bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Quartz-Eyed-Gneiss from Mesopotamia
Authors: Reusch Hans
Published: May 2009

The great winged man-lions from Mesopotamia are some of the most conspicuous and most wonderful objects in the British Museum. When visiting that museum last September I was greatly interested as a geologist in examining the kind of rock of which they are composed. This rock is, I suppose, usually taken to be a granite, but it is not an igneous rock. On the contrary, it is of sedimentary origin, a felspathic sandstone (arkose or sparagmite) of very coarse grain, almost bordering on a conglomerate. In the most characteristic variety, from the palace of Sargon, the chief constituentis white quartz in lumps varying in size between that of a hazel-nut and an apple (see Fig. 1). These are embedded in a cement of coarse-grained sparagmite. A notable peculiarity is thatthe fragments of quartz have very irregular contours, giving the appearance of an invasion of the larger fragments by the groundmass. In other varieties (Palace of Assurbanipal) the fragments of quartz are smaller and may in some cases show no distinction from the quartz-grains of the groundmass.
I.—The Gulf of Suez
Authors: Ball John
Published: May 2009

In a previous paper published in this Magazine, I gave reasons for the belief that neither the Gulf of Suez nor the valley of the Nile owes its origin to trough-faulting, as was at that time generally supposed. The skeleton of the argument was as follows:—

1. Extensive faulting at the faces of the scarps of the Nile Valley and Gulf of Suez cannot be held to be evidence of trough-faulting, since the same can be observed along the scarps of the Wadi Araba, the structure of whose floor shows it to be an eroded anticline, and the faults along its scarp-faces to be merely huge landslips.

2. The faulting observable immediately along the coast of the Gulf of Suez is of an exactly similar nature to that above mentioned, and along part at least of the gulf the strata dip away from the sea on the opposite coasts, leading to the inference that the Gulf of Suez is, like the Wadi Araba, an eroded anticline.

3. If it be granted that the Gulf of Suez is not a trough-fault, the argument against the Nile Valley being a trough-fault is strengthened, the support of parallelism being removed.
III.—Fissureless Volcanoes
Authors: Reck Hans
Published: May 2009

As I could not give in this paper anything like a full account of my observations and the results of my studies concerning this question made during an expedition through Iceland in the summer of 1908, I must refer the reader to my special papers on this subject. Everyone will find there the reasons which have induced me first to suppose the independence of the so-called ‘Schild’ volcanoes in Iceland of pre-existing fissures. This idea is confirmed by collecting proof after proof on the subject in the field during my researches. Naturally I could not give all the details in a first short preliminary communication, a fact which, I am sorry to say, has caused Professor Schwarz to doubt the correctness of part of my observations and conclusions. I may therefore be allowed to discuss shortly the two main objections of Professor Schwarz to my theory.
I.—On a Preglacial Shoreline in the Western Isles of Scotland
Authors: Wright W. B.
Published: May 2009

The preglacial platform of marine erosion discussed in the following pages was first discovered in the Island of Colonsay in the course of the geological survey of that island carried out in the summer of 1907, and the information then acquired is communicated with the permission of the Director of the Survey. The subsequent tracing of the shoreline in the adjoining islands was effected with the aid of a Government grant for scientific research in the gift of the Royal Society of London. For clearness and convenience of reference the subject will be treated under the following heads:—

I. Introductory remarks indicating the aims of the investigation.

II. Colonsay and Oronsay—description of the preglacial platform.

III. Islay.

IV. Mull and Iona.

V. The Treshnish Islands.

VI. Conclusion, setting forth the present state of the subject.
III.—Sedgwick Museum Notes. New Crustacea from the Lower Greensand of the Isle of Wight
Authors: Reed F. R. Cowper
Published: May 2009

Amongst the large series of specimens of Meyeria recently obtained by the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge, from the Lower Greensand of Atherfield, Isle of Wight, two new and strange forms, obviously referable to another genus, were detected by me in looking over the material. Their interest consists not only in belonging to new species but in representing the genus Thenops, of which the best known and only British species, so far described, is Th. scyllariformis, Bell, from the London Clay. There is one imperfect specimen in the British Museum from the Speeton Clay attributed (with a query) to Thenops, but no other British representative from the Cretaceous appears to have been found.
II.—Notes on new or imperfectly known Chalk Polyzoa
Authors: Brydone R. M.
Published: May 2009

Zoarium free, unilaminate, the back divided by somewhat wavy, shallow, slightly diverging furrows into long narrow strips which correspond with the lines of zoœeia; these strips are occasionally crossed by very shallow depressions or furrows corresponding to the boundaries of individual zoœcia.
III.—On Pleurocaris, a new Crustacean from the English Coal-measures
Authors: Calman W. T.
Published: May 2009

Through the kindness of Mr. Walter Egginton I have recently had an opportunity of studying an interesting series of Crustacea from the Coal - measures of Coseley, near Dudley. Most of the specimens can be referred, with more or less probability, to the division Syncarida, which includes the living Anaspides and its allics, and among them are some which I regard as representing a new genus. Although the fossils, which are contained in nodules of clayironstone, often show very minute details of structure in a beautifully perfect state, it is just those features most important from a morphological point of view that are most frequently obscured. There are many essential points that cannot be determined from the material at my disposal, and the conclusions drawn as to the systematic affinities of the genus must therefore be regarded as to some extent provisional.
IV.—A New Pleistocene Fauna from Tokyo, with a General Statement on the Pleistocene Deposits of Tokyo, Japan
Authors: Yabe H.
Published: May 2009

