two thousand feet thick, or more. The Old Red sand- stone, at Kildress in Tyrone, and the Old Red Sandstone of Herefordshire are two very dif- ferent things. The first belongs to the Carboniferous system; the latter is a subdivision of the Silurian rocks.” My mistake was not therefore in in the order of superposition of the different strata, which Mr. Kelly admits to be correct; but in having endeavoured to reconcile the succession of the Carboniferous strata in Scotland with that of Ireland by applying Mr. Page’s general denomination of ‘‘ Lower Coal-measures”’ to that group which embraces all the alternations of strata which lie between the Old Red Sandstone and the mountain- or Carboniferous- limestone. The term, however, would not apply to Ireland, since in the sister island no lower coal-measures underlie the mountain-limestone, as we find to be the case in Scotland, and where Mr. Kelly suggests that the limestone may be moved up a stage, with coal- measures below it. It must appear evident to all that the term Old Red Sandstone cannot be retained for a Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous rock, and this is the reason why I was, and still am, so averse to applying the term, or forming a subdivision by that name for those Irish red and yellow sandstones full of carboniferous fossils; for if the Calciferous- and mountain-limestone might, according to Mr. Kelly’s own statement, be united into a single division on account of the similarity of their fossils, as a paleontologist, I should add that the same reasoning might equally well apply to the red sandstone of Kildress, for there also we find exactly the same fossils as those which occur in the calciferous and carboniferous- limestone. I should therefore suggest that geologists should drop the term ‘old,’ and in their subdivisions of the Carboniferous group say, 1, Lower carboniferous red and yel- low sandstone ; 2, calciferous slate; 3, carboniferous-limestone; and, 4th, coal-measures, by which means the vexed question relative to the Old Red Sandstone would not be interfered with as far as the Carboniferous system is concerned. It is also well known that Mr. Kelly is of opinion that no Devonian rocks occur in Ireland; while Sir R. Murchison believes that there exists there also a series of many thousand feet of shales and grits above the highest Upper Silurian which represents precisely in time the mass of the Devonian rocks; this, however, has nothing to do with the red and yellow sandstone of Kildress which un- doubtedly forms part of the Carboniferous system, DAVIDSON—SCOTTISH CARBONIFEROUS BRACHIOPODA. 23 hinge-plate is deeply divided, and supports two slender curved lamelle, to which the spirally coiled fleshy oral arms (directed inwards towards the con- cavity of the dorsal valve) were partially fixed. In the interior of the ventral valve the teeth are supported by dental plates, between which, and extending somewhat further down, are the muscular impressions produced by the adduc- tor or occlusor, the devaricator, and pedicle muscles, while on the bottom of the dorsal valve may be scen the four impressions formed by the adductor, or occlusor muscle. Ovarian markings are observable on either side of the muscular scars above described. Lign, 6,—Rhynchonella psittacea (recent). Fig. 2.—Interior of the Dorsal Valve. Fig. 1,—Interior of the Ventral Valve. aa, Adductor, or anterior and posterior oc- | 2, Adductor, or occlusor muscular impression. clusor. vr, Cardinal or divaricator ,, 93 s, Sockets. p, Ventral adjustor “5 of e, Curved lamellew for the attachment of the | 0, Ovarian spaces, oral arms, d, Deltidium, #, Teeth, XIX.—RuyYNcHONELLA pucNUS. Martin. Pl. i, figs. 1, 2. Conchyliolithus anomites pugnus. Martin. Petrificata Derbiensia, tab. xxii., figs. 4, 5, 1809; and Dav. Mon. Carb., p. 97, pl. xxii, figs. 1-15. The shells composing this species are either transversely ovate or oblato- deltoidal, and wider than long. The dorsal valve is usually more or less gibbous, most elevated near the front, and evenly convex at the umbone; the mesial fold is large, and more or less prominent; the ventral valve is less con- vex than the opposite one, with a sinus of moderate depth, commencing at a short distance from the beak, and extending to the front; the beak is small, much incurved, and contiguous to the umbone, each valve being ornamented with from nine to twelve ribs, which become obsolete as they approach the beaks; from three to six occupy the fold and sinus. All the Scottish examples of this shell that I have hitherto seen were small, none having exceeded eight lines in length by about ten in width, while some English specimens have measured as much as two inches both ways; neverthe- less, the Scottish examples have all the characters of the full-grown shell; but a variety from Carluke parish is comparatively wider and less convex than ano- ther found in Stirlingshire and elsewhere. At Mosside and Braidwood, in Lanarkshire, R. puyuus is found at three hundred and seventy-five fathoms lower than the “ Ell coal,” also at Brown Hill, near Lesmahago; in Renfrewshire, at Barrhead and Arden quarry, Thorulie- 24, THE GEOLOGIST. bank; in Ayrshire, at Hyndberry Bank, pe of Loudon, also at West Broad- stone, near Beith; in Stirlingshire, in the main limestone, Campsie, and Mill Burn. XX.—RuyYNCHONELLA PLEURODON. Phillips. Pl. i, figs. 3—5. Lerebratula pleurodon, Phillips, Geol. of York., vol. ii, p. 222, pl. xii. figs. 25—30, 1836; and Rh. id., Dav. Carb. Mon., p. 101, pl. xxiii., figs. 1—15. All the Scottish specimens of this common shell which have hitherto come under my notice, were of small dimensions, and very variable in their shape, but more often transversely oval, and rarely longer than wide. When young the valves were sometimes compressed, but with age became more convex, and at times even gibbous; the beak is small, moderately produced, with a small circular foramen under its angular and slightly incurved extremity, and which is surrounded and a little separated from the hinge-line by a deltidium. The mesial fold usually occupies one-third of the shell, and is most elevated above the front, the smus in the ventral valve being of moderate depth. 'The ribs are angular, and extend over the entire surface of the valves, and vary in num- ber from ten to twenty-four in each valve; of these three to five, and even sometimes nine, compose the fold. Many undoubted specimens of R. pleurodon possess but three ribs on the mesial fold; and it was for this variety that Professor M‘Coy proposed, in 1844, the name Atrypa triplex, but which is now superfluous. At Gare, in Lanarkshire, 2. plewrodon is found at two hundred and thirty- nine fathoms under the “ Ell coal,” and three hundred and seventy-five at Braidwood. At Capel Rig, Hast Kilbride, it is very abundant, but nearly every example is crushed; it occurs also at Brockley, near Lesmahago, Calder- side and Auchentibber, High Blantyre. In Dumbartonshire, at Neatherwood, near Castlecary. In Ayrshire, at Hallerhirst, Stevenston; Loudon; Craigie, near Kilmarnock, and West Broadstone, Beith. In Stirlingshire it occurs in several stages: at Craigenglen, Balglass, Mill Burn, Balgrochen, and Corrie Burn. In Renfrewshire, at Barrhead. Genus CamaropHoriA. King. 1844. The external shapes and character resemble much those of Rhynchonella. The beak is entire, acute, and more or less incurved, under the extremity of which a small fissure is sometimes exposed. The valves articulate by the means of teeth and sockets. In the ventral valve the dental plates are con- joined at their dorsal margins, forming a trough-shaped process affixed to a low medio-longitudinal plate. In the dorsal valve the space between the sockets is oceupied by a al cardinal muscular protuberance, on either side of which two long slender processes curve upwards, to which were no doubt attached the free cirrated spiral fleshy arms. From beneath the cardinal process a high vertical mesial septum extends to a little more than a third of the length of the valve, supporting along and close to its upper edge a spatula-shaped pro- cess, considerably dilated towards its free extremity, and projecting, with a slight upward curve, to nearly the centre of the shell. Shell structure fibrous, not perforated. XXI.—Camarorpnoria cRuMENA. Martin. Pl. i, fig. 6. Conchyliolithus anomites crumena, Martin, Petrif. Derb., tab. xxxvi., fig. 4, 1809; Terebratula Schlotheimi, Von Buch, Ueber Terebratula, 1834; and Day. Mon. Carb., pl. xxv., figs. 3-9. This species is more often transversely oval, but sometimes also as long, or longer, than wide, aud trigonal in shape. ‘The valves vary in degree of con- DAVIDSON—ON SCOTTISH CARBONIFEROUS BRACHIOPODA. 25 vexity, as well as in the character of their ribs, which either cover the entire shell, or become obsolete towards the beaks. When perfect, the valves pos- Lign. 7.—Camarophoria crumena, Fig. 1.—Interior of the Dorsal Valve. Fig. 2.—Interior of the Ventral Valve. A, adductor, or occlusor muscular impressions (?); C, curved processes, to which were affixed the fleshy spiral arms; D, deltidium; E, teeth; H, conjoined dental plates or trough- shaped process; J, cardinal process; K, sockets; M, marginal expansions; O, spatula- shaped process, or visceral support ; R, cardinal, or divaricator muscular scars (?) ; 8, septum, sessed marginal expansions, but which are rarely preserved in the fossil. The mesial fold differs in width and elevation according to the number of ribs which ornament its surface, these varying from two to seven, each valve being fur- nished with from twelve to twenty ribs. The sinus is of moderate depth. Of this species I am acquainted with but a single well-authenticated example, ~ which was Pind many years ago in West Lothian by the late Dr. Fleming. (To be continued.) VOL. Il. D 26 THE GEOLOGIST, BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. (Continued from page 485). On THE OsstreRous Caverns at Oreston. By Henry C. Hodge, of Plymouth, Read before the Geological Section, Sept. 17, 1859. The constant removal of immense masses of limestone required for the pur- poses of the Breakwater at Plymouth, during the past half century, has from time to time brought before the attention of geologists a series of remarkable cavernous fissures of great interest, from the number and variety of fossil remains of extinct animals contained in them. In the “ Philosophical Transactions” for 1817, 1821, and 1823, will be found some account of the earliest discoveries of these fossils, together with a record of carefully conducted observations by Sir Everard Home and Mr. Whidby (the engineer of the Breakwater at that time) respecting the eireum- stances under which they were met with. Mr. Whidby, in a paper dated Nov. 1816, mentions the striking fact that he saw no possibility of the cavern in which the remains were met with having had any external communication through the rock in which it was enclosed, the surrounding limestone being everywhere equally strong, and requiring the same labour to blast it; and, with respect to the occurrence of stalactite, he remarks that nothing of the kind was met with in the cavern in which the bones were found, so that there is no proof that any opening in the rock from above had been closed by infiltration. In the year 1820 more bones were met with, lying on a thin bed of dry clay; there also occurred here and there a few small caverns, similar to that m which the bones were discovered; and again he states that none of them had the smallest appearance of ever having had any opening to the surface, or connection with it whatever, or with each other. The caverns here spoken of were quarried many feet below the bottom of them, and nothing was found but hard solid limestone. He also adds, “that many caverns have been met with in these quarries, the insides of which have been coated with stalactite; but there was no appearance of this kind in the cavern where the bones were found, every part of it being perfectly dry, and nearly clear of rubbish—a circumstance which clearly proves it had no connection with the surface.” During the summers of 1822-23, Mr. Jos. Cottle, of Bristol, obtained a large collection of bones from the same quarries, and he has published some account of them, and of the general circumstances of their occurrence. Since that period, it would appear that similar openings in the limestone have been of not unfrequent occurrence, and it is known that some of them have contained fossils; but no systematic observations have, I believe, been instituted with the view of penetrating their origin or history. The statements so confidently made by Mr. Whidby as to the perfect enclosure of the caverns by solid limestone, have been confirmed by my own observations, and this fact has not failed to surprize even the workmen engaged in the quarry; but it must be evident that at some period an opening did exist, and it occurred to me that such might be most successfully sought for between the surfaces of the beds of which the masses of limestone are composed. No satisfactory conclusion could be drawn from a careful examination of the rock BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING, 27 during the opening of the cavern; but, on looking narrowly at the beds of limestone in the progress of the workings, it was found that a thin seam of purple calcareous “slate” was interposed between the beds of limestone, at about the same parallel as that in which the caverns were met with. On fur- ther investigation, it was discovered that alternations of this purple “slate” with the limestone were not unfrequent, but the laming of slate were, in most cases, so intimately blended with the limestone-beds, as to form really a solid mass of compact rock ; and on looking into the structure of the more evident layers of the “slate,” it was ascertained that in some parts they were much more calcareous than in others, and that small portions of limestone, havin, similar physical characters to those of the surrounding rock, were intersperse: at varymg intervals. In other places the layers were in a state of decomposi- tion, red and reddish white clay being formed as its result; and on tracing a layer of this kind through the side of a cavern laid open during the workings, it was seen that portions of it were so disintegrated as to be easily pulled from their position, the seam being, in its most solid portions, composed merely of layers of limestone-fragments with interposed clay and red sand—the whole, apparently, kept in place by the accidental infiltration of calcareous matter. Here, then, were facts that might enable me to account for the clay found in the caverns, and afford a means through which the beds of limestone may have been caused to separate from each other. Again, it was discovered that some of the hollows in the adjoining limestone were stained with a black earthy sub- stance, found, on analysis, to be composed of the peroxides of iron and man- ganese, these having evidently proceeded from the decomposition of a variety of dolomite very generally present in this limestone—not exhibiting, however, any definite mode of deposit in it, but passing through its beds in the most irregular manner. From these phenomena, it appeared reasonable to conclude that the decomposition of the “slate” in the layers, through the combined agency of water and carbonic acid, had opened a communication with the external air to the above-named irregular masses of dolomite (the unchanged limestone-fragments of the “slate” serving to keep the beds from close contact with each other), and that in this way the carbonates of iron and manganese contained in them had been converted into peroxides, and the evolved carbonic acid proceeding from their decomposition, combining with the remaining consti- tuents of the dolomite, had formed bicarbonates, readily removeable by the agency of percolating water. In this way it is possible, not merely to account for the formation of the caverns, and a means of access to them, but at the same time to discover what are the causes still in operation which give rise to the production of stalactite, and occasion the irregular dolomization of the lime- stone, it being evident that the percolating waters, charged with bicarbonates of lime, magnesia, &c., may, by a loss of carbonic acid, deposit insoluble car- bonate of lime in the form of stalactite, and becoming by this means richer in bicarbonate of magnesia, act chemically on the neighbouring limestone, convert- ing it into dolomite. To test the correctness of these views, a very careful examination of the clay below the bones was instituted: it was extremely tenacious, and of a dark reddish-brown colour; patches of red clay were visible in some places, and in other parts of the mass distinct yellow and black layers were apparent, and nodules, or, more strictly speaking, irregular masses of impure oats red iron- . ore, together with black, rounded fragments, evidently arising from the decom- position of a dolomite similar to that before alluded to—for in the larger frag- ments this rock was distinctly visible on fracture, and in one or two instances, in which the masses were larger than usual, a brown zone was observable between the black external coating and the central nearly unaltered dolomite ; large and small masses of the common limestone-rock of the quarry were also 28 THE GEOLOGIST. found in the clay, their surface being honey-combed as if by exposure to the long-continued action of carbonated waters. These phenomena may justly be explained on the supposition, that the irregular masses of ochry iron-ore had been derived from the decomposed slaty seams, confirmatory appearances being not unfrequent in other limestone-beds connected with the same series of rocks, the “slate” in these alternating with the limestone on a large scale, and con- taining eur iten nodules of impure iron-ore—a red oxide of iron being fre- uently visible at the pomts of junction. The varied colour of the clay may so be accounted for by the gradual admixture with it of the red oxide of iron from the slaty seams, and the black oxide of manganese, accompanied by yellow hydrated peroxide of iron from the dolomitic rock, which may be concluded to have formed a part only of the walls of the cavern—the honey-combed lime- stone fragments resulting from the displacement of other portions of previously fissured limestone-rock through the agency of aqueous carbonic acid. The most careful examination presented no facts that at all appeared of an opposing character ; the clay was diligently searched, and some of its laminated portions, having a sandy appearance, were examined by the microscope for the siliceous coverings of infusoria, minute rounded grains of sand, and any other matter that might suggest the washing in of the contents of the cavern through free communication of its opening with external waters; nothing was, however, discovered but very minute fragments of slate, still further confirmatory of the position before advanced. The facts elicited were thus far satisfactory, but they did not account for the original production of those masses of dolomite, which in the neighbour- hood of the quarry, alone afforded, by their own decomposition, the solution of bicarbonates required for the dolomization of adjacent rocks: and in the hope that a knowledge of such original cause might throw still further ight upon the present condition of the bone-caves, a general examination of the various accessible quarries of the Plymouth limestones was instituted. I propose to give some account of these investigations in the latter part of this paper; and will now proceed to give a brief description of the fossil re- mains, and certain circumstances connected with them, as the following out of the inquiries alluded to will lead me to speak, not merely of changes having an important relation to the phenomena of the enclosed caverns, but also to the attempted solution of other allied geological questions of interest. I am disposed to believe that very little stalactite was deposited in the bone- caves during the early period of their formation, and a portion, if not the whole, of the time durmg which the bones were being introduced. My reasons, confirmed by the observations of Mr. Whidby, before alluded to, are the fol- lowing :—The bones have been generally found lying on or near the uppermost portion of a bed of clay, and those on its surface only are much mixed with, or imbedded in stalagmite, the remains met with lowest in the clay being especiall free from such deposit. It is reasonable also to suppose that, if the fossil bones were introduced through the agency of carnivorous cave-inhabiting mam- malia, the instincts of these creatures would have induced them to prefer a dry habitation, and one in which the constant dropping of percolating waters would ive them no inconyenience, not to mention the constant disengagement of car- Fonte acid accompanying the deposition of the stalactite, which might even, _ under some circumstances, render such caverns uninhabitable. In giving an opinion that the bones were introduced by animal agency, and not by accidental falling into fissures, it is not to be inferred that, in no former recorded instance, has this mode of entombment occurred. I will, however, give some facts connected with the nature and mode of occurrence of these re- mains, before attempting to deduce any further conclusions in the present instance. BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. 29 In the first, I would mention that remains of very large animals were met with, the occurrence of portions of several mammoths being proved by the pre- sence of various grinders belonging not merely to very young, but also to some- what mature animals, a fourth molar of the lower jaw of an animal of this species having been found six and a-quarter inches in length, the breadth at its widest part being two and a-quarter inches, containing sixteen plates, which have all been brought into use, the tooth bemg worn down at its anterior ex- tremity, so as to exhibit the common uniting base of dentine along the margins of the first and second plates. A second corresponding molar of the lower jaw wanting a few plates at its anterior portion, together with fragments of two other fourth molars in different stages of development were also met with, and teeth of larger size than these were indicated by the presence in the clay of other detached and fractured plates. I would also add that there occurred a few fractured portions of one or more molar teeth of the rhinoceros, but no mammoth’s or other large bones were discovered. The above facts being considered, can we allow that such ponderous animals could have fallen upon a soft tenacious bed of clay, without simking more than a few inches into it ? or that their skeletons could have been washed down from above, without a much greater disturbance of the clay than was found to be indicated by the parallel and undisturbed arrangement of its laminated por- tions? Could, moreover, these monsters have fallen into the cavern, without a much greater apparent disturbance of the beds of limestone having been caused by the formation of a sufficiently large opening; and would not, in such cases, numerous other parts of the skeleton have been met with ? Secondly, numerous teeth of elk or deer and of ox were found, but no antlers nor horn-cores belonging to such animals (a single fragment of the base of an antler and one small horn-core excepted), which would, most pro- bably, have been the case, had the fissure beena large one, and some fragments, at least, of the fragile antlers might naturally have been expected to occur, had such been washed down from a higher level; on the other hand, it may be pre- sumed that they would have proved to carnivora an inconvenient and unprofit- able burthen for carriage into their den. Thirdly, among the bones met with, scarcely a single large one had escaped fracture, with the exception of the astralagus and other hard and solid bones of the tarsus and carpus joints and those of the feet; facts perfectly similar to those observed by Dr. Buckland in the hyena-cave at Kirkdale, in which the presence of their numerous coprolites proved that these animals inhabited the cavern. Fourthly, although the cave did not contain any remains of hyenas or their coprolites, several teeth of bears and lions or tigers were discovered; and I think it may be legitimately deduced from the occurrence of these cave- inhabiting animals that the bones above referred to had been fractured by them for the purpose of obtaining their edible contents ; the occurrence of several fragments of canines of the gigantic Felis spelea having the two characteristic longitudinal indentations on their crowns, together with the canine and sectorial molar of an immense lion or tiger, the former tooth measuring five and three- quarter inches im length, may too, I imagine, satisfactorily account for the strength required to carry the remains of such animals as the mammoth and rhinoceros into the cave. Lastly, I would remark that the view of the non-accidental introduction of the remains into the cave appeared still further to be confirmed by the appear- ances presented in a fissure unexpectedly opened into by the workmen, and separated from the larger cavern by a comparatively thin wall of solid limestone. Here many of the bones were only slightly fractured, and there occurred the nearly perfect skull of a hog, encrusted with stalactite, a cast in the same sub- 30 THE GEOLOGIST. ; stance of the interior of the cranium of another animal, together with remains, apparently belonging to the bear, wolf, or large dog, and the horse, with various other fractured bones cemented into a breccia-like mass by a mixture of clay and stalactite. These appearances coincide with what might have been ex- pected to have occurred in the case of bones that had accidentally fallen into a fissure, and it is not unlikely that they may have been rolled into it through a small deep hole communicating with the large cavern, but not sufficiently capacious to allow of entrance for the recovery of the carcass. The brecciated - bones in the clayey stalactite might have been also derived from the larger cave by the constant falling into it of fragments of bone rejected by the carni- vora, and which, as might he expected from lying for some time in their den, would be well mixed with the clay that formed its bottom. A few of the bones were traversed in all directions by fissures filled with clayey stalagmite, amass composed of broken plates of a tooth of the mammoth being in this condition—these facts possibly indicating displacement of the walls of the cave after the introduction of the bones, such dislocation affording the opening, by means of which the superficial stalagmite was introduced. In concluding this part of my description of the caverns and their inhabitants, J will enumerate the genera of animals to which the specimens (nearly all of which are in my own possession) belong. (To be continued.) PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. GroLocicaL Socipty or Lonpon.—November 30, 1859.—Professor John Phillips, President, in the Chair. The following communications were read :— 1, “On some Bronze Relics from an Auriferous Sand in Siberia.” By T. W. Atkinson, Hsq., F.G.S. During the author’s stay at the gold-mine on the River Shargan (Lat. 59 deg. 30 min. N., and Long. 96 deg. 10 min. EK.) in August, 1851, some frag- ments of worked bronze were dug up by the workmen, at a depth of fourteen feet eight inches below the surface, from a bed of sand in which gold-nuggets occur. This sand rests on the rock, and is covered by beds of gravel and sand, overlain by two feet of vegetable soil. The fragments appear to have belonged either to a bracelet or to some horse-trappings. 2. “On the Volcanic Country of Auckland, New Zealand.” By Charles Heaphy, Esq. Communicated by the President. The isthmus-like district of Auckland and its neighbourhood, described by Mr. Heaphy as a basin of Tertiary deposits, is bordered by clay-slate, igneous rocks, and at one spot on the south by cretaceous strata; and it is dotted by upwards of sixty extinct volcanos, often closely situated, and showing in nearly every instance a well-defined point of eruption, generally a cup-like crater, on a hill about three hundred feet high. Interesting instances of sue- cessive volcanic eruption are numerous all over this district, sixty miles round Auckland; and there seems to have been four distinct epochs of eruption, thus classified by Mr. Heaphy :—1. The first was that which raised the trachytic PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 31 mountains and the black boulder-like igneous rock. 2. Then came the erup- tions in the Tertiary period, the ashes of which form beds in the Tertiary rock. 3. Then the eruptions on the upheaval of the Tertiary cliffs : these appear as cones above faults on the Tertiary beds and on the edges of cliffs. 4. Lastly the eruptions that have broken through the Tertiary beds, and the lava-streams of which follow the natural valleys of the country. The volcanic phenomena were illustrated by maps and numerous sketches by the author. Some Ter- tiary Zerebratule, some few fossil plants, and some Cretaceous fossils (Znocera- mus and Belemnitella) accompanied this memoir. 3. “On the Geology of a part of South Australia.’ By T. Burr, Esq. From the Colonial Office. 1848. ; The lowlands about Adelaide on the west, and along the river Murray on the east, consist of horizontal beds of limestone and calcareo-siliceous deposits, yellowish and reddish in colour, full of marine fossils, and of the Tertiary age. Sometimes gypsum and ferruginous sand replace the limestone. These plains are arid, except where granite protrudes from the surface, presenting cavities in which rain-water collects. The author observed a similar Tertiary forma- tion on Yorke’s Peninsula, at Port Lincoln, and to the 8.E. to beyond Rivoli Bay ; and it probably forms vast tracts in New South Wales and Western Australia. Tone of these tertiary districts appear to exceed an elevation of three hundred feet above the sea. In describing two volcanos in South Australia, Mount Gambier and Mount Schauck, Mr. Burr remarked that, coming from the west or north-west at about twenty miles from these hills a white coral-limestone (Bryozoan limestone), contaiming flint or chert, takes the place of the limestones and calcareous sandstones, with recent sand-formations, previously passed over. This white limestone is remarkable for the numerous deep well-like water-holes in it, within about twelve miles of the volcanic mountains, and about east or west of them. Mount Gambier has a height of nine hundred feet above the sea (six hun- dred feet above the plain), and has three craters, lying nearly east and west, and occupied with lakes of fresh-water. Mount Schauck, at a distance of about nine miles, magnetic south, is circular, and has one large, and two small lateral craters. The author next described the granite, gneiss, and slaty rocks along a sec- tion extending from the River Murray and Kangaroo Range, across Mount Barker and Mount Lofty, towards Adelaide; and noticed the mode of occur- rence of the ores of copper, iron, lead, &c., in these rocks. Lastly he noticed and explained the occurrence of calcified stems of trees, standing in the posi- tion of their growth, in the sand-dunes in the Gulf of St. Vincent, near Adelaide. 4. “On some Tertiary deposits in South Australia.” By the Rev. Julian Edmund Woods. Communicated by the President. The author, in the first place, described the geographical features of that pe of the colony of South Australia to which his observations refer, It lies etween the River Murray on the west, and the colony of Victoria on the east ; and includes an area of one hundred and fifty-six miles long, north and south, and seventy broad from east to west. Some trap-dykes and four volcanic hills are almost the only interruptions to the horizontality of these plains, which rise gradually from the sea, and are occupied by the Tertiary beds ee tice; they extend into Victoria for some seventy miles, as far as 0 ‘ In some places on the plains a white compact unfossiliferous limestone lies under the surface-soil; and is sometimes thirty-feet thick. Under this is a fossiliferous limestone. The passage between the two is gradual. This latter 32 THE GEOLOGIST. rock is made up of Bryozoa—perfect and in fragments—with some Pectens, Terebratule, Echinoderms, &e. Sometimes this rock appears like friable chalk, without distinct fossils. A large natural pit, originating from the infalling of a cave, occurs near the ex- tinct voleano, Mount Gambier, and is ninety feet deep, showing a considerable thickness of this Bryozoan deposit in several beds of fourteen feet, ten feet, and twelve feet in thickness. Similar pits show the deposit in the same way at the Mosquito Plains, seventy miles north. Regular layers of flints, usually black, rarely white, occur in these beds, from fourteen to twenty feet apart. ‘These, with its colour, and with the superficial ee perforating the rock to a great depth, give it a great resemblance to chalk. The whole district is honeyecombed with caves—always, however, in the higher grounds in the undulations of the plains. One of the caves, in a ridge on the northern side of the Mosquito Plains, is two hundred feet long, is divided into three great halls, and has extensive side- chambers. The caves have a north and south direction, like that of the ridge. The large cave has a great stalactite in it; and many bones of Marsupialia are heaped up against this on the side facing the entrance; possibly they may have been washed up against this barrier by an inflowing stream. The dried corpse of a native les in this cave. It has been partially entangled in the stalactite ; but this man was known to have crept into the cave when he had been wounded, some fourteen years ago. Many of the caves have great pits for their external apertures, and contain much water. Some shallow caves contain bones of existing Marsupialia, which have evidently been the relics of animals that fell into the grass-hidden aperture at top. The caves appear in many caves to be connected with a subterranean system of dramage; currents and periodical oscillations being occasionally observed in the waters contained in them. ‘There is but little superficial drainage. One overflowg swamp was found by the author to send its water into an under- ground channel in a ridge of limestone. Patches of shelly sand occur here and there over the ten thousand nine hun- dred and eighty square miles of country occupied by the white limestones; but near the coast this shelly sand thickens to two hundred feet. A coarse limestone forms a ridge along the coast-line, and it contains exist- ing species of shells. This indicates an elevation of the coast of late date, and which probably is still taking place. Dec. 14.—1. “On some Remains of Polyptychodon from Dorking.” By Prof. Owen, F.R.S., F.G.8. Referring to the genus of Saurians which he had founded in 1841 on certain large detached teeth from the Cretaceous beds of Kent and Sussex, and which genus, in reference to the many-ridged or folded character of the enamel of those teeth, he had proposed to call Polyptychodon, Prof. Owen noticed the successive discoveries of portions of jaws, one showing the thecodont implanta- tion of those teeth, which, with the shape and proportions of the teeth, led him to suspect the crocodilian affinities of Polyptochodon ; and the subsequent discovery of bones in a Lower Greensand quarry at Hythe, which, on the hypo- thesis of their having belonged to Polyptychodon, had led him to suspect that the genus conformed to the Plesiosauroid type. The fossils now exhibited by Mr. G. Cubit of Denbies, cofsisted of part of the cranium (showing a large foramen parietale), fragments of the upper and lower jaws, and teeth of the Polyptychodon interruptus, from the Lower Chalk of Dorking, and afforded further evidence of the plesiosauroid affinities of the genus. Professor Owen remarked that in a collection of fossils from the Upper PROCEEDINGS OF GROLOGICAL SOCIETINS. 33 Greensand near Cambridge, now in the Woodwardian Museum, and in another collection of fossils from the Greensand beds near Kursk in Russia, submitted to the Professor’s examination by Col. Kiprianolf, there are teeth of Polyptycho- don, associated with plesiosauroid vertebra of the same proportional magnitude, and with portions of large limb-bones, without medullary cavity, and of plesiosauroid shape. Thus the evidence at present obtained respecting this huge, but hitherto problematical, carnivorous Saurian of the Cretaceous period seemed to prove it to be a marine one, more closely adhering to the prevailing type of the Sea- lizards of the great mesozoic epoch, then drawing to its close, than to the Mosa- saurus of the Upper Chalk, which, by its vertebral, palatal, and dental charac- ters, seemed to ET dor the Saurian type to follow. Professor Owen exhibited also drawings of specimens in the Woodwardian Museum and in the collection of Mr. W. Harris, of Charing, which show the mode and degree of use or abrasion to which the teeth of Polyptychodon had been subject. 2. “On some Fossils from near Bahia, South America.” By 8. Allport, Esq. Communicated by Professor Morris, F.G.S. The south-west point of the hill on which the Fort of Montserrate is built, in Bahia Bay, exhibits a section of alternating beds of conglomerate, sandstone, and shale; im the last Mr. Allport discovered a large Dinosaurian dorsal verte- bra, not unlike that of Megalosawrus, several Crocodilian teeth, and numerous large scales of Lepidotus, together with a few Molluses (Paludina, Unio, &e.), some Hntomostraca, and Lignite. Two miles from Montserrate, in a N.H. _ direction, is the Plantaforma, another hill of the same formation, but loftier. The shales here also yielded similar fossils. These fossiliferous shales and conglomerates dip to the N.W. towards the Bay, and appear to overlie a similarly inclined whitish sandstone, which rests against the gneissose hills ranging north-easterly from the point of St. Antonio. 3. “On a Terrestrial Mollusc, a Chilognathous Myriapod, and some new species of Reptiles, from the Coal-formatian of Nova Scotia.’ By J. W. Dawson, L.L.D., F.G.S., &e. On revisiting the South Joggings in the past summer, Dr. Dawson had the opportunity of examining the interior of another erect tree in the same bed which had afforded the fossil stump from which the remains of Dendrerpeton Acadianum and other terrestrial animals were obtained in 1851 by Sir C. Lyell and himself. ‘This second trunk was about fifteen inches in diameter, and was much more richly stored with animal remains than that previously met with. There were here numerous specimens of the land-shell found in the tree pre- viously discovered in this bed—several individuals of an articulated animal, pro- bably a Myriapod—portions of two skeletons of Dexdrerpeton—and seven small skeletons belonging to another Reptilian genus, and probably to three species. The bottom of the trunk was floored with a thin layer of carbonized bark. On this was a bed of fragments of mineral charcoal (having Sigillaroid cell- structure), an inch thick, with a few Reptilian bones and a Sternbergia-cast. Above this, the trunk was occupied, to a height of about six inches, with a hard black laminated material, consisting of fine sand and carbonized vegetable | matter, cemented by carbonate of lime. In this occurred most of the animal remains, with coprolites, and with leaves of Noeyyerathia (Poacites), Carpo- lithes, and Calamites, also many small pieces of mineral charcoal, showing the structures of Lepidodendron, Stigmaria, and the leaf-stalks of Ferns. The upper part of this carbonaceous mass alternated with fine grey sandstone, which led the remainder of the trunk as far as seen. The author remarked that this tree, like other erect Sigillarie in this section, became hollow by decay, VOL. Il. E 34 THE GEOLOGIST. after having been more or less buried in sediment; but that, unlike most, others, it remained hollow for some time in the soil of a forest, receiving small quantities of earthy and vegetable matter, falling into it, or washed in by rains. In this state it was probably a place of residence for the snails and myriapods and a trap and tomb for the reptiles ; though the presence of coprolitie matter would seem to show that in some instances at least the latter could exist for a time in their underground prison. The occurrence of so many skeletons, with a hundred or more specimens of land-snails and myriapods, in a cylinder only fifteen inches in diameter proves that these creatures were by no means rare in the coal-forests ; and the conditions of the tree with its air-breathing inhabitants implies that the Sigillarian forests were not so low and wet as we are apt to imagine. The little land-shell, specimens of which with the mouth entire have now oc- curred to the author, is named by him Pupa vetusta. Dr. Dawson found entire shells of Physa heterostropha in the stomach of Menobranchus lateralis, and hence he supposes that the Pupe may have been the food of the little reptiles, the remains of which are associated with them. Two examples of Spirorbis carbonarius also occurred ; these may have been drifted into the hollow trunk whilst they were adherent to vegetable fragments. The Myriapod is named Xylobius Sigillaria, and regarded as being allied to Lulus. The reptilian bones, scutes, and teeth ideatle to Dendrerpeton Acadianum bear out the supposition of its Labyrinthodont affinities. Those of the new genus, Hylonomus, established by Dr. Dawson on the other reptilian remains, indicate a type remote from Archegosaurus and Labyrinthodon, but in many respects approaching the Lacertians. The three species determined by the author are named H. Lyellit, H. aciedentatus, and H. Wymani. 