bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Alluvial and Lacustrine Deposits and Glacial Records of the Upper-Indus Basin
Authors: Drew Frederic
Published: October 2009

Part I.
Alluvial Deposits
.

The tract of country in which occur the deposits of which I propose to give a somewhat detailed though concise account, is that part of the Maharaja of Kashmir's territory which is drained by the Indus. The greater portion of this country has been visited by travellers whose attention has been drawn to the deposits in question, and who have recorded some observations upon them. While considerable light has been thrown by some of these observers, it has seemed to me well both to add my quota and to try to systematize the facts, so as to prevent the confusion likely to arise from mixing, in description, accumulations of various origin, though they may all be classed in one sense as alluvium, and to see what general conclusions can be drawn from all that we have learned.

The writers who have told most about the alluvial and lacustrine deposits are Col. H. Strachey, Gen. Cunningham, Dr. Thompson, Major Godwin-Austen, and Dr. Stoliczka. Col. Strachey, whose paper on the Physical Geography of Western Tibet is a wonderful store of accurate and valuable information compressed into a small compass, has given in it a description of the alluvium of the neighbouring basin of the Sutlej, with some reference to the corresponding deposits of the Indus; his conclusions I shall discuss further on. Gen. Cunningham, in his book on Ladākh, has given some notices of lacustrine deposits and of the former extension of lakes, which bear on the subject
On the Cephalopoda-bed and the Oolite Sands of Dorset and part of Somerset
Authors: Buckman James
Published: October 2009

In this paper the author discussed the true position of certain beds containing abundant remains of Cephalopoda, found in various parts of the Jurassic region of this country, and of the sandy bed underlying the inferior Oolite at Cleeve Hill and other places (called by Prof. Phillips the “Midford Sands”), which has been regarded by most authors as belonging to the Lias. From an investigation of the Cephalopoda-bed in quarries at Bradford Abbas in Dorsetshire, the author comes to the conclusion that it is quite distinct from the Cephalopoda-bed of Gloucestershire, and that it is the representative of the Rubbly Oolite at the top of Leckhampton Hill and Cold Comfort, and of the Gryphite and
Trigonia
-beds of the neighbourhood of Cheltenham. The Gloucestershire Cephalopoda-bed he regards as situated close to the bottom of the Inferior Oolite series; and this is also the position to which he refers the sandy beds above mentioned.
Description of the Skull of a Dentigerous Bird (
Odontopteryx toliapicus
, Ow.) from the London Clay of Sheppey
Authors: Owen
Published: October 2009

Amongst the additions to appear in the second edition of my ‘British Fossil Mammals and Birds’ I have anticipated the descriptions of certain species, as in the case of the gigantic Eocene bird, equalling in size the larger New-Zealand Moas. The still more remarkable Ornitholite, also from Sheppey, which I am now about to describe, has stronger claims to be made known, without delay, on account of the transitional character which it manifests to the Pterosaurian order.

The fossil consists of a large portion of the skull, which, when the specimen was received in the British Museum, was more or less imbedded in the London Clay; the clearing out of the matrix by the careful and skilful hands of Mr. Davies, Senior Attendant in the “Geological Department,” brought to light the tooth-like processes of the alveolar borders of both upper and lower jaws, to which the uniqueness of this Eocene fossil is due; but the distinctive cranial characters of the warm-blooded feathered vertebrate are unmistakable.

The well-developed brain, expanding transversely in its posteriorly placed box (P1. XVI. figs. 1-4, 3,7,11), making the base of a long cranial cone gradually tapering forward, the capacious lateral orbits (
ib.
figs. 1, 2, 4, 0, 0), and the single hemispheroid condyle (
ib.
fig. 3, 1) are avian: the large and long, freely articulated, dependent tympanic bone (
ib.
figs. 1, 2, 3, 28), the slender, straight and styliform zygomatic bar (
ib.
figs. 1 & 2, 26) received behind into the articular cup of the tympanic
Contribution to the Anatomy of
Hypsilophodon Foxii
. An Account of some recently aquired Remains
Authors: Hulke J. W.
Published: October 2009

In
1849 a block of sandstone containing a considerable portion of a reptilian skeleton was found by some labourers on the south-west shore of the Isle of Wight, near Cowleaze Chine. It was broken in two; and one piece passed into the collection of the late Dr. G. Mantell, the other into that of Mr. Bowerbank. Subsequently both pieces were acquired by the British Museum and reunited. Thus completed, the slab exhibits a continuous chain of some 18 presacral vertebræ, succeeded by the right ilium, the middle of which is crushed and hidden by an imperfect metatarsus. Below this are some long slender bones, which have received different interpretations from distinguished anatomists; and behind these are the left femur and a series of 12 caudal vertebrae. In 1855 a description of this fossil, illustrated by a plate, was given by Professor Owen, in his ‘Fossil Reptiles of the Wealden Formations’ (vol. 1855, Older Dinosauria, p. 2), where it is entitled “Part of the Skeleton of a young Iguanodon,
I. Mantelli
,”—a conclusion towards which the weight of evidence then seemed to incline. In 1867 Prof. Huxley, from a comparison of its vertebrae with those of
Iguanodon
, and from the presence of four metatarsals in the pes, concluded its generic distinctness from
Iguanodon Mantelli
; and in 1870 he made it the subject of a communication to this Society. Prof. Huxley prefaced this paper by a detailed description of a small reptilian skull discovered by the Rev. W. Fox in the same stratum
Notes on the Glacial Phenomena of the Hebrides
Authors: Campbell J. F.
Published: October 2009

As I shall be unable to be present at the reading of Mr. Geikie's paper on the Glaciation of the Outer Hebrides, I beg to submit to the Geological Society some extracts from my journals containing observations on the glacial phenomena presented by the western islands.