Just before my departure from Tokyo to Europe, in 1908, my attention was called, by the kindness of MR. Gordon Yamakawa, to a fossil fauna from a cutting along the Yamanote line of the circum-Tokyo railway, near the Tabata station. It was seven years ago, when the railway line was still in process of construction, that Mr. Yamakawa formed a collection of fossils, consisting exclusively of molluscan remains. Of special interest is the abundant occurrence of Tellina venulosa, Schrenk, in the shell-sand, and as its presence is really of exceptional interest in the environs of Tokyo we visited the place together soon afterwards. The present brief account is contributed partly for the purpose of recording the observations of this diligent young student of fossils, whose lamentable and too early death took place last autumn, during my absence in Europe, and partly with the intention of interesting others in the further study of the Pleistocene and Pliocene geology of Tokyo, which though apparently quite simple, contains many interesting and unsettled geological questions.
I. Description of some Remains of an Air-breathing Vertebrate (Anthrakerpeton crassosteum, Ow.) from the Coal-shale of Glamorganshire
Authors: Owen
Published: May 2009

Since the discovery of remains of air-breathing Vertebrates in the Coal-shales of Carluke,* several other evidences of a like grade of organization have been obtained from scotch Carboniferous deposits; but I had not, until the present year, seen any such fossils from English or Welsh formations of the same antiquity. The spencimens figured in Plate I., however, give evidence of the fact. They were discovered by John Edward Lee, Esq., F.G.S., in the much disturbed coal-beds at Llantrissent. Glamorganshire, which are referable to the lower part of the ‘Middle,’ if not to the upper part of the ‘Lower’ Coalmeasures.
II.—Additional Note on the Correlation of the Rocks associated with the Devonian Limestones of the Hindu Khoosh
Authors: McMahon C. A.
Published: May 2009

Since the publication of the joint paper by Mr. W. H. Hudleston and myself on “Fossils from the Hindu Khoosh,” in which the Devonian age of well-preserved fossils found in the limestone member of a series in Chitral was demonstrated, my attention has been called by Mr. T. H. Holland to the fact that the series in Chitral agrees very closely with the rocks known to the Geological Survey of India as the infra-Trias, and described, for the last time, in Hazara by Mr. C. S. Middlemiss.

The Chitral series consists of three principal formations:— (1) A lower bed of conglomerate with rounded to subangular pebbles, varying greatly in size up to 3¼ inches in diameter, lying in an indurated, fine-grained matrix of slaty grit or arenaceous mudstone. The pebbles consist of limestone, slates, sandstones, and quartzites, with rounded, white quartz-pebbles, which recall the ‘eggs’ of the Blaini conglomerate of the Simla area. (2) A middle band described by my son, who made a hurried visit to the place, as red sandstone; and (3) an upper bed of grey, dark-blue, and creamcoloured fossiliferous limestone.

In Hazara the system of rocks known to the Geological Survey as the infra-Trias, on account of its position unconformably below the Trias, consists in the same way of a lower conglomerate, a middle sandstone series, and an upper limestone formation. These rocks, originally referred to by Wynne and Waagen, were described in fuller detail by Middlemiss in 1896.

According to Middlemiss, the conglomerate is composed of sub-angular pebbles of slates and quartzites, usually of about the size of a cricket ball, but varying from mere pebbles to larger lumps, and set in a fine purple sandy clay or shale.
IV.—On the Constitution, Origin and Dehydration of Laterite
Authors: Holland T. H.
Published: May 2009

The objects of this note are three: (1) to call attention to the essential chemical similarity between laterite and bauxite; (2) to offer a theory for the formation of laterite in the moist tropics; (3) to suggest an explanation for its spontaneous dehydration.

(1) Laterite has generally been referred to as a ferruginous clay; but if the term clay is restricted to substances having a basis of hydrous silicate of alumina, this definition is incorrect. The alumina in laterite exists, as it does in bauxite, in the form, of hydrous oxides. Kaolin must thus be removed finally from the list of weathering products; it is formed generally, perhaps exclusively, by the action of subterranean vapours on aluminous silicates. This conclusion necessitates a re-examination of many so-called argillaceous substances; many doubtless include the kaolin already existing in the kaolinized aluminous silicates before they are exposed to the weather. But it is probable that some of the red clays of past geological ages, formed under subaerial conditions, contain free hydrous oxides of alumina; and for those that are shown to contain hydrous silicate of alumina, it would be well to test the possibility of a secondary reunion of aluminic hydrate and free silicic acid.