4. “On the Occurrence of Footsteps of Chirotherium in the Upper Keuper of Warwickshire.” By the Rev. P. B. Brodie, F.G.S. True Chirotherian feetsteps do not appear to have been hitherto met with in the Keuper of Warwickshire; but a specimen of Keuper sandstone showing the casts of a fore- and a hind-foot of Chirotherium was lately turned up by the plough at Whitley Green, near Henley-in-Arden. The breadth of the fore-foot is about two inches, the hind-foot is four and a-half inches across. As the New Red sandstone of Cheshire, so well known for its fine Chirotherian foot- tracts, certainly belongs to the upper part of the New Red series, it may now be further correlated with the Upper Keuper of Warwickshire, the latter having yielded true Chirotherian foot-prints. Guotocist’s Assoctation, Ordinary Meeting, 5th Dec., 1859. Rev. Thomas Wiltshire, M.A., F.G.S., President, in the chair. The president stated that since the last meeting the Association had lost a valuable friend in the person of John Brown, Esq., F.G.S., who had prepared a paper which was to have been read that evening. Under these circumstances the committee had thought it respectful to the memory of Mr. John Brown, that his paper (which had been forwarded to the president) should not be read until the next meeting in January. It was announced that Professor Tennant, — F.G.S., had kindly volunteered at very short notice to give a lecture on siliceous nodules in the various formations. Professor Tennant commenced by some observations on the large proportion in which silica enters into the composition of rocks, constituting one-half part — of granite, one-third part of syenite, nine-tenths of quartz, and three-fourths of — greensand. He then described the enormous amount of silica in the flints of the upper chalk, and called attention to the peculiarity which distinguishes the beds of flints in Kent and Sussex from those of Yorkshire. In the former they PROCEEDINGS OF GBOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 35 are of dense structure; in the latter mostly of a porous character, taking regular forms, not unlike those of many modern sponges. Some remarks were then made on Dr. Bowerbank’s theory that the great mass of the flints found in the chalk are true sponges : a theory to which Pro- fessor Tennant said he was inclined to subscribe. He pointed out as an illustra- tion of its possible truth, and as a proof that organic remains may be enclosed in ‘silica, the well known appearance of moss-agates, sections of which, procured from Oberstein, cannot under the microscope be distinguished from sections of ~ certain modern sponges. Professor Tennant also drew attention to the differ- ence in the flints of volcanic and aqueous rocks; the former being destitute of, whilst the latter abound in, organic remains. After alluding to the beds of chert in many of the formations, such as the Portland-rock, Greensand, ete., he advocated the view that the Paramoudra, of Treland, are nothing more than enormous silicified sponges, and concluded with an account of the hollow flints found on Salisbury Plain, the core of which when examined under the microscope is seen to be composed of a mass of delicate spicules. A discussion by several of the members followed, during which the president directed attention to a circumstance, which Mr. Charlesworth confirmed, viz., that a mass of flint when surrounding the base of a ventriculite, never en- velopes the whole of the root of the ventriculite. Mr. Charlesworth made several remarks, with a view of explaining this phe- nomenon, and at some length entered into reasons for disagreeing with the views of Dr. Bowerbank as to the spongous origin of many of the Chalk flints. The late Mr. John Brown, F.G.S., of Stanway, has bequeathed the sum of £100 to the Association. Matvern Fretp Cxius.—The Naturalists’ Field Club lately held a meeting at Pershore, on which occasion the President, the Rev. Mr. Symonds, of Pen- dock, addressed the meeting at some lerigth upon a few of the most important scientific topics of the day. On the subject of the supposed flint implements which have caused so much disquisition among aooletatst Mr. Symonds re- marked that they were discovered in the north of France, in undisturbed beds of gravel, sand, and clay, in drift, in fact, of much the same geological age as the old lake- and river- margins of the Avon, the Severn, and the Wye. The level of the land in that part of France, however, appears to have been more deranged by oscillating movements than has been the water-level of the peace- ful vales of Worcestershire and Herefordshire. The stratified gravel, contain- ing the weapon-looking flints, associated with the remains of the extinct ele- phant and rhinoceros, occupies, in some localities, a height of one hundred feet above the present level of the river Somme, which has worn for itself a newer and deeper bed since those flints and the bones of wild beasts were buried together in the mud, silt, and gravel of its ancient margins. On the question of the human fabrication of the flints, Mr. Symonds said that he had seen many exhibited at Aberdeen, by Sir Charles Lyell and Mr. R. W. Mylne, and that the rudeness of many of these implements might well cause the cautious inves- tigator of truth to pause before he believed that they were wrought by men; while on the other hand some of the specimens appeared to have been so wrought. The question rested, from the evidence Mr. Symonds could collect, on the fact as to whether or not the flints were human implements. The re- mains of the extinet mammalia may have been drifted from older beds, but the physical geology of the district, and the physical position of the stratified drifts, containing the supposed human implements, compelled the most able of the geologists of France aud England to arrive at the conclusion that, if these flints 36 THE GEOLOGIST, are human implements, man lived at a far more remote epoch than has usually been assigned to his creation. The Pteraspis discovered at Leintwardine, near Ludlow, by Mr. Lightbody, of the Woolhope Club, in the Lower Ludlow deposits, greatly antedated the period at which fish were supposed to have first existed. The fossil had been examined by competent authorities and both its fish character, and the physical position of the beds, had now been firmly established. After the meeting of the British Association of Aberdeen, Mr. Symonds accompanied Lord Ennis- killen, Sir C. Lyell, Sir W. Jardine, and Professor Harkness to the Elgin dis- trict, for the further examination of the reptile-bearing sandstones containing the Telerpeton, Stagonolepis, and Hyperadaphodon, and long supposed to belong to the age of the Old Red Sandstone. Mr. Symonds entirely agreed with the opinion formed by Sir C. Lyell, founded on a mass of evidence and details too intricate to be briefly or easily explained, that the reptiliferous sandstones of Elgin are more probably of the Triassic age, than of the epoch of the Old Red. NOTES AND QUERIES. Notices of INcORRECTNESSES IN Mr. Pacn’s HanpBoox or GEoLocicaL Trerms.—Derar Srr,—On the recommendation of last month’s “ Gnonoeist,” LT bought Mr. Page’s Handbook of Geological Terms. Upon glancing at it, I saw that he had fallen into some errors of pronunciation, and, invited to do so by his preface, I wrote to him immediately to put him on his guard, and give lum an opportunity of taking such steps as he should deem advisable. As the matter seems to have escaped your notice, I think it well to advise you of it. In my opinion there are many of these errors; but others may differ from me in some instances. I note a few, however, below, which admit of no doubt, as reference to every lexicon and received authority will show : Affinis, Agelitinans, Albo-galérus, Briaréus, Concavus, Céngeners, Echinus and Echinite, Edulis, Huglyphus, Gigantéus, Hexagénus, Hippocrépis, Ma- crospondylus, Mammilliferons. One or two other errors of a different kind, have caught my eye. Miliola he derives from mille—though confounding the idea with that of pupids, 10,000, apparently. It evidently comes from milium, the seed of millet, which the little shell resembles.* It would have been milliola other- wise, I suppose, for the inventor would hardly have chosen the obsolete mile for such a purpose. Siva is a male deity, not a goddess. Brachiopoda— spiral arms,” “which they can uncoil and protrude.” Woodward says, “Jt has been conjectured, ete. . . this supposition is rendered less probable by the fact that, in many genera, they are supported by — a brittle skeleton of shell’—Manual, p. 211.—I am, dear sir, yours truly, Henry Entey.—We regard Mr. Eley’s communication as a most important note, and we cordially introduce it, as expressive of our sincere wish to add to the usefulness of Mr. Page’s valuable book, to remove some more of the numer- — ous stumbling blocks already laid in the student’s path by the bad Latinism of very many of the modern naturalists and paleontologists. There is not only a * Tf crowded aggregation is implied, the spike of millet is a most apt similitude. NOTES AND QUBRIES. 37 want of a critical guide for the unlettered student, but the faulty pronuncia- tion in vogue seems little likely to be corrected without a good standard of reference more ready at hand than dictionary and gradus. We may remark that, besides those instances mentioned by Mr. Eley, several of which, especially affinis, gigantéus, céncavus, edilis, are sldom rightly spoken among geologists, there is the frequent mispronunciation of such words as the gene- tives of proper names; thus, Milleri wrongly for Milléri, Seduleri for Scouléri, and the like ; also Ganoidéa, Crinoidéa, Cystidéa, &c., are not always thus cor- rectly pronounced. We may, however, remind tyros that family names, such as Ostréide, are to be pronounced as Mr. Page thus marks, not Ostreide, as it is incorrectly and too commonly spoken. In Mr. Page’s list at p. 40, multifidus has no accentuation, it should be mul- tifidus—too often pronounced multifidus wrongly ; so also quadrifidus and tri- fidus. Hemisphericus (p. 398) should be hemisphericus. Fossilis (p. 396) should be accentuated fossflis. Cervical at p. 111 should be Cervical, not Cérvical. We here add some other corrections which have been pointed out to us b another correspondent, and we hope the book will be all the better for a criticisms in the next edition. For its sake we are open to receive more notes of corrections, so that both tyro and Mr. Page may have the benefit thereof. Digitalus, finger-like, should be either digitalis, belonging to a finger, or digitatus, fingered—formed as fingers; dorsalis should have its accent on the middle syllable ; gagateus may be accented thus, gagdteus. In the Latin, Konig should be spelt Koenigius; so also Noeggerathius. Longimanus wants the accent at p. 401. The correction of psilépora for the incorrect psilopdra (p. 409), and tubipora for tubipdéra, may remind many of the common wron pronuncation of the multitude of names of corals and bryozoa partly peared of pora,a pore. Pygmeus, unaccented at p. 409, should have its penultimate syllable long; this is often forgotten. In the same page, pucillus is apparently a misprint for pusillus, and Rankinei for Rankinéi. Saxatilis at p. 410 should be Saxatilis. ‘Toliapicus (p. 414) has, we believe, a reference to Tolapia, or some similar form of the Latin name of the Isle of Sheppy. Unicolor should take the place of the incorrect unicdélor. Méeandrinus should be placed for meandrinus, Macréstomus for macrostémus. Moniliformis and monilitectus monileformis, etc. Muensterianus for Mimsterianus (after Count Minster). Cypridina-Schiefer (p. 137) should not be half Latin half German, but as the Germans have it, Cypridinen-Schiefer. We would suggest that the description of Brachiopoda at page 96, may be corrected thus :—“ which they cannot uncoil and protrude, but with which” ete. SLICKENSIDES.—Dzar Sir,—I was much interested by the queries and re- lies, upon the subject of slickensides, in the last number of the “‘ Geonoerst.” hey are very abundant in the Keuper sandstone of Cheshire, and the south- west of Lancashire. Usually, two polished striated surfaces exist together, but not always, for occasionally a single slickenside is only opposed by a soft sandstone, without any trace of such an appearance. Those said to be two feet apart, I think can have no connection with each other. Faults are very numerous in this neighbourhood ; in width they vary from an inch to twenty yards. They are always filled with sandstone, very much harder than the strata bounding them, while at each side slickensides abound. If the strata at each side of the fault is removed, the enclosed compact rock stands across like a wall, beautifully polished and striated upon each side. In such cases it is evident that the polished surfaces could not have been caused by the original disruption of the strata, but afterwards—long after the fault had ‘been filled by debris. I am therefore of opinion that a throw of the strata to a very small extent, acting under immense pressure, was suflicient to cause the phenomena. 38 THE GEOLOGIST. This is confirmed by the occurrence of slickensides at different angles in slides of the rock within the faults, and also by highly polished surfaces, occurring in ve slight faults, which displace the strata only a foot or eighteen inches. believe it is the compact sandstone within the faults, and not the slicken- sides, that is considered to act as a barrier to subterranean water—I remain, dear sir, yours ete., GeorcE Hittosron, F.G.S., Liverpool. SLICKENSIDES.—Dn4r Srr,—The subject of “slickensides” is one to which T have paid some attention, and I have always noted as many of the facts relating to this appearance on rock-surfaces as I possibly could. I have read with much interest in the last number of the “Gxroxocisr” the queries on “slickensides” submitted to the Geological Section of the British Association during the meeting at Aberdeen, by Mr. Price, and the replies by Professor Ansted. Permit me to offer a few remarks on this really curious and interest- ing subject. The formation of a “slickenside” on any rock-surface is due to the sliding of one rock-mass on the other, the motion very possibly having been a slow one, but exerted under enormous pressure, and without the aid of more heat than would have been produced by the friction. The result of this motion would, in the first instance, be the pulverization more or less of the two opposing rock-surfaces, and when this crushing action ceased, the re-consolida- tion of that crushed material, by means of enormous pressure, accompanied by motion. I find in limestones and sandstones that most usually the “ slickenside-” striz are on the surface of the beds, and their direction frequently parallel to that of the dip. In my geological notes I find many references like the following: “Slckensides-strie parallel to the dip of the beds, showing vertical displace- ment in the mass ;” but when the stria are transverse to the dip, and in the direction of the strike of the beds, I say that “horizontal displacement is indicated.” In either instance of course there is no faui¢t produced in the strata, though a displacement of them ez masse is clearly indicated, the direction of which being pointed out by that of the strie of compression. This is the only way in which rock-masses can be displaced without being faulted. The slickenside-strie are frequently oblique to the dip of the beds, the angle of obliquity being of course variable, but always indicating the direction of the displacement. The thickness of the slickenside, or striated substance, is very variable ; sometimes it is as thin as card-paper, at others nearly an inch from one surface to the other. It varies also im its internal structure: sometimes it consists throughout of a series of very thin and finely striated lamelle, which readily flake off from each other by the application of a penknife, or when struck on the fractured edges with the hammer. At other times this structure is only artial, and confined to the surfaces; and again, when the slickenside is tolera- ly thick, it is homogeneous throughout, the surfaces above presenting a highly-polished or glazed appearance, but not such as would be the result of vitrification. In limestones the slickenside frequently appears as a white calcareous material resembling opaque carbonate of lime, but coated with a carbonaceous- looking glaze, which readily soils the fingers. In slate or sandstone-rocks the slickenside is most usually homogeneous in its structure; it comes away in small slabs, and resembles dull-looking quartz, or quartzite, having both sur- faces highly polished, beautifully and often deeply striated, and stained of a dark manganese—brown, or black colour. The most remarkable kind of slickenside I know of is one not unfrequent in the carboniferous limestone of Ireland; it exhibits two distinct sets of strie, NOTES AND QUERIES. 39 arranged more or less at right angles to cach other, and closely adhering, one set being parallel, or nearly so, to the dip, and the other to the strike of the beds. From this it would appear that the beds above and below had two distinet motions given to them, but at different intervals of time. In the example be- fore us we have evidence for betoutae that at first one set of beds moved while the other remained stationary ; and that one half of the crushed intervening sub- stance, while adhering to the moving mass by cohesion was pulled into a state of striation to the amount of only one- half its thickness. The motion then suddenly ceased, and the adjoining beds were moved, but in a direction directly contrary to the first, The remaining ortion of the pulverized material fol- owed this second impulse, and assumed a striated structure, the lines of which were parallel with the direction of the displacement and ee reaeently at an opposite angle with that which was first formed. We have in Brockedon’s patent pen- - avg eee . * j x o cils a familar i BE lie _cecon-|% ere cots fais aisles, 1 solidation of a powdered substance by the application of enormous pressure into a material harder and more free from grit, or other impurities, than the original native plumbago, and to this our slickensides bear a striking analogy. Dear rk faithfully yours, Geo. V. Du Noyrr, M.R.I.A., Geological Survey of Treland. PusuisHeD Accounts oF Fosstr Human Remains.—Sir,—Will you oblige me by answering the following query in the “ Gnoxoeist.” I ask as well for others as myself. Where may be procured the fullest and most re- liable information respecting fossil human remains that have been discovered in the world? Susscriper, Redlands.—There is no connected account of the human remains discovered in various parts of the globe, and it is one of the objects of the papers on the “ First Traces of Man on the Globe.” now pub- lishing in this magazine, to give a collected account of all the reliable cases, and to give illustrations of the ancient flint-weapons, etc., as also of the stone-implements recently, or still in use amongst savage tribes in various parts of the world. The best account of human remains published up to the present time will be found in the appendix to M. Boucher de Perthes’ book. Other notices may be profitably consulted, such as Dr. Mantell’s paper, read at the Oxford meeting of the Archeological Institute, 1850, and M. Marcelde Serres’ several papers in the Bulletin Soc. Geol. de France, Comptes Rendus, etc. Deposition oF Warpr.—Srr,—In “ Notes and Queries,” in the ‘‘ GEoxo- cist’ for December last, W. Nottingham asks two questions, viz., 1st. Where does the warp come from? 2nd., Howis it that the Humber and its tributaries =the ae Ouse, Don, etc., are the only rivers in Great Britain that deposit ‘warp’ When we take into consideration the fact that the Humber receives the 40 THE GEOLOGIST. drainage of nine thousand one hundred and seventy three square miles, of which the Trent alone draws from four thousand five hundred square miles, the re- maining four thousand six hundred and seventy-three square miles supplying the Ouse, we may form some idea where part of the “warp” comes from. What proportion river-sediment from floods, etc., may supply, I cannot pretend tosay. Then we have the gradual wearing away of our Yorkshire coasts from two miles east of Bridlington Quay to Spurnt Point, which is a distance of about forty-three miles. Along this coast we lose, on an average, six feet three inches annually. In fact new roads have continually to be made in con- sequence of the sea making such rapid encroachments on the land, which, when washed away, is taken up the Humber and constitutes another source from which the “warp” is formed, and deposited upon lands up the rivers, ete. I think your correspondent, W. Nottingham, will be able to draw from these facts answers to both his questions. I believe that no other river, or rivers in England are situated under such favourable circumstances for making the deposits called “ warp” as are the rivers above mentioned.—Dear sir, yours faithfully, Epwarp Tirnpaxt. REVIEW. Mr. Tennant’s Mineraloyical and Geological Collections. We have received specimen cases of the two hundred, and three hundred selected examples of fossils and minerals, accompanied by the very useful cata- logue of ordinary British fossils, recently published by Mr. Tennant. These collections are designed as an initiary means of instruction for students and tyros. Nothing so much tends to facilitate and encourage the study of any science as a ready means of access to the principal objects referred to in the general descriptions and writings of authors. It is easy to accumulate speci- mens of rocks and fossils, and to form expensive collections; but it is not so easy to form a limited and proper selection which shall at once illustrate the chief facts of a science, and be of real service to the student. Professor Tennant’s well known intimate knowledge of minerals gives confi- dence to learners as to the correctness of the naming of the specimens, and his long experience in this class of rudimentary collections—first made by his im- mediate predecessor, Mr. Mawe, more than fifty years ago—shows itself in the completeness and perfection of the present cabmet collections, in which, al- though the samples of fossils and minerals are of small size they are typically characteristic, and have every scientific advantage of displaying sufliciently their characters with that essential one of condensed space. ‘The cabinets in which the collections are contained are strongly and neatly made, and, whether as useful and interesting presents at this season of gifts, or viewed in their proper light of aids to the comprehension of elementary treatises on ee or Mineralogy, they are well worthy of the recommendations given to them by Sir Charles Lyell, the late Dr. Mantell, and other eminent geologists, and in which we readily concur. THE GEOLOGIST. FEBRUARY, 1860. GEOLOGICAL LOCALITIES.—NO. I. FOLKESTONE. By S. J. Macxris, F.G.S., F.S.A. Time passes away, and we all of us grow older and older. As day by day the daylight lengthens or contracts, the air gets warmer or chillier, the skies brighter or bleaker, and everything around us imperceptably changes, it is only after the lapse of weeks that we perceive the change. Lign. 1.—Eastwear Bay, from Copt Point. _ Yet Time never stays his rapid course ; and in mid-life it is per_ haps for the first time we stop in our onward path to feel, for the first time too, we are not what we were. VoL. m. 42 THE GEOLOGIST. Years ago, when a child, I picked up shells and pebbles on the Kentish strands. In school-boy days, with bolder hand and surer foot, oft have I scrambled o’er those white chalk-cliffs, or clambered homewards for six long miles o’er sea-weeded rocks with satchel loaded full of fossils gathered from the slippery shores of Hastwear Bay, were the dark-blue crumbling Gault daily yields its crop of glittering fossils to the destructive battering of the salt sea waves. As the home almost of my childhood do I still look back to Kast- wear Bay. On its flat and sanded shores are dotted innumerable earth coils of ever-working worms, o’er the bronzed and unctuous fields of tangle and fucoids, and the barnacle-crusted rocks are spattered myriads of tiny tube-worms (Spirorbes and Serpule), and thousands of patches of the matted and netted towns of bryozoans (Eschare and Flustre). The rough waves wash up the almost senseless bristled sea-mouse (Aphrodita aculeata). Perriwinkles cling to the overlapping algals, and troups of limpets at the recess — of the tide march down with solemn step and slow to browse in the fields of the serrated fuci, retiring before its flood to fit themselves fastidiously down again to their perches on the rocks. Lobsters and crabs pass seemingly happy days in holes amongst the bigger stones, while eolids, dorids, and other inhabitants of the deep wade here ashore o’er smooth, or rugged paths to spawn. The long line of undercliff, the Warren, stretches in romantic ~ beauty its chains of hill and dale along beneath the tall white cliffs, that proudly lift their lordly crests five hundred feet above the sing- | ing waves below. Who is there amongst us with heart so dead as not to admire and delight in such a scene as this? Who, from the fairest of England’s ~ daughters to the sunburnt labourer, is dead to those charms of sense. and scene which ever-varied Nature ever variedly presents to refresh — the heart of the poor mechanic as thoroughly and as truly, as they do the gentler and more exquisite sensibilities of those who have never known a care. “Come with me,” says Lewes, in one of his beautiful ‘ Studies, ‘come with me and lovingly study Nature, as she breathes, palpitates, and works under myriad forms of Life.” Come with me, THE GAULT. 43 GEOLOGY OF FOLKESTONE too, and lovingly study Nature; only come with me with a stouter heart and bolder step, and let us venture one essay into the myste- rious past. Where shall we begin? “ Anywhere,” says Lewes, “will do.” And truly so it will, for the geologist as well as for the naturalist. Lign, 2.—The Warren, with Nastwear Bay and Copt Point, from the summit of Abbot’s Clift. We are already in the Warren. I remember it before it was spoilt by that great ugly gash of a railway-cutting, through which the fiery locomotive whizzes like a smoking rocket furiously along. I re- member it in its solemn quietness; and oft, as the sammer’s glorious sun was placidly sinking in the west, have I wandered o’er its grassy mounds, or along its bordering sands beneath, where “The prawn-catcher wades through the shore-rippling waves.” Beautiful indeed is that white land-locked bay in its fairy like purity. Serenity itself is that solemn glassed expanse of level water. How sweetly, too, the dying glories of the ruddy sun tip the highest peaks of chalky cliffs, while all below is shrouded up in solemn shadow, save off at sea, where “ Bright gleam the white sails in the stout rays of even, And stud as with silver the broad level main ; While glowing clouds float on the fair face of heaven, And the mirror-like water reflects them again.” 44, HE GEOLOGIST. Ever since I knew it has the Warren been just like this—almost unruffled in its solemn and stately aspect even by the stormy sea. Land, water, sky, all too broadly grand to be speckled by the pigmy waves, whose sullen sounds the mighty cliffs but backward throws “ faultering into whispers low.” Here then let us begin. There are older men than I that know the Warren well, and little is the change in it that they have seen. Like me they have grown from childhood into man; and more than I, they have passed into childhood—dreary, sad, exhausting childhood, not fresh and young— again ; and yet little is the change that they have seen. ‘There were those tall white cliffs when they were boys; there was that “wreck of ages” spread below ; there was that broad mass of cliffs, and that wide solemn glass of sea that daily showed their pure white forms ; there was that blue and slippery shore, those yellow sands, that rocky tract. Mounds of fallen chalk were piled against the cliffs be- yond, while only a casual block tarnished the verdant carpet of the Warren. Long years have flitted by since man recorded any change in this serene and solemn scenery. Already the recording lines on the tombstone’s “frail and crumbling frame”—the dead man’s chronicle —touched by time are half effaced. And then how slight the change recorded. Well may we look up at those old cliffs and think how old they are. But need I say that once, in time’s long sequence of changes strange, those cliffs were Ocean’s mud—deep sea-bed ooze. How long ago is that? Older than the days when perhaps the brazen arms of conquering Romans clattered on this slippery strand; older than the days of Phoenician traffic with our island’s mines for tin; older than the aboriginal Briton, or the hairy mammoths that in- habited this very land, ere Adam was, or human race began; older than that great and three-fold age (the Tertiary) when living species first appeared; older than ten thousand times ten thousand ages is the rock-mass of those fair and stately cliffs; and older still, older still by ages, is that dark blue clay that forms that slippery shore. And this blue clay it is that has made Folkestone one of the chief towns in the geological territory. Few geological localities have’ been longer or more justly celebrated in the annals of geology than” MORLOT—SOME GENERAL VIEWS ON ARCHAOLOGY. 45 Folkestone has been for the beautiful iridescent fossils of the Gault ; for by that provincial (Cambridgeshire) name is this blue stratum known to geologists. Not that these fossils are large or massive ; not that they are parts and portions of the former monsters of the earth or sea; not that they have any economic value, or are capable of any commercial use. Probably they were not even the finest of their race while sporting yet with vital energy in their ancient sea ; for only little shell-fish, or cuttle-fish were they—small, delicate, and pearly. . (To be continued.) SOME GENERAL VIEWS ON ARCHAIOLOGY.* By A. MORLOT, OF LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND. A century has scarcely elapsed since the time when it would have been thought impossible to reconstruct the history of our globe prior to the appearance of mankind; but though contemporary his- torians were wanting during this immense pre-human era, this era has not failed to leave us a well-arranged series of most significant vestiges. The animal and vegetable tribes which have successively appeared and disappeared have left their fossil remains in the suc- cessively deposited strata. Thus has been composed, gradually and slowly, a history of creation written as it were by the Creator him- self. It is a great book, the leaves of which are the stratified rocks following each other in the strictest chronological order, the chapters being the mountain-chains. This great book has long been closed to man; but science, constantly extending its realm and improving its method of induction, has taught the geologist to study those marvel- lous archives of creation, and we behold him now unfolding the past ages of our world with a variety of details and a certainty of conclu- sions well calculated to inspire us with grateful admiration. * This article is the introduction to a paper entitled “‘ Geologico-Archxological Studies in Denmark and Switzerland,” appearing in the “ Bulletin de la Societé Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles” for 1859, and of which a separate edition, comprising the present pages, will be published. 46 THE GEOLOGIST. The development of Archwology has been very similar to that of Geology. Not long ago we should have smiled at the idea of re- constructing the bygone days of our’ race previous to the beginning of history properly so called. The void was partly filled up by re- presenting that ante-historical antiquity as having been only of short duration, and partly by exaggerating the value and the age of those vague and confused notions which constitute tradition. It seems to be with mankind at large as with single individuals. The recollections of our earliest childhood have entirely faded away up to some particular event which had struck us more forcibly, and which alone has left a lasting image amidst the surrounding darkness. Thus, excepting the idea of a deluge which exists among so many nations, and therefore appears to have originated before the emigra- tion of those same nations, the infancy of mankind, at least in Europe, has passed without leaving any reminiscences ; and history fails here entirely, for what is history but the memory of mankind. But before the beginning of history there were life and indus- try, of which various monuments still exist; while others le buried in the soil, much as we find the organic remains of former creations entombed in the strata composing the crust of the globe. The anti- quities enact here a similar part to that of the fossils; and if Cuvier calls the geologist an antiquarian of a new order, we can reverse that remarkable saying, and consider the antiquarian as a geologist, applying his method to reconstruct the first ages of mankind pre- vious to all recollection, and to work out what may be termed pre- historical history. This is Archeology pure and proper. But Archeology cannot be considered as coming to a full stop with the first beginning of history, for the further we go back in our historical researches the more incomplete they become, leaving gaps which the study of material remains helps to fill up. Archeology, therefore, pursues its course in a parallel line with that of history, and hence- forth the two sciences mutually enlighten each other. But with the — progress of history the part taken by Archeology goes on decreasing, until the invention of printing almost brings to a close the researches of the antiquarian. To pursue geological investigations, we must first examine the present state of our planet, and observe its changes—that is, we must MORLOT—SOME GENERAL VIEWS ON ARCHAOLOGY. 47 begin by physical geology. This supplies us with a thread of induc- tion to guide us safely in our rambles through the past ages of our earth, as Lyell has so admirably set forth; for the laws which govern organic creation and the inorganic world are as invariable as the results of their combinations and permutations are infinitely varied, science revealing to us everywhere the perfect stability of causes with the diversity of forms, So, to understand the past ages of our species, we must first begin by examining its present state, following man wherever he has crossed the waters and set his foot upon dry land. The different nations which at present inhabit our earth must be studied with re- spect to their industry, their habits, and their general mode of life. We thus make ourselves acquainted with the different degrees of civilization, ranging from the highest summit of modern development to the most abject state, hardly surpassing that of the brute. By that means Ethnology supplies us with what may be called a contempo- raneous scale of development, the stages of which are more or less fixed and invariable ; whilst Archeology traces a scale of successive development, with one moveable stage passing gradually along the whole line.* Ethnography is, consequently, to Archeology what physical geo- graphy is to geology, namely, a thread of induction in the labyrinth of the past, and a starting point in those comparative researches of which the end is the knowledge of mankind, and its development through successive generations. In following out the principles above laid down, the Scandinavian savants have succeeded in unravelling the leading features in the pro- gress of pre-historical EKuropean civilization, and in distinguishing three principal eras, which they have called the Stone-age, the Bronze-age, and the Iron-age.f This great conquest in the realm of science is due chiefly to the labours of Mr. Thomsen, director of the Ethnological and Archezolo- * Some naturalists see a correspondence of the same sort between embryology and comparative anatomy, for they consider the human embryo as passing during its development through the different stages of the scale of animal creation, or, at least, as passing through the different states of the embryos of the different Stages of that scale. + The history of Danish Archeology has been sketched by T. Hindenberg. See “Dansk Maanedskrift,” I. 1859. 48 THE GEOLOGIST. gical Museums at Copenhagen,* and to those of Mr, Nielssen, profes- sor at the flourishing University of Lund, in Sweden.t These illus- trious veterans of the school of northern antiquarians have ascer- tained that Europe, at present so civilized, was at first inhabited by tribes to whom the use of metal was totally unknown, and whose in- dustry and domestic habits must have borne a considerable analogy to what we now see practised among certain savages. Bone, horn, and chiefly flint, were then used, instead of metal, for manufacturing cutting-instruments and arms. This was the Stone-age, which might also be called the first great phase of civilization. The earliest settlers in Europe apparently brought with them the art of producing fire. By striking iron-pyrites (sulphuret of iron) against quartz, fire can be easily obtained. But this method can only have been occasionally used, and seems to have been con- fined to some native tribes in Terra del Fuego.{ The usual mode has been evidently that of rubbing two sticks together; but, on further reflection, it is easy to perceive that this was a most difficult dis- covery, and must at all events have been preceded by a knowledge of the use of fire as derived from the effects of lightning or from vol- canic action. The Stone-age was, therefore, probably preceded by a period per- haps of some length, during which man was unacquainted with the art of producing fire. This, according to Mr. Flourens, indicates that the cradle of mankind was situated in a warm climate.§ The art of producing fire has been perhaps the greatest achieve- ment of human intelligence. The use of fire lies at the root of almost every species of industry; it enables the savage to fell trees, * “TLedetraad til Nordisk Oldkyndighed.”” Copenhagen, 1836. Published in English by Lord Ellesmere under the title of “A Guide to Northern Antiquities,” London, 1848. + Nielsson. ‘“ Scandinaviska Nordens Urinvonare.” Lund, 1838-1843. | { Weddell, “ A Voyage towards the South Pole in 1822-1824.” London, 1827. PG /- § Flouren’s “ De la Longevité Humaine.” Paris, 1855. P.127. Man, from the construction of his teeth, his stomach, and hisintestines, is primitively frugivorous, like the monkey. But the frugivorous diet is the most unfavourable, because it constrains its followers perpetually to abide in those countries which produce fruit at all seasons, consequently in warm climates. But, once the art of cook- ing introduced, and applied both to animal and vegetable productions, man could extend and vary the nature of his diet. Man has consequently two diets: the first is primitive, natural, and instinctive, and by it he is frugivorous; the second — is artificial, being due entirely to his intelligence, and by this he is omnivorous. MORLOT—SOME GENERAL VIEWS ON ARCHMOLOGY. 49 as it allows civilized nations to work metals. The importance is so great, that deprived of it man would perhaps scarcely have risen above the condition of the brute. The ancients already were sensible of this. Witness the fable of “ Prometheus.” As to their sacred perpetual fire, its origin seems to lie in the difficulty of procuring it, thereby rendering its preservation essential. In Europe the Stone-age came to an end by the introduction of bronze. This metal is an alloy of about nine parts of copper and one part of tin.