Tiree
, Sept. 1871.—The island is flat; and the low grounds appear to have been under water. The highest hill is Heynish, at the south-west end, and 500 feet high. On the top of the hill are a great many large perched blocks; some. are 14 or 15 feet long. So far as I could make out, they came from the north-west; they are chiefly gneiss, like rocks in the outer islands. The rocks are glaciated and weathered.

Harris
, Sept. 17.—The hills are made of contorted Laurentian gneiss, and much glaciated, but weathered. So far as I could make out, the ice came from N.N.W. throngh a gorge at Tarbet.

Bernevay to Barra
.—Bernevay is the last of the Hebrides; the whole chain looks like the hill-tops of a drowned continent. The separate islands are rocky and grassy, and are about 1000 feet high or less. On the east side these hills slope down to the Minch. On the west the Atlantic has battered the hills, and broken them, so that great cliffs now plunge sheer down, or overhang the sea. Where the rock is soft, the Atlantic waves dig into it, and make sea-caves, and there work mischief till the roof comes down. Then a
Geogical Notes on the Sinaitic Peninsula and North-Western Arabia
Authors: Milne John
Published: October 2009

T
he
journey of which the following is an account, was made in company with the late Dr. Beke in quest of the true Mount Sinai, which mountain he placed in North-western Arabia, about 95 miles in a north-easterly direction from the district in which it has hitherto been conjecturally considered to exist.

Owing to the rapidity with which the country visited was traversed, it would be impossible to connect with accuracy the various observations which were made; and therefore, rather than attempt to construct a series of sections showing the relation of the various formations to each other, I have considered it better simply to indicate the conditions as observed at various points, leaving it for those more conversant with the geology of these districts to connect the following fragments with those already accumulated. For assistance in the determination of the rock-specimens collected, of which 77 are described, 22 of which were examined microscopically, I have to thank Mr. Thomas Davies, F.G.S., of the British Museum.

District visited
.—From Suez we went by sea to Eynounah, which lies in the north-east corner of the Red Sea, and then on to Akaba, touching almost daily at some point or other along the coast. From Akaba we took camels, and journeyed some twenty miles in a north-easterly direction up Wady Ithm, in the direction of Petra and Maan. This was the furthest point of our journey. On again reaching Akaha, instead of returning to Suez by sea, as we had come, we had
Notes on the Phenomena of the Quaternary Period in the Isle of Portland and around Weymouth
Authors: Prestwich Joseph
Published: October 2009

I
n
their well-known paper on the Geology of Weymouth, Buckland and De la Beche* give but a very brief notice of the Quaternary beds of the district. They observe that there are no very “extensive and continuous beds of gravel,” and that “the largest deposit of diluvium we have noticed is at Upway Street, four miles north of Weymouth; but in smaller quantities and irregular patches it is disposed over the whole surface of the country, on the summits and slopes of the hills as well as in the valleys.” These scattered drift-beds are all referred, as usual at the time, to one great inundation, which excavated the valleys and overspread the country with patches of diluvial gravel.

Mr. Bristow, in 1850† recorded the presence on the top of the cliff at Portland Bill of a recent conglomerate, which Mr. Weston in 1852‡ described as a “marine shingle,” consisting “of beachpebbles (with a few chalk flints);” and in 1860 Mr. R. Damon § mentioned that it contained in places “numerous shells of species now living in the neighbouring sea.”

Mr. Whitaker ∥ was the first to give, in 1869, a more particular account of this beach, and to specify the occurrence of
Littorina litorea, L. littoralis, Patella vulgata
, and
Purpura lapillus
, extending on the east side of the Bill for a distance of half a mile northward. Over the beach Mr. Whitaker noticed near “Cave Hole” the presence “of a head” (the waste of Purbeck and Potland beds) consisting of
On Fossil Evidences of a Sirenian Mammal (
Eotherium ægyptiacum
, Owen) from the Nummulitic Eocene of the Mokattam Cliffs, near Cairo
Authors: Owen
Published: October 2009

T
he
evidence of the Sirenian mammal now submitted to the Society is from the white, compact, fine-grained, calcareous stone of the Nummulitic Eocene Tertiary period, now quarried extensively in the Mokattam cliffs, south of Cairo, for the buildings in progress in the modern part of that city.

The block of stone containing the fossil was shown and afterwards presented to me by Dr. Grant, an eminent practitioner in Cairo, who possesses a good illustrative collection of fossil shells from the above formation; but the appearances of the exposed parts of the present fossil were, as may well be supposed, both new and strange. That the block contained the cast of some organic cavity was the best interpretation I could, at first sight, offer; and the subsequent clearing away of the matrix determined the fossil to be part of the cranium, with a cast of its interior representing the brain, of a species of Sirenian mammal.

