bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
On Tertiary Chilostomatous Bryozoa from New Zealand
Authors: Waters Arthur Wm.
Published: October 2009

In the following paper the Chilostomata from three collections are described, two being kindly lent by Miss Jelly, to whom they had been sent by a correspondent living in the neighbourhood of Napier. They are from Petane and Waipukurau, both representing a well-known horizon, and also some from Waikato and Trig's Station, Tanner's Run, besides others designated as from the neighbourhood of Napier.

For the third collection, which is only small, I am indebted to the kindness of Professor Hutton, who collected the material from the base of the Shakespeare Cliff, Wanganui.

Petane, Waipukurau, and Wanganui are known localities in what is called the Wanganui system, which Tenison-Woods in his “Corals and Bryozoa of the Neozoic Period in New Zealand” (Colon. Mus. and Geol. Survey Dept. 1880), calls “Upper Miocene,” but which Professor Hutton more recently (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xli. 1885, p. 194) calls “Newer Pliocene.”

The only papers on New-Zealand fossil Bryozoa with which I am acquainted are those by Tenison-Woods, just mentioned, and one by Stoliczka, “On the Bryozoa from the Marine Beds of the Waitemataschichten of Orakei Bay.” The Waitemata beds belong to the Pareora system, and are considered by both Woods and Hutton to be Miocene.

Of some few the state of preservation is very satisfactory, while with most this is by no means the case ; yet it is often surprising to find how in badly preserved specimens the characters can be distinctly made out by a detailed examination of cell after cell.
On the Drifts of the Vale of Clwyd and their Relation to the Caves and Cave-deposits
Authors: Hughes T. McKenny
Published: October 2009

Introduction
.

The questions here involved are many and various, and their consideration carries us from one place to another over a very wide area. We cannot safely draw inferences as to the age and origin of any drifts on the borders of a mountain-land without, on the one hand, tracing it up to the source from which it was transported, to see whether we can explain the distribution of the various kinds of matarial of whie]l it is composed, and, on the other hand, following it as far as possible down over the lowlands, to see whether any succession of deposits or organic remains or evidence as to its former extent can be made to throw light on the conditions of the age in which it was distributed. And, seeing that most caves have been formed and filled during the age of accumulation of the various superficial deposits which we include under the name “drift,” we cannot safely speculate upon the age or origin of the one set of phenomena without considering all the evidence to be derived from the other also. Only in the hilly districts can we find caves at all, and, generally, the more important occur along the outskirts of the high lands, where drifts of various character are apt to be found. The relation of the local drifts to the caves may be of great interest if the exact place and age of those drifts have first been clearly made out. We must first therefore inquire
On the Dentition and Affinities of the Selachian Genus
Ptychodus
, Agassiz
Authors: Woodward A. Smith
Published: October 2009

Notwithstanding the abundance of the well-known teeth of
Pzychodus
in the Chalk of many localities, and the long list of specific forms that have already been recognized, very little information has hitherto been published in regard to the precise affinities of the fish to which they originally appertained. So rarely, indeed, are any of the teeth found associated in natural sequence, that it has been necessary to await the results of many years' patient collecting before being able to pronounce a decided opinion; but materials are now forthcoming for at least one further step in the determination of their relationships, and I therefore venture to offer to the Geological Society some account of the accumulated evidence.

Since these interesting fossils first became the subject of scientific study, it has been almost the universal custom, as is well known, to refer the genus to the somewhat comprehensive “family” of Cestraciontidæ. An early determination of Mantell, it is true, resulted in the suggestion that they formed the dental armature of fishes allied to the Teleostean Diodons ; but the elaborate researches of Agassiz † , supported by Owen's simultaneous investigation of their microscopical structure ‡, have always been cited as ample proof of the affinity of their original possessor with the Cestraciont Sharks ; and the deeply rooted tendency among palæontologists to refer every isolated crushing–tooth to the same extraordinary group has also contributed to the adoption of this arrangement without, serious question. But the original observations from which the inferences as to
On the Echinoidea of the Cretaceous Strata of the Lower Narbadá Region
Authors: Duncan P. Martin
Published: October 2009

Owing to the kindness of H. B. Medlicott, Esq., F.R.S., Director of the Geological Survey of India, I have lately received a considerable number of specimens of Echinoidea, which have been obtained from recorded localities, from the Cretaceous formation, in the Lower Narbadá valley.

A small collection of Echinoidea, Mollusca, and Brachiopoda, and a coral are in the Museum of this Society, and they came from the neighbourhood of Bág on the Narbadá, in the same district whence the forms lately received were found. This small collection was described by me in a communication to this Society in 1865, another collection from S.E. Arabia being associated with it, and an Upper Greensand horizon was given to the strata containing the species (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxi. p. 349). The persistence of many well-known European species into the far east was noticed. In 1866, Messrs. Blanford and Wynne surveyed the Bág district, and decided that the succession of the Cretaceous rocks was, from below upwards, as follows:—Sandstone and conglomerate, 20 feet; nodular limestone, nearly unfossiliferous, 20 feet; argillaceous limestone, fossiliferous, 10 feet; and coralline limestone (Bryozoan) 10 to 20 feet. The relation of these conformable beds to the overlying Lameta beds and the Deccan and Malwa Trap was noticed.