* It melts and moulds well; the molten mass, in cool- ing, slowly acquires a tolerable degree of hardness—inferior to that of steel it is true, but superior to that of very pureiron. We there- fore understand how bronze would long be used for manufacturing cutting-instruments, weapons, and numerous personal ornaments. The northern antiquarians have very properly called this second great phase in the development of European civilization the Bronze-age. The bronze articles of this period, with a few trifling exceptions, have not been produced by hammering, but have been cast, often with a considerable degree of skill. Even the sword-blades were cast, and the hammer (of stone) was only used to impart a greater degree of hardness to the edge of the weapon. The Bronze-age has, therefore, witnessed a mining industry which was completely wanting during the Stone-age. Now the art of mining is so essential to civilization, that without it the world would perhaps yet be exclusively inhabited by savages. It is, therefore, worth our while to inquire more closely into the origin of bronze. Copper was not very difficult to obtain. In the first place, virgin copper is not exceedingly scarce. Then the different kinds of ore which contain copper, combined with other elements, are either highly coloured, or present a marked metallic appearance, and are consequently easily known; they are besides not hard to smelt, so | as to separate the metal. Finally, copper-ore is not at all scarce, it is met with in the older geological series of most countries. Virgin tin is unknown, but tin-ore is heavy, of dark colour, and * Bronze is still used for casting bells, cannon, and certain parts of machinery. _ It must not be confounded with common brass, which is a compound of copper ' and zinc, much less hard, and appearing only in the Iron-age. VoL. 11. G 50 THE GEOLOGIST, very easy to smelt. However frequent copper may be, tin is of rare occurrence. Thus the only mines in Europe which produce tin at the present day are those of Cornwall, in England, and of the Erzge- birge and Fichtelgebirge, in Germany. But the question arises whether previous to the discovery of bronze, man, owing to the great rarity of tin, may not have begun by using copper in a pure state. If so, there would have been a copper-age between the stone- and bronze-ages. In America this has really been the case. When they were dis- covered by the Spaniards, both the two centres of civilization, Mexico and Peru, had bronze composed of copper and tin, which was used for manufacturing arms and cutting-instruments, in the absence of iron and steel, which were unknown in the New World; but the admirable researches of Messrs. Squier and Davis on the antiqui- ties of the Mississippi valley* have brought to light an ancient civi- lization of a remarkable nature, and distinguished by the use of raw virgin copper, worked in a cold state by hammering without the aid of fire. The reason of its being so worked lies in the nature of pure copper, which, when melted, flows sluggishly, and is not very fit for casting. A peculiar characteristic of the metal, that of occasionally containing crystals of virgin silver, betrays its origin, and shows that it was brought from the neighbourhood of Lake Superior. This — region is still rich in metallic copper, of which single blocks attaining a weight of fifty tons have lately been discovered. There was even found at the bottom of an old mine a great mass of copper, which the ancients had evidently been unable to raise, and which they had abandoned, after having cut off the projecting parts with stone hatchets.+ The date of this American age is unknown: all we know is that it must reach as far back as ten centuries at least, that space of time being deemed necessary for the growth of the virgin forests, now flourishing upon the remains of that antique civilization of which the modern Indians have not even retained a tradition. * Squier and Davis.—* Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley.” Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. Washington, 1848. It is one of the most splendid archzeological works ever published. + Lapham.—“ The Antiquities of Wisconsin.” Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, p. 76, 1855. MORLOT—SOME GENERAL VIEWS ON ARCHMOLOGY. 51 It is finally worthy of remark that the “mound-builders,” as the Americans call the race of the copper-age, seem to have preceded and prepared the Mexican civilization, destroyed by the Spaniards ; for in progressing southwards, a gradual transition is noticed from the ancient earth-works of the Mississippi valley to the more modern constructions of Mexico, as found by Cortez. In Europe the remains of a copper-age are wanting. Here and there a solitary hatchet of pure copper is found; but this can easily be accounted for by the greater frequency of copper, while tin had usually to be brought from a greater distance, so that its supply was more precarious. Europe did not witness the regular development of a copper-age. It seems, according to M. Troyon’s very just remark, that the art of manufacturing bronze was brought from another quarter of the world, where it had been previously invented. It was most probable some region in Asia, producing both copper and tin, where these two metals were first brought into artificial combination, and where also traces of a still earlier copper-age are likely to be found. An apparently serious objection might be started here, by raising the question how mines could be worked without the aid of steel. This, however, is sufficiently explained by the fact that the hardest rocks can be easily managed by the agency of fire. By lighting a large fire against a rock, the latter is rent and fissured, so as to facili- tate considerably its quarrying. This method was frequently employed when wood was cheaper, and is even practised in the pre- sent day in the mines of the Rammelsberg, in Germany, where it facilitates the working of a rock of extreme hardness. That metal of dingy and sorry appearance, but more precious than gold or the diamond—iron—at length appears, giving a wonderful impulse to the progressive march of mankind, and characterizing the third great phase in the development of European civilization, very properly called the Iron-age. Our planet never produces iron in its metallic or virgin state, for the simple reason that it is too liable to oxydation. But among the aérolites there are some composed of pure iron, with a little nickel, which alters neither the appearance, nor the qualities of the metal. Thus the celebrated meteoric stone met with by Pallas in Siberia was 52 THE GHOLOGIST. found by the neighbouring blacksmiths to be malleable in a cold state.* Meteoric iron has even been worked by tribes to whom the use of common iron was unknown. Thus Amerigo Vespucci speaks of savages near the mouth of the La Plata, who had manufactured arrow-heads with iron derived from an aérolite.t Such cases are certainly of rare occurrence, but they are not without their import- ance, for they explain how man may probably have first become acquainted with iron, and they also account for the occasional traces of iron in tombs of the Stone-age, if, indeed, this fact be well established. It is, notwithstanding, evident that the regular working of terres- trial iron-ore must have been a necessary condition of the commence- ment and progress of the Iron-age. Now iron-ore is generally found in most countries, but it has usually the look of common stone, being distinguished neither by its weight, nor colour. Moreover, its smelting requires a much greater degree of heat than copper or tin, and this renders its production considerably more difficult than that of bronze. But even when iron had been obtained, what groping in the dark, and how much laboriously accumulated experience did it not require, to bring forth at will bar-iron or steel! Chance, if chance there be, may have played a part in it; but as chance only favours those privi- leged mortals who combine a keen spirit of observation with serious meditation and with practical sense, the discovery was not less diffi- cult nor less meritorious. We need not, then, be surprised if man arrived but tardily at the manufacture of iron and steel, which is still daily bemg improved, In Carinthia traces of a most primitive method of producing iron have been noticed. The process seems to have been as follows :— On the declivity of a hill was dug an excavation, in which was lighted a large fire. When this began to subside, fragments of very pure ore (hydroxyde) were thrown into it, and covered by a new heap of wood. When all the fuel had been consumed, small lumps of iron would then be found among the ashes.{ All blowing appa- * Pallas.— Voyages en Russie,” Paris, 1793, vol. iv., p. 595. There was but one mass of meteoric iron; it weighed 1,600 lbs. + “ Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge,” vol. ii., art. 8, p. 178. { Communicated to the author by mining-engineers in Carinthia. MORLOT—SOME GENERAL VIEWS ON ARCHMOLOGY. 53 ratus was in this manner dispensed with—an important fact when we come to consider how much its use complicates the metallurgical operations, because it implies the application of mechanics. Thus, certain tribes in Southern Africa, although manufacturing iron and working it tolerably well, have not achieved the construction of our common kitchen-bellows, apparently so simple: they blow laboriously through a tube, or by means of a bladder affixed to it. The Romans produced iron by the so-called Catalonian process, and the remains of Roman works of that description have been discovered and investigated in Upper Carniola, Austria.* The Catalonian forge is still used in the Pyrenees, where it yields tolerable results ; but it consumes a large quantity of charcoal, requires much wind, and is only to be applied to pure ore containing but a very small pro- portion of earthy matter, producing scoriz. The process, in fact, con- sists in a mere reduction, with a soldering and welding together of the reduced particles, without the metal properly melting. Accord- ing to the manner in which the operation is conducted, bar-iron or steel are obtained at will. This direct method dispenses with the inter- mediate production of cast-iron, which was unknown to the ancients, and which is now the means of producing iron on a great scale. Silver accompanied the introduction of iron into Europe—at least, in the northern parts; whilst gold was already known during the bronze-age. This is natural, for gold is generally found as a pure metal, while silver has usually to be extracted from different kinds of ore, by more or less complicated metallurgical operations—for example, cupellation. With iron appeared also, for the first time in Europe, glass, coined money—that powerful agent of commerce,—and finally the alphabet, which, as the money of intelligence, vastly increases the activity and circulation of thought,t and is sufficient of itself to characterize a new and wonderful era of progress. From thence we can date the dawn of history and of science, in particular of astronomy. * Jahrbuch der K. K. Geologischen Reichsanstalt. 'Vienna, 1850, vol. ii., p. 199. Carinthia and Upper Carniolia formed part of the Roman province Noricum, celebrated for its iron. + “The circulation of ideas is for the mind what the circulation of specie is for commerce—a true source of wealth.’ C.V.de Bonstetten. ‘ L’homme du midi et ’homme du Nord.” Geneva, 1826, p. 175. 54 THE GEOLOGIST, The fine arts also reveal, with the introduction of iron in Europe, anew and important element indicating a striking advance already in the stone-age, but more so in the bronze-age; the natural taste for art reveals itself in the ornaments bestowed upon pottery and metallic objects. These ornaments consist of dots, cireles, and zig- zag, spiral, and S-shaped lines, the style bearing a geometrical cha- racter, but showing pure taste and real beauty of its kind, although devoid of all delineations of animated objects, either in the shape of plants or animals. It is only with the Iron-age that art, taking a higher range, rose to the representation of plants, animals, and even of the human frame. No wonder, then, if idols of the Bronze-age as well as of the Stone-age are wanting in Europe. It is to be pre- sumed that the worship of fire, of the sun, and of the moon, was prevalent in remote antiquity—at least during the Bronze-age, per- haps also during the Stone-age. The preceeding pages constitute a sketch, certainly very rough and imperfect, of the developments of civilization. They establish, how- ever, in a very striking manner the fact of a progress, slow, but uninterrupted and immense, when the starting point is considered. The physical constitution of man has naturally benefitted byit. The details contained in the treatise of which the present paper forms the introduction prove that the human race has been gradually gaining in vigour and strength since the remotest antiquity.* The domestic races also—the dog first, then the horse, the ox, and the sheep have shared in this physical development. Even the vegetable soil has been gradually improving since the Stone-age—at least in Denmark. And yet there are persons who deny all general progress, seeing everywhere nothing but decay and ruin, like that worthy specimen of a Northern pessimist, who exclaimed—‘ See how man has degenerated ; he has even lost his likeness to the monkey !” * This agrees perfectly with the testimony of statistics. See “ Quetelet sur Vhomme et le developement de ses facultés.” Paris, 1835, vol. ii., p. 271. This work of first-rate merit is very near akin to archeology. M. Quetelet has just published a new work, which will certainly be even more remarkable than the first, and which the author of the present paper regrets not to have had within his reach. ROBERTS—UPPER SILURIAN CORALS. 55 UPPER SILURIAN CORALS. A SKETCH BY GEORGE C. ROBERTS. CoraL-HUNTING in the debris of a Wenlock-shale quarry ranks high— to my thinking—amongst the pleasures of geology. And, indeed, has no insignificant place among its wonders. For to any one not conversant with zoophytic life, it is hard to believe that the rugged corals that lie strewn about the quarry, once held sensitive masses of life—that from every pore tiny arms waved to and fro in the water to entangle the lesser creatures they lived on ; and that the animal— that slight thread of jelly-like substance, filling each tube, was at once a limb of the body and an independent creature, contributing, while attached, to the general support, and being able, if severed from the mass, to lead a separate existence and be itself the parent of others. The Wenlock series of the Upper Silurians have been rightly regarded as the metropolis of its zoophytic life, for both in variety and number, corals culminated in the seas of that age. Of these species, “so far removed from existing ones as to be quite unknown in modern seas, all, with rare exceptions, dying out at the close of the Paleozoic epoch.”’* I will essay a familiar sketch. T adopt the nomenclature of M. Milne Edwards, whose valuable memoir of Silurian corals, published by the Palzontographical So- ciety, is my guide and instructor. True corals are called by zoologists Zoantharia; and those with which we have now specially to do belong to the order Anthozoa. They have again been divided into cup-, and star-corals—Zoantharia rugosa, and millepores—Z. tabulata. The first division may either be simple—tenanted by a single polyp, or compound—the result of an aggregation of polyps, the latter, as its name implies, must always be the shelter and defence for a community. The animal itself was a * “Siluria,” 3rd edition. 56 THE GEOLOGIST. simple gelatinous substance, having power of expansion according to its wants, and being able to secrete lime from the ocean, and perhaps to transmute chemically other salts into lime, with which it built around itself a stony skeleton, a home to live in, and a defence from injury. In accordance with the thread-like growth of the polyp, we shall find these stony houses built up in most cases of tubes, through which the animal extended itself, the open end or summit forming its communi- cation with the outer world. These tubes are in most species crowned with a certain number of ridges, disposed like the rays of a star; these took their shape from the slender fishing arms of the polyp, and formed their protection. The summit of the tube is called the calice, or cup, and the ridges that radiate from its centre are known as septa. The beautiful pat- tern that covers the surface of a coral is owing to the preservation of these star-like septa, and by the variation in their forms and number combined with altered shape of the calice we distinguish species. For in this tiny cup are printed more definitely than elsewhere the characteristics of its inhabitant. Tt is well to examine every piece of milleporal coral in three several ways. First, look at its upper surface and note the form and con- — struction of its calices and the number, if any, of their septa; then, turning it sideways, observe whether the tubes of which these calices — are the termination are continued to the base of the coral, or die away in its substance, and lastly, look at the under-surface, notice if the basal plate is free avid unattached, or is furnished with a pe- duncle, or foot of attachment. But in describing the species, it is best to begin with the cup-corals. The normal form of this first great division of zoophytic life is that of a simple cup, produced by a — polyp which expends all its strength in the development of a single calice. In some species, however, such solitary polyps are aggregated together, sometimes accidentally so, as in Cyathophyllum articulatum, usually found in groups of strongly-walled corallites, growing up to- gether without interfering with each other; and.in several species of cup-coral a peculiar method of reproduction—no less than “ the life of the parent being continued in that of the offspring,” by buds grow- ing out of the centre of its calice, gives a composite character to what was before a solitary polyp. For the buds growing up and expand- ROBERTS—UPPER SILURIAN CORALS. 57 ing, crowd upon each other’s limits, and a mass of corallites is the re- sult, whose base is the old parent coral, and whose upper surface is covered by the star-rayed cups of the children. Acervularia ananas is the commonest species of these family corals. The polyps that formed these cup-corals grew from their base up- wards, and were probably long livers, for a well-matured specimen of Cyathophyllwm Loveni will measure five inches in height, indicating by the number of prominent edges that surround it—accretion- wrinkles they are called—a long and chequered existence ; for when these are regularly prominent, we infer the polyp led an active life of development. On the contrary, when their irregularity forms annu- lar depressions on the corallum, these indicate the occasional repose of the zoophyte from its work of extension. The common species belonging to these cup-corals are easily known. Oyathophyllum Lovent has very prominent accretion- wrinkles, while upon the sides of CO. angustum they are but feebly developed. O. pseudoceratites has an oval calice, with only thirty- eight large septa alternating with a like number of smaller ones ; the two former species have sixty of each kind. Omphyma turbinata isa short, wide-mouthed species, with double the number of septa, and has radiciform appendages, 7.e., rootlets, attached to its lower end. O. subturbinata differs only in being taller, as its name implies, having but eighty septa, and well developed accretion-wrinkles. 0. Murchisoni is nearly allied, but has vesicles, or bladder-like tubercles, coming up among the septa. Then there is Goniophyllum Fletcheri with a square calice; Aulacophyllum mitratum, a small turbi- nated cup, whose principal and rudimentary septa combined only amount to sixty-eight, and Ptychophyllum patellatum, with one hun- dred septa, and the border of its calice so much raised that the coral- lum resembles the cap of a mushroom. These are all the simple cup- corals we are likely to meet with in the Wenlock rocks. Among the composite ones is the species I before alluded to, Cyathophyllum arti- culatum, generally met with as a mass of tall slender corallites, so thin-skinned that their upright internal lines of structure (cost«) are clearly visible. Syringophyllum organum is another, having star- headed tubes of exquisite beauty ; and as a connecting link between this and the next division of cup-corals, we have Acervularia luau- i YOu. 11. H 58 THE GEOLOGIST. vians, which resembles the preceding in the development of the inner walls of its corallites, but differs from them, and allies itself to the next by its mode of reproduction, which is exclusively calicinal. This gemmation, as it is called, is a very interesting and instructive feature. Cyathophyllum truncatum is a good example of it. I have ~ often picked up this coral in a Dudley, or Wenlock lime-quarry, in which the parent—a simple, but somewhat angular shaped cup—has been smothered by the growth of young buds from out its calice. Indeed, in many specimens I have seen, these un- natural children have in turn borne young, and a tall turbinate mass of corallites, with calices mis-shapen by crowding together, has grown up. The last division of the “ cup- and star-corals” includes those com— posite species that have a common basal plate, and grow by accre- tional development. Strombodes typus is the best known. The star-headed terminations of its corallites cover the surface with ir- regular polygonal figures, the value of whose angles would puzzle old Euclid himself. This species has vertical internal radii, thus differing from its ally, S. Murchisoni, whose inner structure is completely vesi- cular. Another species, S. Phillipsii, has elegantly shaped ealices, having their angles gracefully lengthened; while the perfection of beauty is attained by S. diffluens, whose surface, exhibiting no trace of walls dividing the corallites, is covered with the most exquisite septal floriations. Nearly allied by form of calice to the cup-corals are the Fungide, or “mushroom-corals,” an outstanding group of which one genus only seems to have lived in Silurian seas, Palewocyclus it is called, «e., ancient circle. P. porpita has a quoit-like corallum, thirty large septa alternating with a like number of smaller ones, and a curved pedunele-foot of attachment. P, preacutus is about the size, and not much thicker than a sixpence, has forty-eight uniform septa, and no peduncle. P. Fletcheri is about half an inch high, has a strongly curved peduncle, and well marked accretion-wrinkles ; superior height gives it advantages, you see. But P. rugosus is taller still, somewhat top-shaped, and has a small peduncle, oddly turned up. I have now to describe the milleporal corals, the second great ROBERTS—UPPER SILURIAN CORALS. 59 division of Silurian Zoantharia, differing widely from the cup- and star-corals, both in shape and character. They are all composite—no single tube or cup could be a millepore, either in fact or by courtesy, for the name implies the aggregation of a number of polyps having more direct connection with each other than the cup-corals. In shape they are both massive and branching. The first two genera, Heliolites and Favosites, are distinguished from each other by the ab- sence of those septa in the latter that form such elegant star-like dises as they fill up the calices of the former. Heliolites, i.e., sun-coral, is so named from the sun-like appearance of its calices. H. interstincta has these calices closely set, and equal in distance from each other, the intervening space, called the caenenchy- ma, being filled with polygonal cells. Upon the surface of H. Mur- elusoni the calices are not closely set, and vary in approximation. H. megastoma is easily known from either ; large, closely set, calices cover its surface, and what coonenchyma their nearness permits is made up of square cells. All these are massive corals irregularly hemispheri- cal in form, and having a basal-plate strongly marked with concentric ridges. The branching Heliolites are still more elegant. H. Grayii is rudely branched, and bears its sun-like calices on both surfaces. The only known specimen of this species was found in the Wenlock shale of Walsall, and is in the cabinet of its discoverer, Mr. Gray, of Hagley. H. imordinata is decidedly arborescent in form, very slenderly branched, and bearing calices, whose rarity is made out by the extreme beauty of their form. This, however, is peculiar to Lower Silurian rocks, and I only introduce it here to complete my sketch of Heliolitic corals. The genera Plasmopora and Propora differ from Heliolites, mainly in the appearance of their surfaces, the septal rays being prolonged beyond the edge of the calice, and united to other rays which cover the coonenchyma. In every species of these three genera the number of septa contained in each calice is twelve. Next come the Favosites. These have no intervening coonenchyma, the coral being simply a bundle of tubes. The radiating septa of their calices are only developed in one species, and that a rare one, FP. Hisingeri. F'. Gothlandica is the typical form; this has strongly walled tubes, which, coming up to the surface, cover it with a cali- 60 THE GEOLOGIS®. cinal pattern of five-sided divisions, unequal in size. This differs mainly from F’. aspera, in having its surface convex instead of flat. A broken piece of I’. aspera, however, will show the edges of the tubes toothed, instead of smoothly columnar as in I’. Gothlandica. F. multipora has its calices equal in size, and very regular. These three species are the giants of their tribe, specimens weighing sixty or eighty pounds are not uncommon in the Wenlock shale of Dudley, or Benthall Edge. A little below the Wych-pass at Great Malvern, where the Wenlock-shale rests against the west flank of the hill, a reef of Favosites crosses the footway, and may be traced in an un- broken line for some yards, The calices of F’, Forbesti are very unequal in size, and quite circu- lar ; this, though a massive species, never attains the size of its allies. A side view of I’. fibrosa gives one the idea of a bundle of slender needles ; consequently its calices are scarcely discernible without a lens. FF. cristata is the only true branching Favosite; it may be known from other arborescent corals by the irregularity of form pre- sented by its calices. Alwveolites is the genus most allied to the one I have been describ- ing. It differs in this important and easily recognized particular ; the calices of Favosites come up to the surface free and independent of each other, whereas in Alveolites each appears to overlap and in- trude upon its neighbour, though not so in reality. The largest massive species, A. Labecheti is perhaps the most elegant in its calici- nal pattern. A. Grayit is much like it, but has a flat instead of convex top, and the irregularity of the calices detract much from its beauty. A. repens is avery commonly met with branched species. A. (?) seria~ toporoides is branched also, but seems intermediate between this genus and the next, Ceenites, for the calices are very sparely set among a greatly developed coonenchyma, are quite circular, and arranged in perpendi- cular order. These Cenites are beautiful branching corals, to be seen in every slab of Wenlock limestone ; and though of small size, are not the least important of fossil zoophytes. The branches of C. jwniperi- nus are round, or nearly so, and bear calices shaped like the Zodiacal sign Aquarius, or, to use a still more familiar simile, like birds upon the wing. The calices of C. interteatus have shorter and less elegant wings; while C. linearis is massive instead of branching, and has ROBERTS—UPPER SILURIAN CORALS. 61 simple line-shaped calices. These are all of small size. So, too, are the species of the next genus Monticulipora, i.e. “little mountain pore,” from its surface being varied by the elevation of tuberosities. All the species of this genus are branching, save one—M. papillata, whose corallum is thin and incrustating. M. Fletcheri has circular calices regular in size ; while those of M. pulchella are oval, or rarely hexagonal, but differ in size, those occupying the tuberosities being larger than those that come up in the low-lands. Three other species are met with, but rarely. Next in order is Labecheia conferta, a disc-like coral, which is widely distinct from every other polyparian production; for the calices that come up abundantly to its surface are tubercles in- stead of cups, from their margins folding in upon the centre, and, as a matter of course, their septa are as rudimentary as are those of the Favositide. Halysites catenularia is another aristocratic coral that does not per- mit others to claim affinity. This is the common “chain-coral,” named so by universal consent, from its calices forming a series of inter- linked loops across the upper surface, like the links of a golden chain. This is a pet species of paleontologists, for M. Milne Edwards has recorded no less than twenty-six synonyms for it en vogue at different times and places. It is abundant in every quarry of Wenlock shale, but the finest specimens come from Benthall Edge. Now for the parasitical corals, Syringopora bifurcata, S. fascicularis, and S. serpens—three species not easy to distinguish at certain stages of their growth. They lived upon well-to-do shells and corals in those ancient seas, just as species with like habits do now, throwing up here and there a short calicinal tube as they crept over their sur- faces. In after life gemmation out of these produced amass of straight slender corallites, which had an independent existence, and grew tall and comely. Two others, and the history of our common Wenlock corals is ended. Thecia Swindernana is a massive, but rather thin coral, haying a flat upper surface covered with beautiful star-like calices, whose elegance of design is owing to the development of their septa. The other species, 7’. Grayana is like it in form, but differs in having but twelve septa instead of sixteen or eighteen. 62 THE GEOLOGIST. , With one or two exceptions, the whole of the corals I have here attempted to describe may be found within the limits of an hour spent in any quarry of Wenlock shale, or limestone. The few I have omitted to mention have but slight points of difference, and are ac- counted rare; but from a glance at this, every reader or collector will acknowledge that the coral-polyp held no mean place among the workmen of old. CURRENT NOTES ON MINERALOGY, LITHOLOGY, AND METALLIFEROUS DEPOSITS. By H. C. Satmon, F.G.S. Tue October number of the “ Philosophical Magazine” contains a notice, translated from Poggendorff’s “Annalen,” by Professor Gustav Rose, on the isomorphism of stannic, silicic, and zirconic acids. Stannic acid (Sn) forms the mineral Oassiterite, silicic acid (Si) is Quartz, zirconic acid, which Rose considers to be Zr, has hitherto been classed as an earth or oxide, as zirconia, with composition Zr, or Zr. The mineral zircon, hitherto held to be a silicate of zirconia, must now, according to this, be merely considered as an isomorphous compound of one atom of zirconic acid and one atom of silicic acid (Zr + Si). This mineral species has always been remarkable for the variation of hardness and gravity in specimens from different local- ities, which according to this hypothesis may be accounted for by the unequal proportions of the two acids; the heavier and harder speci- mens containing the more zirconic acid, whose equivalent would be 481:20 compared with 384°888 that of silica. In the case of a variety found in Russia by Hermann, composed of two atoms of Zr, with three atoms of Si (Zr? Si), the specific gravity was only 4:06, while — that of the mineral of the ordinary composition varies from 45 to 4°8. Zireonic acid being thus established, and it being shown that zircon may be regarded as isomorphous with cassiterite (the ordinary SALMON—MINERALOGICAL NOTES, 63 tin-stone or tin-ore), the former mineral is made, in the Profesor’s reasoning, a kind of middle term to prove the isomorphism of its in- dividual components (silicic acid and zirconic acid), with stannic acid, He considers, in fact, that silicic acid may fairly be considered to be already found in the form of cassiterite, in zircon; and believes it would not be a matter for surprise to find stannic acid in the form of quartz. Dr. Genth’s paper, in the September number of the “ American Journal of Science and Arts,’’ on the “ Occurrence of Gold’ is very suggestive. After the mass of vague verbiage with which we have been inflicted on this topic, it is really refreshing to find a man who, whether right or wrong, is at least possessed of a definite and com- prehensible idea. Dr. Genth maintains that the gold found in veins and alluvial de- posits has been carried there in a state of solution; and he brings the following instances to prove that, in those cases at least, such must have been the case. If these are accurately stated, of which there seems every internal evidence, this certainly cannot be questioned :— “a, Specimen from Whitehall, Spotsylvania co., Va., shows gold associated with tetradymite [telluride of bismuth], limonite [hydrous per-oxide of iron], and quartz. The gold is crystallized in forms be- longing to the rhombohedral system, and showing very distinctly one rhombohedron, scalenohedron and basal plan ;* it is coating tetra- dymite, and is evidently a pseudomorph of it. “b, The tetradymite of the Tellurium Mine, Fluvanna co., Va., and the native bismuth from the peak of the Sorato, in Bolivia, are frequently interlaminated with gold. “c, In the upper portion of the ore-bed in the metamorphic slates at Springfield, Carrol co., Md., which near the surface consists of magnetite [magnetic proto-per-oxide of iron], and at a greater depth of chalcopyrite [copper pyrites] and other ores, films of native gold have sometimes been observed coating the cleavage-planes of the magnetite. On close examination it can be perceived that below the film of gold the magnetite is oxidized into hydrated sesquioxide of iron.” In attempting to establish an hypothesis of this kind, the greatest * These are the crystalline forms of tetradymite. 64 THE GEOLOGIST. difficulty, as Dr. Genth truly says, “ presents itself on inquiring into the nature of the solvent.” The doctor believes the noble metal was dissolved as terchloride of gold :—‘ If we remember that the decom- position of pyrites produces sulphuric acid, which, in the presence of the never wanting chloride of sodium and a higher oxide of manga- nese, may liberate small quantities of chlorine, the most powerful solvent of gold, we have at least a very plausible explanation.” Dr. Genth’s doctrine is that the gold both of veins and alluvial de- posits is derived from the adjoining rocks, where it exists probably in a highly disseminated state ; from these rocks it is removed in a state of solution, and precipitated in concentrated deposits in the veins and among the alluvial débris. The rock in which the metal most frequently occurs is diorite or greenstone [composed of ortho- clase felspar and hornblende]. How it originally came into this rock is not a question entered upon ; the main point being to prove that the gold of alluvial deposits is not derived, as is usually sup- posed, from the destruction of pre-existing quartz-veins, the fact being that they are both equally derivative, the original source being the neighbouring rock. There are many considerations suggested by the mode of occurrence of gold which weigh strongly in favour of sucha suggestion. In the first place, gold is continually found in alluvial deposits, in consider- able sized nuggets, in districts where no veins are found. In this case the usual theory is that the original upper surfaces, which were rich in auriferous veins, have been removed by denudation, and that the alluvial gold is the remnant of these. But this has the disad- vantage of assuming an hypothesis, for which no good reason can be given, that there is some peculiar law which limits the original pro- duction of gold to the surface, and which is held, with a strange in- consistency, by the same men who fully recognize the more than probability of other metals being derived from beneath. Assuming that the gold is derived from the rock by solution, and that the veins are mere depositories, we have at once at least a plausible reason for the general occurrence of gold only near the surface. It is that the solvent of that metal is somehow or other essentially connected with the atmosphere; so that although gold may exist at all depths, scattered, highly disseminated through certain igneous rocks, it is SALMON—MINERALOGICAL NOTES. 65 only where these rocks are subjected to a certain atmospheric decom- posing action, by which the gold is dissolved, to be subsequently re- precipitated in a highly concentrated state, that it is found in appreciable quantities. This is strongly supported by the fact that the finding of the gold-deposits is not limited to any arbitrary depth, but generally extends as far as the effects of atmospheric decompo- sition, and no further. The question of the origin of gold deposits by the deposition of the metal from solution is of course connected with the larger ques- tion of the origin of most veins, either of the metallic or non-metallic minerals, in a similar manner. Omitting Bischoff, who may be con- sidered by some a prejudiced authority, there are many first-rate German mineralogists who hold the doctrine of such an origin for most mineral veins. This scientific infiltration doctrine must not, however, be confounded with a vague mining notion to the same effect, and which would refer such views to a connection with the present drainage of the country, and without any reference to an origin of the metals; an opinion which sometimes takes a form as loose as that expressed by the Roman poet :— **Tnque brevi spatio, quz sunt effossa reponit Tempus, inexhausti servans alimenta metalli.” No investigator on the subject of lithology has arrived at more sweeping conclusions as to the origin of rocks than M. Delesse in his “Htudes sur le Métamorphisme.” Although M. Delesse’s labours have been completed for more than a year, it is to be regretted that no complete abstract of them has been yet presented to English readers.* That memoir is too wide a subject to enter upon here ; but a short reference to another paper, by the same author, in vol. xv. of the “ Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France (p. 728), called * Recherches sur lorigine des Roches,’ in which he sums up the conclusions of the investigations detailed in his “ Etudes” may be in- teresting to many. * M. Delesse’s memoir has been often referred to, and was particularly ably summed up by the President of the Geological Society in his last anniversary ad- dress, which should be consulted by all who wish to read a comprehensive re- view of the recent inquiries on this subject. VOL. III. I 66 THE GEOLOGIST. Referring to the agents which, in the interior of the earth, may have aided in rendering rocks plastic, or generally tended to the develop- ment of minerals, he reduces them to four—heat, water, pressure, and molecular action, attributing to the first only a comparatively limited réle in the formation of eruptive rocks. After describing what he conceives to be the action of these various agents, he thereon founds a classification of all eruptive rocks, according to their mode of origin, into the following divisions: I. Igneous eruptive rocks. II. Pseudo-igneous eruptive rocks. III. Non-igneous eruptive rocks. I. Igneous are those which have been reduced to a state of fusion, or at least rendered plastic by heat. They are almost always completely anhydrous, with a cellular structure and a rough feel to the touch, their constituent minerals having a strongly-marked cha- racteristic vitreous aspect; they constitute the rocks regarded as eminently volcanic. As extreme types of this class he especially refers to, trachyte and dolerite.