The portions of the skull preserved are scanty; they include parts of the basioccipital, basisphenoid, and petrosals. The bodies of the two cranial vertebræ have not coalesced, but show the flat, vertical, roughish syndesmotic surface, which long remains in the recent Dugongs and Manatees †. The alisphenoids are confluent with the basisphenoid; and the line of union is impressed, on the inner or cranial surface, by the large trigeminal nerve.

These portions of cranial bones have the dense texture characteristic of the Sirenian skeleton. The petrosals, of a deeper tint, show an almost crystalline fracture
Note upon a Recent Discovery of Tin-ore in Tasmania
Authors: Gould Charles
Published: October 2009

As a sequel to discoveries of tin-ore in abundance made during the last two years in Queensland and New South Wales, there has been one of some importance recently in Tasmania, which has this special interest, that the one has been found
in large masses in situ
, and that the containing rock is lithologically distinct from the ordinary ternary granite which forms the whole of the stanniferous country of Queensland, and, so far as my information extends, of New South Wales.

The tin-stone also has an individuality of character not shared by that in the adjacent colonies, occurring in several distinct varieties of form within the distance of a few chains.

I forward a small series of samples for the inspection of the Members of the Society, among which I would specially invite attention to a fragment from a large mass (itself 80 lbs. in weight) which has an appearance on fracture sufficiently approaching to that of a hæmatite to deceive a casual observer.

This discovery of tin-ore has been made at Mount Bischoff, in the N.W. portion of Tasmania. Active operations were only commencing when I visited the spot; and in the absence of mining experience on the part of those engaged, coupled with the numerous obstacles to the progress of pioneers, presented by a rough and exceptionally difficult country, some time may be expected to elapse before its full importance is developed.

Mount Bischoff is distant by the present route fifty-four miles from the place of shipment; and
On Slickensides or Rock-striations, particularly those of the Chalk
Authors: Ward Ogier
Published: October 2009

T
his
subject has been so recently brought under the notice of the Society that I need not describe the appearances; but as there seems to be a most extraordinary divergence of opinion as to their cause I have used the general term of “slickensides,” meaning “slipping of surfaces.”

In the cretaceous strata of the neighbourhood of Eastbourne these striations may almost be measured by acres, almost every block in the Holywell quarries having its sides either striated or polished; and in the angles of the blocks, where the chalk has been crushed, the striations assume various directions and curvatures, according, I believe, to the direction of the crushing force. Each surface of the large blocks has one uniform line of striation, though the other sides may be perpendicularly, horizontally, or diagonally striated, as if each block had been moved in various directions. The surfaces of the blocks are more or less embossed; but the striæ enter into all the irregularities, and it often happens that a detached piece of rock lies crushed into a hollow, like a dab of mortar, yet both its external surface and that of the cavity in which it lies are striated by lines in continuity with those of the rest of the surface. Mr. Fordham doubts the existence of horizontal striation; but since his paper was read I have had the pleasure of showing him these phenomena, which have shaken his previous opinion, if not convinced him of the correctness of the slickensides theory. The
The Geology of North-west Lincolnshire
Authors: Cross J. E.
Published: October 2009

T
he
locality to which I would draw attention this evening is the extreme north-west corner of the county of Lincoln—the district, in short, as the rough map (fig. 1) will show, bounded by three rivers, the well-known Humber and Trent and, eastwards, the little Ancholme—this last a strange name to modern ears, but one which has been honoured by the mention of that old English classic, Isaac Walton. It is a corner of the land unknown to fame; but we are now becoming celebrated commercially by the recent discovery of a most extensive and valuable deposit of iron-ore, respecting which I shall have something to say by and by. But, besides this commercial importance thrust upon us, the district has a special value in the eyes of the geologist as being a middle link in the chain of the Jurassic strata, between their development in the south and their somewhat dissimilar appearance on the Yorkshire coast. The labours of Mr. Judd and Mr. Sharpe, in the southern portion of the county, have brought into clear light the commencement of this variation. But the state of things in this northern corner has not as yet been brought before your notice.

The accompanying section (fig. 2) gives a general idea of the district. Three escarpments are represented, and two long sloping plains between them. The westernmost scarp is capped with Lower Lias (
Bucklandi
–zone), the middle one with Lincolnshire Limestone; and the easternmost is the Chalk Wold. Both these latter elevations are characteristic
On the Kimmeridge Clay of England
Authors: Blake J. F.
Published: October 2009

T
he
boring of the Subwealden Exploration has brought into prominence the antiquity of our information concerning the Kimmeridge Clay of England, both as to its subdivisions and as to its thickness. The only recent work done upon it is that of a foreigner, Dr. Waagen, who, studying it on the southern coast at Ringstead Bay and at Weymouth, proposed a new classification, which has been followed by Mr. Judd in his valuable paper on the Speeton clay. With this exception we have to go back to the days of Conybeare and Buckland for information on the subject; and it has been impossible for foreign authors to correlate satisfactorily their Kimmeridgian beds with ours. Dr. Waagen’s paper is brief and incomplete; and there thus seemed room for useful observation on this subject. Both the above-named authors, as well as Professor Phillips and Mr. Damon, have made additions to our list of fossils; but the two latter have only indicated local subdivisions in the beds.