(2) To account for the fact that an aluminous silicate undergoes a more complete disintegration under tropical conditions than under the deep-seated and presumably high-temperature conditions of kaolinization, the writer suggests that laterite is due to the agency of lowly organisms, possibly akin to the so-called nitrifying bacteria.
VII.—On Two Sections of the Rhætic Rocks in Worcestershire
Authors: Richardson L.
Published: May 2009

A Description of two Rhætic sections forms the subject of this communication. In a county where but one section has been described this is a considerable addition to our knowledge of the series. It is remarkable that the section at Crowle has not been previously noticed; it may be easily examined, and not like the only recorded section in the railway-cutting at Dunhampstead, which is necessarily difficult to obtain access to. The Crowle section is situated at the junction of the road from Oddingley with that from the house marked as “Frisland” on the Geological Survey map. The beds are affected by a fault having a downthrow of about 14 feet.
I.—Woodwardian Museum Notes: Brachymetopus Strzeleckii, McCoy, 1847
Authors: Reed F. R. Cowper
Published: May 2009

The genus Brachymetopus was founded by McCoy in 1847, and the generic characters were drawn from the Australian species Br. Strzeleckii, McCoy, which was at the same time described. The specific characters of this form were very briefly given, the leading features having been mentioned in the diagnosis of the genus. Dr. Henry Woodward in 1884 gave a new summary of the generic characters differing somewhat from that originally furnished by McCoy, being modified in such a way as to include the European or British species, Br. ouralicus, De Vern., Br. Maccoyi, Portl., Br. discors, McCoy, and Br. hibernicus, Woodw. The original type-specimens of Br. Strzeleckii used by McCoy (op. cit.) in drawing up the description of the genus, and figured by him at the same time, are in the Woodwardian Museum, to which they were presented in the year 1844 by the Rev. W. B. Clarke. They come from the Carboniferous Shale of Dunvegan, New South Wales. The specimens comprise three complete head-shields, two of which are hollow impressions and one a cast, and portions of three or four others; there are also three casts of complete pygidia, one perfect impression, and fragments of two others. This material demands a fuller description of the specific characters than McCoy furnished, particularly as this type-form of Brachymetopus shows features differing in several respects from those of the better known European species ascribed to the same genus. McCoy's description (op. cit.) of the species was as follows:—

“Glabella widest at the base, with one very minute, obscurely marked, cephalothoracic furrow at the base on each side; all the segments of the pygidium with an irregularly tuberculated ridge along the middle; lateral segments forming large tubercles where they join the thickened limb, opposite each of which is a short slender spine projecting from the margin”.
VI.—On A Fault at the Foot of Tainton Downs
Authors: Walfobd Edwin A.
Published: May 2009

To the north of Tainton, near Burford, Oxon, the 500 O.D. contourline passes through the old quarry grounds where the wellknown Great Oolite freestone may be seen dipping at a high angle to the north-east. The bank falls 100 feet to the brook, 400 yards distant, where culvert and pipe trenches for new field waterworks have exposed what may be a continuation of a fault marked on the one-inch geological map of the Ordnance Survey as following the course of Coombe Brook, a mile to the north.
I.—Notes On Specimens Collected By Professor Collie, F.R.S., in the Canadian Rocky Mountains
Authors: Bonnet T. G.
Published: May 2009

The most interesting series of specimens in this collection comes from Desolation Valley glacier, on the southern side of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and east of the watershed. These are: (1) A roughly pentagonal slab, about 9½″ by 7″ and from ¾″ to 1″ thick, of a rather fine-grained quartzite, with some minute glittering crystals, but giving little or no effervescence with cold HCl. The surface is crowded with wavy cylinders, generally slightly flattened, varying in diameter from about ·55″ to ·15″ (but commonly about ·55″).
VII.—On Striated Pebbles from the Triassic Conglomerate near Portskewet, Monmouth
Authors: Sollas W. J.
Published: May 2009

During a recent visit to the tunnel now in course of construction beneath the Severn, I was taken by my friend Mr. Evan Jones, of University College, to examine a heap of Triassic pebbles and conglomerate, which had been exploited from the bottom of one of the shafts of the tunnel on the Portskewet side of the river. My attention was at once arrested by the striated and polished surfaces presented by many of the pebbles, and the results of the short examination I was able to make of them are embodied in the following note.
V.—“ Prehistoric Europe ”—Submerged Forests and Forest-Beds, Cornwall
Authors: Ussher W. A. E.
Published: May 2009

In Mr. Geikie's admirable work on “Prehistoric Europe,” in the chapter “On British Post-Glacial and Recent Deposits,” he alludes more than once in very flattering terms to my share in elucidating Cornish Post-Tertiary Geology, at the same time, however, questioning certain conclusions attributed to me with reference to the general correlation of the Forest-beds in stream-sections, i.e. those resting on the tin ground, with the Forests “exposed upon the present foreshore.”
II.—Sketch of the Geology of British Columbia
Authors: Dawson George M.
Published: May 2009

Twenty years ago the region now included in the Province of British Columbia was—with the exception of the coast-line— little known geographically, and quite unknown geologically. From the days of Cook and Vancouver, and the old territorial disputes with the Spaniards, this part of the west coast of North America attracted little attention till the discovery of gold in 1858. As among the first in the field geologically may be mentioned Dr. Hector and Messrs. H. Bauerman and G. Gibbs. The observations of these gentlemen, though bringing to light many facts of interest, were confined to a comparatively small part of the area of the province, and it was not till the inclusion of British Columbia in the Dominion of Canada in 1871 that the systematic operations of the Geological Survey of Canada were extended to this region. Since this date a number of reports treating of the geology of British Columbia have been published, and on these, together with a personal knowledge of the country, obtained during five seasons' work in it in connexion with the Survey, I shall chiefly depend in giving a brief account of the main geological features so far developed.
IV.—On the Evolution of the Apical System in the Holectypoida
Authors: Hawkins Herbert L.
Published: May 2009