The surveyors accepted my decision regarding the age of the beds which had yielded the fossils, namely the argillaceous beds near Deola and Chirákhán. In 1868 a similar horizon was stated to be present iu the Sinai area ; it was
On certain Dinosaurian Vertebræ from the Cretaceous of India and the Isle of Wight
Authors: Lydekker R.
Published: October 2009

In the year 1877 I published a preliminary description of certain Dinosaurian remains obtained from the Lameta group of the Jabalpur district of India, to which I applied the name of
Titanosaurus indicus
. The Lameta beds, it may be observed, have been usually referred to the Middle Cretaceous (Upper Greensand), but later observations indicate that they may be of somewhat newer age. The remains on which the genus was founded are preserved in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, and comprise an imperfect femur, and a considerable number of late caudal vertebræ, together with one imperfect vertebral centrum from an earlier part of the series. In a later memoir I gave figures of some of the more important of these specimens, and came to the conclusion that the vertebræ indicated two species, for the second of which I proposed the name of
T. Blanfordi
, adding the proviso that this form might eventually turn out to be generically distinct from
T. indicus
.

Both these types of late caudal vertebra3 are characterized by their strongly proccelous centra, to the anterior half of which the anchylosed neural arch is confined; and in the one perfect specimen of T. indic~es the arch carries two well-marked processes, one of which is directed anteriorly and the other posteriorly. The preaxial process is bifurcated anteriorly, and bears a pair of prezygapophysial facets ; while the hinder one, which (judging from the caudal vertebrm of the Sperm-Whale and of certain other Dinosaurs)I think includes the representative of the neural spine
On a Molar of a Pliocene Type of
Equus
from Nubia
Authors: Lydekker R.
Published: October 2009

A small collection of mammalian remains, obtained during the late Soudan expedition by Brigade-Surgeon Archer at Wadi Halfa and other places in Nubia, has been submitted to my notice by Dr. Woodward. Many of the specimens are evidently of comparatively recent origin; but those from Wadi Halfa are in much the same mineral condition as the bones from the Upper Pliocene of the Val d'Arno in Tuscany, or the Lower Pleistocene of the Narbada valley in India. Among these remains are several specimens belonging to a large species of
Bos
or allied genus, which do not admit of any attempt at specific determination; but they also comprise an upper molar of an
Equus
, which is of very considerable interest.

It may be well to recall that so long ago as 1865 the late Dr. Falconer described, in the Society's Journal, part of the left maxilla of a Hippopotamus obtained from fluviatile beds at Kalábshi (Kalábshee or Kalábsheh), a village situated on the Nile a short distance above the first cataract at Assouan, and about 150 miles north of Wadi Halfa, which is at the second, or great cataract. Dr. Falconer referred his specimen, which he observed was in the same state of mineralization as the Val d'Arno fossils, to the existing
H. amphibius
, although remarking that it agreed in size with the teeth of the Pliocene Val d'Arno form, which at that time was regarded as specifically distinct.

The specimen forming the subject of the present communication (figured from the
On
Heterosuchus valdensis
, Seeley, a Procœlian Crocodile from the Hastings Sand of Hastings
Authors: Seeley H. G.
Published: October 2009

The specimen in the British Museum, numbered 36555, came there in the second Mantellian collection, which was acquired after Dr. Mantell's death. It is part of a thin ironstone nodule, 10 centim. long and 6 centim. wide, from the Hastings Sand of Hastings, manifestly water-worn, but containing vertebræ which have not hitherto been determined. The nodule (Pl. XII. fig. 7) displays the remains of fully a dozen vertebræ, which extend round the nodule in parts of more than one coil, so arranged as to expose the ventral surface or bodies of the vertebræ, towards the external margin of the concretion. These vertebræ indicate a procœlian Crocodile of small size; and although the remains are so imperfect, I refer them to a new genus, since their forms are different from those of any Purbeck Crocodiles or other described Crocodilia.

The nodule displays some other vertebrate remains which may possibly belong to another kind of animal. Thus in a transverse fracture the outlines may be traced of two long ovals which extend in the same axis, and may represent the superior aspect of the parietal region of a small skull, in which each temporal fossa is 13 or 14 millim, wide and 7 millim, long. The external surface appears to small Purbeck Crocodiles ; and what might be the quadrate bone is seen to extend in an outward direction as it is prolonged distally. No proccelian Crocodile has the temporal vacuities elongated in this way; but from the imperfect preservation and small
On
Aristosuchus pusillus
(Owen), being Further Notes on the Fossils described by Sir R. Owen as
Poikilopleuron pusillus
, Owen
Authors: Seeley H. G.
Published: October 2009

The Palæontographical Society in 1876 published a memoir upon a Wealden fossil, which Sir Richard Owen described as
Poikilopleuron pusillus
. These bones were then in the collection of the Rev. W. Darwin Fox, and, with the exception of the figured dorsal and caudal vertebræ, subsequently passed into the British Museum, with the Fox Collection. By the kindness of Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., Keeper of the Geological Department, I have been able to examine these remains, and I would express my indebtedness for the facilities given me in making the study of which the results follow.