* II. Pseudo-igneous rocks are those that may have been reduced to a state of plasticity partly by igneous and partly by aqueous action. Water, heat, and perhaps pressure may have combined to contribute to this. Rocks of this class have sometimes a cellular, or even | scoriaceous structure; but their constituent minerals have only a slightly vitreous aspect. They are hydrated, often containing — zeolites, and dividing into prisms or spheroids, and are generally associated with igneous rocks in volcanic regions. As types of this class he refers to retinite (pitchstone or phonolite), basalt, and trap.t These two classes represent those rocks usually called volcanic, | * Trachyte is a rock containing orthose and anorthose felspar, ferro-magnesian mica, hornblende, and also quartz. By anorthose felspar is designated, in a general way, all the felspar species belonging to the sixth crystalline system. Dolerite is an anorthose and anhydrous lava, composed of anorthose felspar and augite, with sometimes olivine, mica, and leucite. + Retinite consists of vitreous orthose felspar, of ferro-magnesian mica, and also quartz rather rarely, and always a large proportion of water, which may rise from 10 to 100 per cent. Pechstein and phonolite are varieties of this rock. Basalt principally consists of anorthose felspar, augite, and olivine, with some- times protoxide of iron, carbonates, zeolites ; and accidentally nepheline, haityne, zircon, corundum, &c., forming a hydrated felspathic paste. Basalt has the SALMON——-MINERALOGICAL NOTES. 67 TI. The non-igneous rocks correspond to Lyell’s plutonic rocks. Their plasticity was due to the combined action of water and pressure, heat having only played a very secondary part in their for- mation. In them the constituent minerals are devoid of the vitreous aspect peculiar to the igneous rocks; and their structure is rarely cellular, but, on the contrary, generally very compact. They are not associated with voleanic rocks, and are consequently attributable to an entirely different mode of origin. As types of this class he selects granite, diorite, and serpentine.* Conclusions such as these, so strongly opposed to many of our preconceived notions, are not likely to be received in this country with undue favour. M. Delesse on some points surpasses Bischoff, same elementary composition as dolerite, differing principally in the presence of a certain quantity of water and volatile matters. Trap, properly so-called, may pass into basalt, with which it is often associated. An intimate relation exists between the two rocks, but heat only played a very minor part in the formation of trap. Its base is anorthose felspar, which is generally the only mineral possible to be recognized; this is always hydrated, often considerably. It is rich in oxide of iron, and often contains spathic car- bonates. Trap forms the limit of the pseudo-igneous rocks; and although it is intimately connected with basalt, it differs I think in having been formed in a lower temperature. * Granite, as a type of a large class of rocks, has almost the same mineral composition as trachyte, for it contains quartz, felspars, and micas; but the occurrence and characteristics of these minerals are very different. Its quartz is particularly worthy of remark. In rocks of igneous origin this mineral is often entirely wanting ; now, in granite, on the contrary, it is very abundant, amount- ing to even a moiety in certain rocks, yet the total quantity of silicic acid present is not greater than in trachyte; the greater abundance of free quartz being due to the facilities which the mode of origin of granite afforded this mineral of separating itself from the magma. It must be borne in mind also that this quartz is not only always crystalline, but also always hyaline. The study of the felspars of granite is also very instructive. They are orthose and anorthose, opaque, or at most translucent, never vitreous, and always contain a certain quantity of water, usually trifling in the orthose, but varying from 2 to 100 per cent. in the anorthose. The consideration of the micas and other minerals of this rock are equally instructive in showing its aqueous origin. Diorite has a very simple mineralogical composition, being essentially formed of anorthose and hornblende, with, at times, protoxide of iron, sphene, ferro- Magnesian mica, and, accidentally, garnet. Diorite greatly approaches granite in its mineral composition. Its metamorphism is analogous, and the one may pass insensibly into the other. Diorite may be considered as formed under con- ditions intermediate between those that have produced trap and granite. Serpentine has hitherto, of all the eruptive rocks, been the most enigmatical. Its mineralogical characters are so well known, that it is unnecessary to repeat them; but it is particularly distinguished by its large per centage of water, varying from 13 to 100 percent. In this rock all effects of heat have entirely disappeared, and its plasticity can scarcely be attributable to any other causes than water and pressure. 68 THE GEOLOGIST. and indeed most modern investigators, in the sweeping nature of the power he attributes to aqueous action. He may, in some degree, exaggerate this ; but it is useless to close our eyes to the evidences of the great revolution in opinion, which has recently taken place on the Continent on the subject of the origin of rocks. The doctrine of the force of pure igneous causes, such as students will find in almost every English text-book, has now only a minority of sup- porters in Germany and France. Wide differences of opinion, how- ever, yet exist, which may be expected to give rise to poles investigations and discussions. a The following epitome of some of M. Delesse’s more general views will give a notion as to the mixed nature of the causes to which rocks owe their origin :-— “The problem of the origin of eruptive rocks is one of the most complex in geology, and has given rise to interminable discussions, in which the most opposite systems have seemed in turns to triumph. These revulsions in opinion, sometimes very sudden, are to be attri- buted to the exclusive importance attributed to one or the other agents which have aided in the formation of rocks. In popular language it is said that no two things can be more opposed than fire and water ; but in nature no such antagonism exists, these two agents often acting together. This should be always borne in mind in any inquiries into the origin of rocks. When therefore we speak of an igneous or an aqueous rock, we do not mean to restrict these terms to their exact sense ; we must necessarily attribute to them a mean- ing different from that of common language. When we say a rock is of igneous origin, we do not necessarily say that it has been re- duced to a state of fusion by heat alone: similarly, speaking of an aqueous origin, we by no means limit the causes to the unique action of water. In speaking, therefore, of a cause, it must always be un- derstood that it is only referred to as the principal agent of forma- tion. Of the causes referred to—heat, water, pressure, and molecular action—one may have played a preponderant, but rarely an exclusive part. Molecular action, also, it should be borne in mind, must only be considered as a secondary cause, for it seems to have been induced either by heat, water, or pressure. Hlectricity itself, which accom- PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 69 panies and causes this molecular action, seems to result from these primary causes. As, therefore, on the whole, the chemical and mineralogical composition of rocks varies little, and as it is easy to see that one and the same mineral may have had, at times an aqueous origin, at times an igneous one, we have no reason to be surprised if it is not always possible to trace the rigid limit between rocks which, at first sight, seem the most opposite, such as those engendered by heat or by water.” PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. Gxrotocicat Socrety or Lonpon, January 4, 1860.—Prof. J. Phillips, President, in the Chair. The following communications were read :-— 1. “On the Flora of the Silurian, Devonian, and Lower Carboniferous For- mations.” By Prof. H. R. Goeppert, For. Mem. G.S. 2. “On the Freshwater Deposits of Bessarabia, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Bulgaria.” By Capt. T. Spratt, R.N., C.B., F.R.S., F.G.S. 3. “On the Rhizopodal Fauna of the Mediterranean compared with that of some of the Italian and other Tertiary deposits.’ By T. Rupert Jones, F.G.S., and W. K. Parker, Mem. Micr. Soc. The authors presented an extensive table of the Species and varieties of re- cent Foraminifera from several localities in the Mediterranean (worked out from material gathered and dredged by Capt. Spratt, Mr. Hamilton, Prof. Meneghini and other friends), and of the fossil forms from the Tertiary deposits of Malaga (Spam), Turin, Sienna, Palermo, and Malta (communicated by Prof. Ansted, Prof. Meneghini, and the Marchese ©. Strozzi, or supplied from the Society’s Museum) ; also the fossil Foraminifera from Baljik supplied by Capt. Spratt, and those of the Vienna Basin as elaborated by D’Orbigny, Czjeck, and Reuss. The recent Foraminifera, tabulated in eleven columns, were illustrative of the range of the respective species and varieties in different zones of sea- depth, from the shore to one thousand seven hundred fathoms, and of the rela- tive size of the individuals, and of their proportional paucity or abundance. Among the seventeen columns of fossil Foraminifera, some were very rich in Species and varieties, especially in the case of the Siemnese clays, the Malaga clay, and the Vienna basin. From the evidence afforded by the comparison of the fossil with the recent Foraminifera, the Siennese blue clays of S. Cerajolo, 8. Donnino, 8, Lazaro, and Coroncino were regarded as having been deposited in yarious depths of from forty to one hundred fathoms ; so also the clay-beds of Malaga and of the Vienna basin. A blue clay from S. Quirico was probably formed in about two hundred fathoms; a blue clay from Pescajo, on the con- trary, was the deposit of a shallow estuary. A sand from Pienza, and others from Montipoli, Castel’Arquato, and San Frediano, contain Amphistegina, and were probably deposited in from ten to twenty fathoms water. As the Amphistegina appears now to be extinct as regards the Mediterranean, these Amphistegina-beds, and others at Palermo and in the Vienna Basin, may be of miocene age. Another Siemnese clay from Monti Arioso is of shallow water 70 THE GEOLOGIST. formation. From Turin some shelly sands, of pliocene age, were defined as containing a group of Foraminifera similar to those now living on the western shores of Italy; and the Palermo deposits are, for the most part, not very dis- similar. The Heterostegina-bed at Malta, formed probably in rather shallow water, is characterized by a species now absent from the Mediterranean. The tertiary deposit from Baljik appears to have been a shallow water deposit, characterized by some forms peculiar at the present day to the Red Sea; a condition that is also indicated by some of the Viennese deposits. Liverroot Gxotoctcat Socrety.—The first meeting of this society was held on Tuesday, the 10th of January last. Prof. Phillips, President of the Geological Society of London; Prof. Ram- say, Director of the Geological Survey of Great Britam; Prof. Jukes, Director of the Geological Survey of Ireland; Prof. Morris, F.G.S. ; and 8. J. Mackie, Esq., F.G.S., F.S.A., were elected honorary members. The President, Henry Duckworth, Esq., F.R.G.S., F.G.S., then read the inauguration address. After congratulating the members on their assembling together for the first time as a constituted body, he proceeded to point out the objects of the society. The geology of Liverpool and its immediate neighbourhood was next touched upon, and afterwards that of the surrounding country, especially of North Wales, the President calling particular attention to the comparative ease with which such deeply interesting localities as Church Stretton, Coal- brookdale, and Ludlow—the portals of the Silurian system—might be reached. The President then gave a resumé of the progress of geological science during the past year. A paper was then read by the Secretary, G. H. Morton, Esq., F.G.S., “On the Basement-bed of the Keuper Formation in Wirral,* and the South-west of Lancashire.” Interesting specimens of fossils and minerals were exhibited at the meeting by various members. [The abstracts of Prof. H. R. Goeppert, Capt. T. Spratt, and Mr, Morton’s paper will be printed in the next number. | NOTES AND QUERIES. On tHe Lower Sinurtan Rocks in tHE Sourn-Hast or IRELAND, AND on A Human SKELETON IN AN BLEVATED SrA-Marcin.—Dnar Sin,— Iu the year 1840, when persevering in what was considered at the time a hope- less task—that of searching for fossils in the contorted old schistose and slaty rocks so extensively developed in the counties of Waterford, Wexford, and Kilkenny—lI at length discovered at Duncannon, in the county of Wexford, a patch of rocks which I considered might be referred to the Llandeilo forma- — tion. Although the correctness of this view has been questioned, and it has been broadly asserted that a// the Silurian Rocks in the south-east of Ireland * Wirral is the western extremity of Cheshire. NOTES AND QUERIES, 71 are confined to the Caradoc group, yet I believe that it will be eventually acknowledged that the fossils from Duncannon are Llandeilo types, such as Calymene duplicata, Beyrichia complicata, Lingula attenuata. the Silurian mollusca from Duncannon, except the black horny Lingula, have a white silky appearance, in striking contrast to the dark matrix in which they are imbedded. ‘This, I imagine, is owing to the shells having been at a remote period slowly and partially calcined by the action of the heat from the igneous rock in the vicinity. : The mineral character of the rock also agrees with the Llandeilo flags and dark-coloured schists so well developed in Wales. I therefore wish to record my view of the age of similar dark-coloured rocks at Duncannon, more espe- cially as I cannot without great difficulty refer them to the Caradoc series, a patch of which I discovered on the opposite shore of Waterford Haven. The trilobites which I obtained there were lent to be described in a work ona northern Irish county then publishing. It is to be regretted that, in Portlock’s Report of Londonderry and Tyrone, the trilobites which I obtained at Newtown Head are stated to have been dis- covered by me at Tramore. The mistake no doubt arose from there being two localities named Newtown Head, one near Tramore, and the other situated between Passage and Woodstown, on the western shore of Waterford ape which I fully explained at the time, but which was unfortunately lost ight of. itouch a paper of mine, giving a brief account of these fossiliferous strata had been read at a meeting of the Geological Society in 1841, the discovery of those Silurian rocks has been erroneously ascribed to the Ordnance Geological Survey in Ireland (Mem. Geol. Sury., Decade 2, pl. x., p. 4); and one of the very trilobites which I had lent, has been dedicated by Mr. Salter (at page 3, pl. 7, decade No. 2), to the author of the work above alluded to, as its dis- coyerer. So far from the Government Surveyors having discovered the fossiliferous rocks in question, they were wholly unknown to the Survey until I pointed them out to Colonel James, R.H., in the spring of 1841. Well might the Surveyors pass them by, for they can only be approached with an ebb tide; and as they are quite level with the shore, the adjacent cliff being destitute of fossils, they did not attract notice till the publication of my paper. Se ciclly these rocks will be covered by the accumulation of the silt and sand which are deposited at every tide, so that all trace of them will be lost. Continuing my search for organic remains on the Waterford side of the estuary, [ was rewarded, as above indicated, with the discovery of lower Caradoc rocks of limited extent, which, as I have related, are situated on the shore at some little distance from the cliff at Newtown Head, near Woods- town. From collecting fossils, I proceeded, in company with my son, Mr. T. Austin, to examine the clay which caps the mass of trap and other rocks forming the headland. The clay which covers the rocks along the line of section, with the exception of the quarry, where it has been removed for the lary of procuring stone for road-mending, is continuous from Woodstown trand to Raheen Bridge, which latter is a small structure over the shallow brook that runs down from the high ground to the south of Crook Church and Castle—both edifices in ruins. The rivulet, more to the south, is a mere rill, that has cut its way rather deeply down through the clay. This clay is similar in composition to the drift which covers a great part of the south-eastern district of Ireland. When engaged in examining the clay and tracing the line of a bed of cockles, which, with occasional breaks in its continuity, extends along the coast, and for a considerable distance inland, from Raheen Bridge to Woodstown Strand, a distance of upwards of eight hundred yards, a bone was 72 THE GEOLOGIST. unexpectedly discovered in the cliff. On removing some of the surrounding clay, the bone was found to form part of a perfect human skeleton, which was lying in a position parallel to the cockle- bed, which bed was continuous and unbroken on both sides of the human remains. A portion of the skeleton was rather below the line of shells, while the clay and cockles had entered the skull, and followed the same line as the shelly bed on either side of it. It was also quite evident that the incumbent earth had never been disturbed from above since its upheaval; and the clay is so perfectly dry, that bones might remain undecayed in it for an indefinite period ; and the shells are apparently all but as fresh as those of the same species that are daily cast on shore by the waves. A brief notice of this discovery was read at a meeting of the Geological Society in 1841, when the skull, with the Molle in it, was exhibited. The cliff is elevated about forty feet. The circumstance attracted at the time less attention than a fact of the kind deserved, but subsequent discoveries of flint implements in the drift has convert- ed what was at first considered of little account into an important fact; and I have been urged by my _ geological friends to call attention to the subject in your widely circulated { periodical. Explanation of the Section. a, Clay; the line near the top represent- ing the bed of cockles. 6, Trap-rock. c, Quartzite, probably caradoc sandstone altered by contact with the igneous rock against which it abuts. J, Caradoc-rocks, rich in fossils. At a x is noted the spot where the human skeleton was imbedded. Height of section forty feet ; horizontal extent about eight hundred yards. In the rough draft the vertical height has been exaggerated, in order to exhibit the stratified rocks more distinctly. At the time the human skeleton was disovered, it was asked if any tradi- tion existed in the country of a change of level on the coast, but I have no doubt that the entombment of the hu- man remains and the cockles occurred Newtoom Head Woodstown Strand. L_ 8S, Sea-leyel, high-water. L W, Low-waiter. J, Caradoc, with fossils. 6, Trap, ec, Quartzite. a, Clay. lt J, Caradoc rocks. ec, Quarizite. 4, Clay, with a mixture of shells. Section, North and South, on the Western Shore of Waterford Hayen, South of Passage, County of Waterford. 6, Trap. a, Clay, with a regular layer of shells. NOTES AND QUERIES. 73 Yong anterior to even traditionary lore ; and that too many generations of men have passed away to preserve and hand down to the present day an account of remote physical changes, which being local in their nature, and in no way in- terfering with the requirements of man in a rude and barbarous state, living probably by the produce of the chase alone, would make no lasting impression on his uncultivated mind; or it is quite possible that the adjacent district was uninhabited, and that the body may have been transported from the interior to the spot in which it was found, as three noble rivers—the Suir, the Nore, and the Barrow—unite their streams, and flow into the estuary above the village of Passage, to the north of Newtown Head, where a wide expanse of salt-water mingles with the confluent streams as they pass onward to the sea. The changes indicated by the rather wide-spread bed of cockles pot to a period of time when the waters of the estuary occupied a much wider space than at present; when the sediment was accumulating to a eee depth before the cockles existed and were destroyed, and the entombment of the human body, than it did subsequently. Tn connection with the remaims of man occurring in an ancient raised sea- bed, is the fact that so many flint implements have been found in the drift, which seemingly carries us back to a period when Europe and the British isles were inhabited by a race of savages, among whom the use of iron or other metals was unknown; and who, strangers to the arts of civilized man, had contrived to make those rude flint implements, which are now found in the drift, to supply the wants of men in a state of nature, testifying to their remote antiquity. With respect to the great antiquity of the human race, and considering our method of computing time, the questions naturally arise—Are we wholly wrong in our chronology? and, Are the Chinese and Hgyptians in their reckon- ing nearer the truth than the western nations? Every opposition will be made to the proper solution of these questions by those who are averse to the progress of science, and every effort to ee away the facts bearing on this most important and interesting inquiry will be essayed by its opponents. Some persons wholly deny that the chipped flints, or “celts,” which are found in the drift are the work of human hands, and attribute their peculiar forms to the action of running water; others consider that they are the production of some subterranean manufactory, which volcanic explo- sions have sent forth rough cast, so that on cooling they became fractured, and assumed their present forms. Others, again, believe that frost had much to do with shaping the “langues des chats.” Thus, heat, cold, fire, and water are made to produce one simple effect—in short, anything, except the more rational supposition that they are the vestiges of man’s works; a fact that is admitted by those whose opimions are entitled to much weight in such matters. Whatever age may be finally assigned to the drift and the ancient Sea-margins, one thing appears clearly established, namely, that an aboriginal race of men inhabited the earth prior to the superficial accumulations on parts of its surface, and long ere the noble savage had discovered the use of iron or other metals, or the secret of their manufacture. I found no novel theory on the discovery of the human skeleton in the ancient estuary clay, or the flint implements in the drift; but I offer these observations, believing that the two facts taken in comection with each other will stimulate inquiry, and probably lead to a satisfactory solution of a ques- tion highly interesting to man, and which inquiry may tend to establish the trath—which is the chief end and aim of science—T. Austin, Kingsdown, Bristou. QUERY RESPECTING THE GEOLOGICAL CHARACTERS OF THE GRAVELS OF Sr. Acunut, &e.—Sim,—I do not consider myself to be a geologist, though for VOL. III. K 74 THE GEOLOGIST. many years I have read much on the subject, and listened to all I could hear upon it ; yet for want of practical out-of-doors observation, I can but look on myself as an amateur or admirer of the science, and not a professed geologist. I dare say, therefore, in what I am about to write, I may commit some geolo- gical heresies; nevertheless, | venture a few remarks upon a subject that has lately been much agitated in the geological world—I allude to the discovery of works of human art, viz., flint-axes, &c., in the drift near Amiens, &e. This discovery seems to be thought by some to upset the doctrine hitherto held of the recent origin of the human race on our globe, and I have even heard it said that it upsets the Bible history of that event. To me it appears that no such result can follow the proof (if the fact be proved) of man’s existence cotemporaneously with the deposition of the drift. That might, indeed, carry the geological date of man’s existence further back than hitherto supposed, but not the chronological date of his creation—that is if it be a fact established beyond doubt that drift is clearly a formation which has been deposited prior to the modern deposits, as they are called, in which last alone remains of man and his works have heretofore been supposed to have been found. The supposed discovery of flint hatchets in the original drift would not vary the chronoloeibal date of man’s creation, but only prove that the drift, hitherto supposed (from the absence of man’s bones ni works of art) to be a pre- adamite formation, is, in fact, post-adamite, and one of the modern formations. At least that is the conclusion I should come to, and not that the period of man’s existence on earth is shown thereby to be at all more ancient than hitherto supposed, but only that the time of the deposition of the drift is not so far back in point of time as it had been calculated to be. I see no reason, therefore, for that fear which some have expressed lest the investigation of the alleged discovery should unsettle men’s minds as to the truth of the Bible history of man’s creation. Now, sir, I have carefully read what Sir Charles Lyell said on this subject in his address at the meeting of the British Association at Aberdeen, and all that was said there, and since upon it by others, and I had almost come to the conclusion that man was cotemporaneous with the mammoth and other extinct animals whose remains are found in the drift, when I happened to read in the “Times” of the 18th November, 1859, a letter from Mr. J. W. Flower, who, on the whole, seems to me, from an examination of the circumstances of the case on the spot, near Amiens, to have arrived at the conclusion that man was in existence when the drift was deposited there as a geological formation, although he is still somewhat perplexed with certain difficulties that present themselves to his mind. The perusal of Mr. Flower’s letter has, however, led my mind to a totally different conclusion, and from the description contained in it of what he saw and did, and of the circumstances of the case, I arrive at the result that the particular place in the drift, where alone it seems these flint hatchets have been disinterred, is an ancient Celtic tumulus. Tt seems, from what I gather, that this drift near Amiens is not one con- tinuous bed of gravel, but occurs in localities distant from each other; that the part of the spot in the drift where the flint hatchets alone are found is at Saint Acheul, and does not cover a space larger than a modern dwelling-house ; the nearest point where the drift occurs again being at Saint Roch, I think two miles distant; moreover, it is near Amiens, which in Julius Cesar’s time was a well-known Celtic town called Samara Briva. And Julius Cesar himself tells us the Celts were accustomed, in burying their dead, to bury their valu- ables with them. It seems that the locus in quo is of an average height of twenty feet, and forms the capping or summit of a slight elevation resting on NOTES AND QUERIES. 75 the chalk—exactly such a situation as both Celts and Scandinavians chose for the tumuli of their great warriors. Many of their tumuli are entirely formed of stones heaped together, though most of them have earth mixed with the stones. In Yorkshire we have tumuli larger than this at Saint Acheul would seem to be—for instance, one near Braffords and Wauldby Wood, which is robably that in which Ivar Beenlose, the son of Regner Lodbrog, caused himself to be buried on the coast near the Humber, and which Worsoe, in his * Danes and Norwegians in England,” mentions (at page 38) that William the Conqueror caused to be opened. Another tumulus of greater size occurs between Newbald and Beverley, and others near Porkthorpe, between Driffield and Hunmanby. The size, therefore, is no objection to the patch at Saint Acheul being a tumulus in which these flint hatchets are found; and, observe, they are not found in the drift at Saint Roch, nor in¥ny of the other patches, but they ought to be found throughout the whole of the drift in that locality, if deposited along with the drift itself. Moreover, if the hatchets had been brought to Saint Acheul along with the original drift at the time of its deposi- tion by nature, they would have been water-worn like the drift gravel itself ; whereas they appear to be formed from rolled flints, but the worked part not in the least water-worn, showing they were constructed since the water-wearing of the companion drift in which they exist.* From a description by Mr. Flower, I entertain great doubts whether this patch of drift gravel on the summit of an elevation about one hundred feet high was deposited there at all by the drift forces; but if it were so, the ancient Celts may still have availed themselves of it as the covering, or tumulus of the grave of one of their great chiefs. I much incline, however, to the opinion that the natural rise of one hundred feet (the only one it seems thereabouts) has been selected as the site of the tumulus, and the gravel brought at, or after the funeral, from Saint Roch, and heaped over the et for it is clear that the raised materials of many tumuli in England have been brought from some dis- tance, and the labour of a whole tribe bestowed for a few weeks would suffice to do that honour to the memory of their deceased chief at Saint Acheul. The higher a chief was in the esteem of his people the larger his tumulus, and the greater the pains bestowed on it. Some of these tumuli called by the Celts cromlechs, had a stone chamber within them for the corpse, and in them, too, the mound was not unfrequently composed of stones instead of earth—see Sir Richard Colt Hoare’s work on the subject, and Wright’s “Celt, Roman, and Saxon,” at page 63 of which you will find it was always the desire of chiefs to be buried in lofty situations. Sometimes the body was deposited on the ground and the tumulus heaped over it; but in the Wolds of Yorkshire, the earth has often been removed down to the chalk, and there the body deposited; and I ap- ae if there was an original deposit of drift gravel on the summit of the ill at Saint Acheul, it would be removed down to the deposit preceeding it, and the body there laid, and then the gravel again heaped on it. But as I said be- fore, it is not improbable (as the patch of drift is only of the extent of a modern dwelling-house) that it has all been brought from Saint Roch. om hatchets have been found in British tumuli. Why not then in French ones I do not find any account of the precise sort of locality in which the Abbe- ville hatchets are found ; but if they also are confined to particular spots in the drift bed, and not found in all parts indiscriminately, it would go far in my mind to establish the idea of those bemg graves where the hatchets are found. * Some specimens collected by M. Boucher de Perthes, now by loan of Mr. Flower in my eo, I think are slightly water-worn. Some of these ‘‘ celts’? may have been, manu- ed from flints taken directly out of the chalk; others, I am inclined to believe, have been manufactured from large gravel flints.—Ep. Groxoaist, 76 THE GEOLOGIST. At all events, might it not be worth the while of geologists, as well as anti- quarians to have the Saint Acheul patch of drift cut through the middle to see if ela conclusive evidence of its beg a place of burial cannot be dis- covered. It is by no means uncommon to find tumuli constructed of one material—say earth—at the bottom, then stone over that, and again a third material—as gravel or sand—over all, thus artificially producing an appearance of stratifica- tion, such as I learn the elevation at Sait Acheul presents. The idea which I have seen maintained that the hatchets are a natural production I cannot imagine will find many adherents. No doubt they have been chipped into form by art, let the means of their present position be what it may. In 1835 I read a paper,here in which I showed how exactly Job’s description of the Leviathan tallies ith that of the Megalosaurus, and his description of the Behemoth with that of the Iguanodon, and I then broached an idea that although the Wealden era was the flourishing period of Megalosaurian and Iguanodonic existence, I saw no reason why individual animals of those species should not have been found existing still on the earth in Job’s time, though rapidly becoming extinct (my paper was inserted in the “ London Magazine,” for April 1835). Now, having committed myself to such an opinion as that, you will see I cannot be prejudiced against any theory which would make man and mammoths contemporaries to some extent, and therefore have not adopted the tumulus idea from prejudice—I am, sir, yours truly, Tuo. TuHompson, Wilton, near Hull, December, 1859. Srturian Rocks at ABERGELE, &c.—DeEaR Srr,—I shall be much obliged if you or any of your readers will kindly furnish me, through the pages of the “ Grotoeist,” with an abstract of the late Mr. Bowman’s paper on a small patch of Silurian rocks west of Abergele, published in the second volume of the “ Proceedings of the Geological Society.” And perhaps Mr. Price, of Birkenhead, who appears to be acquainted with the teeality: will inform me if he knows whether the dark fossiliferous shale, usually rich in Terebratulee, Chonetes, and the smaller Producti, developed at various points along the North Wales belt of Carboniferous limestone towards the top of the series, is exhibited in any of the sections in the neighbourhood of Llysfaen, Llanddulas, and Abergele. With many thanks for kind answers to former queries, dear sir, yours truly, Davin C. Davins, Oswestry. Mr. Bowman’s remarks are given in an abstract occupying a page and a-half in the Proceedings of the Geological Society (vol. ii., pages 666, 667), a copy of which we have despatched to our correspondent. We insert his commu- nication for the purpose of facilitating his inquiries by replies from Mr. Price and other readers. SLICKENSIDES IN THE CHALK.—Professor Ansted, in his answers to Mr. Price’s query, No. 24, states that slickensides do not occur in the chalk. I must differ from that assertion, imasmuch as I know that slickensides are, at least of very common occurrence in the chalk of the Kentish coast between Deal and Folkestone, especially between Deal and Dover will the investigator find numerous slight faults or partings dislocating the strata to the extent of a — foot or two, the surfaces of the opposing planes presenting all the usual cha- racters of ordinary slickensides. 1 am also well acquainted with one of eonsi- derable extent, which might, durig the construction of the South-Hastern Railway tunnel through the noted Shakespeare’s cliff, have been turned to practical and profitable account. An extensive slickenside-plane extended dia- gonally across the mouth of the tunnel for the whole vertical height of the — cliff, there varying from one hundred and fifty to three hundred feet im height. Had this been taken advantage of, and the surplus chalk cleared away carefully ee NOTES AND QUERIES. 77 to this natural facing, the whole expense of digging out the corner of the cliff, and the building of two rectangular walls of ice to support and protect the artificial face of the cliff thus excavated might have been avoided; for so smooth a surface resting so nearly at the true angle of repose as the plane of the slickenside there presented, would have been paelly safe without any extraneous support whatever. Any one travelling along the Brighton, Croydon, or North-Kent railways, or, indeed, any one visiting any large chalk-pit or cliff-section can, we think, hardly fail to notice slickensides of greater or less extent. In the lower beds of the white chalk, and in the lower beds of the grey chalk, there are cones of chalk having glossy slickensided surfaces, the origin of which I have never been able to account for, unless we regard them as con- cretionary masses shifted, squeezed, and polished by*the “creep” of the beds. Specimens of these may be got by hundreds in the nodular white chalk between the Archeliff and Shakespeare tunnels at Dover, and from the grey chalk of Abbot’s Cliff and the Pelter. In the upper white chalk in the dif near the castle at Dover, small planes of slickensides of a few inches in extent are of common occurrence, completely passing through shells such as terebratule, spatangi, and other fossils. The marly veins in the white chalk containing fish-remains are often pene- trated by numerous small slickensides. It is curious how so acute and talented an observer as Mr. Ansted should have fallen into such an error.—Eprror oF “ GEOLOGIST.” Mammatian Remains near Sarispury, &c.—Srr,—Having noticed from time to time communications from various correspondents respecting the locali- ties in which mammalian remains have been discovered, and deeming that it is from the comparison and arrangement of the accumulated evidence of separate individuals that any important results will be derived, I have presumed to trouble you with one or two instances that have come under my observation. The pleistocene deposits lying to the west of Salisbury, and exposed in several brick-yards adjacent to the road leading to Wilton, seem peculiarly rich in mammalian remains. During the past summer there have been obtained teeth of the leptorhine, and tichorhine rhimoceroses, the mammoth, red-deer, ox, a portion of the jaw of a tiger, with a tooth zz situ, the bones of a diminutive species of rat, ‘aid the coprolite of a hyzna. Fossils of a similar character to some of these have recently been discovered in the neighbourhood of Northampton. When excavating for the extension of the gas-works, a peaty gravel bed was exposed about sixteen feet below the surface, which contained abundant remains of deer, mammoth, and rhinoceros ; associated with these were great quantities of dark discoloured wood, amongst which were eel the oak, elm, and hazel—the nuts also of the last mentioned were very numerous. The pleistocene deposits around Luton have recently been frequently dis- turbed, but as yet have yielded no remains of mammals, the characteristic fossils beg water-worn fragments of belemnites, serpulz, encrinites, and gry- pheex, apparently derived from the lias. If you would kindly assist me by any information respecting the geology of South Bedfordshire, you would greatly oblige yours als. Strex, Luton. Tertiary Srrata at Pecknam Ryz.—Dear Srr,—Some notes having appeared in former numbers of the “ GEroxoeist,” on the deposits on the south- east side of London, I may call your attention to a bed which has been met with in excavating the high-level sewer at Peckham Rye. The deposit is about eight inches in thickness, and consists in part of a hard argillaceous lime- stone, in which are embedded layers of paludine, with occasionally traces of a large bivalve, which I believe to be a unio. 78 THE GEOLOGIST. The other portion of this deposit, which is not so hard, contains melanie and eyrene resembling those from Charlton, together with oysters and fresh-water mussels with the nacre preserved. I have other shells from this deposit which I cannot name—one in shape resembles the marine mussel. I have not been able to make a section, but I believe that this bed is situated beneath forty or fifty feet of clay. The sewer at this spot was nearly filled up when [ last visited it, but shells may be obtained from the heaps thrown out at the side. I observed no pebbles or sand, which are so common at Woolwich and Blackheath. I should feel obliged to any of your readers, who may have visited this place, for information as to the position and. correla- tion of this bed, and also whether any remains other than shells have been found there. A friend informs me that he has found the elytron of a small beetle in the limestone.—Yours truly, C. Evans, Hampstead.—Some few spines and very fragmentary portions of fish have been collected—Hp. Guot. Supposep Traces or Human Manuracturr.