In two previous papers in this Magazine (Hawkins, 1910 and 1911) I have dealt with some features in the comparative anatomy of the ambulacral and interambulacral areas of the Holectypoida. The only other structure of the test for a comparative study of which sufficient material is available is the apical system. The present paper deals with this structure. I intend to summarize the results of my researches in a scheme for the classification and evolution of the group in a paper already partly prepared.
I.—Some Account of the Geological Work of the late Professor A. E. Törnebohm
Authors: Högbom A. G.
Published: May 2009

As already mentioned in this Magazine (September, 1911), the Swedish geologist, Professor Alfred Elis Törnebohm, died on April 21, 1911, at the age of 72.
II.—Outlines of Oilfield Geology
Authors: Bosworth T. O.
Published: May 2009

8. Arenaceous Strata unconformable on an Oil-generating Formation.—Occasionally a formation, though a parent source of petroleum, does not contain porous rocks suitable for oil accumulation. But a second formation resting unconformably upon the first may be admirably situated for receiving and storing the oil, for this second formation probably contains the necessary sandstones, and also all the unconformable strata are likely to be more or less arpaeeous where they abut against the plane of unconformity, thus facilitating the transfer of the oil from the rocks below (Fig. 9). Cases of this kind occur in California in the Coalinga Oilfield, where oil is obtained from sandstones in the Miocene which lies unconformably over the Eocene; also in Roumania, where the Meotic formation transgresses over the Saliferous.
II.—The Classification of the Rocks of the Western Australian Goldfields
Authors: Thomson J. Allan
Published: May 2009

Thanks to the descriptions published by visiting mining engineers and the more detailed work of the Geological Survey of the State, the general geological features of those parts of Western Australia in which mining is carried on are now well known. A surprising degree of uniformity of geological structure and mode of gold occurrence is revealed over an extent of country unparalleled elsewhere in the world. And yet it is safe to assume that to the casual reader who has not visited the country the above publications present little else than a mass of bewildering detail.

“For reasons which can be readily understood, geological inquiry in Western Australia has up to the present consisted chiefly of a series of unconnected observations to the co-ordination of which we must look to the future.”
IV.—The Birth of an Island near the Coast of Trinidad
Authors: Bosworth T. O
Published: May 2009

As some erroneous statements have appeared in the Press about this interesting event, it seems advisable that the true facts should be placed on record.
V.—On the Recognition of Two Stages in the Upper Chalk
Authors: Jukes-Browne A. J.
Published: May 2009

When writing a general account of the Upper Chalk of England for vol. iii of the Cretaceous Rocks of Britain (Mem. Geol. Survey, 1904), I stated the belief of Mr. W. Hill and myself that the British Tipper Chalk comprised more than one division of the value of a stage. We grouped the zones then recognized into two divisions, pointing out that the lower zones were essentially the Chalk with Micrasters and the upper zones the Chalk with Belemnites; but we did not systematically adopt these divisions as stages with definite names.
IV.—On the Recognition of Two Stages in the Upper Chalk
Authors: Jukes-Browne A. J.
Published: May 2009

The next step is to see if the evidence of the Echinodermata coincides with and confirms that of the Cephalopoda. The Echinoderms will be tabulated in the same way as the Cephalopoda, beginning with those of Germany. The following table has been compiled from several sources, and may not be quite complete as regards the irregular forms, though it is practically so for the Regulares, this part being taken from Schlüter's monograph on that order:—

From this table it will be seen that there are two different Echinoderm faunas in Germany, just as there are two different Cephalopodan faunas, only two species passing from the lower three to the two highest zones. There is not, however, such a clearly marked line of separation; the fauna of the S. binodosus zone seems from the tabulated species to be linked as closely with the higher as with the lower zones, for it contains sixteen species, of which number ten appear to be restricted to the zone and three range both up and down, while one passes downward only and two range upward. This result, however, is deceptive, because the Emscher is so poor in Echinoderms that only six species have been recorded from it, and only eight have been found in the Marsupites zone.
II.—Memorial to Henry Alleyne Nicholson, M.D., D.Sc., F.R.S.
Authors: H. W.
Published: May 2009

The recently erected Memorial to the late Professor Henry Alleyne Nicholson, F.R.S., of Aberdeen, raised by subscription among his friends, deserves a record in the pages of this journal, to which he was for many years a frequent contributor (see Obituary of Nicholson, GEOL. MAG., 1899, pp. 138–144, with a portrait, Plate IV).

Professor Charles Lapworth, LL.D., F.R.S., of the University of Birmingham; Mr. John E. Marr, M.A., F.R.S., St. John's College, Cambridge; Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., late of the British Museum (Nat. Hist.); and Professor J. Arthur Thomson, M. A., who succeeded Nicholson as Eegius Professor of Natural History in the University of Aberdeen, with very many others, decided to commemorate Nicholson's lifework by some simple yet permanent record; and after consultation with the University authorities it was decided that the memorial should take the form of a Tablet similar to that erected in Aberdeen to the memory of Macgillivray.