On the Continent, though much diversity exists in the arrangement of these beds (each separate locality having palæontological features which, to a certain extent, render unavailable the classification founded on others), the general result is their separation into three zones—the lowest that of
Astarte supracorallina
, or theAstartian, and the middle that of
Pterocera Oceani
, or the Pterocerian. On these two there is considerable uniformity of opinion; while the upper, more or less developed in various localities, is either included in the zone of
Trigonia gibbosa
, or the
Note on
Pelobatochelys Blakii
and other Vertebrate Fossils exhibited by the Rev. J. F. Blake in illustration of his paper on the Kimmeridge Clay
Authors: Seeley Harry Govier
Published: October 2009

T
he
fragments of a Chelonian carapace exhibited demonstrate the existence of a new Emydian genus, which I propose to name
Pelobatochelys
. Mr. Blake’s fossil comprises the nuchal plato and first six neural plates, together with portions of the first five costal plate, of which the fourth only is complete. It is possible that the nuchal and first three neural plates belonged to one individual, and that the remaining three pertained to another animal. In the British Museum also, from Weymouth, are other evidences of the same species, which I have been able to examine. The nuchal plate is lost from this second specimen; but the first three neural plates are similarly united together, and are similarly anchylosed to the neural spines of the three corresponding vertebratæ; while the third neural plate in both is excavated behind with a subcircular superficial removal of the bone extending to the margin of the adjacent costal plates; the tissue exposed is cancellous, and the hole such as might have been made by an incrusting parasite or disease, though it is perhaps just possible that a bony spine involved in the dermal covering may have been there developed.

Another specimen consists of the fourth to the eighth neural plates, with portions of the adjacent costal plates. A fourth example appears to be the pygal plate; it is impressed like the pygal plate in
Emys dorsalis
; and a fifth is one of the posterior marginal plates which shows that the distal end of the rib received
Remarks on the Working of the Molar Teeth of the Diprotodons
Authors: Krefft Gerard
Published: October 2009

T
he
‘Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Fossil Organic Remains of Mammalia and Ayes exhibited in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England’ contains, on plate vi., ten figures of the molar teeth of the lower jaw of the extinct gigantic marsupial Pachyderm of Australia (
Diprotodon australis
), natural size.

In a subsequent paper, read before the Royal Society, Professor Owen figures the same teeth again (Phil. Trans. 1872, plate xl. figs. 1, 5, 9, 12, and figs. 2, 6, and 16), leaving out no. 1, no. 1', and no. 4' of the Royal College of Surgeons’ plate. On plate xxxviii, of the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1872, the same author figures “the outer side view of the right upper molars,
in situ
, of a large, probably male,
Diprotodon
;” also, under no. 1, the grinding surface of the same with part of the bony palate.

Comparing the upper with the lower series, I have come to the conclusion that the latter cannot be correct, because the whole of the teeth, from first to last, show no sign of abrasion, whilst the upper ones do this in a remarkable degree. The fact is, that when the last tooth breaks through the gum the first of the series is already worn flat, and the premolar is often lost soon afterwards. I desire to point this out, and beg to mention here that I have never seen a series of teeth such as Professor Owen has figured, though many
On the Occurrence of Phosphates in the Cambrian Rocks
Authors: Hicks Henry
Published: October 2009

I
n
a paper by the late Dr. Daubeny, F.R.S., in the Quart. Journ. Chemical Society,
vol. vii., entitled “On the produce obtained from Barley sown in rocks of various
ages,” he endeavoured to prove, by experiments made with rocks from different parts of the
Cambrian strata of North Wales, that there was an almost entire absence of phosphoric acid in the
rocks of that age. Having failed to extract any phosphoric acid from these by direct analysis, he
adopted the plan of testing the relative capacity of rocks of various ages to yield this ingredient to the crops which grew in them; and by this process he calculated that the Cambrian rocks did not in any case
contain more than about one three-hundred thousandth part, some containing only
one-millionth. The rock-specimens examined were taken from the slate-quarries near Bangor, the
quarries of Llanberis, and from near Dolgelly, probably Lingula-flags. In addition to these, he
experimented also with Skiddaw slate from Cumberland, and with micaceous slate from near Glasgow,
and from them obtained only much the same proportions. From these results he was led to infer that
the seas in which these deposits had accumulated contained little or no animal life, and that we
had here approached the borders at least of the lower limit of organic existence, especially as
there seemed in addition to be an almost
entire absence of lime in any form. In the last edition of ‘Siluria,’ these views
are prominently brought forward to prove that very few organic
On the Chemical Analyses of the Rocks
Authors: Hudleston W. H.
Published: October 2009

At the request of Mr. Hicks I made several analyses of Cambrian rocks, principally with the view of determining the amount of phosphoric acid in each; but incidentally, in one or two cases, an analysis, more or less complete, has been made of the specimen of rock itself.

No. I. is a darkish grey flaggy rock, with an impression of
Paradoxides Davidis
on one side. Portions of the slab immediately under the fossil have a somewhat nodular appearance. The entire fragment is bulged out by an interior lenticular thickening, which consists largely of calcic carbonate, whereas the layer in immediate proximity to the fossil does not effervesce much with cold acid. Hence this small fragment consists of two very different kinds of rock.