—Sir,—The very interesting question which has been opened up lately by the discovery of implements of human manufacture in the drift beds of Amiens, Abbeville, and other places abroad, reminds me of a very curious relic, apparently of an exceedingly remote date, which was stored up in the Museum of Natural History at Derby when I paid a visit to that interesting collection, rather more than six years ago (August, 1853). It was nothing more nor less than a very antique- fashioned smoking-pipe, which had been found in connection with fossil bones in undisturbed strata at a depth of sixteen feet or more beneath the surface of the soil (if I mistake not) in the neighbourhood of Derby. This relic of a bygone age was, from the extraordinary position in which it was found, regarded iy its discoverer as of very remote antiquity, and the placard which was written over it to attract public observation was not unnaturally worded “Geological Problem.” From the pencil memorandum I made in my pocket- book, I find that it was accompanied by the following explanation in a letter addressed to the curator of the museum:—‘I send you a geological problem. The accompanying tobacco-pipe was found in the Blue Band, the same stratum that contained the bones, &c. It lies sixteen feet deep, and is nine inches thick. It has gravel above and below. The pipe is not of modern manufac- ture. I hear that similar pipes have been found near Gainsbro’.—Yours, dear sir, F. J. Jessor. To J. Jones, Esq.” Of course, if the undisturbed condition of the strata could be proved with regard to this relic, it could not have been used for the purpose of smoking tobacco ; and if my memory serves me right, there was no neers of olea- ginous carbonization in the pipe which could indicate that it had been so used, but possibly it may turn out that this rude instrument had been employed for smoking some narcotic herb, for Herodotus makes mention of the fact that a Scythian tribe were in the habit of exciting themselves by the smoke of some vegetable production. It is not unlikely that the art of smoking was practised long antecedent to the discovery of the “narcotic weed” par excellence. Per- haps some of your readers living in the neighbourhood of Derby may be able to give you further particulars about this alleged geological problem, or if not, the mere reference to the finding of other human implements than the rude celts of flint in positions evidencing great antiquity of deposit, may lead to the mention of many similar discoveries in different parts of the world—I am, Sir, yours very truly, Francis F. Sratuam, F.G.S., Walworth. IMPLEMENTS IN THE Drirt.—From a note which I made at Beauvais, in the summer of 1858, I find that the museum of that city contains several speci- mens of rude flint tools of the same kind as those found at St. Acheul. I made a sketch of one of them at that time, to record the difference between these and the ordinary celts, though I was then unaware of any difference in their REVIEW. 79 origin. I also noted some flint knives, and some other thin cutting implements with regular serrated edges, which I took to be prototypes of saws. In addi- tion to these ante-celtic remains, their are several instances derived from the contents of barrows of flint “urchins” being treasured up as sling-stones. I beg to suggest an examination of the local museums where such remains may be expected to occur, and a reference to the locality where found, if given. In the museum of Le Puy, I saw one of the flint tools which M. Aymard subse- uently told me came from Perigueux, where a manufactory of them had evi- denily been discovered.—S. R. Parrison. Tue DiscoverRER OF THE Preraspis REMAINS IN THE LowER Luptow Brep (“ Grotoaist,” vol. ii., p. 26).—We have received a communication from Mr. J. E. Lee, of Caerleon, inclosmg certain letters from Mr. Lightbody to himself, in relation to the discovery of these interesting fish-remains. It 1s manifestly impossible for us to know the minutie of every geological transaction, but it is always within our province, and certainly agreeable to ourselves to become the means of correcting any of those accidental errors which will occasionally occur. In the case of these Pteraspis remains, it appears Mr. Salter, in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History for July, 1859, has doubtless most unintentionally committed the error of attributing their discovery to Mr. Light- body, who forwarded them to Mr. Salter for examination and description, instead of to Mr. Lee, who really found them in the “starfish quarry” at Leint- wardine, when collecting fossils there in company with Mr. Lightbody. Errors of this kind are much to be regretted, as the chief reward of the labours of provincial geologists is in their due appreciation and acknowledgement by the special authorities to whom they communicate, lend, and often give their most prized treasures, and in the present case it seems to be particularly unfortunate, as the specimen has been liberally presented by Mr. Lee to the Jermyn-street Museum, and duly acknowledged by Sir Roderick Murchison to him. SrickunsipEs.—In the last number of the “Guotoctst,” page 38, line 6, for “George Hilliston” read “George H. Morton.” See Note on Slickensides. REVIEW. Geology in the Garden. By Henry Evey, M.A. London: Bell and Daldy. * Geology in the Garden” is a pleasing idea; it suggests at once the simple plan and story of the book, but we scarcely thought when we opened it the arden would have given so wide a range—so much scope of subject available or so much instruction as Mr. Eley has made it convey. Walking round his garden, one sees two prominent subjects of inquiry—the gravel of the walks, and the soil of the beds. The gravel derived from the flints of the chalk contains microscopic and other cretaceous fossils, which of course are fully described. For the most part they consist of Foraminifera ; and Mr. Eley’s original observations and remarks upon that wonderfully diver- sified class of simple rhizopods do him high credit for acuteness of investiga- tion and perspecuity of explanation. The other topic—the soil of the beds—is handled with considerable skill, and attention is admirably directed to the powerful influences exerted by earthworms in assisting the waste by rainfall and other denuding operations. One extract on this topic will bring a valuable consideration home to many of our readers :— 80 THE GEOLOGIST. * As the worms desert their old burrows, the soil sinks in and fills them; and by this means a constant circulation is continued, the vegetable mould ex- tending itself downwards, while the ‘dead soil’—that is, the purely mineral matter—is brought up, and so the cultivable staple increases. If we examine even the unmoved gravel in the pit, wherever it is not too deep below the surface, we shall find that the worms are invading it, eating out the sand between the stones, running their excavations down in favourable places, plastering them, too, round the sides with the peculiar slime and earthy matter with which they puddle them to keep out the wet, and leaving their excrement in them; thus gradually changing the colour of the mass, and making it fit for the roots of the herbage above to strike into. “Tt is believed to be a mistake, however, to suppose that the growing vege- tation is supported chiefly by vegetable decay. A certain essential portion of its carbon—that is, its vegetable matter—the rising plant, it is thought, must thus obtain; but it is dependent upon the atmosphere for its chief supply, having the power of elaborating carbon from it by means of its leaves. What the plant specially wants from the soil is mineral matter; and this the earth- worm keeps within its reach, by continually transferring it from below upwards, in a properly comminuted state. Every shower that falls washes away some of this valuable matter, as anyone may see who will watch the rills which trickle over the surface at the time; and if the rain is heavy, it carries off a great quantity of clay and sand. ‘The unavoidable consequence of this natural operation would be that the upper layer would consist chiefly of the coarser materials, the larger grit and stones, which would be ill adapted for the sup- port of the more valuable kind of herbage. But the earthworm supplies the waste; and in this way is an agent of which geology must take notice; for denudation and its consequences—the fillimg up of valleys and lakes, the growth of deltas at the mouth of rivers, and the accumulation of strata on the sea-bottom—would all go on more slowly if the worm did not bring up fine matter to the surface for the rain to Sweep off.” We have not space in this number to notice very minutely Mr. Eley’s book ; and indeed it is not essential that in reviewing we should descend into parti- eulars. It will suffice then to add a plan of the work. From the flint-pebbles in his garden our author passes to a consideration of the Chalk formation and the great physical changes to which the Wealden area of the south-east of England has been subjected. In treating of the origin of those remarkable bands of siliceous nodules which mark the upper beds of our English chalk, however, Mr. Eley throws no addi- tional light, and leaves that difficult question as he found it. From the physical events of this region we are passed on to the boulder-drift and to still more expanded views of the general physical conditions of our globe itself. Then are so naively brought forward the habits and operations of the earth-worm to which we have so pointedly alluded. The concluding chapter developes the author’s view that the changes indicated by Geolo reveal part of a fore-ordained plan for preparing the earth’s surface for the occupancy of man. For ourselves we have derived both pleasure and instruction from Mr. Eley’s book, and there are but few which it has fallen to our lot to read, that we could recommend to our readers so sincerely, or with so much pleasure. THE GEOLOGIST. MARCH, 1860. GEOLOGICAL LOCALITIES.—NO. I. FOLKESTONE. (Continued from vol. iii., page 45.) By S. J. Macxis, F.G.S., F.S.A. Stowty the calm sea ebbs. As the pulse of the great ocean beats, its glassy ribbon-waves flow swellingly along in long thin lines, and then drain rapidly away. Every now and then, with higher swelling motion, one wavelet ripples further in, leaving us doubtful for a moment of the tide’s recess. But gently, surely are those slippery rocks unveiled, and on their smooth and purple flats the glittering fossils lie. Lign. 3.—Ammonites Lautus. From the Gault. There, in their radiant iridescence in scores are pearly Ammonites. A. lautus, A. splendens, A. auritus, A. tuberculatus, and the little ribbed and everywhere bestrewn A. varicosus. VOL. III, L 82 THE GEOLOGIST. There hundreds of amber-like translucent Belemnites (B. Listeri) _ protrude their spine-like forms from the dark blue solid clay. Lign. 4.—Ammonites varicosus. From the Gault. Curled Hamites, small nut-shaped Nucule (N. pectinata and N. ovata), spiny Rostellariz, Pterocera, and Natice, and black phos- phatic casts of antique forms of crabs and prawns, and little stud- and cup-like corals await your gathering. Everything to your Lign. 5.—Ammonites tuberculatus, From the Gault. hand, resplendent as the sea has left them for you. Every here and there the smallest portion of some shell or crab reveals the untouched treasure buried underneath. Pick, trowel, knife, anything will dig into that moist yielding clay, or cut your treasure out. Patience and care are all you want. GHOLOGY OF FOLKESTONE—THE GAULT. 83 Tt was a treat indeed in my youthful times to sce that “ fossil- bank” uncovered, and display its myriad treasures. Sacks full of Lign. 6.—Ammonitus awritus. From the Gault. beautiful fossils would repay your inter-tidal toil; but now, daily is that restricted tract most keenly watched by searching eyes; and Lign. 7.—Rostellaria Parkinsonii. From the Gault. Seantier every day becomes the harvest to be gathered. Not so Copt Point: here, after winter storms and snows, tons of the shivered clay 84, THE GEOLOGIST. are launched from time to time, and offer to the searcher rich re- wards. Curious too, indeed, in its geographical range is this tenacious belt of dark blue clay. For miles and miles the narrow band ex- Lign. 8.—Hamites rotundus. From the Gault. tends along, marked to the eye in winter by its moist and spongy verdure, in summer by the arid browns of its scanty herbage and its cracked and fissured soil. All along its course grow stunted oaks ; GEOLOGY OF FOLKESTONE—TUE GAULT. 85 and ever and anon brick-works and tile-kilns, like signal posts, stand out upon its tract. All round the chalk-hills, in their extended semi- circle-range, and again on the shores of the Gallic lands across the “ narrow straits,’ through Dorsetshire, through Cambridgeshire, ever cut off from the white chalk hills by a green sandy belt (the Upper Greensand), sometimes developed into thick courses of sand and firestone, as in Surrey and the Isle of Wight, sometimes only a narrow dark green bed measurable in inches, as in Hastwear Bay, and cut off from the beds below—the Lower Greensand and Neoco- mian—by a stratum still more remarkable in its characters, value, and origin. Lign. 9.,—Ammonites interruptus. From the ‘“‘ Ammonite-stratum”’ of the Gault. Near the base of the Gault there streams along a single narrow layer of broken casts of largish ammonites.* Once measuring the distance from the basement-bed above referred to, or, as for years I have rather called it, the “junction-bed,” with the handle of your pick, or any other ready means, strike where you will along the en- crusted, or debris-covered face of the cliff, there surely will your pick’s point clatter against those hard and rugged nodules. There they * These casts are chiefly those of Ammonites Benetianus, with a smaller pro- portion of A. interrwptus. 86 THE GEOLOGIST. are as sure as fate, and in one narrow seam. Not many in kind, two, or at most three, are the species whose remains are thus spread over geographical tracts, expressible only in square miles. Myriads of them must have perished to have formed this one tesselated floor of the old Cretaceous sea. And here, gentle reader, is a mystery for you to solve, or ponder on. Whence came these sharply broken casts P What current, or what force of ocean-water spread them like road-metal, as it were, o’er the old sea-ooze? But lower down again. I long to point you out that “junction- bed.” Mystery of all mysteries along this coast is the mystery there. But there it is, solid and hard, about eighteen inches thick, jutting out beyond the clay above and sand beneath—red, yellow, brown, and black—glittering with metallic pyrites (sulphuret of iron) and seamed with glassy crystals (selenite—sulphate of lime) there is that curious conglomerate of rounded potato-like lumps of phosphate of lime and scraggy gnarled boughs of trees. The gnarly boughs do Lign. 10.—Fragment of Dicotyledonous Wood bored by Teredo. From the “ Junction- (phos- phate of lime) bed,”’ at Copt Point, Folkestone. tell us something; riddled through and through by Fistulana and Teredo, they speak most eloquently of their stormy wanderings over the sea. But those round phosphatic lumps, what do they teach us ? “The sculptured stone, or the emblazoned shield often speaks when the written records of history are silent. A grotesque carving, coat, or badge in the spandril of some old church-door, or over the portal of a decayed mansion often points out the stock of the other- wise forgotten patron or lord. A dim-looking pane in an oriel window, or a discolored coat in the dexter corner of an old Holbein may give not only the name of the benefactor, or of the portrait, but GEOLOGY OF FOLKESTONE—YHP GAULT. 87 also identify him personally by showing his relations to the head of his house, his connections and alliances.” So with the geologist: when petrological conditions, chemical analysis, or microscopic investigation fail at first to give the clue, we may still find the key to the solution of a physical fact in the evi- dence of some simple, even it may be some obscure thing. But the key to the geological history of this valuable band of mineral manure has not yet been found. There, however, is that narrow seam of A a Lign, 11.—Copt Point, from the East Pier of Folkestone Harbour. A, Gault. d, Stratum of phosphatic casts of Ammonites Benetianus. B, ‘‘ Junction-bed,’’ composed of nodules of phosphate of lime, with casts of Ammonites mammilaris and gnarled pieces of wood, bored by Toredo. C, Lower greensand. e, Stratum of small phosphatic casts of Ammonites mammilaris, bivalves, and Dentalia. rounded nodules, offering 40 per cent. of fertilizing phosphate, per- sistent everywhere with the gault itself. All round the chalk-downs, in their range from close by this point on which now we stand, through garden-like Kent, and past the charming rustic hamlets of beautiful Surrey to the bleak Sussex coast have I, walking through green refreshing lanes and over stubbled fields, traced out this fer- tilizing band. On the northern shores of France, between where the now forsaken but once active port of Ambleteuse presents its pierced and mouldering piles, and Wissant, the gault again comes out to view, and this narrow sombre-coloured junction-seam again is there. 88 THE GEOLOGIST. What is its history? Bones of animals, we know, are formed of phosphorus and lime (phosphate of lime), but not a trace, save rarely a few teeth of sharks or tiny vertebree of fish, of bones of any living thing of earth, or air, or sea is there—so far as we can see; and yet there are tons and thousands of tons of what we only know in an organic form as bone-substance. There are the gnarled riddled boughs of trees, charred into radiate blackness in the lapse of incom- prehensible time, and these are rich in, nay, permeated, soaked, so to speak, with the phosphatic matter, for they offer to the chemist’s test as much per cent. as these hard, black-brownish lumps. There are broken phosphatic casts of the rough rugged Ammonites mammilaris Lign, 12.—Ammonites mammilaris. From the ‘‘ Junction- (phosphate of lime) bed.” in numbers, bedaubed and patched with phosphatic concretions, but nothing else, save of shell-fish a few stray straggling Inocerami or Dentalia, which only occasionally occur. These phosphate-nodules, I should think, must have been derived from some organic substance, the great accumulation of which at one horizon, however, is very remarkable. Could the perishing car- cases of gigantic Ammonites, such as the A, mammilaris in its adult GEOLOGY OF FOLKESTONE—THE GAULT. 89 state, or the myriad swarms of smaller cephalopoda have furnished the fertilizing phosphate? I know of nothing to justify this idea, unless the phosphatic pellets we not uncommonly find in juxta- position with the little Belemnites of the gault are the shrivelled bodies of the cuttle-fish, whose internal supports they were. That which seems to me probable is that this remarkable band derives its origin from the organic débris of a great ocean, very clear of mineral sedimentary matter, during a long period of time; or, that when the alteration of physical condition took place, by which the sandy deposits of the Lower Greensand were exchanged for the muddy condition of the Gault, a deposition of organic débris took place, derived from the destruction possibly of a part of the fauna of the Cretaceous sea, by the influx of unfavourable currents, or from the washing in to its area of some previous accumulation of the decaying substances of some coastal region. - Be this as it may, the subjacent greensand, comparatively free from calcareous or argillaceous matter, indicates the clearness of the water in which it was deposited; and when the cessation of its deposit took place, the mineral characters of the Gault shew that it derived its origin from a very different source. Between the periods of these two deposits is it: unreasonable to ‘suppose an interval of local quiescence and freedom from any of the wasting operations which produced the’ sedimentary materials of the Gault and Greensand to have taken place, during which the organic matter of the Cretaceous sea fell to the bottom, to form in future ages a vast store of mineral manure. How unconscious of all this was the ornamented ammonite, sport- ing in its glittering shell, or the teredo boring the drifting wood. When we think how the dead and putrid things falling in the ocean’s depths in after ages may be changed into bread—how rich in treasure is the slime and bottom of the deep ; when we think that in the silent waters, dark and deep, myriads of toiling creatures were at their busy work millions of ages since; when we look through the long vista of time, and contemplate the changes that probably have happened to the little clot of earth that forms our muscles, nerves, and bones ; when we think that the gay and scented flowers might have been once the refuse of the deep, and that in the changes of VOL. I. M 90 THE GEOLOGIST. | matter the very dregs of earth may become redolent with life and beauty, our thoughts turn in reverent homage to the great planner and preserver of all things, by whose sometimes inscrutable, but always benevolent laws, the order and endurance of creation is main- tained. ‘ { { : (To be continued.) ON THE SOUTH WALES COAL-FIELD. By G. P. Brvan, M.D., F.G.S. As the season for active out of door geological work is now ap- proaching, I propose to give a brief glance at some interesting features of the South Wales coal-field, in the hopes that pedestrian geologists may be tempted to make it one of the scenes of their labours. And they will be richly rewarded ; for, though coal-fields generally give us an impression of a black, unsightly country, with- out vegetation or anything pleasant for the eye to rest upon, they ~ are not all alike, and that of South Wales is as rich in beautiful scenery above ground, as it is in the precious mineral beneath. Glorious hills intersected by narrow valleys and wooded dells, each washed by its mountain-stream, and antiquities—in the shape of castles, abbeys, cromlechs, and cairns, may tempt the tourist to whom geology does not hold out sufficient inducement. It is in outward features, which — T shall first touch upon, that this differs so much from other coal- fields, the basin being more clearly marked, and the underlying grits and limestones, being more uniform in their development than in any district in Great Britain. Indeed, it is only in two places that the © regularity of the basin is broken, viz., between Newton Nottage and the Mumbles, and at Llanelly, in Caermarthenshire, and then solely because the coal-measures run under the respective bays of Swansea and Caemarthen. The basin, however, is not altogether round, but of an irregularly oblong shape, caused by the north and south boundaries approaching each other towards Pembrokeshire. The BEVAN—ON THE SOUTH WALES COAL-FIBLD. 91 cause of this, we are told,* has been a strong lateral pressure, acting unequally, or meeting with unequal resistance, after the accumulation of the Old Red Sandstone, and probably of the Coal-measures, the effects of which are principally seen in the counties of Pembroke, Caermarthen, Glamorgan, Monmouth, Brecon, Hereford, and Wor- cester; and not only has this pressure conduced to the outward shape of the basin, but, as we shall presently see, to the peculiar troughs and anticlinals within the basin. Over the greater portion of the district, hill and dale succeed each other with wonderful regularity, causing one valley to resemble the other so much that it is frequently difficult for the stranger to ascer- tain his whereabouts; but this applies more particularly to Mon- mouthshire. From the table-land of millstone-grit and limestone on the north, issue a number of small streams running due south to the Bristol channel, at an interval of from four to six miles. From east to west we have first the valley of the Afon, followed by those of the Ebbw Fach and Fawr (Little and Great Ebbw), succeeded by the Sirhowy and Rhymney rivers, all of which converge, and have their outlet at, or near Newport. We then cross the Taff into Gla- morganshire, where a change takes place in the physical features. There are still valleys and hills, but the valleys are broader and of more importance, while the hills are more irregularly placed, and grouped in more picturesque fashion. We have now two sets of valleys running in different directions: first, that of the Taff with its feeders of Aberdare and Rhondda, finding their terminus at Cardiff; but west of the Taff we find ourselves in the most mountainous portion of Glamorganshire, in which the hills are of great height, and the valleys become mere dells: the principal of this set are the Llynvi, the Oewr, and the Afon, the two first of which find their outlet at Bridgend, and the latter at Aberavon. Secondly, turning to the north, we find that from the same table-land which gives birth to the Aberdare valley, issues the beautiful Vale of Neath, running to the south-west, an important alteration in the physiognomy of the county. All the subsequent rivers follow nearly the same ar- rangement; for west of the Vale of Neath we have that of the Tawe * Memoirs of the Geological Survey, vol. i., page 224. 92 THE GHOLOGIST. or the Swansea valley, followed by the Lloughor and Gwendraeth rivers, which have their respective outlets at Llanelly and Kidwelly. In whatever portion of the field we make our observations, we cannot help being at once struck with the effects of the enormous denudation to which it has been subject. The great pressure, or catastrophe, has been shown by Prof. Ramsay to have probably taken place at the close of the coal-measure period, and did not consist of a number of detached efforts, but of one gigantic contraction. The effects were to create tremendous flexures and contortions of the strata ; and, if such are not always visible to us, we must remember that the lower beds were saved from the shattering influence by the immense super-incumbent weight of strata which has been long ago worn away by denudation. The greater part of this denudation happened in Tertiary periods, and was almost exclusively the work of marine action, as Professor Ramsay shows that fluviatile forces or atmospheric influences, although doubtless contributing much to the general appearance of the country, had but little power to cause such extraordinary effects. We can well understand how it is that most of the tops of the hills are crowned with hard rock, such as Pennant grit, having from this cause been able to resist the denuding force of the sea, If we ex- amine the measures underground, we at once see the results of the pressure to which the field was subject. Itis generally spoken of as an elongated basin, or trough; but the real fact is that there are two troughs running east and west, the smaller one being parallel to the larger, and separated from it by a considerable ridge, or anticlinal axis. The main trough contains by far the greater portion of the measures, which of course basset north and south. The centre of the big trough runs underneath Newbridge (Monmouthshire), through the high ground into the Sirhowy valley, below Blackwood, then into the Rhymney valley, which it crosses at Craig Penalltau, and under the Gellygaer Hill, into the Taff Vale at Navigation. — From thence it extends to Llanwonno, and through the Rhonnda — valley, into that of the Afon, Curiously enough, as far as Gellygaer, the course of the trough underground corresponds closely with that of the Taff-Vale extension railway above ground. Newbridge in Monmouthshire is at the centre, or deepest part of the trough; while BEVAN—ON THE SOUTH WALES COAL-FIELD. 93 Newbridge, in Glamorganshire, otherwise called Pontypridd, is situated on the anticlinal axis, which has the effect of bringing up the lower measures at Maesteg iron-works in the Llynvi valley. It is marked by the appearance of a rock termed the “ Cockshort Rock,” which consists of a bed, or beds, of sand, consolidated together so as to form a quartz-rock: by miners it is known in some districts as “carreg,” or “craig gwenith faen”’—the wheat- grained stone, and is important as being the only white quartz-rock in the field; it is a serviceable guide to the relative position of certain beds of coal. Its course is from Baglan, near Briton Ferry, to Cwm Avon, Maesteg, Braich-y-cymmer, across the Llangeinor Mountain, Cillely, and Newbridge, to the Eglwysilan Mountain. We find the trough again, although wonderfully narrowed at the western end of the field, at Llanelly, Caermarthenshire. The smaller trough is directly south of the larger one, and in fact occupies all the distance between the great anticlinal axis and the southern crop of the basin. As a consequence, the beds of the south crop are much more highly inclined than those on the north. They are also of much greater thickness, showing a progressive tendency to thin-out as they approach their northern limit. The faults of the South Wales field are numerous, and often locally extensive, though there are none of general magnitude like the Ninety Fathom Dyke. The largest faults are to be found in the north-eastern part of Glamorganshire, running south-west from Merthyr, across the Gellygaer-hill to Llancaiach, where it is one hundred yards, so that the Mynyddswlyn-vein of coal, which is worked by level at Tophill, is obliged to be worked by deep pit at the Llancaiach Colliery, only a few hundred yards to the south. Another great fault, rans westward from Trevethin, near Pontypool, to Blackwood, where there is a perfect chaos of faults, the appearance which on the Geological Survey’s map reminds one strongly of Bradshaw’s Railway-map. The whole of the south crop is much in- tersected by faults, particularly in the west of Glamorganshire and Caermarthenshire ; but their small size prevents their having any general interest. Nevertheless, it is highly important that even small faults should be duly chronicled, for many instances might be recorded where ignorance of existing disturbances has caused a 94. THE GEOLOGIST. serious loss, and even ruin to a colliery proprietor. This is particu- larly of consequence in the present day when speculation is rife, and new pits and levels are opened every month, often by persons who have no practical acquaintance whatever with mining affairs. It is, therefore, the interest of everybody having mineral pro- perty to use their best endeavours, not only to develope the know- ledge of existing faults in the strata, but also to correct present inaccuracies. There are few coal-fields in which the Lower Measures can be so conveniently studied, on account of the large area over which they are spread, their extreme regularity, and the generally gentle angle at which they crop out. This, however, does not apply so much to the measures of the south crop. The Middle and Upper measures are by no means so generally to be found, owing to the extensive denu- dation that has been shown to be carried on in subsequent ages to their deposition. As they are chiefly found in Glamorganshire and Car- marthenshire, I will first confine myself to the eastern or Monmouth- shire district, embracing from the Pontypool valley to that of the Taff. The mountain-limestone of the Blorenge forms the western boundary of the coal-field, and is a prominent object for many a long mile, commanding as it does views of the Old Red which lies at its feet, the Silurian upthrow of Usk, and the woods of the Forest of Dean, with the Channel and the Somerset hills as a background to as lovely a view as any in England. In a break of the hills, through which the Afon emerges, Pontypool is situated, a town with the usual amount of busy population and dirt which is displayed in the iron-work districts. Nevertheless, it is honourably mentioned as being one of the very first seats of the iron-trade which was com- menced in 1560 by an ancestor of the present Lord Lieutenant, one Richard Hanbury, a worthy goldsmith of the city of London, who used charcoal furnaces. Charcoal was generally employed for smelt- ing prior to the discovery of coal, and many of the neighbouring hills, now bare, were evidently once upon a time covered with timber — which was cut down to supply the trade. At the time of Mr. Han- bury’s undertaking, the whole of the mineral property was let for nine shillings and fourpence, the rental now showing a value more like that of house-room in London. a BEVAN—ON THE SOUTH WALES COAL-FINLD. 95 I will not weary my readers with a full list of all the measures here, with their accompanying shales, sandstones, and iron-ores,* suffice it to say that there is an aggregate thickness of forty-six feet of coal between the Pennant rocks and the millstone-grit. I will first run over the names of the more important seams, for the purpose of identifying them with those in other valleys. In no district in the world probably is there such a hopeless confusion of nomenclature as regards the coal-measures ; one valley sometimes differing altogether from the next in the names of what are precisely the same seams. It may be easily imagined that difficulties may thus be thrown not merely in the way of geological science, but also in the identification of measures in different parts of the basin. The principal seams at Pontypool are as follows :— Ft. in. tye ddswiyn Vein 8)...3s 8500.2. .o se haven cates 3 0 Me VRE 2a ioe, Tow oisiitd wanloarae s bwtatocente wl bah 20 (Cisagll “el ee eee Sree ee ee eee Syl) DRCSUMVA CHINE ders oy. Miecea th Plocivted nc hian acetone action esters 4 0 TRtetd! WAGTia oS ED ee eae a $0) Ap ate | he (6; ERC UIGIET At ees Bison. pact Rte eee ee fle Soya) «oe aes ae, See Oe ARPS BO Ra SEOs Apes 2 6 Auiigoyg ange MUGTC TOUS eRe We ee gene Ph ai eet mee A) 4 6 “SUDI®: NV CUTE 5 Aeten oSale eee ee ee Rr a Rete 4 0 The Troed-y-rhiw coal is the highest in the lower measures, and occurs also at the base of the Pennant-rock ; there is, nevertheless, a considerable amount of sandstone generally found between it and the next vein. Its general thickness is not great, seldom above two and a half feet, but im all the valleys it is much worked under different names, owing to its accessibility and its constancy of position. "Thus the Troed-y-rhiw coal of Pontypool is called at Abertillery the Cwmtillery or Tilestone-coal; in the Cwm Carne, the Pontgwaithairarn; in the Ebbwvale valley, Noed-y-rhiw ; and in the Rhymney valley, the Brithdir. Above this coal lie what in Glamorganshire would be called the middle measures, but which in Monmouthshire is simply unproduc- tive sandstone, known as Pennant rock; at Pontypool it is about eight hundred feet thick, and immediately above it lies the only * They will be found in the Memoirs of the Geological Survey, vol. i., page 174. 96 THE GEOLOGIST, upper-measure seam east of the Taff. The Mynyddswlyn-vein, three feet thick, is the great vein from which the red ash, or home-burning coal is sent to Newport and Cardiff. It occupies a rather narrow tract of country, runing east and west from Pontypool to the Taff. The railway which goes across Cwmlin Bridge takes us through the very centro of this tract, which is very thickly studded with colleries, and cut up with a number of small faults A good idea of it will be gained from the horizontal section of the Government Survey, No. 12, as it runs through the Cefn Crib mountain to crop out at Cred Colynos, above Pontypool. It usually consists of a top- and bottom- coal, divided by a varying amount of rubbish, or parting—for instance, at the south-east crop of this vein, which is to be found at the Penner colliery, near Newbridge, the division is thirty-three feet thick; but on the north crop, at Tophill, near Llancaiach, overlook- ing the Taff Vale, it is only a foot and a-half ; so that the two veins can be conveniently worked together. I append a section of this coal as worked at the Mamhole-colliery, in the Sirhowy Valley, the property of Sir. Thos. Phillips :— Lr oboly MACS 5 suis lads as iatkednads te ene 19). 6 FROGK..5.can\cenericeseh coamemenme ee sees 33 (0 CUSED Oc Re HO as ene 8 0 Thin coal (The Rider) ............ Pe Clo disc: iguie doe Sie bean ee 30 0 HOC och tate inn eee he eee 54 0 Cl ayt Les Pana hai Pubs. out A 30 0 Woaglii(op) Ge saat eee eee 3 0 Clodive ah arrest, “aie sia Ghent. otter 1 6 ¢ Mynyddswlyn Coal (botiom)"s, ccesttacstesceeasean 2 6 The clod soon begins to thicken, even in the space of a few hundred yards, as does the coal itself. From the measures at Pontypool several coal-plants have been ob- tained; but the most interesting fossil there is found in the iron- stone, just above the Meadow-vein. It is the Productus scabriculus, the only Productus ever found in the true coal-measures, and as far as I have been able to ascertain, the only specimens as yet found in the district. Here they are very plentiful. As we follow up the Afon and Frwd valleys we successively arrive BEVAN—-ON THE SOUTH WALES COAL-FIELD. 97 at Abersychan, Varteg, and Blanafon works. At Varteg, the coal thickens out to an aggregate of fifty-one feet, the Rock-vein, which is here called the “ Droydeg”-vein, thinning to six feet five inches, and the Meadow-vein increasing to seven feet. At Blanafon the former is called the “ Bydellog’’-coal, a name which it keeps until we enter Glamorganshire ; while the latter is the equivalent of either the Pwltacea, or the old-coal, most likely of the first. Here we turn the corner of the basin, and proceed eastward, the measures rounding the Ganerew mountain into the Clydach valley. Of this beautiful dingle I need only mention that the scenery will amply repay any visitor, being equal to many parts of Derbyshire. Here, too, were the first specimens of the Stigmaria observed and described by that intelligent old philosopher Lhwyd. Good coal- plants can be easily obtained at all these works at the expense of a little trouble, though it is always as well to apply first of all to the underground agents, who are generally glad to afford information. The valleys of the Ebbw having been already described in the “ Grouogist,” vol.i., p. 119-124, I need not touch upon them any further, but pass at once through Nantygls, Beaufort, and Tredegan into the Rhymney-valley. Along the whole of the road good sections of the bottom-veins are constantly to be met with, and in many of the “tips” are plenty of fish-remains and Anthracosiz (principally A. agrestis). Above Rhymney Gate, in the bed of the river, is the most prolific shell-bed that can be imagined, lying in the “ Farewell’-rock, just above the millstone-grit. This is the horizon of the marine shell- bed which runs from Beaufort into Camarthenshire. The principal veins worked at Rhymney are— Equivalent to the three- quarter coal of Nan- > Upper Four-foot ......... iat tygls and Ebbw-vale. BS VG eatne ts... toca 4 10 HKquivalent to the Droy- deg of Vartes, and Rast s Bydellog of Ebbw- as las 00r 2a See Bae a 6S vale. hee coals 1), 2.4256 -. 2 4 VOL. JL. N 98 THE GEOLOGIST. Equivalent to the Stone vein of Pontypool ma Lower Four-foot ......... 6 2 old coal of Ebbw-vale. Yard Veit) xctccnen ee 2 SS Many good fossils have been obtained from these measures, the “ Hlled coal” yielding numerous plants, as it does also at Blaina and Beaufort; while many of the veins of iron-ore abound in shells, principally Unio aquilius and U. centralis. I must not forget to mention a small seam of coal, seldom above two feet thick, which lies immediately above the “ Farewell’-rock, and is the most constant seam in the whole basin. It is known at the different works as follows : Ft. in. Pontypool ............ Little Coal ............ 16 Warteg: attapactvcn:se Brass Coal 2ra..s-eeees Le Blamaton. ye eyecr tae Engine Coal............ 2 4 Namtyols” 20 4: .cex: Big Vetit 3. esac IG Beaifort.itiate. it Big’ Vein «.. Ust0.ke gone LAG Blaimay, weiss see ee. Little Vein ............ 2.0 Ebbw-vale ......-..... Bottom Vein ......... 2.00 Rhymney ¢ v.ses.s raw. Rough Pin Coal ...... 1 4 Dowlaisiin, weereake: Tmmpy Vein .sn2.:0: Lies Eltorwraita se occ onee ean Knobby Vein ......... Ty"6 Onl yyy rere ose oes Cnapog Coal ™......:.. ey) Yniseedwin 2........ Clas-vach Coal......... a! 9G In most of these places it is characterised by fish remains, and, in- deed, almost every specimen I have (from six or seven species), have been found in this coal, showing that they were not of mere local oe- currence, but were general over the whole field at this period of the coal-era. This will account for the fact that hitherto I have not heard of any fish in the upper measures. The scenery as we journey down the Sirhowy and Rhymney valleys is very wild and picturesque, and but little spoilt by the collieries which, as a rule, are planted on the high grounds between the valleys, working the Mynyddswlyn-coal. Of course no tourist, DAVIDSON—SCOTTISH CARBONIFEROUS BRACHIOPODA. 99 geologist or not, will quit the latter valley without visiting the castle-city of Caerphilly, with its leaning tower, the most stu- pendous ruin in South Wales, which we are told contained within its walls, at the time of the memorable siege in the reign of Kdward IL., “two thousand fat oxen, twelve thousand cows, twenty- five thousand calves, thirty-thousand sheep,” as food for the garrison. THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM IN SCOTLAND CHARAC- TERIZED BY ITS BRACHIOPODA. By Tuomas Davinson, Esq., F.R.S., F.G.S., Hon. Member of the Geological Society of Glasgow, etc., etc. (Continued from Vot. iii., p. 25.) Famity STROPHOMENIDA. This family, which has been termed Orthide by some authors, comprises several genera and subgenera, of which Strophomena, Streptorhynchus, and Orthis alone have been found represented in Scottish Carboniferous strata. Genus Ortuis. Dalman. 