The preparation of a design was entrusted to Miss Alice B. Woodward, and the execution to the well-known artists in metal, Messrs. Omar Ramsden & Alwyn C. E. Carr, of Albert Studios, Albert Bridge Road, London, 8.W.

The Nicholson Memorial Tablet (which measures 3 feet 8 inches by 2 feet 11 inches) is executed in hand-beaten and repoussé brass, mounted upon a stout framing of oak, and is a good example of the effort now being made to improve the artistic quality of such work, and render it more worthy of its object than the ordinary hurried modern machine-produced metal-work.
III.—New Carnivoka from the Middle Miocene of La Grive-Saint-Alban, Isère, France
Authors: Major C. I. Forsyth
Published: May 2009

This is the Progenetta incerta of Depéret, which requires a new name, as it is far from identical with the Mustela incerta, Lartet, from Sansan, with which Depéret identified his specimens from La Grive.
IV.—The Age of Pybenban Granite
Authors: Stuart-Menteath P. W. , Mines R. S.
Published: May 2009

An easy walk from Lourdes through Lésignan, Paréac, Orincles, Leyrisse, and Bénac, to the return station of Ossun, traverses the entire outcrop of the Upper Cretaceous Flysch, lying between the abrupt uprise of the Cenomanien limestone at Lourdes and the Danien that skirts the Tertiary plain towards Tarbes. The age of this Flysch is admitted; every objection regarding it has been successively abandoned; and its appearance, composition, and characteristic fucoids are as typical at Lourdes as at any point within fifty miles on either side. By insensible gradations it passes repeatedly from fresh marly shale with characteristic fucoids into micaceous schists that have been classed as Cambrian. Portions of a sandy character acquire vivid colouring and pass insensibly into a rock indistinguishable from decomposed granulite, while preserving their original bedding. Such changes occur on either side, or on the prolongation, of extensive lenticular intrusions of solid granite, which cross the indicated route between Paréac and Orincles and between Orincles, Visker, and Bénac.
IV.—On the Discovery of Remains of Iguanodon Mantelli in the Wealden Beds of Brighstone Bay, Isle of Wight
Authors: Hooley Reginald W.
Published: May 2009

The Iguanodon, as is well known, was discovered by Mantell, who in 1825 named it from odd teeth which had a resemblance to the teeth of the recent Iguana. Many isolated teeth and bores were subsequently found in the Wealden and Lower Greensand beds to which the names of I. anglicum (F. Holl, 1829) and I. mantelli (H. yon Meyer, 1832) were given. It was not, however, until 1851, when Owen described an associated group of bones on a slab of sandstone from the Kentish Hag (Hythe Beds, Lower Greensand) of Maidstone, Kent, which had been discovered by W. H. Bensted in 1834, that the genus was to any extent known. This specimen has become the type of I. mantelli. In 1878 occurred the historic discovery of the skeletons of a number of Iguanodonsin the Wealden beds of Bernissart, near Mons, Belgium.
I.—Notes on British Dinosaurs. Part V: Craterosaurus (Seeley).
Authors: Nopcsa Baron Francis
Published: May 2009

In the course of my researches among British Dinosaurs the kindness of Dr. J. E. Marr and Professor T. McKenny Hughes has enabled me to investigate closely the fragmentary bone which Professor Seeley described in 1874 under the new generic name of Craterosaurus. Although the systematic position of the specimen had remained problematical from the day of its discovery, nevertheless the hope was entertained that in consequence of our present more ample knowledge of Dinosaurs and fossil reptiles in general, it might now be possible to determine the exact nature of this apparently most interesting fossil. The result was rather unexpected, for it became clear that what Seeley supposed to be the base of a cranium was nothing else than the neural arch of a dorsal vertebra showing the greatest resemblance to the corresponding element in Stegosaurus.
III.—Palæontology and Bernard's Biological Theories
Authors: Lang W. D.
Published: May 2009

Palæontology is the biology of fossils. The palæontologist, therefore, is bound to consider modern biological views in order that he may test them in the light of his science. It is intended here to apply to one class of fossils the fundamental principles upheld in a remarkable work by the late H. M. Bernard, entitledSome Neglected Factors in Evolution, really two books under one cover, the first dealing with the ultimate structure of protoplasm and the second with a method of organic evolution. The principles underlying the first suggest the methods of the second; so that in approaching the second a thorough knowledge of the first is needful. Before applying it let us examine the theory itself.
III.—The Culm-measures of the Exeter District
Authors: Arber E. A. Newell
Published: May 2009

In the interesting paper, by Mr. F. G. Collins, on the so-called Culm-measures of the Exeter district, which has recently appeared in the last number of the Quarterly Journal, there are to be found certain conclusions which can hardly pass unchallenged. When this paper was read at the Geological Society, I happened to be in the extreme west of Ireland, and thus, unfortunately, I was unable to be present at that meeting or to take part in the discussion. In fact, it was not until my return to Cambridge in September that I knew anything of the substance of the paper, beyond the very small contribution on the fossil plants which I wrote for it some time ago.
IV.—On some Arthropod Remains from the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Coal-Field
Authors: Moysey Lewis
Published: May 2009