Small crystals of pyrites may be observed. The specific gravity of the fragment is 2·84.

The following analysis represents chiefly the composition of that portion which adjoins the fossil impression and which does not effervesce strongly in cold acid; it is not, however, altogether without some of the interior and more calcareous portion.

It is worthy of remark that there is a curious reddish brown extractive matter which pervaded this analysis, and that a very similar substance also pervaded the analysis of the lobster-shell, hereafter to be noticed.

No. II. Specimen in contact with trap. A dull black slaty rock, joints lined with ferric hydrate, no pyrites visible. The impression upon it of a Trilobite is distinct; but there are no indications along the costæ of the
On the Origin of Slickensides, with Remarks on Specimens from the Cambrian, Silurian, Carboniferous, and Triassic Formations
Authors: Mackintosh D.
Published: October 2009

W
hile
admitting that the sides of many fractures have been coated with foreign substances, the author's observations led him to believe that true slickensides, or polished and smoothly striated surfaces, have been produced by the movement of one face of rock against another,
accompanied by partial
fusion*. In the case of many of the specimens, the surface had apparently been metamorphosed by heat resulting from pressure, as the whitened and hardened coating graduated imperceptibly into the ordinary structure of the rock. In some cases sandstone had apparently been converted into quartzite. He ventured to bring “the theory of metamorphism by heat in the case of many slickensided surfaces” before the Society, in expectation that it might lead to further investigation.
Notes on the Comparative Microscopic Rock-structure of some Ancient and Modern Volcanic Rocks
Authors: Ward J. Clifton
Published: October 2009

Introduction
.—T
he
object of the present paper (submitted to the Society with the permission of the Director-General of the Geological Survey) is, by comparing the microscopic rock-structure of several distinct groups of volcanic rocks, to gain an insight into the original structure of some of the most ancient, and therefore probably the most altered, members of the volcanic series. My desire has been mainly to note the relations of the component minerals to one another, and thus glean facts in the history of the rocks which they compose. For this purpose I have endeavoured by coloured drawings to render as truthfully as possible the microscopic structure of most of the examples brought forward. I have to acknowledge the very kind and willing assistance rendered by Mr. Allport in helping me to take up and prosecute to a small degree this line of research.

I. H
istory of the
S
ubject
*.

Very little, comparatively, has as yet been done in England on this subject; but perhaps some of the most valuable work that has as yet been effected in microscopic geology is the result of the labours of our countrymen Sorby and Allport.

In 1858, Sorby brought out his celebrated paper on the “Microscopical Structure of Crystals”†. He describes the glass, stone, and gas- or vapour-cavities in the minerals of the pitchstones of Arran, the lavas of Vesuvius, and some of the basaltic rocks of Scotland. Remarking on the great alteration which has been effected in the ancient trap-rocks during the course of ages
On the Maxillary Bone of a new Dinosaur (
Priodontognathus Phillipsii
), contained in the Woodwardian Museum of the University of Cambridge
Authors: Seeley Harry Govier
Published: October 2009

A
mong
the few Reptilian fossils collected by the late Dr. Forbes-Young, and presented to the Woodwardian Museum of the University of Cambridge by Sir Charles Young and Henry Young, Esq., was a not very promising specimen showing tooth-sockets, imbedded in a yellow sandstone, containing a variety of
Pecten vagans
. It was in association with bones from the Wealden of Tilgate Forest, but may be of Threat Oolite age; though I have collected a similar
Pecten
from a purple clay low down in the Wealden series at Lulworth. In 1869 the matrix of this fossil was removed, so as to expose the external aspect of the jaw; and as in those days I saw no reason for thinking it other than an Ignanodont maxillary bone, the species was briefly described in the ‘Index to the Aves, Onithosauria and Reptilia in the Woodwardian Museum’ (pp. xix. and 82) as
Iguanodon Phillipsii
. Mentioning to the Woodwardian Professor (Prof. Hughes) my desire to describe this and the other species which are briefly indicated in my published catalogues prepared for the late Prof. Sedgwick, Prof. Hughes met me with great cordiality, and afforded every assistance in examining the specimens. I offer my thanks to Prof. Hughes for this courtesy, which enables me to give effect to a request reiterated by Prof. Sedgwick during the last years of his life.

After cleaning the fossil a little, I found several successional teeth, which closely resembled the teeth of
Scelidosaurus
and the teeth attributed by Prof. Huxley to
Description of a new Species of the Genus
Hemipatagus
, Desor, from the Tertiary Rocks of Victoria, Australia, with Notes on some previously described Species from South Australia
Authors: Etheridge Robert
Published: October 2009

T
he
Echinodermata of the Tertiary rocks of Southern Australia have not, as far as I am aware, yet received any systematic attention at the hands of palæontologists, although several interesting notices have from time to time appeared.

The Rev. Julian E. T. Woods figured*, but did not describe, a handsome Echinoderm from the Mount-Gambier beds of South Australia, under the name of
Spatangus Forbesii
. Mr. Woods pointed out that his species was identical with the
S. Hofmanni
, found at the Murray Cliffs by Captain Sturt†, and so identified by the latter, although it is not the
S. Hofmanni
of Goldfuss‡. In an interesting paper on some South-Australian Tertiary Corals§, Prof. P. M. Duncan described
S. Forbesii
, and referred it to Desor’s genus
Hemipatagus
. He there notices its close similarity to
H. (Spatangus) Hofmanni
Goldf., and its chief point of difference from the latter, in the presence of non-crenulated tubercles, which have a tendency to touch the scrobicular circle.