1827. The genus Orthis forms a well characterized group, especially specifically numerous and abundant in the Silurian and Devonian systems, is considerably reduced during the Carboniferous period to appear no longer (?) in subsequent stages. Two species alone have been hitherto discovered in the Carboniferous rocks of Scotland. XXII.—Orruis Resuprnata. Martin. Pl. i., fig. 11-15. Conchyliolithus anomites resupinatus. Martin, Petrif. Derb., pl. xlix, figs. 13- 14,1809. Zerebratula resupinata, Sowerby Min. Con., tab. 325. In shape it is either transversely oval, or elliptical, but varying greatly in the convexity of its valves; some examples are moderately convex, others gib- bous, hence the specific denominations of resupinata, connivens, and gibbera, which have been applied to what we must look upon as variations of a single species. The hinge-line is straight and shorter than the greatest width of the shell, with rounded cardinal angles; each valve possesses a small area, of which the ventral one is the largest, and divided in its middle by an open triangular fissure. The dorsal valve is always the dere and either regularly and eyenly convex or slightly flattened from the middle to the front. The ventral valve is slightly or moderately convex at the rostral portion, but be- comes flattened, or even, sometimes slightly concave as it approaches the sides or frontal margin. The beak is small, slightly prominent and incurved. x- teriorly the surface is closely covered with fine thread-like rounded radiating 100 THE GHOLOGIST. strie, which increase in number by intercalations, or bifurcations, at variable distances from the beaks; and at intervals the striee themselves increase in thickness and prominence, giving birth to small hollow spinose asperities, or thread-like tubular spines, which augment in number towards the margin, but are broken close to the surface of the valves in the generality of specimens. The intimate shell-structure is also perforated by innumerable canals, of which the exterior orifices, in the shape of minute punctures, cover the entire surface of the shell. In the interior of the ventral valve, the dental plates extend to some distance along the bottom of the shell, and between these a small rounded or angular ridge divides the muscular scars, which thus form two elongated depressions margined on their outer sides by the prolonged basis of the dental plates. The occlusor leaves a small not always clearly defined impression on either side of the mesial ridge, and it is probable that the larger impression named divaricator, and marked (R) in our figures 9 and 13 of O. Michelini, and O. re- supinata is apparently composed of two parts, the anterior, or central, bei the devaricator, while the other, the posterior, or lateral, which is paral- lel may belong to the ventral adjustor ? In the dorsal valve the fissure is almost entirely occupied by a mode- rately produced shelly, or cardinal process, to which were no doubt affixed the divaricator muscular fibres; the inner socket walls are sometimes some- what prolonged under the shape of projecting lamine, to the extremity of which free spiral arms may perhaps have been affixed, while under this shelly process, a longitudinal ridge, with a wide flattened space on either side, separates the quadruple impressions of the adductor, or occlusor muscles, these last producing two oval-shaped depressions, placed obliquely one above the other, and separated by lateral ridges, branching from the central ridge. Vascular impressions and ovarian markings are often clearly observable in the interior of both valves. Orthis resupinata has sometimes attained two inches and a-half in length by rather more than three and a-half in breadth; but the largest Scottish example that has hitherto come under my observation did not exceed about one inch in length, by one and a quarter in breadth. This shell oceurs at Gare, in Lanarkshire, at two hundred and thirty-nine fathoms lower than the “ Ell Coal,” and three hundred and forty-one at Raes Gill. It is found also in the same county at Middleholm and Brockley, near Lesmahago; Capel Rig, Hast Kilbride; Netherfield and Gallow Hill, near Strathavon; and Robroyston, to the north of Glasgow. In Ayrshire, at Auchenskeigh, near Dalry; West Broadstone, Beith; Craigie, near Kilmar- nock; Cessnock, near Galston. In Dumbartonshire at Castlecary. In Stir- lingshire it occurs in several stages. At Balglass Burn, in the Campsie main-limestone, and Corrie Burn beds. It has also been collected in Arran, at Charlestown, in Fifeshire, and at Scola Burn, in Midlothian. Prior to concluding our notice of O. reswpinata, we must allude to certain spe- cimens of a small Orthis, first discovered by Mr. Young, at Corrie Burn, and re- presented in our plate by fig. 15. This little shell was for some time considered by Mr. Young and myself as possibly a distinct species, but I am now dis- posed to believe it a young, or small exceptional shape, or variety, of O. resupinata, in which the area in either valve is unusually developed; the stria- tion of the surface of the valves does not appear to differ from that of Martin’s shell, and evidence of spines and tubercules may also be clearl observed. We will, therefore, provisionally at least, consider this small she with widely separated beaks as an exceptional shape, or variety, of 0. resupinata. DAVIDSON—SCOTTISH CARDONIFEROUS BRACHIOPODA. 101 XXIII.—Orrms Micuerini.* L’Eveillé. Plate i., figs. 7-10. Terebratula Michelini, 1’ Eveillé, Mem. de la Soe. Geol. de France, vol. ii., p. 89, pl. ii, figs. 14-17, 1835. = Spirifera filiaria, Phillips’ Geol. of York., vol. ii., p. 220, pl. xi, fig. 3, 1836. This Orthis is either circular or longitudinally subtrigonal, the greatest width being situated in the frontal half, while the front itself forms either a gentle outward, or a slight inward curve. The hinge-line is abbreviated, and at times does not attain one third the width of the shell; both areas are con- sequently very small; but that of the ventral valve is the largest, and divided by an open triangular fissure. The dorsal valve is moderately convex, with a gentle depression towards the front, while the ventral one is very shallow, slightly convex at the beak and along the'middle, from whence it becomes much flattened towards the margins. The depressions of the ventral valve and slight convexity of the dorsal one give to the shell a general depressed appearance, which is one of the features by which it can be distinguished from O. resupi- nata. The beak of the ventral valve is small, slightly incurved, and pice but little beyond the level of that of the dorsal valve. The surface of the she is ornamented by numerous small radiating thread-like rounded strie, which rapidly increase in number by numerous intercalations, while from all these little ribs numerous small hair-like hollow spines project, becoming more closely packed towards the margins, so that, when alive, the whole shell must have been invested with delicate spines, no where exceeding a quarter of an inch in length. Prof. de Koninck who, in 1843, first noticed the spy in- vestment, was of opinion that the dorsal valve was alone so provided, but I can assure my distinguished friend that, although in the generality of specimens the spines on the dorsal valve were the most numerous, I possess several ex- ee which prove beyond doubt that the ventral valve was also so provided, although generally not to the extent seen on the dorsal one. In addition to the spines, the whole surface of the shell is covered with minute punctures, which are the external orifices of the tubuli or perforations which traverse the entire thickness of the valve. It will not be necessary to describe in detail the markings observable upon the interior surface of the valves, as I have done so for O. resupinata, but a glance at the respective illustrations will suf- fice to explain the differences in the species under description. These in the ventral valve are evinced in the narrowness of the median ridge and less in- clined slope of the occlusor muscular impressions; while in the dorsal valve the space occupied by the occlusor, devaricator, and ventral adjustor muscles is wider than in O. resupinata; there is also a singular impression at the base of the fissure marked N. in the figure, and which is with some uncertainty referred to the pedicle muscle. O. Michelini is not a rare shell in Scotland. In Lanarkshire it occurs at Langshaw Burn at three hundred and seventy-five fathoms lower than the “Ell Coal;” at Brockley and Middleholm, near Lesmahago; Auchentibber, Calderside, and Phillipshill, High Blantyre; Capel Rig, East Kilbride; and at Robroyston, north of Glasgow. In Renfrewshire, at Orchard-quarry, Thornlie- bank; Barrhead and Howood, near Paisley. In Ayrshire, at Roughwood, West Broadstone, and Treehorn, near Beith; Auchenskeigh, Dalry, Gold- craig, and Monkredding, near Kilwinning; Hallerhirst, Stevenston; Craigie, near Kilmarnock, and Cessnock near Galston. In Stirlingshire it is found in several stages. At Craigenglen, the Campsie main-limestone and Corrie Burn. In Dumbartonshire, at Castlecary. In Fifeshire, at Charlestown and Limekilns, ‘above Queensferry. * Anomie striate of Ure, “History of Rutherglen and East Kilbride: 1793. Pl. xiv., figs. 13 and 14. 7 102 THE GEOLOGIST. Genus Srropyomena. Rafinesque. 1820. This palsozoic genus appears to have been as much restricted in its vertical range as was Orthis, for but a single species is known to me from the Scottish Carboniferous strata, and no well authenticated example of the genus appears to have been observed in any of the subsequent periods. The shells of which this group is composed vary considerably in shape and character, being generally semi-circular, with a long straight hinge-line, the ventral valve being ares convex or concave, while the dorsal one usually follows the curves of the other. XXIV.—SrrorHomEena RHOMBOIDALIS, Wahl., var. analoga, Phillips. Pl. i., figs. 26-33. ; Anomites rhomboidalis, Wallenberg, Acta. Soc. Ups., vol. iii., p. 65, No. 7, 1821. = Producta depressa, Sowerby, Min. Con., tab. 459, 1823; Producta anal- oga, Phillips’ Geol. of York, vol. ii., p. 215, pl. vii. fig. 10, 1836. ete. Of this species there are two well marked varieties, the first or typical one varies somewhat in shape, but is more often semicircular, with a very long hinge-line. The ventral valve is geniculated, or, in other words but slightly convex or flattened up to a certain aston and up to a certain age, when the valve becomes suddenly deflected downwards at almost right angles. The margin is undulated; concave near the cardinal angles, it afterwards bulges out to form in front another slight inward or outward curve. On the flattened portion of the valve there exists a variable number of slightly undulating and irregular concentric wrinkles which turn outwardly towards the cardinal angles, and thus follow the marginal curves. The entire surface is also covered with numerous thread-like radiating strie, and a small circular foramen is generally observable in the young, or up to a certain age, when it becomes obliterated or cicatriced in the adult. The dorsal valve usually follows the curves of the opposite one, and is similarly wrinkled and striated. The area in both is narrow and sub-marginal, with a small fissure in the ventral one, partially covered by a pseudo-deltidium. In the interior of the ventral valve two diverging teeth articulate with corresponding sockets in the opposite valve. The muscu- lar impressions in this valve are margined by a semicircular ridge, continued from the base of the teeth, and curving on either side so as to produce a saucer- shaped depression; the occlusor leaves a scar on either side, close to a small median ridge, the devaricator filling on either side the anterior portion of the cavity; the ventral, adjustor, and pedicle muscles do not appear to have pro- aiioed any very definite scars, but it is highly probable that an attachment for these muscles existed in the posterior portion of the saucer-shaped depression above described, from the fact that a small circular peduncular foramen is also sometimes observable at a short distance from the ae of the beak, and which denotes that a pedicle muscle must have existed, although the foramen became closed as soon as the animal found it could dispense with the ne required during the early stages of its development. In the interior of the dorsal valve the cardinal process is divided into two lobes, and not connate with the diverging socket-ridges. From the base of this a slight median ye runs down and separates the two pairs of occlusor scars, which are bordered by pro- minent ridges. The vascular impressions consist of large primary vessels, which run at once direct to a short distance from the frontal margin, when they be- come reflected on either side to surround the ovarian spaces. The second variety, or Lept. distorta of J. de C. Sowerby (Min. Con., tab. 615, fig. 3) is more properly speaking a malformation of the Stroph. rhom- boidalis, var. analoga, and in which the dorsal valve becomes convex instead of — concave ; but all the other characters are similar to those of the typical shape, DAVIDSON—SCOTTISH OARBONIFHROUS BRACHIOPODA, 103 and the name distorta should therefore be retained only as a varietal designa- ion. t In 1843, Prof. de Koninck observed with justice that it was impossible to distinguish the Silurian Stroph. rhomboidalis from the Carboniferous S¢. analoga, and he united the two, as well as several others, under a single denomination ; and although the generality of paleontologists have preferred retaining the two as distinct species, they have also admitted that it was scarcely possible to separate the Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous specimens. Both varieties have been found in Scotland; while the typical form has sometimes attained an inch and a-quarter in length by two and a-half in breadth, and still larger indi- viduals have been obtained in England and in Ireland. In Stirlingshire the typical variety is found in the Campsie main-limestone and Corrie Burn beds ; while the variety distorta occurs at Gare in Lanarkshire, at two hundred and thirty-nine fathoms below the “ Ell coal,” and three hundred and forty-three at Waygateshaw ; in Renfrewshire, at Davieland-quarry, near Thornliebank. Sun-cenus Srreproruynceuus. King. 1849. The shells composing this sub-genus are closely related to Strophomena ; they are usually semicircular, convex, or concavo-convex, and externally striated ; the ventral valve possessing a prolonged and oftentimes bent or twisted beak. But a single species and some varieties occur in Scottish Carboniferous strata. XXV.—SrREertoRHYNCHUS CRENIsTRIA. Phillips. Pl. i, figs. 16-25. Spirifera crenistria, Phillips’ Geol. of Yorkshire, vol. ii., pl. ix., fig. 6, 1836. Spirifera arachnoidea, S. senilis, and S. radialis of Phillips; Orthis Kelli, O. cylindrica, O. caduca, O. granulosa (?), and O. Bechet, M’Coy ; O. Sharpei, Portlock; and O. Portlockiana, Semenow, appear to be either synonyms or simple varieties of Str. crenistria of Phillips. The shells of which this species is composed are more often compressed and semicircular; the hinge-line straight, and either a little shorter or slightly ex- ceeding the width of the shell at the prolonged acute cardinal angles. The valves vary considerably in their curves and directions ; in some specimens they are both convex or much compressed, and straight throughout, while in other examples the dorsal one alone is convex, or flat to a certain distance, when it becomes deflected, and assumes a lesser or greater degree of convexity; the ventral valve being in the same shell convex at, and to some distance from, the beak, when it becomes slightly concave towards the margins, following the curves of the opposite valve. The area in the dorsal valve is linear, while that of the ventral one varies much in breadth and regularity on account of the beak being sometimes twisted more to the one than to the other side. The ventral area is likewise divided by a triangular fissure, covered by a pseudo-deltidiun. Exteriorly the valves are ornamented with numerous strong radiating crenu- lated strie, of unequal thickness, which increase in number towards the margin, while the interspaces are similarly and partially occupied by one or more smaller longitudinal strie. In the interior of the dorsal valve a strong hinge-tooth is situated on either side at the base of the fissure, supported by small dental or rostral plates. The muscular impressions form a saucer-shaped depression, partially surrounded by a slightly alevated ridge; the occlusor (A) occupies the central portion, and forms two small elongated impressions, separated by a slightly elevated mesial ridge, and on either side are the larger scars (R), appa- rently composed of two parts, the anterior or central being due to the divarica tor, while the other or outer one would be produced by the ventral adjustor ? In the interior of the dorsal valve, the cardinal process (to which were affixed the divaricator muscular fibres) is composed of two testaceous projections. 104 THE GEOLOGIST, The socket-plates are large, and partially united to the lower portion of the car- dinal process. Under these, on the bottom of the valve, may be seen the quadruple impressions left by the occlusor, and which occupy above one-third of the length of the valve, and are arranged in pairs, divided by a short rounded median ridge. Many so-termed species appear to have been created out of this most variable species, and indeed it is most puzzling and difficult to say how far we may be permitted to limit the extent of variation, but it has appeared to me (after a minute and lengthened examination of a multitude of English, Irish, Scotch, and foreign examples of these said species) that they all appear so intimately connected and linked together by intermediate and jneenmitle graduations of shape, that one would not be justified, I think, in maintaining as distinct what ought in reality to be united. In Scotland we find examples which might be referred to the Strep. crenistria, St. arachnoideus, St. senilis, St. radialis, and St. Kellii, and of most of which representations are given in our plate; but considering S¢. crenistria as the typical shape, if any of the other names are retained, they should be so simply as varietal designations. St. crenistria has sometimes attained considerable dimensions, a Scottish example having mea- sured three inches in length by four and a-half in width, and of this an outline (fig. 17) will be found in our plate, and the British Museum possesses a Bel- gian example of still larger proportions. It is also a Devonian as well as a Carboniferous species. Fig. 16 of our plate would agree with Phillips’ original typical form of S¢. crenistria. St. arachnoideus is a still more depressed condition of the species, while in the variety seni/is the convexity of the ventral valve is unusually great. In S¢. Kellii the dorsal valve is more than ordinarily convex, with a slight de- ression along the middle, while the ventral valve, convex at or about the beak, ecomes concave towards the margin. The external sculpture varies likewise in different specimens, for it so happens that the larger radiating strie are at times so close that there exists hardly space sufficient for a smgle smaller longitudinal striz, while on the contrary, in other examples, in the intervening spaces, there is room for two or more distinct but smaller longitudinal strie, and in this last category will be found located the S. radialis. If, there- fore, we are to maintain as distinct the so-termed species enumerated at the commencement of this description, it will be necessary to create as many more, for it will be often most puzzling to know where to locate several of those intermediate shapes which unite Sf. senilis and St. radialis to St. crenis- tria, ete. The varieties crenistria and radialis were figured by David Ure in his “ History of Rutherglen and Kilbride :” 1793. St. crenistria and its varieties radialis and senilis occur in many Scottish localities. At Gare in Lanarkshire it occurs at two hundred and thirty-nine fathoms below “ Ell coal,” and three hundred and forty-one at Raes Gill. It is found also at Brockley and Middleholm, near Lesmahago ; Auchentibber, High Blantyre; Robroyston, north of Glasgow; and at Philipshill and Darnley- quarries, East Kilbride. In Renfrewshire, at Barrhead and Orchard-quarry, Thornliebank. In Dumbartonshire, at Netherwood, near Castlecary. In Ayr- shire, at Roughwood and West Broadstone, Beith; Auchenskeigh, near Dalry; Golderaig and Monkredding, Kilwinning; Hallerhirst, Stevenston; Craigie, near Kilmarnock ; Neathernewton and Moscow, parish of Loudon; and Mea- dowfoot, near Drumclog; also Cessnock, near Galston. In Stirlingshire it is found in several stages. In the Balglass and Mill Burn beds, the Campsie main-limestone, and Corrie Burn beds. It occurs also in Arran and Bute. In Fifeshire the varieties above enumerated, as well as S¢. Kellii have been found at Limekilns, above Queensferry. DAVIDSON—SCOTTISH CARBONIFEROUS BRACHIOPODA. 105 Famity Propucrip«. In the second volume of the “Gnotoaist” the characters of the Productide have been fully described and illustrated, we will, therefore, generally observe that this family has been divided into four genera, or sub-genera, Productus, Aulosteges, Strophalosia, and Chonetes, but that, as they all bear too natural and intimate a relation towards each other, and that the characters brought forward for separating or distinguishing the four groups above named are of somewhat uestionable value or importance, I am disposed to consider that Aulosteges, trophalosia and Chonetes cannot be regarded as more than sub-genera or modi- fications of Productus. No calcified processes exist for the support of the oral arms. Inthe Carboniferous rocks of Scotland Productus and Chonetes alone have been hitherto discovered. Genus Propucrus. Sowerby. 1814. Fifteen or sixteen species of Productus have been found in Scottish Car- boniferous strata, and which have been chiefly distinguished by their external shape and sculpture, for of the larger number no interiors have been hitherto procured. The interior details appear to vary but little, but there exists some small marked dissimilarities in certain species, and in order to avoid unnecessary repetitions, we will at once notice their general features. n Productus the internal surface of the ventral valve is concave, a narrow mesial ridge, originating, under the extremity of the beak, separates two elongated ramified or dendritic impressions which are attributed to the adductor or occlusor muscle; and almost on a level, immediately under or above, but outside of these, there exists two deep longitudinally striated subquadrate im- ressions, which are in all probability due to the Gulia or divaricator muscles. mpressions referable to aiastor and pedicle muscles have not been hitherto found, although Mr. Hancock is of opinion that adjustor muscles must have existed and been arranged, so as to keep the valves adjusted to each other, and thus to have acted as a substitute for the regularly articulated hinge, which is certainly absent, if not in all (?) at least in the generality of known species, The only points remaining to be noticed in connection with this valve are the deep concave sub-spiral depressions visible in the interior of some thick shelled Producti, such as P. giganteus, and hollows which were probably occupied by the spiral arms. The internal surface of the dorsal valve is more or less convex, sometimes almost flat, and presents in the middle of the hinge-line a prominent bilobed, or _ trilobed projection or cardinal process, whose upper surface having afforded at- tachment to the cardinal, or divaricator muscle. Under this a narrow longi- tudinal ridge, or septum, generally extends to about half (or more) of the length of the valve, and on either side are seen the ramified, or dendritic im- pressions which we consider to be attributable to the adductor, or posterior and anterior occlusor muscles ; these are at times situated so close together on either side of the median ridge, as to render the quadruple attachment not so distinct as could be desired, but they are well defined in some valves of Pro- ductus longispinus, as may be seen by a reference to fig. 16 of our plate Il. Out- side, and in front of the muscular scars above described are the two “ reniform impressions.” Their surface is generally smooth; they are bounded with ices, and after dividing the occlusor muscles, proceeded in an oblique and almost horizontal direction, then turning abruptly backwards, terminate at a short distance from their origin. There exists also in many species, but not in all, two prominences, one on each side of the median ridge, and close to the base of the muscular scars. The internal surface of Productus is covered with immumerable granulations and spimose asperities. The shell itself being likewise VOL. Ill, 0 106 THE GEOLOGIST. minutely perforated.* Exteriorly the surface is variously sculptured, and sparingly or closely covered with hollow tubular spines. It was also during the deposition of the Carboniferous deposits that the greatest number of species and individuals prevailed, for as many as fifty species are said to oceur ; but it is not always easy to distinguish certain forms which may after all be but varieties of some of the better determined or characterised species. It is ve desirable to see the complication of species disappear; and when a single we defined species is made to absorb one or half a dozen old and unrecognizable ones, it is a favour to science; and our constant efforts should tend to remove useless names from the nomenclature, and seek the points of similarity with even more assiduity than the differences which we are prone to exaggerate in the constant desire to create new species. XXVI.—Propuctus cicantsus.t| Martin sp. Pl. v., figs. 1-4. Anomites giganteus. Martin, Petrif. Derb., pl. xv., fig. 1, 1809. This shell varies somewhat in shape according to age and specimen, but is nsually more or less transversely oval, and dilated at the sides. The hinge- — line is straight, and generally exceeds in width the other portions of the shell. Tt usually possesses no hinge-area, but in some exceptional specimens there ex- ists a rudimentary one, especially in the ventral valve; no teeth or sockets ever existed for the regular articulating of the valves. The ventral valve is very Lign. 8.—Productus giganteus.t A, Interior of the Dorsal Valve. B, Interior of the Ventral Valve, with the umbo removed. C, Ideal section of both valves. D, Hinge-line of A ; 7, cardinal process; a, adducta, or oc- clusor; 7, divaricator muscles ; 2, oral processes (?) ; s, hollows occupied by the spiral arms; v, vascular impressions ; 4, hinge area. be EEE’ figures are by Mr. 8. P. Woodward; more detailed representations will be found in our plate. - * For synonyms and more ample details on all that pertains to the species of Productus con- an Prof, de Koninck’s excellent ‘‘ Monographie des Genres Productus et Chonetes.” Liég' t Mentioned by Ure in his ‘‘ History of Rutherglen and Hast Kilbride: 1793. Page 316, i his Anomiz Echinate. DAVIDSON—SCOTTISH CARBONIFEROUS BRACHIOPODA. 107 convex or gibbous, the cardinal angles being generally prolonged or extended in the shape of auriculate expansions, semi-cylindrically enrolled, and gradually, or more or less abruptly separated from the gibbous portion, or ee, of the shell; the beak is large, rounded, and often greatly incurved, but not always overhanging the hinge-line. This valve is also either evenly convex or irregu- larly, and more or less deeply furrowed, the surface being likewise covered with a vast number of longitudinal flexuous strie, which vary somewhat in thickness according to age and specimen, three or four generally occupying the width of a line towards the middle or margin of the shell; these little ribs are also frequently confluent, bifurcating, or suddenly disappearing, increasing in number as they approach the marginal portions of the shell, and at short intervals giving birth to short spines, or spimulose asperities, which were more numerous and larger upon the auriculate portions of the valve. The dorsal valve is concave, generally following the curves of the opposite valve, somewhat concentrically wrinkled near the hinge-line, and beady striated in a very similar man- ner to what we have described for the ventral one. It will not be necessary to describe the interior with any detail, since the general description already given, as well as the figures of our plate, will sufficiently illustrate all the characters ; but we may notice the great thickness of the ventral valve com- pared with that of the dorsal one, which is usually thin. The ventral valves of all species of Productus do not possess that extraordinary thickness which admit of those deep subspiral hollows for the accommodation of the spiral arms, which are visible in the present forms. The divaricator muscular scars are here immediately under and outside of the occlusor ones, while in Productus longispinus and some other species, the devaricator impressions are almost upon a level with the occlusor ones. In the dorsal valve the cardmal process (which varies much in shape, according to the specimens and age of the indi- vidual) is usually trilobed, its V-shaped upper surface is usually striated, the other impressions are clearly defined in the figure. This is certainly the largest species of the genus at present known, some English examples having attained six inches and two lines in length by eleven inches four lines in width; and although no Scottish examples have, to my knowledge, attained similar proportions, some have measured five and a-half inches in length by nine or ten in width. Productus giganteus chavacterises some of the lower stages of the Car- boniferous system wherein Brachiopoda have been found; thus at Braidwood Gill, in Lanarkshire, it is found for the first time at three hundred and ninety- seven fathoms below the horizon of the “ Ell Coal.” In Stirlingshire it occurs in the Mill-Burn beds, Campsie. It was likewise collected in the island of Arran, by Prof. Ramsay, and in red limestone at Close- burn, in Dumfriesshire, by the late Dr. Fleming. In Edinburgshire, at Joppa. In Haddington, at Cat Craig, near Dunbar. In Peebleshire, at Carlops, ete. XXVII.—Propvuctus LATIsSsIMUs. ae . Sowerby. Pl. i, figs. 8-9, and pl. iv., g. 26. Productus latissimus. J. Sowerby, Min. Con., vol. iv., p. 32, pl. 330, 1829. The shells composing this species are very transversely elliptical or spindle shaped, with a long straight hinge-line, and are completely deprived of area, the breadth being more than twice as great as the length; the ventral valve is also very convex forming in profile more than a semicircle ; the beak large and much incuryed, while the passage from the gibbous body of the valve into the auriculate expansions or ears is so gradual as to be more often insensible, and does not appear in the many examples that have passed under my inspection to have ever been so sharply separated, or defined, as is usually the case with P. giyanteus ; it is also much more transverse, or elliptical, than is the last named 108 THE GEOLOGIST. shell, the dorsal valve being likewise extremely concave, and follows the eurves of the opposite one. The surface in both valves is coarsely striated, the flexuous striz increasing irregularly by numerous intercalations, and giving rise at short intervals to many small stout spinulose projections. The strie are also proportionably coarser and more spinulous than in the last de- scribed species, and the shell itself much thimner. In the interior of the ventral valve the muscular impressions appear to be located nearer the extremity of the beak than in P. giganteus, and in the dorsal valve there appears to exist a difference in the detail of the occlusor muscular impressions, as may be seen by comparing the figures we have given of the iterior of both species. Productus latissimus does not appear to have ever attained anything like the proportions of P. giganteus, for the largest example I have seen did not much exceed some two inches in length by four and a-half in width. Sowerby, Phillips, de Koninck, de Verneuil, and the generality of authors have considered the two shells, though closely allied, to be separate species, and T am disposed to coincide with their view, although some few paleontologists, and in particular Prof. M’Coy states “ positively that the distmetions do not really exist ;” and it may be here mentioned that, although the two species are occasionally found in the same strata and localities, more often the one form is common, where the other is absent. In Scotland P. /atissimus is also one of the most characteristic species in some of the lower stages of the Carboniferous system. It is found im Lanark- shire at two different levels, thus, at Belston Burn it occurs at two hundred and sixty-five fathoms below “ Ell Coal,” and three hundred and ninety-one at Braidwood Gill, also at Brockley, near Lesmahago. In Renfrewshire at Arden- quarry, Thorliebank. In Ayrshire, at Roughwood and West Broadstone, Beith; Auchenskeigh, Dalry ; Goldcraig and Monkredding, near Kilwinning ; Hallerhirst, Stevenston; Nethernewton and Moscow, parish of Loudon ; Meadowfoot, near Drunclog and Mullockhill, near Dalry. In Stirlingshire it is known to Mr. Young but from the Craigenglen (Campsie) beds. In Buteshire, in the island of Arran. XXVIII.—Propuctus semrreticutatus. Martin. PI. iv., figs. 1-12. Var. A., Anomites semireticulatus, Martin, Petrif. Derb., p. 7, pl. xxxii., figs. 1-2, and pl. xxxiil., fig. 4, 1809, = P. antiquatus, Sow., Min. Con., vol. iv., pl. ecexvii., figs. 2, 3, 4, = P. Scoticus, Sow., Min. Con., pl. lxix., fig. 3, = P. sulcatus, Sow., Min. Con., tab. ecexix., fig. 2, ete. Var. B., or Martini, Sow., Min. Con., tab. cccxvii., figs. 2, 3, 4., 1821, = Anomites productus, Martin, Petrif. Derb., tab. xxii., figs. 1, 2, 3, 1809, = P. concinnus, Sow., Min. Con., tab. ecexviil., fig. 1. This species has varied much im its general shape, and I entirely coincide with Prof. de Koninck, while considering P. semireticulatus, antiquatus, Martini, concinnus, sulcatus, and 1 will add Scoticus, as simple variations in shape of a single type or species, for which the term semireticulatus has been adopted. ‘These varieties are all so intimately connected by in- sensible gradation, that it would often be vmnposeile to say to which in narkonlat certain specimens should be referred. Some paleontologists, who do not retain as distinct species all the names above recorded,* would however preserve several of them as varietal denominations; but after the careful examination of a multitude of specimens, I am disposed to retain re and which for convenience will be here briefly noticed under separate eads. * There are other synonyms, but which cannot be here recorded. In my Monograph of British Carboniferous Brachiopoda full details will be found, DAVIDSON—-SCOTTISH CARBONIFEROUS BRACHIOPODA. 109 Var. A, Productus semireticulatus, figs. 1-8, is transversely oval, or of a rounded quadrate shape, but it is also at times somewhat elongated, the hinge- line being either rather shorter or as long as the greatest width of the shell. The ventral valve is always gibbous, with and sometimes without a shallow longitu- dinal median sinus, or depression, the auriculate cardinal expansions being moderately developed but edie defined; the beak is wide and incurved, both usually covered with irregular concentric wrinkles, always larger and deeper upon the auriculate expansions, and the entire surface of the shell is covered with numerous radiating longitudinal rounded stris, from which project at variable intervals tabular spines of moderate length. The width of the strie, as well as the interspaces between them, varies also opeeat to the specimen, two or more sally occupying the breadth of a line. The larger number are simple, but others bifurcate here and there, and sometimes two or more (in rare cases) will unite towards the margin, so as to form but a single rib, while others are due to intercalation. Several ribs will also at times cluster together, so as to produce an elevation, and thus giving the frontal portion of the shell a some- what grooved appearance. The spines are likewise more numerous, larger and longer in certain examples than in others, but always most so upon the auriculate portions of the valves. The dorsal valve is slightly concave, or flattened to some distance from the hinge, so that a considerable space was left free for the soft portions of the animal; the external sculpture is also very similar to that Died has been described for the opposite valve. The ventral valve is thicker than the dorsal one; both become extremely thin and sometimes recurved near their margin. The interior of both valves have been often procured, and in excellent preservation, as may be seen from the figures of our plate, and we will merely notice that in the ventral valve the occlusor impressions are situated almost upon a level with the divaricator scars, and much lower in the valve than for example in P. giganteus, etc. In the dorsal valve the occlusor impres- sions are often beautifully sculptured, and the cardinal process is trilobed. Productus semireticulatus has sometimes attained large dimensions, a Scottish specimen represented in our plate has measured two inches three lines in length by two and a-half inches in width, and it has elsewhere assumed still larger proportions. P. sw/catus appears to be nothing more than a smaller variety of the same, wherein the median sulcus of the ventral valve is more than usually deepened, and upon the lateral portions of the beak (close to the auriculate ex- pansions) there existed sometimes, but not always, a somewhat elevated ridge, with a row of rather large prominent spines. P. Scoticus appears to me to be undoubtedly a variation of shape only of the species under description, and not of P. giganteus, as has been supposed by some paleontologists. 1 have had the loan of the original figured specimens for several months in my possession, and both valves sail be found represented in our plate. Var. B, or Martini, figs. 10-12, is distinguished from the preceding one by the great length and irregularity of its anterior prolongation; the arched beak is suddenly bent downwards in an almost straight line, giving to some speci- mens a peculiarly elongated and geniculated appearance. The dorsal valve is slightly flattened to some distance from the hinge-line, when it closely follows the curves of the opposite one. The thinness of the shell sometimes makes it liable to fracture at some distance from the beak, as may be seen in one of the figures; the lateral portions of the valve are likewise much dilated, with numerous spines sometimes projecting from the auriculate portions of the valve. The beak is concentrically wrinkled, and the entire surface is covered with thread-like striz, which bifurcate sometimes several times, especially upon the lateral portions of the shell. This is the variety to which Martin in 1809 applied the specific denomination of Anomites productus, and of which Sowerby’s P. concinnus is evidently only a 110 THE GEOLOGIST. smaller variety or synonym; P. semireticulatus, and its variety Martini is one of the commonest species of the genus we find in Scotland. In Lanarkshire it, as been collected in several stages; thus, in the parish of Carluke, at Braidwood-meadow, it is found at three hundred and seventeen fathoms below the “Ell coal,” three hundred and forty-three at Langshaw Burn, three hundred and seventy-five at Mosside and Nellfield, three hundred and ninety-one at Braidwood Gill. It occurs also at Brockley, Birkwood, and Middleholm, near Lesmahago ; Calderside, Hast Kilbride; on the east bank of the Avon, near Strathavon; and Robroyston, north of Glasgow. In Renfrew- shire, at Arden- and Orchard-quarries, Thornliebank ; Barrhead and Howood, near Paisley. In Ayrshire, at Roughwood and West Broadstone, Beith ; Auchenskeigh, Dalry ; Goldcraig and Monkredding, near Kilwinning ; Cessnock, parish of Galston; Nethernewton, parish of Loudon; Craigie, near Kilmar- nock. In Dumbartonshire, at Netherwood and Castlecary. In Stirlingshire it occurs in several stages, such as Craigenglen, Balglass Burn, Mill Burn, Balgrochan, Campsie main-limestone and ironstone, black limestone and shale of South Hill (Campsie), Balquarhage and Corrie Burn. It has also been col- lected in Bute, in Fifeshire, and in the Lothians. XXIX.