As several rare and interesting fossils from this coal-field have been described in this Magazine and elsewhere, it seems advisable to place on record several other animal remains from the same district which, owing to their minuteness, or to the fact that they are fragmentary, are not worthy of a separate and detailed description, in the hope that their publication may inspire geologists to obtain better and more perfect examples from other localities.
V.—What is Laterite?
Authors: Fermor L. Leigh
Published: May 2009

Detrital Laterite or Lateritite.—Many of the so-called low-level laterites and some of the high-level laterites consist of admixtures of detritus from the various varieties of laterite already mentioned, with quartz and argillaceous detritus from granites and gneisses, the whole cemented together by the action of water on the lateritic constituents of the mixture. For such rocks the name detrital laterite is available, and could be used in all cases in which the reconstructed rock contained, say, at least 40 per cent of lateritic constituents. Theoretically, detrital laterites may contain, as an upper limit, 100 per cent of lateritic constituents, corresponding to the case of a detrital rock composed entirely of fragments of a pure laterite, without admixture of extraneous constituents. From the above it will be seen that I would allow greater elasticity in using the term laterite for the detrital forms than for those formed in situ (see next paragraph), provided the adjective detrital be carefully prefixed; for this word seems to me to imply the great variability of composition that must characterize these secondary laterites. But if it were considered desirable to avoid the use of the word laterite altogether in this connexion, the obvious term to use instead would seem to be lateritite, implying a rock the individual constituents of which are pieces of laterite. This term would be of great utility, and could be applied to all detrital and reconstructed lateritic rocks. The word is put forward here merely as a suggestion, but if geologists were to distinguish, in writing, between laterite, lateritoid, and lateritite, great clarity could be introduced into the literature of these substances.
I.—Notes on some Palæozoic Bivalved Entomostraca
Authors: Jones T. Rupert
Published: May 2009

The specimen here figured is an internal cast of a right valve, occurring in the well-known, reddish, fossiliferous, Palæozoic quartzite of the Triassic pebble-bed at Budleigh-Salterton, in Devonshire; and it resembles some forms of Cypridina brevimentum, J. and K. (“ Monogr. Carbonif. Entom.” Pal. Soc. 1874, p. 15, pl. 5, figs. 15–19), in general aspect; and also in some respects Polycope simplex, J. and K. (op. cit. p. 54, pl. 2, fig. 12). It was detected by the late Mr. J. W. Salter (in 1865?) during his enthusiastic study of that interesting conglomerate.
I.—Note on Some Gasteropoda from the Portland Rocks of the Vale of Wardour and of Bucks
Authors: Hudleston Wilfrid H.
Published: May 2009

For many years English palæontologists were content with the limited number of Portlandian Gasteropoda described by Sowerby—principally from internal casts—in Fitton's celebrated paper on the “Strata below the Chalk.” Other authors have described a stray species here and there: still the list was scanty, and not only scanty but indefinite; and many ingenious guesses have been hazarded as to the true affinities of such species as Buccinurn angulatum, and Buccinum naticoides.
III.—The Cause of the Mammoth's Extinction
Authors: Howorth Henry H.
Published: May 2009

In a previous paper we showed that the extinction of the Mammoth was sudden, and was accompanied by a sudden change of climate throughout Northern Siberia, which enabled its soft parts to be preserved intact. We did not mean that the change of climate was the cause of the Mammoth's extinction. This it clearly was not, for this change on a large and marked scale was apparently confined to Siberia, while the Mammoth disappeared from a much wider area, where this climatic revolution could not have been so fatal. A sudden change of climate could not account for a catena of Mammoth carcases found buried several feet underground from the Obi to Behrings Straits. If they had been killed by the cold merely, their bodies would have lain on the surface where they fell and become long ago the prey of the predatory animals. Nor again can we, with such a postulate merely, account for the remains occurring in many cases in hecatombs, and in many cases also with a mixture of various species of animals. The cold would hardly have destroyed the bears and hyænas which are found linked in a common fate with the Mammoths and Rhinoceroses. Nor, as we shall see, would a mere change of climate, however severe, account for other factors in the problem. The change of climate accounts perfectly for the preservation of the carcases, which preservation again necessitates the conclusion that that change was a sudden or very rapid one; but we have clearly still to seek the real cause of the disappearance of the animals of which the change of climate was a concurrent effect.
I.—The British Fossil Shrews
Authors: Hinton Martin A. C.
Published: May 2009

Remains of Shrews have long been known to occur in the Norfolk ‘Forest Bed’, and have been discovered in several British Pleistocene deposits. Hitherto they have been referred to one or other of the three species at present inhabiting this country, but having had occasion lately to examine nearly all the available material, comprising representative series of specimens from each of the known horizons, I find that it is not until we reach the latest Pleistocene deposits that we meet with, remains of species indistinguishable, with the material before us, from the living British forms.
II.—The Unconformable Relationship of the Lower Tertiaries and Upper Cretaceous of New Zealand
Authors: Park James
Published: May 2009

With the question of conformity or unconformity between the Lower Tertiary and Upper Cretaceous, there is associated a problem of great economic importance to New Zealand. The subject involves something more than a mere academic discussion. If conformity exists, then we have only one coal-bearing formation; but if unconformity, then we have two. I believe that both the stratigraphical and palæontological evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of the latter.
III.—Upper Cretaceous Terebelloids from England
Authors: Bather F. A.
Published: May 2009

The tubes formed of fish-debris, found throughout the Chalk of England, described by Mantell (1822) as Murœna(?) lewesiensis, referred by L. Agassiz (1844) to Dercetis elongatus, and placed among Annelida Tubicola as Terebella lewesiensis by William Davies (1879), are here described with more precise detail and retained in the position assigned to them by Davies. A diagnosis is provided and a holotype selected.