Dr. G. C. Laube‖ has since redescribed
H. Forbesii
, W. and D., in addition to several other new forms from the Murray Cliffs, South Australia, apparently without having seen Prof. Duncan's paper.

Prof. M'Coy has named¶ several
Spatangi
from Victorian Tertiary rocks, which will be found in the accompanying synopsis I have appended below.

The form now brought under the notice of the Society, although closely allied to
H. Forbesii
, W. & D., at first sight, still possesses certain characters which have induced me to assign to it a new specific name
On some newly exposed Sections of the “Woolwich and Reading Beds” at Reading, Berks
Authors: Jones T. Rupert , King C. Cooper
Published: October 2009

§ I.
Introduction
.—Coley Hill, in the south-western suburb of Reading, is composed of “Woolwich and Reading Beds,” lying on Chalk. It is south of the similarly constituted Castle Hill, and divided from it by a small but deep valley, opening on the Kennet, which here runs from south to north at the eastern end of each of these little hills, and divides them from the high ground on which the Katesgrove Kiln is situated.

This last-mentioned locality was visited and described by Dr. Buckland in 1814 (“Catsgrove-Hill Brick-kilns,” Trans. Geol. Soc. vol. v. p. 278), by Mr. Rolfe about 1833 (
ibid.
ser. 2, vol. v. p. 127), by Mr. Prestwitch about 1852(Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. x. p.87), and in 1858 by the Geological Surveyors, who reported on it in 1861 and 1872 (‘Memoirs Geol. Survey, Explan. Sheet 13,’ 1861, p. 29, and vol. iv. 1872, p. 188). At the same time they surveyed Castle and Coley Hills* above mentioned (
ibid.
p. 39,
ib.
p. 197). At none of these places in 1858 were exposures of the Lowest Reading Beds and the Chalk open to view.

Of late years, however, a greater local demand for lime has led to the excavation of Chalk at Coley Hill† and since 1869 we have made repeated observations, as further sections of these Lowest Tertiary strata have been exposed at the pits on the north and south sides of the of the eastern end of the hill‡.

§ II.
The Bottom Bed
.—On the very
On an Ornithosaurian (
Doratorhynchus validus
) from the Purbeck Limestone of Langton near Swanage
Authors: Seeley Harry Govier
Published: October 2009

I
n
the Christmas of 1868, when staying at Swanage, I was so fortunate as to obtain from a quarryman a portion of a large lower jaw, in association with a long vertebra, which indicate an Ornithosaurian animal of unusual size. Neck and jaw are parts to be expected in close association; but I see no reason to believe, or doubt, that the bones pertained to the same individual, though in the absence of conflicting evidence I shall be justified in attributing both specimens to the same species. As with all my findings, these were deposited in the Woodwardian Museum of the University of Cambridge, and briefly noticed in 1869 in my ‘Index to the Aves, Ornithosauria, and Reptilia,’ pp. 89, 90, the species being named
Pterodactylus macrurus
. I now offer some further description of the remains, and propose to place them in a new genus. The jaw cannot be located in the genus
Pterodactylus
, because no evidence exists of the occurrence in England of that genus (which, so far as I can discover, has been found only in the Solenhofen slate, and is represented by animals of small size), and because no specimen of
Pterodactylus
has the compressed, elongated, many-toothed, spear-shaped jaw on which I found the genus
Doratorhynchus
.
Pterodactylus
had the teeth in the jaw directed upward, and it is distinguished by having also a tail as short as that of a rabbit or deer; while this specimen (if the vertebra is caudal, and if the tail may be
Notes on some Peculiarities in the Microscopic Structure of Felspars
Authors: Rutley Frank
Published: October 2009

A
s
the different striations presented by various sections of felspars when viewed by polarized light under the microscope are, I believe, regarded by many observers as very strong if not absolutely conclusive evidence of the crystalline system to which those felspars belong, and since determinations upon this point are matters of the utmost importance to the petrologist, I have endeavoured to ascertain, so far as I am able, the real value of some of these phenomena as tests in microscopic inquiry. In 1869 Kreischer observed a series of striæ in sections of yellowish brown pegmatolite and in a flesh-coloured felspar from Arendal, which crossed one another at right angles—the one system lying horizontally at right angles to the principal axis, whilst the other followed the direction of the basal plane; and he noticed these striations in sections taken parallel both to the basal and to the clinodigonal cleavages*.

Stelzner suggested that this appearance was due to the mineral being composed not merely of coarse lamellæ, but of an intergrowth of two systems of finer ones, one system lying parallel to the orthopinakoid, the other parallel to the clinopinakoid, which traversing one another in opposite directions were subdivided into rod-like forms†. These striations have subsequently from time to time attracted the notice of different observers; and whenever they occur in a felspar it is regarded as
orthoclase
. I doubt whether any perfectly satisfactory explanation of this phenomenon has yet been offered; and it seems to me better to study the effects
On the Lias about Radstock
Authors: Tate Ralph
Published: October 2009

A
recent
writer* states that the geological history of Somersetshire has yet to be written; if this be true (and it is not for me to decide), what a marvellous tale will have to be told! if we may judge from the deeply interesting portions of that history already made known to us by Mr. C. Moore, some of the results of whose labours, which cover many years, are embodied in two communications to this Society†, and are illustrated by a most extensive and exquisite suite of fossils deposited in the Bath Museum.