—Propvuctus toneispinus. Sowerby. Pl. 2, figs. 10-19. Productus longispinus, Sowerby, Min. Con., vol. i. p. 154, pl. Ixvin., fig. 1, 1814, = PB. Flemingii, Sow., = P. spinosus, Sow., = P. lobatus, Sow., etc. The shell we are about to describe somewhat resembles P. semireticulatus, but is always a much smaller species, and well distinguished by some of its in- terior details. It is usually slightly transverse, but sometimes, though more rarely, a little longer than wide, the hinge-line being about as long as the greatest width of the shell. The ventral valve is convex, and at times gibbous, with or without a mesial sinus, which, commencing at a short distance from the extremity of the rounded and incurved beak, becomes wider and deeper as it approaches the frontal margin; the auriculate cardinal expansions are small and slightly wrinkled, while the entire surface of the valve is covered with numerous small radiating rounded strie, tolerably regular in their course and respective width, but augmenting in number here and there by the means of occasional bifurcation and intercalation. A few irregularly scattered and very long slender tabular spines project from some of the ribs, and are more numerous on or near the auriculate expansions. The dorsal valve is concave, with a small mesial rounded elevation towards the frontal margin ; its surface is striated, as we have already described for the ventral one, both valves bemg likewise marked with small concentric undulating wrinkles on the beak, and to some distance from the hinge-line. Beautifully perfect interiors of both valves are not very rare in certain localities. On the concave surface of the ventral one, two elongated contiguous dendritic occlusor impressions project at times con- siderably above the level of the valve, and immediately under but outside of these may be seen the two large longitudinally striated subquadrate impressions attributable to the divaricator muscle. A glance at our figures of this and at the corresponding valve of P. semireticulatus will explain better than could be done with words the difference in position occupied by these muscles in the two species. The occlusors in the last-named shell are almost upon a level and longi- tudinally parallel with the divaricators ; while in P. lozgispinus the divaricators commence only at or close to the base of the occlusors. A difference in the arrangement of these muscles occurs likewise in P. punctatus, and denotes that the three species might be distinguished alone by the details connected with these interior arrangements, and hence the importance of seeking for the interiors of those species of which we do not possess—the detached valves, or DAVIDSON-——SCOTTISH CARBONIFEROUS BRACHIOPODA. 111 their internal casts, which are often quite as instructive. In the interior of the dorsal valve the cardinal process is proportionally large and trilobed, under which a median longitudinal ridge extends to alittle more than half the length of the valve, and becomes much elevated and thickened towards its extremity ; on either side may be seen a pair of dendritic scars formed by the occlusor muscle; the reniform impressions are also well defined, and often much raised, and the surface of the valve is covered near its margin with numerous spinulose asperities ; minute canals traversing the valves are also clearly visible in the shape of punctures, especially upon specimens that have been slightly weathered. ; P. longispinus is a common Scottish species, but which rarely attains or exceeds nine or ten lines in length by ten or eleven in width, and it is quite certain that several so termed species have been made out of accidental dif- ferences peculiar to certain specimens. I have adopted the term Jdongispinus, as it stands first among the synonyms, and because I believe the species is best known by that denomination among British paleontologists. P. Plemingii was badly drawn and described from a very imperfect specimen; while P. lobatus is only a variety in which the median sulcus or furrow in the ventral valve is deeper than usual, and is to P. longispinus what P. sulcatus is to P. semireticulatus, =, P. spinosus appears also to have been drawn from a specimen of the shell under description, but wherein the’ median sinus has not been developed. The original figured specimens of all these so termed species were kindly lent to me by Prof. Fleming, and of which figures will be found in our plate. Some other synonyms will be recorded and explained in my larger work, but which cannot be alluded to in the present memoir. P. longispinus occurs in several stages. At Braidwood, in Lanarkshire, it occurs at three hundred and thirty-seven fathoms lower than the “ Ell coal ;” three hundred and thirty-eight at Halleraig; three hundred and forty-one at Raes Gill; three hundred and forty-three at Langshaw; three hundred and fifty-four at Hill Head; three hundred and seventy-one at Kilcadzow; and three hundred and seventy-five at Thornmuir and Mosside, all in the parish of Carluke. It is found also at Kersegill and Brockley, near Lesmahago ; Auchentibber and Calderside, High Blantyre; Capel Rig, Hast Kilbride; the east bank of the Avon, near Strathavon. In Renfrewshire, at Arden- and Orchard-quarries, Thornliebank. In Dumbartonshire, at Castlecary. In Ayr- shire, at Roughwood and West Broadstone, Beith; Auchenskeigh, Dalry; Golderaig, near Kilwiming; Craigie, near Kilmarnock; and Nethernewton, parish of Loudon. In Stirlingshire it occurs in several stages at Craigenglen, Balglass Burn, Balgrochan, the Campsie main-limestone, and Corrie Burn. In Buteshire in the island of Arran. In Midlothian, at Dryden, ete. In Had- dingtonshire, at Kast Barns, near Dumbar, etc., and is found also in Fifeshire, XXX.—Propuctus carponarius. De Koninck. PI. iv., fig. 14. Productus carbonarius, de Koninck, Description des Animaux Fossiles du Terrain Carbonifere de la Belgique, p. 181, pl. xii. dis, fig. 1, 1848, and Monographie du Genera Productus, pl. x., fig. 4. Of this species I am acquainted with but a single Scottish example. It measures ten lines in length by eleven in width. The ventral valve is somewhat transversely oval, gibbous and evenly rounded, with small auri- culate expansions, and a hinge-line as long as the greatest width of the shell. The external surface is ornamented with numerous fine thread-like radiating striz, tolerably regular in their course, and bifurcating but rarely upon their anterior prolongation. From each rib projects, at short intervals, numerous slender spines, the rib itself becoming t ican at the spot from 112 THE GEOLOGIST. where the spine originates. The beak is small, incurved, and covered with a few slight concentric wrinkles. In the specimen under description the dorsal valve could not be seen, nor am I acquainted with its interior arrangement. The specimen here described is stated to have been derived from the north of Glasgow, and is preserved in the Museum of Practical Geology, in London. XXXI.—Propucrus cora. D’Orbigny. PI. iv., fig. 13, Productus cora, A. @Orbigny, Paléontologie du Voyage dans lAmerique Meridionale, p. 55, pl. v., figs. 8, 9, 10, 1842, and de Koninck, Mon. du Genre Productus, Si iv., fig. 4, and pl. v., fig. 2, = Producta corrugata, M Coy. The shells composing this species are usually longer than wide, and some- times irregular in their anterior prolongation ; the ventral valve is very convex, regularly vaulted, and at times slight] flattened along its middle; the aurieu- late expansions are small, but crossed by several deep undulating folds, which extend to some distance over the lateral portion of the valve, the beak being small and much incurved, while the hinge-line is about as long as the greatest width of the shell. The dorsal valve is concave, following closely the curves of the opposite one; both are covered with numerous longitudinal slender flexuous filiform striz, while occasional smaller ones are implanted between the older, at variable distances from the beak, and which become gradually wider and wider, until they acquire the width of those on either side. Hardly any spines seem to have adorned this shell, a few only being some- times observable upon the auriculate expansions, and near to the hinge-line. The interior has still to be discovered, and although the species has attained largish dimensions in various carboniferous districts, no Scottish example I ee seen did much exceed an inch in length by something less in width. P. cora does not appear to have been discovered in many Scottish localities. In Stirlingshire it occurs in three different but consecutive stages, viz., the Mill Burn and Balgrochan beds, and in the Campsie main-limestone, and iron- stone. In Renfrewshire it may be collected at Arden quarry, near Thornlie- bank ; and in Ayrshire, at West Broadstone, near Beith. XXXII.—Propuctus unpatus. Defrance. PI. iv., fig. 15-17. Productus undatus, Defr. Dict. des Se. Nat., vol. xliii., B 354, 1826, and De Koninck Monographie du Genre Productus, pl. v., fig. 3. In Scotland this shell does not appear to have quite attaimed an inch in diameter, is suborbicular and slightly transverse, the hinge-line being rather shorter than the greatest width of the shell. The ventral valve is very convex, with small auriculate expansions, while the dorsal valve is moderately concave ; both are covered with numerous irregular, deep, concentric folds, or undulating wrinkles ; and in addition the entire surface is longitudinally striated in a very similar manner to what we have described in the preceeding species. The transverse folds are very remarkable and easily distinguish the present species from any of the others ; they vary much, however, in their width, depth, and number: thus, upon some shells, sixteen or seventeen may be counted upon either valve, while in others they do not number much more than half as many, and would appear to have been wider and deeper in some smaller shells than in the larger ones. But few spines appear to have projected from the ribs. The interior of the valves have still to be discovered. P. undatus does not appear to have been very abundant in Scotland. At Gare, in Lanarkshire, it occurs at two hundred and thirty-nme fathoms below the “ Ell coal,” and three hundred and forty-three at Headsmuir. In Stirling- DAVIDSON—SCOTTISH CARBONIFEROUS BRACHIOPODA. nA 3 shire it oceurs in the Mill Burn beds, and in the Campsie main-limestone. In Dumbartonshire, in the Castlecary limestone. XXXIII.—Propvcrus scapricutus. Martin. PI. iv., fig. 18. Anomites scabriculus, Martin, Petrif. Derb., pl. xxxvi., fig. 5, 1809. Productus, Sowerby, Min. Con., vol. i., pl. elvii., pl. bux., fig. 1. This shell is marginally rotundate-quadrate, and somewhat wider than long, the ventral valve being convex, with small flattened auriculate expansions, and a wide, but slightly deepened mesial depression, or sinus; the hinge-line is either shorter, or as long as the width of the shell, while the dorsal valve becomes slightly concave, with a small median elevation, or fold, apparent only in the vicinity of the frontal margin. The surface of the larger valve is closely covered with numerous subregular strive swelling out at close intervals in the shape of oblong tubercles, arranged somewhat irregularly in quincunx, and from which project short curved spines ; the valves are likewise at times feebly concentrically wrinkled, and the surface of the dorsal valve is marked with numerous small elongate, oval, tubercle-pits. I am not acquainted with any good interiors of this species; all I know of the dorsal valve is derived from an internal cast in ironstone, from Jock’s Burn, in the parish of Carluke, and which shows that the cardinal process was bi- lobed, and that a small median ridge extended from its base to a little more than half the length of the sheil, the muscular and reniform impressions were very faintly marked, but appear to be similar to those of Productus punctatus. The largest Scottish examples with which I am acquainted measured fifteen lines in length by sixteen in width, but the shell has attained much larger dimensions in the neighbourhood of Dalry. P. scabriculus is plentiful in ironstone, at Jock’s Burn, in Lanarkshire, at three hundred fathoms below the “ Ell coal,” three hundred and seventy-five at Braidwood and Hill Head, in the parish of Carluke, at Brockley, near Lesma- hago, and Robroyston and Moodies Burn north of Glasgow. In Stirlingshire it occurs in several stages, such as the Craigenglen beds, Campsie main-limestone andironstone, and Corrie Burn. In Renfrewshire, at Barrhead ; Howood, near Paisley; and Arden-quarry, Thornliebank. In Dumbartonshire at Castlecary. In Ayrshire, at Auchenskeigh, Dalry; and West Broadstone, Beith. It has also been found in Fifeshire and in the Lothians. XXXIV.—Propvctus punctatus. Martin. Pl. iv., fig. 20-22. Anomites punctatus, Martin, Petrif. Derb., p. 8, pl. xxxvii., fig. 6.,1809. Pro- ductus, De Koninck, Monographie du Genre Productus, pl. xii., fig. 2 = P. elegans, M’Coy, ete. The shells of which this species is composed vary somewhat in shape from being transverse, or slightly elongated; all are, however, more or less rotundate-quadrate, with a hinge-line shorter than the greatest width of the shell, the auriculate expansions being flattened, but not always clearly defined. The ventral valve is moderately convex, with a wide longitudinal smus, commencing at a short distance from the extremity of the beak, this last beg small and ineurved. The dorsal valve is but moderately concave, with a very slight mesial elevation, which commences at about the middle of the valve and ex- tends to the front. The surface of the valves are externally covered with numerous sub-regular concentric bands, or ridges of growth, which increase in number and breadth as they recede from the extremity of the beak and hinge- line, but in very adult shells they again become closer and closer as they ap- proach the margin. These bands (im the ventral valve) are slightly raised to- wards their lower margin, and are abruptly separated from each other by a narrow VOL, Il. 2 114 THE GEOLOGIST. smooth space, after which there exists a tolerably regular row of lengthened tubercles, or slender shining tubular spines, and again, below these, the re- maining ape is filled up by irregularly scattered, but closely packed smaller spines; all, however, overlap each other, and lie so close to the valve that none of the surface of the living shell could be perceived. In the dorsal valve the bands are slightly concave, but the same arrangement of the spines is ob- servable.* The shell in this species appears to have been thin, so that it ean- not be easily detached perfect from hark limestone matrix, but from certain shales weathered specimens can be collected with all their spiny investment completely preserved. The interior of both valves have been found. In the dorsal one, the cardinal process is very peculiar in shape, and bilohed, but the muscular and reniform impressions do not differ materially from those of other species of the genus. In the ventral valve, however, the occlusor impressions extended much lower in the valve than those attributable to the divarieator muscle, and thus differ from what we observe to have been the case in P. giganteus, P. semireticulatus, and other species. The shell under description attains sometimes larger proportions than have done any of the Scottish examples that have come under my direct observation. A specimen from Ayrshire has measured two inches and a-half in length by nearly two inches in width. Productus punctatus is not a rare Scottish fossil. It occurs at Langshaw Burn, in Lanarkshire, at three hundred and forty-three fathoms below the “ Fill coal,” three hundred and seventy-five at Nellfield, and four hundred and ten at Nellfield Burn; also at Brockley, near Lesmahago. In Renfrewshire, at Howood, near Paisley; Barrhead- and Arden-quarry, Thornliebank. In Dumbartonshire, at Castlecary. In Ayrshire, at Roughwood and West Broad- stone, Beith; Auchenskeigh, Dalry; Golderaig, Kilwinning; Cessnock and Nethernewton, parish of Galston. In Stirlingshire, at Craigenglen, Mill Burn, the Campsie main-limestone and ironstone, and Corrie Burn. It has also been found in the island of Arran and in Bute, as well as in the Lothians and Fife. XXXV.—Propuctus Frimpriatus. J.deC. Sowerby. Pl. ii, fig. 27. Producta fimbriata, J. de C. Sowerby, Min. Con., vol. v., p. 85, pl. eccelix., fig. 1, 1823. Productus fimbriatus, De Koninck, Monographie du Genre Productus, pl. xin, fig. 3. This is amuch smaller species than the preceding one, rarely exceeding an inch and a-quarter in length by something less in breadth: its shape is longi- tudinally oval, or ovate, the hinge-line being a little shorter than the greatest width of the shell. The ventral valve is very gibbous and greatly arched in profile, with its beak much incurved, and regularly vaulted, the extremity being attenuated, and overlving the hinge-line of the opposite valve; the ears are small and but slightly marked. The dorsal valve is either nearly flat, or but very slightly concave. Asin P. punctatus, the surface of the valves are externally covered with numerous sub-regular, concentric, prominent, bands, which are in general more separate than in the preceding species. No example I have hitherto seen possessed its outer shell and spmy investment in any thing like a perfect condition, but a fragment tolerably well preserved has led me to conclude that the arrangement of the tubular spines ae not materially differ from that of Productus punctatus for there evidently did exist some smaller spines under the row of larger ones, but which alone seem to have left * In 1793, David Ure gave us a very good description of this shell; he states that both valves are covered with small spines resembling hair, and so numerous that alargish example contains upwards of ten thousand; and that they lie so closely together that the surface of the shell is entirely concealed from view. PROCEEDINGS OF GHOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 115 elongated tubercles on the surface of the casts. The larger spines do not, how- ever, appear to have been quite so close together as in the preceding species. Therefore, although P. jimbriatus possesses much similarity in character to P. punctatus; it may be easily distingnished by the elongated oval shape of its valves. P. fimbriatus is found at Hill Head, in Lanarkshire, at three hundred and seventy-one fathoms below the “Ell coal;” also at Middleholm, near Lesmahago. In Stirlingshire, in the Campsie main-limestone. In Ayr- Shire, at West Broadstone, Beith; Meadowfoot, near Drunclog; Cessnock, perish of Galston. It has also been found in the Lothians and in Fife- shire, (To be continued.) PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. GrotocicaL Socrnty or Lonpon, January 4, 1860.—Prof. J. Phillips, President, in the Chair. “Qn the Flora of the Silurian, Devonian, and Lower Carboniferous Forma- tions.” By Prof. H. R. Goeppert, For. Mem. G.S. The number of all the fossil plants which the author has described as belong- ing to these formations (chiefly from Germany) amounts to one hundred and eighty-four species : Alg, thirty species ; Calammez, twenty ; Asterophyllitee, 4; Filices, sixty-four; Selagines, thirty-nine; Cladoxylex, four; Noeggera- thie, eight; Sigillarie, six; Conifers, six; Fruits (uncertain), three. Prof. Goeppert has seen only Alge from the Silurian Rocks. Stgillaria Hausmanni is one of the most interesting of the Lower Devonian plants mentioned; and Sagenaria Weltheimiana, of the Middle Devonian. The Upper Devonian has several terrestrial plants. Of the Lower Carboniferous Flora, the following are the most important and characteristic plants :—Calamites trunsitionis, C. Roe- meri, and Sagenaria Weltheimiana. The last name supersedes Knorria imbri- cata. “On the Freshwater Deposits of Bessarabia, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Bul- garia.” By Capt. T. Spratt, R.N., C.B., F.R.S., F.G.S. Capt. Spratt first referred to the many isolated patches of freshwater deposits in the Grecian Archipelago and in the neighbouring countries, also around the Black Sea, to which others have alluded or which have been described by him- self as evidences of the existence of a great freshwater lake, probably of middle tertiary age. On the borders of the Yalpuk Lake, in Southern Bessarabia, are sections ex- hibiting old lacustrine deposits containing similar fossils to those found else- where by Capt. Spratt in the strata referred by him to the extensive oriental lake of the middle tertiary period. Among these fossils arefreshwater cockles ; such as are associated with Dreissina polymorpha in the strata at the Darda- nelles and elsewhere. After some search Capt. Spratt found similar cockles living in the Yalpuk lake; and from this evidence, and from the relatively dif- ferent levels of the old lacustrine deposits and the present Black Sea, he satis- fied himself of the really freshwater condition of the old tertiary lake; the Black Sea area having been separated from the old lacustrine area of Bessara- 116 THE GROLOGIS'. bia and the Provinces by a barrier at the Isaktcha hills which the Danube has since cut through. Capt. Spratt remarked that the lacustrine conditions of the great area in Hastern Kurope and Asia Minor where he has indicated fresh- water deposits were probably interfered with by volcanic outbursts, which opened a communication between the Huxine and Mediterranean, altering the levels of the region, causing the formation of the great gravel-beds at the foot of the Carpathians, and an outspreading of the brown marlv superficial deposits of the Steppe, which are locally impregnated with mineral or marine salts, im- dicative either of the influx of the sea, or of mineral solutions set free by vol- canic agencies. Capt. Spratt also described the older rocks, some probably of Triassic age, and others Cretaceous, which are here conformably overlaid by the lacustrme deposits. These he saw in the hills, south of the Danube, near Tultcha and Beshtepeh; also at the Raselm Lagoon, where both Cretaceons shales and marble containing Ceratites, &e., occur; the latter at Popin Island. At Dola- shina, a cape south of the Raselm Lagoon, the soft Cretaceous limestone is full of small Lnocerami. These indications of Secondary rocks are intimately connected with those further south, at Cape Media and Kanara, formerly described by the author. Liverroon GEonocican Socrery.—January 10, 1860. “On the Basement-bed of the Keuper Formation in Wirral, and the South- west of Lancashire.” After referring to the subdivisions of the Trias, he described the cha- racter of the upper red and variegated sandstone of the Bunter forma- tion, showing that it had suffered a considerable amount of denudation previous to the deposition of the Keuper. A bed of upper Bunter sandstone in Wirral is found to be almost entirely denuded on the northern side of the Mersey, only the faintest traces of it being visible. A slight unconformity seems very probable, but the surface of the Bunter is so eroded and uneven, that it is very difficult to arrive at an exact and satisfactory conclusion upon that important oint. , The base of the Keuper is very uniform in its lithological aspect throughout the district, bemg aconglomerate or coarse sandstone containing quartz-pebbles and nodules of clay. In colour the bed varies, but it can always be distin- guished by its hardness from the Bunter sandstone beneath. For these and other minor reasons, the author of the paper stated that the Bunter had been exposed to denudation for a long period prior to the deposition of the Keuper, and that most probably the surface of the former was dry land during the time that the Muschelkalk was bemg formed in more southern and easterly regions. With the exception of the well known footprints of Emydians and Batrachians, not a trace of any animal or plant had been found in either the Bunter or Keuper formations of the neighbourhood. The examination of the three railway-tunnels under the town of Liverpool, and of other artificial openings, satisfactorily proves that the basement-bed of the Keuper on the map of the Geological Survey is altogether misplaced, and that that map requires correction, in order to render it an accurate guide to the local geology. NOTES AND QUERIES. W374 NOTES AND QUERIES. Human Remarns NEAR Knaresporoucu.—Dear Srr,—The accompanying note may interest some of your readers, and will, 1 hope, receive elucidation from some of your correspondents.—Yours truly, Homo Fossruis.” Near Knaresborough, in a cavity of the limestone strata, twenty-seven feet below the surface, remains of six human skeletons were discovered imbedded in fine alluvial clay, which was covered with large water-worn boulders. This cave, or fissure, is described as a natural cavity in the limestone rock, seven feet wide, five feet high, and of considerable length; it communicated with the surface by an irregular perpendicular fissure, wide enough to allow a full-grown man to pass. A small spring of water trickles down the side of this opening, and is lost in the porous limestone below. The skull of a dog, and jaw-bone of an ox were found with the human bones; no vestiges of works of art were observed. The provincial paper (“Harrowgate Herald,’ October, 1852), from which this account is taken, suggests that these remains are of persons who sought for refuge in this cave from their enemies, and being discovered by the latter were stoned to death! An imgenious idea, certainly. One of the skeletons is said to be of a young adult woman. SiickEnsipEs.—Noticing, after the late thaws, in riding by railway to town, as I have often done before, that the numerous slips of earth in the embank- ments and cuttings presented at their planes of separation and slide smooth and polished surfaces very like, if not indeed identical with, ordinary “ slicken- sides,” I have thought a mere note of these common occurrences might con- vey to many others that which they have seemed to suggest to myself, that slickensides on the large scale might often be due to no other more complex fee Jem the effects of wet and the natural sliding action of mere subsidence. —Ep. Got. SUGGESTION RESPECTING PRovincraL Musrums.—Among the valuable con- tributions to science published by the Government Ordnance Survey, one is an Hssay on the Educational Uses of Museums, from the pen of the late dis- tinguished Edinburgh University Professor, Edward Forbes. In this essay I find the following passage. “When the inquirer goes from one province to another, from one county to another, he seeks first for local collections. In almost every town, of any size or consequence, he finds a public museum; but how often does he find any eS of that museum devoted to the illustration of the productions of the istrict ? The very feature which of all others would give interest and value to the collection, which would render it most useful for teaching-purposes, has in most instances been omitted, or so treated as to be altogether useless. Un- fortunately, not a few country museums are little better than raree shows. * * * Curiosities from the South Seas—relics worthless in themselves, de- riving their interest from association with persons or localities—a few badly stuffed quadrupeds, rather more birds, a stuffed snake, a skinned alligator, part of an Egyptian mummy, Indian gods, a case or two of shells—the bivalves usually single, and the univalves decorticated—a sea-urchin without its spines, a few common corals, the fruit of a double cocoa-nut, some mixed antiquities partly local, partly Etruscan, partly Roman and Egyptian—and a case of minerals and miscellaneous fossils ; such is the inventory and about the scientific order “4 their contents.”—Edward Forbes, on Educational Uses of Museums, page to. 118 THE GEOLOGIST. The state of things here referred to by Prof. Forbes, as a general rule will be found more or less to prevail in museums established in towns that are uncon- nected with men distinguished by their attainments in natwral science. We associate the museum at Newcastle with the names of Hancock, Alder, and Hutton; that of York with Harcourt and Phillips; Bristol with Conybeare and Miller; Ipswich with that of Henslow. But many museums exist without the funds for enabling their committees to maintain a permanent scientific officer as curator, and without the advantage of securing for their natural history collee- tions that aid which is within reach of the museums at Newcastle, Ipswich, and other places. In the matter of classification and the determination of species, it 1s not enough to have the co-operation of those who are willing to give time and to work with hearty zeal. The indispensable element here is knowledge, and knowledge of a kind which few honorary curators can reason- ably be expected to have at their command. Now, if that large class of provincial museums which have but very limited incomes were able to take advantage of temporary competent professional assistance in the arrangement of the collections they possess, the state of things referred to by Professor Forbes need no longer exist. This plan, too, of tem- porary curatorship has other very strong recommendations. It would put museums all over the kingdom in friendly and beneficial communication with one another, while a system of periodical visitation, especially if combined with the delivery of lectures, would tend to keep alive the local spirit of interest in these educational institutions, which in two many cases is now found to flag, if not to lie altogether dormant. No man of real science going into a provincial museum will look with disdain upon an Egyptian mummy, or upon the fruit of a double cocoa-nut, provided these objects are shown for a definite purpose, and as forming part of a series. But that which every man of science regrets like Edward Forbes is that space and money can often be found for these things when objects of infinitely greater value receive scarcely any attention, or are even altogether ignored. As it respects the sum total which museums throughout the kingdom have at command after paying such necessary out-goings as rent, wages, etc., if we omit the University museums and a few with incomes sufficient to enable them to maintain men of scientific reputation as salaried officers, the amount collec- tively may be roughly estimated at £3,000. Now, although £3,000, if divided by the number of existing museums, gives but asmall sum to each, yet, if made the most of, it would do a great deal for the accomplishment of those objects which these institutions profess to have in view. £3,000 would more than suffice to pay a staff of men of real scientific attamments, who should have their museum-circuits ; and with the surplus, ocean-beds might be made to give up their treasures, and rich fossil-bearig districts be explored. But to do this, museums must recognize the ce ae of mutual co-operation and the acting upon some common plan. So Jong as each one acts independently, so long may we expect that the state of chaos so graphically pourtrayed by Prof. Forbes will more or less prevail, and many of these institutions be only theo- retically what they might be practically—centres of instruction in science.— HE. Cuarrteswortu, F.G.S8. Gems anp Precious Stones nv Sitvu.—Srr,—Can you inform me if it is known to what geological formations diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, or other precious stones belong? Have any, or all of these been found 7 situ; and if so, are they from ae similar or of different geological ages ? I presume they cannot be considered as being of the age of the gravels in which they are usually found, but that they must have been detached from some stratum in the locality from which the gravels themselves were derived. Any information on these points will oblige, yours faithfully, IyquirEr. NOTES AND QUERIBS. 119 Mammanian Remains At Briptweton.—Dear Srr,—I recently found a fossil Elephant’s tusk, embedded in bouldered chalk, in a line with, and adjoin- ing the commencement of the chalk near Bridlington. In fees Gp of the great pressure of boulder and other drift upon it, it is much crushed; in fact, the longest piece is only six inches in length. There were other fragments iz situ several inches long, and very thick. Before I disturbed the tusk it measured three feet nine inches, but when I attempted to take it out it fell into pieces.—Yours, ete., Epwarp TINDALL. Smoxine Prrrs rrom THE Excavations or THE SuRREY Docx.—Dear Srr,—At Greenhithe, or Rotherhithe, near the banks of the Thames, where, for several mouths last year, the workmen have been digging out a place for a new dock, called the Grand Surrey Dock, they found, at various depths, a quantity of clay smoking-pipes in a bed of undisturbed gravel, which bed of gravel ex- tended all over the dock, and the pipes spoken of were mixed in it here and there all over all that area, at various oh eal ok A twenty to thirty feet from the surface. The pipes, sixteen in number, which have been brought to me are all, with one exception, made out of different moulds; there are not two alike, with the exception just made. How isit, I would ask, that these pipes have been so distributed as to be found at thirty-six feet below the pice! surface of the land in that locality ? by whom were they made? and how long since? The above questions are of interest, and perhaps may throw some light on the ancient history of smoking. I may mention that the pipes, with the smaller bowls were found deepest down amongst the gravel, and the dig- gings were about from fifty to sixty yards from the Thames. Some of the pipes had stems five inches to six inches long, others shorter, all of them more or less mud-stained and broken, but not much water-worn or scratched. A tavern once stood on part of the site of this new dock, which had foundations four feet below the present surface. This tavern was built pre- vious to 1578, and under it, at a depth of fifteen feet below the founda- tion, some of the pipes were found——Epwarp Tinpatt, Bridlington, 2nd Jan., 1860. Tue Rep CHatKk or Yorxsutre.—For the last two years I have searched for this particular coloured stratum on the western margin of the chalk-hills of Yorkshire, and have found it iz stv, in a few places, from which also 1 have extracted fossils. en I was first induced to look out for this coloured bed was in consequence of knowing its existence at Speeton, and of seeing quoted in Phillip’s Manual of Geology, page 12, that Lister had found a species of belemnite (B. Listeriz), while ascending the Wolds, at Speeton, Londesbro’, and Caistor, but always in a red ferruginous earth. Mr. Wiltshire’s paper, “On the Red Chalk” is admirably written, and well worthy of the greatest encomium ; however, I find in it a few slight miscon- ceptions as to the range of some of the Red Chalk fossils of our Wolds, to which I will, with your permission, briefly allude. Tn that monograph, page 6, it is mentioned that Young and Bird state that “at North Grimstone the coloured chalk seems to be wanting.” This, however, is a mistake, or partially so, for I find it developed at a place not far from thence, immediately above the Kimmeridge Clay. I also know of it at other situations not mentioned by other geologists. At page 18 it is said that the Terebratula biplicata is very common at Hunstanton, but is not known at Speeton, and that the characteristic fossils of the Red Chalk at Speeton are Terebratula semiglobosa, Belemnites minimus, B. elongata, and at Hunstanton Terebratula biplicata, Belemnites minimus, and Spongia paradoxica. Mr. ¥. Tindall, of Bridlington, informs me that he has found at Speeton the follow- ing fossils, namely, those figured in plate i, figs. 2, 4, 5; plate ii, fig. 4; ? 120 THE GEOLOGIST. plate iii, figs. 2, 3, 4, 7; plate iv., figs. 1, 3, 4, 5, besides many others not figured by the Rev. 'T. Wiltshire. Hence we have fossils at Specton similar to what are found at Hunstanton. On the west of our Wolds, where I have met with the Red Chalk, I have procured the Terebratula biplicata, T. semiglobosa, Spongia paradoxica, and Belemnites, etc. Hence we have in Yorkshire what is found in Norfolk, and also what may be brought to light from Lincolnshire. The Zerebratula biplicata is the characteristic shell where I have searched. However, should any geologist doubt the statement made by me, I shall be ready and most hippy at any time to exchange a Terebratula biplicata for a fossil from any other formation. Pebbles are also plentiful inland from Speeton——Rosr. Morrmer, Fimber, * Yorkshire. Fire sy Friction.—{A note to M. Morlot’s paper, page 48.|—I have read somewhere of the dry dead branches of trees crossing each other in a forest taking fire by the see-sawing action produced by a strong wind. 1 do not know if any such case be authenticated, but if so, or if fire was produced by the friction of dragging timber or felled trees over hard dry ground, the natural imitation of the effect by an untutored savage would certainly be that of artificial friction, or rubbing; and he would as certainly select light thoroughly dry objects, such as sticks, for his purpose. Hence this rubbing of sticks may have been just as, if not even more likely an accidental discovery as the striking of flints or pyrites—Ep, Gxot. Fosstts rrom Garnrorp, Durwam.—Srr,—Would you oblige a beginner in the science, and one who finds it difficult to obtain all the information he might desire through books within his reach, by the name and species of the fossils, the drawings of which are sent herewith. They were found on the banks ‘of the river Tees, near Gainford, Durham. I was struck with the similarity existing between the larger fossil and those figured in your February number, described by Jno. Tate, Esq., as annelides, and named Hione moniliformis. At the same time I felt unable to reconcile the idea of their worm-character, with the branchings that seemed to exist, and which were shown more plainly in the slabs as they lay, than in the specimens I brought home with me. One of the drawings sent will illustrate what I refer to. There also seems to be a kind of cirri along one, but the impressions are coarse, and rather indistinct, rendering it difficult to depict it with accuracy. They occurred in flaggy sandstone slate, T suppose it will be in the Carboniferous system.—Yours respectfully, Sourm Duruam, Darlington. These are the same kind of fossils as those described by Mr. Tate, and re- ferred to by our correspondent, whose sketches of the fossils in question are admirable. We refer him not only to Mr. Tate’s figures and descriptions, but also to Mr. Hancock’s account of similar vermiform fossils in the “ Annals of Nat. Hist.” (December, 1858). We are inclined to agree with Mr. Hancock that these markings have been produced by the burrowimgs of small crustacean animals, forming galleries just beneath the surface, the roofs of which have fallen in, leaving furrow-like and beaded impressions. The radiate or brush- like form of marking indicated by one of our correspondent’s sketches would belong rather to such galleries, or even to buried fuci, than to annelidal crawling-tracks. THE GEOLOGIST. APRIL, 1860. GEOLOGICAL LOCALITIES.—NO. I. FOLKESTONE. By §. J. Macxis, F.G.S., F.S.A. (Continued from page 90.) Waar a sliding, slipping, torn, and rugged ruinous heap is that far- famed Copt Point itself, with its ravines of shattered clay-splinters, and its shivering peaks and promontories. How the rotten clay breaks and crumbles away beneath your foot-tread, and goes scat- Lign, 13.