A specimen from the Gault, of similar nature but larger, is made the type of a new species, ‘Terebella’ lutensis (Fig. 6).

Similar tubes from the Cenomanian, built of Conifer debris and Echinoderm debris, are described, and the question whether these differences of composition indicate a difference of species is discussed, but left open for the evidence of further material. Such tubes may for the present be known as ‘Terebella’ cf. lewesiensis (Figs. 7, 8).

Tubes without extraneous building material and with a cancellar ornament are also found in the Cretaceous rocks of England, and some were referred to Terebella lewesiensis by Davies. All those from the Chalk are here separated as ‘Terebella’ cancellata, n.sp. (Figs. 3–5).

Two tubes made of mud bricks are discussed. One, apparently of Lower Cenomanian age, is referred to the rather doubtful genus Keckia (Fig. 1). The other, from the Gault, is referred to Granularia (Fig. 2). Both these genera are held to be of Annelid origin.
II.—The Physical History of the Great Pleistocene Lake or Portugal
Authors: Hull Edward
Published: May 2009

A Recent visit to Portugal has given me an opportunity of seeing the geological features of the neighbourhood of Lisbon and the Lower Tagus; and though of a somewhat cursory nature I venture to bring them before the Society, being supplemented by reference to the investigations of previous observers, and a study of the excellent geological maps which are in the library of this Society. I make no pretension to be an original explorer, but I hope to be able to show that there is a very interesting physical history, not hitherto written so far as I am able to discover, bringing down the account of the changes which have taken place from the Cretaceous period to the Recent, or Quaternary, epoch.
VI.—Further Notes on the Stratigraphy and Fauna of the Trimmingham Chalk
Authors: Brydone R. M.
Published: May 2009

The very uniform trend of all these ridges will have been noted, but my previous remarks on the general strike of the foreshore chalk require considerable modification. The whole of the chalk so far exposed may be divided into four sections. Each of these comprises an exposure in or close to the cliff of what appears to be the highest part of a ridge running down the beach in a direction from 10° to 30° south of east (and sinking as it goes) to about the half-tide level. Here three of them (the exception being the brickfield chalk) turn and run for some way roughly parallel to the shoreline, and then resume their original direction and run out to sea. The brickfield chalk only varies from this plan by running out to sea with practically no change of direction on the way. Except where a ridge is running up to the cliff, the substratum of the beach is invariably glacial clay down to about half-tide level. Here it is either banked against what appear to be vertical faces of chalk or else (between the foreshore exposures.) disappears under the sand. It has never been seen to run out to sea, and every time a fresh bit of the foreshore below the half-tide level is cleared of sand it is chalk that is revealed. In the case of the section attached to the north bluff there is below the half-tide level a continuous mass of chalk with perfectly regular bedding exposed for at least 1,000 yards along the shore, and directly opposite the north bluff I have myself seen chalk continuous from the foot of the bluff for over 200 yards straight out to sea (except about 20 yards close up to the bluff, which, however, are covered by Mr. B. B. Woodward's letter in the October (1905) number of the GeologicalMagazine), the regular sequence of the beds being only broken by one fault. The section attached to the ridge coated with a sheet of flint is a good second in size, showing chalk in regular sequence for a length of over 400 yards, and maximum (exposed) breadth of about 45 yards.
VII.—A Method of Classifying Igneous Rocks according to their Chemical Composition
Authors: Warth Hugh
Published: May 2009

The chemical classification of igneous rocks is rendered difficult by the large number of substances which are present in them. H. S. Washington, who based his system of classification upon the composition of standard rock-forming minerals, found it necessary in his great work to divide his 2,880 rocks into no less than 167 final groups in order to ensure a close proximity between the rocks within each group.
II.—Notes on the Corries of the Comeragh Mountains, Co. Waterford
Authors: Reed F. R. Cowper
Published: May 2009

The corries and tarns of the Comeragh Mountains have received but scanty attention at the hands of geologists. In the Memoir of the Geological Survey dealing with this portion of co. Waterford their position and height are mentioned, and reference is made to some of the glacial phenomena in their immediate neighbourhood, but no connected description of the whole group of corries is given. Kinahan, in his “Geology of Ireland” (1878), pp. 245, 310, refers briefly to them, and inclines to the view that they were cut out by the action of the sea on the flanks of the mountains, but that the rock-basins which they frequently contain were excavated by small glaciers. The position of the corries, chiefly on the north and east sides of these mountains, as elsewhere in Ireland, is attributed by him to the preservative action of the ice and snow, which would not melt in them so rapidly (owing to their colder aspect) as on the southern and western slopes, where the corries have been obliterated by denudation effected by ordinary subaerial agents. Carvill Lewis refers to the glaciation of the Comeragh Mountains in several places, remarking that they “show signs of glaciation on their north-east side as high as 1,000 feet, up to which height they are rounded off and drift occurs. Above this they are jagged and contain cwms, glacial lakes, and other evidences of small local glaciers.”
II.—On the Occurrence of the Genus Dimyodon, Mun.-Chalm., in the Mesozoic Rocks of Great Britain
Authors: Grönwall K. A.
Published: May 2009