Without seeking to disparage the larger views set forth in the last-mentioned papers, yet I consider a modified interpretation of some of the phenomena is required; and calling to my aid an extended acquaintance with Liassic species and their distribution, I believe that I am in position to give a more complete account of the sequence of deposits, so far as relates to the Liassic rocks in the neighbourhood of Badstock, than has yet been done.

Wherever the Lias has been critically studied, it is found that there is a parallelism in the succession of life, most especially in regard to the species of
Ammonites
—so much so that the strata admit of a grouping after their palæontological characteristics, and further into regions of
Ammonites
, a classification as much in harmony with facts as that of the Oolitic rocks into formations.

The recognized divisions of the Lower and Middle Lias as follows:—

M
iddle
L
ias
. Zones of
Ammonites spinatus
Some Observations on the Rev. O. Fisher's Remarks on Mr. Mallet's Theory of Volcanic Energy
Authors: Mallet R.
Published: October 2009

M
r
. E. W. Hilgard, Professor of Geology in the University of Michigan, in a paper “On some points in Mallet's Theory of Vulcanicity” (Amer. Journ. Sci. vol. vii. June, 1874), has remarked that that author's experiments (“On the Nature and Origin of Volcanic Heat and Energy,” Phil. Trans. 1873) “fail to carry conviction as to the efficacy of this particular
modus operandi
in reducing large masses of solid rock to fusion—unless essentially supplemented by
friction
, and the heat produced within more or less comminuted, detrital, or igneo-plastic masses by violent pressure and deformation.”

The author's crushing-experiments had not for their object to prove how high a temperature could be by this process and its consequences attained in nature; and he has in his paper above referred to entered into no details on this point of the subject; to have done so would have too largely extended an already long paper. Moreover he considered that every physicist interested in the subject would follow out for himself the conditions and consequences of the work of crushing in our globe's crust, and discern that there was no physical impossibility in a temperature of rock-fusion resulting therefrom. The object of the author's experiments was to fix what was the annual minimum amount of heat available for vulcanicity in our entire globe upon the mechanism which he has assigned. For this purpose the crushing of cubes of rock in air was alone available: his experiments prove what total minimum amount of heat must be so
On
Prorastomus Sirenoïdes
(Ow.).—Part II
Authors: Owen R.
Published: October 2009

T
he
fact that, in the discussion on
Eotherium
*, Dr. Murie, in his able summary of the Sirenia, made no mention of
Prorastomus
, and that it has not been noticed in any of the papers on new forms, or on derivative hypotheses of the order, which have appeared since 1855, begat a misgiving that the characters adduced in our Quarterly Journal for that year† might not have been deemed conclusive of the Sirenian nature of the Jamaica fossil. I therefore submitted it to a fresh scrutiny, and, endeavouring to expose more of it, was gratified by finding that further chiselling of the matrix (a hard grey limestone) exposed so many additional characters as, in connexion with the former evidence of a more generalized structure in this, perhaps, geologically oldest known Sirenian, to lead me to deem them worthy of notice. As the fossil skull is now in almost the state of completeness of that of the
Felsinotherium Forrestii
, I accordingly submit three views, corresponding with those illustrating the instructive memoir by Capellini in the Transactions of the Institute of Bologna‡, with a conviction that they will prove acceptable materials towards the solution of the problem of the origin and course of modification and variation of the Sirenian type of the mammalian class.

The chief additions to the characters of
Prorastomus
, such as were shown by the reduced figures given in plate xv. vol. xi. of the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society (1855), are of the base and roof of the
On the Superficial Geology of the Central Region of North America
Authors: Dawson George M.
Published: October 2009

W
here
the great region of plain and prairie which occupies the whole central part of Mexico and of the United States crosses the forty-ninth parallel of latitude, which constitutes the political boundary between the last-named country and British North America, it is included in longitude between the 96th and 114th meridians. It narrows pretty rapidly northwards, chiefly by the encroachment on it of its eastern border, but continues as a great physical feature even to the shore of the Arctic ocean, where it appears to have a breadth of between 300 and 400 miles. North of the North Saskatchewan river, however, it loses to a great extent its
prairie
character, and, with the increasing moisture of the climate, becomes thickly covered with coniferous forest.

The eastern boundary of this interior continental plateau, north of latitude forty-nine, is formed by the western slope of that old crystalline nucleus of the continent, which extends north of the St. Lawrence and the great Lakes from Labrador to the Lake of the Woods, with a general east and west course, and then, turning suddenly at an angle of about 60° to its former general direction, runs with a north-north-west course to the Arctic sea. This boundary, though formed, wherever it has been carefully studied, in part of less-metamorphosed rocks generally attributed to the Huronian, may be called the Laurentian axis (see map, Pl. XXXII.)In this part of its course it is not of the nature of a mountain-range. It probably does not attain a
On the Structure of the Skull of
Rhizodus
Authors: Miall L. C.
Published: October 2009

M
uch
yet remains to be known of the carboniferous genus
Rhizodus
, of which only the teeth, scales, pectoral arch, jugular plates and mandible have hitherto been identified.