—Belemnites Listeri, From the Gault. termg down in multitudes of leaping, racing, bounding chips on to the hard and sea-worn rocks below. Pyritous casts of Ammo- nites, amber-like Belemnites, and phosphatic casts of Nucule, with VOL. Il. Q aA THE GEOLOGIST. their two prominent muscle-marks, strew the cindery-looking ground ; while here and there, like horny flakes, are the thin angular shell-pieces of Pollicipes. Little from its present shattered state is to be got from the blue clay at Copt Point, but it was a rare field for fossils i days gone by, when the weather was allowed, like the sea, to do its work. I well remember one blustering autumn day, when equinoctial gales were blowing hard and strong, stemming the fierce “south-wester” all along the rugged shore from Dover to this point, where with eyes red and half blinded with the cutting wind, seating myself on a block of gault, and chopping with my hand-pick at what I thought were bits of wood, until picking up a fragment in a little mass of clay, I found to my horror I had been innocently demolishing a nearly per- fect crab. This incident to this hour fills me with regret for the vandalism I so unconsciously perpetrated. I mention it, however, not to perpetuate my misfortune, but to warn others to look closely to their work if they wish to get good specimens of those four or five species of crustaceans which abound in this stratum. As they are ordinarily sold by dealers, the carapace of the body and some few segments of legs and claws are all that are offered to us ; but lam satisfied that if care had been taken, very many of the now mutilated specimens could have been extracted in a nearly perfect state, as the limbs being long and tender, and generally slightly separated from the body, they are, I believe, from the rough way in which these fossils are usually extracted, commonly left unnoticed in the matrix. Crustaceans of large size and lobster-like form occasionally occur ; and one remarkably beautiful specimen, probably an Astacus, or of an allied species, was obtained from this locality some few years since by Mr. S. H. Beckles. As we proceed towards Baker’s Gap, the Lower Greensand gra- dually uprises; down this gully a miniature winter-torrent—the draining of the impervious gault-lands behind—cascades over jutting rocks amidst the long rank sedgy grass, and trickles—now lost, now bubbling up—amongst the sea-worn pebbles of the narrow beach below. How ruinous the scene! Piles of huge half- worn boulder-rocks, undermined and fallen out from the stony strata and intervening sandy beds of the Lower Greensand, which in a GEOLOGY OF FOLKESTONE—THE GAULT. 123 greenish-yellow mouldering cliff extends from hence towards the Harbour ; great pouts and heaps of shattered clay, outslips of the narrowing wedge-shaped seam of gault above, line the cliff; while forests of dank olive sea-weeds hang limp like drooping fringes over ledges of rough massive rock and jutting ridges of the stony seams as they outcrop through the clattering shingle, over which the foam- ing waves, spurting and hissing in the cavities and caves formed by the piled rocks, spatter their seething spray for the keen sea-breeze to scatter like diamond drops of dew on all the damp and clammy objects around. On the Lower Greensand we do not purpose here to dwell, except to say that although from the hardness and compactness of the stone- beds, the incoherent state of the sands, and the general friableness of the shells, its fossils can only be obtained in a fragmentary state. They are, however, highly interesting; and any geologist who wants work to do may usefully employ himself in making out the stratigraphical details and zones of characteristic fossils in the strata of the uppermost division which ranges along the cliff from Copt Point to the Harbour, and is continued to the westward of Folke- stone in the beautiful rugged cliff that scarps the high level grassy platform of the Lees, on which the new and handsomest part of the town of Folkestone is built. In such researches the smallest fragment of a shell or bone, or any other fossils, has its proper value,—I never want to teach people to look for pretty or fine things, but by God’s blessing to do useful work,—in obtaining efficient results, which should be carefully com- pared with the stratigraphical range of the like fossils in the lower greensand deposits on the Continent and elsewhere ; the chief value of such an inquiry being to determine the relations in time of the various portions of the greensand formation with each other, or their synchronism with certain portions of other Cretaceous beds in differ- ent localities, and to increase our knowledge of the physical cireum- stances under which the lowermost members of the Cretaceous Formation were accumulated. But to return to those fallen heaps of purple gault. Damp and wet with the rain and the spray, they are rich harvest-fields for the geologist. Split and crack those great unshattered lumps; cleave 124 THE GEOLOGIST. them with your pick; break them in their lines of lamination with your hammer ; knock them or cut them to pieces how you will, they are teeming with fossils; every fresh surface exposed is glittering with the pearly iridescent nacre of crushed or flattened shells : nine- tenths of the fossils, and even more, are in this compressed and distorted state. Never pause in your work of destruction, for what you leave undone in that way the sea and the weather will very speedily accomplish. The elements are certain to destroy all, good, bad, or indifferent, matrix and fossils: you may save some glorious treasures. Go to work, then, stoutly, but mind, only when the gault is damp; it is of no use cracking and shattering the hard grey lumps dried in the summer’s sun. In the arid droughts of that season you may recline on those stony rocky ruins, and listlessly cast pebbles in the sea, for the lustrous nacre of the shells will have dessicated into the whiteness of mere carbonate of lime, and the intractable gault will fracture into hundreds of little dice-like fragments, but the fossils, tight-gripped in the hard and shrunken clay, can never be extracted. Lign. 14,—Solarium ornatum. From the Gault. It were glorious work, that work of destruction, if it were only for the gratification of the eye alone in the resplendent show of the scores of yellow golden crumpled Inocerami and Ammonites which every fresh broken purple surface exposes ; but there are treasures every now and then to be bagged, or basketed—for I always use a fisherman’s basket, with a square hole in the lid, strapped over my shoulder, as the handiest object for the purpose, and as the best both GEOLOGY OF FOLKESLONE—THE GAULT. 125 for the preservation of the fossils and for their easy carriage. All the fossils are not crumpled and distorted, and every here and there are perfect Nucule, fine large Ammonites, often four to six inches across, Sea-urchins, Rostellaria Parkinsonii, Solarium conoidewm, and S. ornatum ; and now and then one meets with the rarer shells, such as Scalaria Clementina, Mytilus, and pretty small Turrilites. Passing on to the west side of the town, we find the greensand cliffs attaining a height of about one hundred and twenty feet, and capped only by a few outlying rusty patches of gault, and a stream Lign, 15,—Lower Greensand Cliff, on the west side of Folkestone Harbour, with capping of Mammaliferous Drift. of mortar-like nodules, the weathered remnants of the “ junction- bed,” extending for about half a mile beyond the Lees. Even this capping has been denuded out from the site of the Battery, at the back of the Pavilion Hotel, and its place supplied by a deposit of white marl and flint-gravel, inosculating with or thinning out under a bed of brick-earth. These deposits—the gravel, marl, and brick- earth—have no connection with the greensand on which they repose, being altogether of more modern date and different condition, the former containing the remains of mammoth, hippopotamus, hyena, Trish elk, deer, and oxen, and others of the great mammalia. 126 THE GEOLOGIST. From the Lees the greensand-cliff ranges westward, presenting a bold, rugged face, with jutting beds of warm greenish-yellow stone, glowing in the sun’s bright beams, and looking ruddier in their con- trast with the dark bushes of intermingled gorse and the tufts of thyme and other plants which grow from every sandy seam. A pretty walk it is on a summer’s afternoon along the foot-way. Below is the turnpike-road and the great natural sea-wall of fallen rocks, resisting still the buffets of the waves. There, too, below us is the broad expanse of the British Channel, dotted with white sails of freighted ships and fishing-boats, and streaked and clouded with the paddle-foam of smoking steamers. Butterflies and moths flutter amongst the rank herbage, and grasshoppers chirrup along the bank that bars us from the level and fertile fields. As we approach Sandgate, the pretty little village with its long street of straggling houses and its round castle set in its ring of semi- circular lunettes bursts suddenly on the sight. A charming view Lign. 16.—Sandgate, from the end of the Folkestone Cliffs. The foreground consisting of the upper, the mid-distance behind the village of the middle division, beyond, in the distance, the Kentish rag-beds of Hythe. indeed it is from this abrupt termination of the Folkestone cliffs. A steep path, skirting a Martello-tower—for these round forts extend for miles along the coast—winds down to the village beneath, at the GEOLOGY OF POLKESTONE—THE GAULT. 127 Lign. 17.—The Archiepiscopal Palace at Lympne, with the flat alluvial region of Romney Marsh at the base. 128 THE GEOLOGIST. back of which rise other cliffs of dark green irony water-holding sand, that of the middle division, marked everywhere in its course by the prolific growth of equisetacea and of ferns. From Seabrook the limestones and rag of the lowest division of the Greensand rise towards Hythe, in a grass-covered cliff, occasionally quarried for building and lime-burning, and gradually becoming higher, until at Lympne we look from another lofty headland over the flat map-like country of the Marsh, with its lines of dykes and Lign. 18,—‘‘ Jill’s Pipe.””? The junction of the Lower Greensand and Weald Clay. water-courses. As we descend this promontory, past the stalwart ruins of the ancient Roman castrum, we cross what I believe are the Neocomian sands, below the ragstone-beds, and a pretty spring of water, which streams away by a rustic wooden gutter, marks the junction of the sand with the impervious weald-clay beneath. GEOLOGY OF FOLKESTONE—THE GAULT. 129 Some readers may doubtless wonder why I have wandered all along this pretty coast to Lympne’s old ruined Roman castrum, which may appear, perhaps, to them to be as little connected with the Folkestone gault as the Mansion House with St. Pauls. Never- theless, there is some “reason in my madness.” ‘To the student embued with the love of nature the science of geology offers at once a sublime and unlimited expanse: he is in a transport of delight at every step with the knowledge he obtains. Every new opening and unfolding of the great book of the past overwhelms him with the immensity of the ideas and reflections which arise. He has acquired a new language, as it were, and can read the stirring stories recorded in the ponderous volume. To the world, occupied with its cares and trials, its anxieties, or its pleasures, the volume les open spread, but few or none read the language in which it is written. So when we isolate a locality, and attempt to teach its geology to the mass, we must treat our subject as a simple story—as one simple incident in the eventful past. We must have a oneness of purpose, a sturdy truth, which however we may attempt to grace it, must be the lesson we have to teach. I have read in some old Danish writer’s tale of one Trimalchio, who had his epitaph written on a sun-dial, that everybody who consulted it might read his name. With worthier purpose I hope to engrave some solemn truths on these pages, which, gentle reader, form our meeting-place, and by as pleasantly as I can, making a book of science one of amusement also, tempt you to come where these truths may be read. “A fisherman must bait his hooks to the taste of the little fishes, if he expects to catch them,” and philosophers will never succeed by dry and arid language in tempt- ing those who seek for recreation and instruction after the labours and duties of life. For such I write, for those who with elastic tread and hearts lightened m holiday time of their ordinary daily duties are seeking recreation in the innocent study of God’s works and renovated health in the cool breezes from the sea; these I pre- sume not to know the geologic history of this blue clay band. For their sakes it has been that I have rambled all along the shore to show them how the Gault forms one section of the great Cretaceous group, of which those other strata, although so different in their mineral character, form also parts. VOL. Il. R 130 THE GEOLOGIST. I have pointed out also the capping of brick-earth and ossiferous marl on the West Cliff, to show to the inexperienced student that the juxta-position of strata is no proof of relationship; but that beds of earth lying together in proximity may be far removed from each in the dates of their formation, and indeed may belong to very different causes and events. In this case, as in others, the fossils are the true medals of the past; and here they teach us that while the cretaceous rocks exhibit from top to bottom the dominion of the sea in a remoter age, the marls and brick-earth were not deposited until after the marine sediments of the cretaceous rocks had been first raised into dry land, and then denuded or worn away—-sliced off—to the extent of at least a thousand feet in vertical height; and that while the former group belongs to the mid-period of the earth’s history, the latter is of recent date, but just preceding if not coeval with the first appearance of man, for the fossils it contains are those of the great terrestrial beasts, with the remains of which in other places the flint- implements and other traces of his works are found. Let us then briefly tell the story of those events—it has been often told before, but no matter, everyone has not heard it, and even those who have delight to dwell upon it—and those ancient physical conditions with which the geological history of the gault is associated. The con- secutive chain of events is as readily conceived as it is plainly to be traced. First, the old dry land of oolitic rock, with its thick umbrageous forests, and its enormous river pouring into a delta—rivalling that of the Ganges—sediments that formed the Wealden beds, sank gradually below the level of the sea, and the great accumulation of the lower greensand took place. ‘The depression of the land still going on, the finer deposit of mud reached higher on the sinking coast, and en- croaching on the sands as they sank deeper and deeper beneath the waves, the Greensand became covered by the Gault. The upper greensand would seem to indicate a temporary elevation, or at least a shoaling of the water. Again, a further sinking carried the once dry ground to the depths of the ocean, where in the quietest calm of the abyss lived those little Foraminifers, whose tiny shells chiefly form the mountain mass of chalk. The Portland-stone, on which rest the Wealden beds (of fresh- GIBB—ON CANADIAN CAVERNS. z 131 water origin), is covered by its ancient soil, with the stems of the trees erect as when they grew. This was the ancient land, first transformed into a delta, into which the old mighty river poured its flood. Here lived the gigantic Iguanodon; here the Pterodactyles— winged lizards—flitted in the dusky twilight; birds waded in the mud; the hum of insects was heard in the air. All, all the strange beings of those ancient days have perished, and two thousand feet at least of solid earth is piled above their tomb. (To be continued.) ON CANADIAN CAVERNS. By Grorce D. Gres, M.D., M.A., F.G.S., Member of the Canadian Institute. Tuer prominent feature of a large portion of the province of Canada is the presence of various limestone rocks belonging to the Silurian formations. Until lately, the existence of caverns in these rocks, as well as in those lying subjacent—namely the Laurentian of Sir William Logan, was almost unknown; as, with the exception of an isolated account here and there, no regular description of any cavern had appeared. Owing to the labours of the Canadian Geological Survey, and of several private individuals, a number of caverns have been discovered at distances remote from one another ; some of these have received but a passing notice in the publications of the Survey, and are not, therefore, useful as a means of reference. The present communication, it is hoped, will supply that deficiency, as in it I purpose to embody short descriptive accounts of all the caverns of Canada which are known up to the present time. The details of some of them are not so full as could be desired ; nevertheless, with all the available sources of information within my reach, together with personal observation in some, on the whole the general descrip- tions may be relied upon as accurate, and as containing a correct account of the particular geological formations in which they le. For convenience of description, it may be here stated that the boundaries of the province of Canada are at the present time as follows :—North by the Hudson Bay Company’s territories, and shores of James’ Bay; on the west by Lakes Huron, Superior, Lake of the Woods, Winnipeg, and Red River; South by Lakes Erie and Ontario, and the states of New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire ; and to the eastward by the River and Gulf of St. Law- 132 THE. GEOLOGIST. rence, the state of Maine, the province of New Brunswick, and the eastern coast of Labrador ; the whole extending between the latitude of forty-two degrees and fifty-five degrees north, and longitude fifty-six and ninety-eight west. The caverns of Canada may conveniently be divided into two classes; the first comprises those which are at the present time washed by the waters of lakes, seas, and rivers, including arched, ~ perforated, flower-pot, and pillared rocks, which have at one time formed the boundaries or walls of caverns, and all of them unques- tionably the result of aqueous action. The second comprises caverns and subterranean passages which are situated on dry land, and so far as we know, not attributable to the same cause in their origin as the first, or at least not applied in the same manner. In the first class are included the following :— . Caverns on the shores of the Magdalen Islands. Caverns and arched rocks at Percé, Gaspe. Gothic arched recesses, Gaspe Bay. The “Old Woman,” or flower-pot rock, at Cape Gaspe. Little River Caverns, Bay of Chaleur. Arched and flower-pot rocks of the Mingan Islands. . Pillar sandstones, north coast of Gaspe. . Niagara Caverns. . Flower Pot Island, Lake Huron. 10. Perforations and caverns af Michilimacinac, L. Huron. 11. The Pictured Rocks, Lake Superior. 12. St. Ignatius Caverns, Lake Superior. 13. Pilasters of Mammelles, Lake Superior. 14. Thunder Mountain and Paté Island Pilasters, L. Superior. £O 00 NID Ov 09 BO pes In the second class are :— 15. The Steinhauer Cavern, Labrador. 16. The basaltic caverns of Henley Island. 17. Empty basaltic dykes of Mecattina. 18. Bigsby’s Cavern, Murray Bay. 19. Bunchettes Cavern, Kildare. 20. Gibb’s Cavern, Montreal. 21. Probable caverns at Chatham, on the Ottawa. 22. Calquhouns Cavern, Lanark, 23. Quartz Cavern, Leeds. 24. Probable caverns at Kingston, Lake Ontario. 25. Mono Cavern. 26. Hramosa Cavern. 27. Cavern in the Bass Islands, L. Erie. 28. Subterranean passages in the Great Manitoulin Island, Lake Huron. 29. Murrays Cavern and subterranean river, Ottawa. 30. Probable caverns in Iron Island, Lake Nipissing. PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIBTIES. 133 The majority of those in the first class are on a level with the water, whilst the remainder are elevated above, varying from a few to upwards of sixty feet. In the second class the level varies, but nearly all are above that of the sea, and, as will presently be described, none penetrate the earth to a considerable depth ; but this may be found to be otherwise as the explorations are continued. In none have animal remains been found, excepting in one instance, and they were discovered loose and not imbedded in stalagmite ; and so far as I am aware, not a single object, such as a flint arrow-head or spear, used by the ancient inhabitants of the country, has been observed. This circum- stance may in some measure detract from the present communica- tion ; that part of the inquiry has still to be worked out, as many of the caverns have been but very partially explored, indeed some have scarcely been examined, and as several of them branch off by means of fissures and galleries, running from distinct chambers (most of the latter containing stalagmite) we may yet hope for interesting discoveries, particularly in that district of country in which exist the huge caverns of Mono and Eramosa in the Niagara limestone rocks of the Upper Silurian formation. The researches of my friend, Mr. Sterry Hunt, of the Canadian Geological Survey, have shown that these limestones are essentially dolomitic, and thus perhaps fayour- ably constituted for the development of caverns. (To be continued.) PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. GroLoeicaL Society or Lonpon, February 29, 1860.—L. Horner, Ksq., President, in the Chair. “On the Lower Lias of the South of England.” By Dr. T. Wright, F.G.S. The author first stated that the uppermost beds of the Lower Lias are those containing Hippopodium ponderosum, and that the lowest beds are those with Ammonites Planorbis, overlying a series of strata containing Estheria, &e., which he separates from the Lias, under the name of the Avicula contorta beds. The last rest on the grey and red marls of the Keuper. Dr. Wright then proceeded with the description of the 4. contorta beds, in- eluding the “ Bone-bed,” having first enumerated the authors who have written on these and the equivalent strata (Késsener, Shichten, etc.,) on the Continent. The sections at Garden Cliff, near Westbury on the Severn, at Wainlode Cliff, at Aust Cliff, at Penarth, near Cardiff, at Uphill near Weston-super-Mare, at Culverhole near Axmouth, at Wilmcote and Binton near Stratford-on-Avon, _ Were described in detail as illustrating this series; and General Portlock’s section of these beds in the North of Ireland was also alluded to. Peefen 134 THE GEOLOGIS?. Valoniensis, Cardium Rheticum, and Avicula contorta are the chief molluscan fossils of this zone. The next group of strata are those with Ammonites Planorbis and Am. John- stoni. Some of the foregoing sections expose these beds, such as those at Uphill and Wilmcote ; but they can be still better studied at Street in Somer- setshire, where they have herpes so many fine Hnaliosaurian fossils. These beds are also well exposed at Brockeridge and Defford in the Vale of Glou- cester, and at Binton in Warwickshire. Isastrea Murchisone occurs in this zone, and Ostrea Liassica is very charac- teristic of some of its lower beds. Jchthyosauri and Plesiosauri of several species are found in this series; the latter chiefly in the lower part. Of the two known specimens of the Pl. meyacephalus, one was found in these beds near Street, Somerset, and the other at Wilmcote, Warwickshire. The Ammonites Bucklandi_characierizes the next higher group of strata, which are also known as the Lima-beds. These are well seen at ye Regis, at the Church Cliff, and from the Broad Ledge to the shore, and yield several species of Ichthyosaurus, also Am. Conybeari, A. rotiformis, A. angulatus, A. Greenoughii, and A. tortilis. The Am. Turnert beds are next, and can also be studied at Lyme Regis ; they have yielded three species of Ichthyosaurus. Am. semicostatus and A. Bounardi belong to this zone. The Am. obtusus beds succeed, between the Broad Ledge at Lyme and Cornstone Ledge near Charmouth; they apparently have no saurian fossils. A. Brooki, A. stellaris, A. planicosta, and A. Dudressieri accompany A. obtusus. The next zone is that of the dm. oxynotus, with A. bifer and A. lacunatus. The beds with 4m. raricostatus comprise, in ascending order, the Ammonite- bed, the Hippopodium-bed, the coral-band, ard the Gryphea-bed. This zone is well seen near Cheltenham, at Lyme, and at Robin’s Hood Bay in Yorkshire. Am. armatus, A. nodulosus, and A. Guibalianus belong to the A. raricostus beds. Dr. Wright then pointed out that the Avicula contorta beds, like the Késsen beds, conta a fauna special to themselves, and might as well be classed with the Trias as with the Lias. They have a wide range in the South of England, South Wales, the Midland Counties, and the North of Ireland. After some remarks on the more important features of the several Ammonite-zones of the Lower Lias, the author concluded by remarking that as Quenstedt and Oppel had observed, the Middle Lias could be similarly subdivided by means of the Ammonites peculiar to its several stages. LiverPoot Geronocican Society, March 13, 1860.—Thomas Urquhart, Esq., in the Chair. The Secretary, G. H. Morton, Esq., F.G.S., exhibited a number of scratched boulders, and shells of several species collected by him from the boulder-clay of the district. He showed how the boulders were connected with the grooved and striated surfaces of the sandstone in the neighbourhood. Thomas I. Moore, Esq., of the Derby Museum, exhibited Cetacean remains from more recent local deposits. The Rev. Henry H. Higgins brought forward his proposal for the arrange- ment of the recent and fossil species, in the new Liverpool museum, in natural history series, without regard to stratigraphical formations. The Secretary, Dr. Collingwood, and most of the members of the society, advised a geological arrangement of the fossils. It was suggested that the Society should enrich the valuable geological collection of the Royal Institution, which, with some small additions, would assume considerable importance. mee he NOTES AND QUERIES. 135 MancuesteR Geonocican Society, February 16—On this day the members of this Society made an excursion to Burnley, under the direction of the President, Sir James Kay Shuttleworth, Bart., ¥.G.S. After the dinner, the President described the valuable seams of coal under the Gawthorpe estate, and Mr. Pickup described the strata at the pit belonging to Messrs Thursby and Scarlett at Spa Clough. Mr. Binney drew attention to the bed of Unio robustus as being two hundred yards above the Habergham, or assumed Arley mine of Full-edge; whilst at Wigan the same bed was only forty-seven yards above the Arley-mine. In the dining-room were displayed Mr. Wilds’ ex- cellent collection of fossil fish-remains from Full-edge, and shells from the Lower Coal-measures, as also extensive and valuable collections of fossil plants from the Burnley Coal-field belonging to Messrs Whittaker and Birtwell. Mr. J. Mushen of Birmingham exhibited some beautiful casts of cystideans. Ordinary Monthly Meeting, February 28—A paper was read on “ Over- Winding in Coal and other Mines,” by Thos. Wynne, Hsq., F.G.S. NOTES AND QUERIES. Mr. Pacr’s Hanppoox or GroLocicaL TeRMS.—We have received a con- siderable number of communications upon various points of pronunciation. We have reserved these for a time, with a view to their publication together in our next number. We hope, therefore, that any ‘dete suggestions or re- marks may be forwarded to us early inthe present month. Limestone VEINS IN SHALE aT THE Base OF THE Oxp Rep Sanp- STONE.—Sir,—A few days since I observed some irregular vertical veins, or thin dykes of dark grey compact limestone, crossing a nearly horizontal bed of red shale in and near the local base of the Old Red Sandstone, which rests un- conformably upon beds very seldom, and then but slightly caleareous. The shale in ailich they were observed is separated from the overlying Carbon- iferous Limestone by a considerable thickness of yellowish sandstone, of which over two hundred feet is exposed. As these vems do not contain fossils, and there is nothing else to show that the limestone was derived from organic sources, while the thickness of the intervening sandstone is against the supposition that it was deposited by infiltration from the Carboniferous Limestone. Perhaps you, or some of your other readers will say how an occurrence so unusual may be accounted for—I am, etc., A. B. W Templemore. Brericat Curonotoey or Man.—Sir,—In reference to the vexata questio _ of the age of man on the earth as comnected with the works of human art lately found in France, one point of consequence has, I think, been hitherto Belooked, viz., that we are not confined by the authority of the Bible to the period of six thousand years for the date of man’s creation upon the earth. Phyres Clinton, in the appendix to his “ Fasti Hellenici,’ mentions the fact that most of our old Bible manuscripts vary much in their chronology, chiefly in the duration of life assigned to the patriarchs before the Flood, and also be- fore the time of Abraham. So considerable is this variation that I believe I am not far wrong in stating that twelve thousand, or even twenty thousand years Vd 136 THE GEOLOGIST. may be obtained for the period since man’s creation from some of these mann- scripts ; and I believe also that Mr. P. Clinton stated that there was no pre- ponderant rate of authority for the manuscripts which had been followed by the authors of our Bible translation. The Septuagint translation, e.y., was founded on a different set of manuscripts; and I think also that Josephus is said to have had some quite different from ours. I write only from recollection, not having the books at hand to refer to; but I am sure of this point, that on the authority of some of the manuscripts of the Bible, a much longer period may have elapsed than the six thousand years which are generally received. I con- ceive that the possibility of such an extension of time might extend also the robability of man’s having been coeval with even the mammoth.—I am, Sir, ours obediently, (‘The Rev.) S. C. Provincia, Guotocica, Museums.—S1r,—I was well pleased to see the remarks of K. Charlesworth, F.G.S., in reference to Professor Forbes sugges- tions for establishing “ Educational Museums.” I presume there is scarcely a Geological Society inthe kingdom but has a nucleus, at least, of a museum in the shape of one or more cabinets of “specimens,” collected from the various strata of their surrounding districts. What we students of Geology now re- quire is to have published in your excellent magazine a list of all the Geological Societies of the kingdom, and a list of the specimens collected in their separate districts. There would be no difficulty in obtaining this information, if you, sir, suggested to the secretary of each geological society to forward to you a short account of their local strata, &c., and the fossils found therein. By the publication of such information, the readers of your magazine would become acquaimted with a circle of fossil districts, would know to what society they should write for exchanges, or what spot to visit to enrich their cabinets or local museums; a friendly feeling would be generated amongst the various geological associations, and considerable practical information obtained. We cannot expect that societies will give wp independent movements since they must be guided in some measure by local circumstances ; but if the teachers of eblopical science would lay down a practical plan for the formation of pro- vincial geological museums and mutual co-operation, I have no doubt but that the various associations would at once act upon the suggestions.—Yours faithfully, G. Horner, Glasgow. We concur in the desirableness of the publi- cation of the lists suggested by our correspondent, and shall be obliged to the various secretaries and members of institutions and societies for the necessary information. QuatprNary GroLtocy.—An interesting discussion occurred at the ordinary meeting of the French Geological Society, on November 7th, which is reported in the Bulletin for January last. M. Gaudry produced specimens which he had recently dug from the diluvium in the neighbourhood of Amiens. He stated that he had found axes nearly in contact with fossil mammalian bones, together with small pierced balls, which M. Rigollet considered to be necklace beads, but which did not with certainty show traces of human art. In reply to a question from M. d’Archiac, M. Gaudry said the axes were not all found lying horizontally but at various inclinations and mostly together. M. Desnoyers confirmed these statements having aided in the explorations, and explained that many of the implements were formed from rolled pebbles. He considered the deposit to be a fluviatile one; it contained, in beds of sand interstratified with the gravel, Cyclades, Ancylus, Paludina, and Limnea, and could not be dne to tumultuous causes. M. d’Orbigny cited an instance at Bicétre of a diluvial gravel bed capped by a eviatile sand under the Loess. M. Desnoyers explained the dnmistile character of the deposit by its occurrence at the confluence of a side valley with the Somme, and maintained that the mammalian bones had been rolled, which M. Jourdain also stated was the case. NOTES AND QUPRIES. 137 M. Hebert referred to the well known discoveries of M. Perthes and the labours of Mr. Prestwich, and others, resulting in the production of upwards of a thousand implements from deposits certainly quaternary, characterized by Blephas primigenius and Rhinoceros tichorinus. He denied that they had been subsequently disturbed, described them as covered by a red diluvial clay, with broken flints usually unrolled, identical with the red diluvium of the neighbour- hood of Paris, and that the brick-earth, or loess, was superimposed. He main- tained that it is impossible that the flint implements could have been introduced into their actual present position subsequently to the deposit of the two last named beds. Doubtless the implements were not rolled as were the bones. In all cases the axes lie under the double mantle of the red clay and loess, showing beyond all question that they belong to the antecedent state of things. If then we admit with M. d’Archiae that the loess is the result of a general deposit independent of the centres, whence the rolled gravels with elephant bones have radiated; that the great extension of Alpine glaciers is subsequent in date to the loess, that the turbaries are more recent still, we are obliged to conclude that the existence of man in the north of France belongs to an epoch more ancient than the quaternary ! The identity of the brick-earth with the loess, is local chrracter of upper gravels, require careful consideration before we accept this as the true place of the first-art stratum ; but in the present state of our knowledge it may be use- ful to call attention to the sayings and doings of our neighbours.—S. R. P. Heterostecina-BeD.—I seat be much obliged if you could let me know which is the “ Heterostegina-bed” at Malta mentioned im the paper read at the meeting of the Geological Society, Jan. 4th, by Mr. T. R. Jones.—Yours truly, F. W. Huron, Staff College, Aldershott—In Capt. Spratt’s notice of the geology of Malta, &c., in the Gcological Society’s Proceedings, vol. iv., p- 226 ae p- 230, the “yellow sandstone” is described as being full of a “very thin Nummulite,” referred to also by Prof. Forbes as the “ Lenticulites complanatus.” tis this bed which is now known as the “ Heterostegina-bed,” fee Mr. Rupert Jones has favoured us with the following remarks on the subject. «The thin Nummulite-like shell, found in the dark-yellow friable stone, is not a Nummulite nor a Lenticulite. It belongs to the Heterostegina of D’Orbigny ; a genus which is related to Nummulina and to Operculina; but it has its chambers subdivided, and is not symmetrical in its growth. The yellow sandstone is the second great stratum from the top of the Tertiary series of beds at Malta, and is well seen at several places in that island and in the cliffs at Ranella Bay, in Gozo. Besides the Heterostegina depressa, D’Orb., this rock contains Globigerina bulloides, D’Orb., and a few other Foraminifers. The Lenticulites complanatus of Basterot (to which the Maltese fossil above mentioned has been erroneously referred) being really a very thin Operculina, the name “ Lenticulites” (which is inapplicable in other cases also) is disused. Operculina is a sub-genus of Nummutlina. Dr. Wright has followed Spratt and Forbes in misnaming this Heterostegina “ Lenticulites complanatus’ (Aun. Nat. Hist. Qter., vol. xv., p. 103, pl. 7, f. 4.). The latter name was given by Basterot to a large thin discoidal fossil Forami- nifer from Bordeaux, now well known as an Operculina, similar to such as now exist in the sea at the Phillipmes, Australia, and elsewhere. Operculina com- planata, however, also occurs at Malta, for Lord Ducie has favoured the writer with a fine specimen in a very hard white limestone from that island.” On tHe Divisions or THE Drirr ix Norrork anp Surrorx.—“ As ] shall have frequent occasion to make use of the word diluvium,” wrote the late Dr. Buckland, “it may be necessary to premise that I apply it to those ex- tensive and general deposits of uevoced loam and gravel which appear to VOL. III. s 138 THE GHOLOGIST, have been produced by the last great convulsion that has affected our planet.”* Omitting any opinion upon the cause of those deposits, Sir Charles Lyell gives the following definition of the diluvium: ‘Those accumulations of gravel and loose materials which by some geologists are said to have been produced by the action of a diluvian wave, or deluge, sweeping over the surface of the earth.’ More recent opinions upon the presumed agencies which have brought together the heterogenous materials forming the gravel and clay beds, and deposited and spread them over their present sites, have led to the adoption of the term “drift,” as more significantly expressing the modern views held on their mode of transport. The “drift,” therefore, includes the series of beds of gravel, sand, loam, and boulder-clay, or till, the latter being but a northern provincial term for the former. My late friend, the highly intelligent geologist, Joshua Trimmer, whose well known intimate acquaintance with these superficial deposits, from an extended examination, has given high authority to his remarks upon them, was the first to adopt, if not to originate, their more defined division into “lower drift, till, or boulder-clay,” “upper drift,’ and “warp of the drift.” My respected friend afterwards divided his lower drift—till, or boulder-clay—into an upper and lower boulder-clay ; founding this division upon what he and others had observed in the Suffolk cliffs, at and near to Gorleston. During the many agreeable gossips that I had with my late friend, I heard his views in relation to the above-mentioned divisions, and as frequently combated them, from not having observed anything in West Norfolk to warrant them; and since my residence at Yarmouth, after having repeatedly examined the cliff from Corton to Gorleston, and other localities, 1 have seen nothing to shake my scepticism upon the subject. Trimmer wrote thus: “It appears that in the Gorleston cliffs there are two boulder-clays, separated by a mass of sand, which, on the authority of Woodward, has hitherto passed for the ‘crag,’ a term which has now become as indefinite as that of ‘drift,’ or ‘drifts.? The lower boulder- clay is the tailing off of that so well known for its blocks of Scandinavian origin, and which extends over the north of Europe and into the eastern side of England. The upper boulder-clay is characterized by an abundance of oolitie detritus ;” and he proceeds to say that, “the former overlaps the latter, with a mass of sand interposed.’’§ It appears from the perusal of this cited paper that there were anomalies in the structures of the superficial beds “which had perplexed” Mr. Trimmer ; it also appears that these perplexities were removed by meeting with (for thus he wrote) “some boulders of gneiss on the beach; and though during a rapid examination we found none actually embedded, Mr. Gum assured me he had seen them in the cliff.’|| From having repeatedly examined these cliffs, and having also dug into the so-called lower boulder-clay, or till, without meet- ing with a boulder of any kind iw situ, | cannot assent to the existence of two boulder-clays—an upper and a lower. Beneath the sand underlying the true boulder-clay a highly ferruginous loam, stained in places black by decomposed vegetable matter, exists. Into this bed I dug to the depth of about five feet, and a trench, three feet by two, without meeting with anything but one portion of black flint, about the size of my open hand, with its angles rounded, and pebbles and small angular fragments of * Relique Diluviane, p. 2. 1823. + Glossary in ‘‘ The Principles of Geology.’’ t ‘‘On the Geology of Norfolk, &c.’’ published in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, vol. vii., part 2. 1847. § ‘* On the Upper and Lower Boulder-clay of the Gorleston Cliffs.’’ Quart, Journal of the Geological Society, vol. xiii. 1857, : \| Op. cit. Ne a ee ee ee ney ee NOTES AND QUERIES. 139 flint, but not a vestige of any primitive rock. This loam contains an abundance of very small fragments of tertiary shells, resembling those from the crag as also does the sand above it. The houltacs of gneiss met with on the beach hy Messrs. Trimmer and Gunn, we