When looking through the number of the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society for August, 1905, I saw the paper by Mr. Richardson on the Rhœtic deposits of Glamorganshire and his figure of Plicatula intusstriata, Emmr. At the first glance it struck me that this fossil was closely allied to a group of bivalves, well known to me as occurring in the Chalk, where it is represented by the genus Dimyodon, Munier-Chalmas.
II.—Fossil Echinoidea from Sinai and Egypt
Authors: Gregory J. W.
Published: May 2009

Distribution.—“Santonian”: Berak el Gazal, near Abu Roash (Fourtau). “Eocene”: Abu Roash district. L 1379. Coll. H. J. L. Beadnell, Esq. A young broken specimen, east end of the Cretaceous area, near Abu Roash village. I 3796. Coll. H. J. L. Beadnell, Esq.
II.—The Chalk Bluff at Trimingham
Authors: Bonney T. G.
Published: May 2009

Mr. R. M. Brydone's account of the masses of chalk exposed on the Norfolk coast near Trimingham, published in this Magazine during the first three months of the present year, is a valuable record of facts revealed by the encroachments of the sea, but it raises questions of a general nature, on which I should at once have commented, had I not preferred to wait until I could again examine the sections. This was done in company with the Rev. E. Hill during Easter week, when we found that even since the middle of last October (the date of Mr. Brydone's latest photograph) the destruction had been considerable.
III.—Tarns on the Haystacks Mountain, Buttermere, Cumberland
Authors: Rastall R. H. , Smith Bernard
Published: May 2009

Although the lakes and larger tarns of the English Lake District have been the subject of much discussion and have given rise to a very voluminous literature, comparatively little has been written on the smaller tarns, and especially on those of the very smallest size, which are so abundant in many parts of the district. It seems to us, however, that the smaller ones are quite as deserving of consideration as the larger, since they present similar phenomena, and their interpretation gives rise to similar difficulties.
V.—The Source of the Waters of Geysers
Authors: Maclaren J. Malcolm
Published: May 2009

Professor Suess has somewhat recently stated his belief that the waters of all geysers and boiling ‘pulsating’ springs and of some mineral springs are of ‘hypogene’ or direct magmatic origin (Abstract Geog. Journ., vol. xx, p. 518). I am unfortunately unable in this backwater of science to verify the abstract by reference to the original (Gesell. Deutsch. Naturforscher und Aertze, 1902). With his belief, however, several prominent Continental and American geologists have expressed their concurrence, and some have indeed amplified the hypothesis to cover the origin of metalliferous deposits near igneous contacts. For example, W. H. Weed (Trans. Amer. Inst. M.E., vol. xxxiii, p. 746) says: —
II.—On the Interglacial Question
Authors: Jamieson T. F.
Published: May 2009

A Great difference of opinion seems to exist among geologists, not only in Britain but also in other countries, in regard to the supposed occurrence of warm Interglacial periods during the age of ice. Those who incline to the views propounded by Adhemar and Croll as to the causes which produced the extraordinary climate of that time naturally look for alternations of cold and warm periods.
III.—On the Origin of certain Laterites
Authors: Maclaren Malcolm
Published: May 2009

The various views put forth prior to 1893 to account for the origin of Indian laterites have been clearly and sufficiently discussed in Oldham's edition of Medlicott & Blanford's Manual of the Geology of India (pp. 369 et seq.). Since that year the only contribution of importance to the literature of lateritic genesis in India is a paper by Mr. Thos. H. Holland, F.R.S., the present Director of the Indian Geological Survey, having for its text the conclusions of Bauer. In it the author suggested that laterite might owe its origin to “some lowly organism,” but no sufficient data were advanced in support of the suggestion. Bauer's specimens indicated a certain amount of dehydration in laterites, and this fact, together with the absence of hydration products from certain peridotites in Southern India, was deemed to indicate a general dehydration for the bauxitic laterites of the Deccan. The gibbsite (Al2 O3, 3 H2O) of laterite was supposed to be dehydrated to diaspore (A2 O3, H2O), and it was assumed that “this irregular loss of water is probably the cause of variation in bauxite.”
VI.—A New Palæoniscid Fish from the Base of the Pendleside Series near Holywell, Flint
Authors: Traquair R. H.
Published: May 2009

The remains of a Palæoniscid fish from the Lower Carboniferous rocks of Flintshire, submitted to me by Mr. J. T. Stobbs, are unfortunately not sufficiently perfect to afford material for a complete diagnosis. The specimen shows the impressions of the outer surface of both mandibular rami and of the left maxilla, and beyond this we have only a mass of dislocated scales—the general form of the fish, the position of the fins, and the condition of the fin-rays being entirely lost.