A large and tolerably perfect skull in the Woodwardian Museum at Cambridge affords an opportunity of a more extended notice than has hitherto been possible. The fossil is derived from coal-shale at Gilmerton, near Edinburgh. The skull itself is largely infiltrated with carbonate of iron. In its present slightly disturbed state it measures about 10 inches by 8 inches. The left orbit and the left nasal foramen are capable of identification. Two teeth are seen. They present the double cutting-edge and the folded base characteristic of the genus
Rhizodus
, and differ in no respect from the teeth of
R. Hibberti
, Ag. The rami of the mandible have been pressed upwards, so as to conceal the maxillary region. The exposed surface of all the bones is covered with a well-defined, coarsely granular sculpture, consisting of ridges and tubercles separated by grooves and pits. Many fractures are apparent; and the original surface is in some places removed; so that the delineation of the sutures is often a matter of difficulty. The membrane bones which roof-in the skulls of fishes are so extremely variable, especially in the lateral and posterior tracts, that their homology is often most obscure. In this notice the nomenclature of Prof. Huxley's essay on the Systematic Arrangement of the Fishes of the Devonian Epoch* has been employed.

The fore part of the
Notes on Haytor Iron-mine
Authors: Le Neve Foster Clement
Published: October 2009

I
t
is nearly fifty years since this mine first attracted the attention of mineralogists by the occurrence of haytorite (chalcedony pseudomorphous after datholite). Several papers on the mineral were contributed to the Philosophical Magazine*; and an account of the mine was given by Mr. J. T. Kingston†. His description deals with the beds seen in an open work, and is so full and clear that there would be little left to add were it not for the fact that a new adit-level has intersected the beds and exposed a new section. There are certain points in this section which I think are worthy of being recorded; besides which it is well to call attention to the fact that there is now a good opportunity of studying the mode of occurrence of a fine deposit of magnetite without the necessity of making a journey to Norway or Sweden.

Haytor Mine is situated on the eastern borders of Dartmoor, about three quarters of a mile from the pile of granite rocks from which it derives its name. The iron-ore occurs in the form of thick beds of magnetite interstratified with altered shales and sandstones of Carboniferous age. Near the iron-ore the rock becomes highly charged with hornblende, and is sometimes apparently entirely made up of actinolite. Garnets, too, occur in great abundance in some places; and I also found a thin layer containing iron pyrites and what appears to be axinite.

The secton seen near the end of the adit-level is shown
Descriptions of the Graptolites of the Arenig and Llandeilo Rocks of St. David's
Authors: Hopkinson John , Lapworth Charles
Published: October 2009

I
n
the neighbourhood of St. David's, the Arenig rocks, described by Mr. Hicks in his paper read at the last meeting of the Geological Society*, are the earliest in which Graptolites are known to occur; and yet, when once they appear, so diversified are their forms that these Pembrokeshire rocks are only equalled, in the number and variety of the genera they contain, by the Canadian Graptolite-bearing rocks of equivalent age known as the Quebec Group. In more ancient deposits two species only, belonging to one of the two great sections into which these fossils are divided, have hitherto been detected, viz.
Dictyograptus (Dictyonema) socialis
, Salter, and
Dendrograptus Hallianus
, Prout. The former occurring in the lower portion of the Tremadoc rocks of North Wales, and the latter in the equivalent strata (the Potsdam Sandstone of America), it is impossible to say which genus is the earlier, or whether the group is first represented in Britain or in America.

Before the discovery, in 1872, of the extensive series of Graptolites which characterize the Lower Arenig rocks of Ramsey Island, the Skiddaw Slates of Cumberland were supposed to be our earliest Graptolite-bearing rocks; but it is now known that the lowest rocks of the Arenig Group exposed in the vicinity of St. David's, in which Graptolites abound, are of greater age than any part of the Skiddaw Slates yet described; and it is highly probable that they are also older even than the lowest beds of the Quebec Group known to contain
A Microscopical Study of some Huronian Clay-slates
Authors: Wichmann Arthur
Published: October 2009

Greater attention has lately been paid to the microscopical study of clay-slates and slate-clays, giving rise to a number of researches the results of which may be found in the classical paper of Zirkel. The principal object of these investigations has been to discuss the origin and formation of the crystalline constituents contained in clay-slates, and they have chiefly extended from Silurian and Devonian to rocks of the recent period. Such clay-slates as belong to Archæan districts might also claim the privilege of a certain interest, especially as the presence of these crystalline constituents has been used to solve geological problems. The clay-slates which I have examined occur in the Huronian region of Lake Superior. The respective rocks are in the collection of Major T. B. Brooks, Marquette, Michigan, who placed them at my disposal, chiefly for the sake of microscopical examination.

Hermann Credner in his paper, “Die vorsilurischen Gebilde der ‘Oberen Halbinsel’ von Michigan, in Nord-Amerika,” gives us a partial description of the geological appearance of these rocks. Further information may be obtained from the Geological Survey of Michigan, to which we shall refer hereafter.