A question necessarily arises as to the grounds on which the animal is referred to the genus
Poikilopleuron
(recte
Pœeilpleurum
), because these are stated to be “the shape and texture of the vertebræ, and especially the latter.’ This statement implies that when a dorsal vertebra was divided vertically and longitudinally, it was found to have a medullary cavity, comparable to that seen in the vertebræ of
Poikilopleuron
. In the caudal vertebra the cavity is larger. Dr. Leidy, who has recorded a vertebra of the
Poikilopleuron
-type in the Cretaceous rocks of Colorado, remarks that an internal cavity of like character was only known to him in the caudal vertebræ of the Ox ; but it is probably not rare among Dinosaurian reptiles. Mr. Hulke has shown that the character is also found in
Megalosaurus
, and other genera with hollow vertebæ have been described by Profs. Marsh and Cope. Whatever the value of this character may be,
On the Origin of Dry Chalk Valleys and of Coombe Rock
Authors: Reid Clement
Published: October 2009

For many years the singular mass of angular flints and Chalk, known as the Brighton Elephant-bed, has been familiar to geologists. This deposit I had not seen till 1884, when I was instructed to examine, for the Geological Survey, the Pleistocene deposits of Sussex between the escarpment of the South Downs and the sea.

Coming from eight years' work in strongly glaciated districts, I was at once struck by the appearance of the Elephant-bed—or, as it is called in the district, the “Coombe Rock.” It is a very different deposit from anything commonly seen in the Yorkshire or Lincolnshire Wolds, and different, though not so markedly different, from anything found in Norfolk.

This occurrence in a non-glaciated district of a type of gravel unlike anything of ordinary occurrence in glaciated districts of similar configuration aroused my interest. After two years' study of the beds in the field, I venture to bring forward my views as to the mode of formation of Coombe Rock and as to the origin of dry Chalk Valleys—two subjects intimately connected.

The configuration of the surface beneath the drift on the seaward side of the South Downs is identical with that found in the Chalk districts of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. In each of these districts we have a dip-slope from the edge of the escarpment seaward. But this slope does not pass under the low-lying drift areas; it ends abruptly in a cliff, now much degraded, but still recognizable as a sea-cliff both by the marine
The Physical History of the Bagshot Beds of the London Basin
Authors: Irving A.
Published: October 2009

Introduction.

To the statement of my views on this subject in the Quarterly Journal of the Society (vol. xli. pp. 492, 507, 508) I adhere in its main outlines, notwithstanding the adverse criticisms upon it which have appeared since in the Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xlii. (pp. 402–416). Certainly I felt that, from insufficiency of data, some of the correlations were tentative and open to such corrections as further investigation or criticism might show to be necessary. There can, however, be but little doubt that the method which proceeds by attempting to definitely correlate by stratigraphical evidence the strata seen in the sections on the flanks of the Bagshot district with those of the interior of the main mass involves fewer assumptions than such an attempt as has been made by later authors (Q. J. G. S.
loc. cit
.) to determine the horizons of those marginal strata by a comparison of them with one another. Underlying the latter process there is the assumption that mere contiguity or proximity to the London Clay is evidence of Lower Bagshot horizons ; but this involves manifestly ‘
petitio principii
.’

I consider that the case must rest mainly on the
physical
evidence, and that, if no instance remained of a former overlap of lower by higher beds, the case would not be disproved, so long as the stratigraphical evidence was not
contradictory
; and the failure to show any overlapping at the present time could be explained by the subsequent denudation of the country, the main
Considerations on the Date, Duration, and Conditions of the Glacial Period, with reference to the Antiquity of Man
Authors: Prestwich Joseph
Published: October 2009

When, twenty-eight years ago, the barriers which restricted the age of Man to a limited chronology were overthrown by the discoveries in the Valley of the Somme and Brixham Cave, the pent-up current of geological opinion tended to the other extreme of assigning to Man (Post-glacial) an excessive antiquity ; and now the belief in that great antiquity seems to me to be exerting, in a manner somewhat similar to that which at first caused the rejection of the Kent's Cave and Somme Valley evidence, an imperceptible bias on the questions raised as to the Glacial and Preglacial age of Man— apart from the question of Pliocene or Miocene Man, into which, on the present occasion, I do not purpose to enter.

The extreme opinions which dealt with millions of years are now probably held by few ; but still, with many and, probably, the majority of geologists the Glacial and Postglacial periods, which involve the question of the antiquity of Man, are measured by very great terms of time. At the outset of the discussion, and when the antiquity of Man was limited to the Postglacial period, I saw no reason for assigning to that period the length of time then claimed by many geologists. The data, however, on which to form an opinion with respect to the duration of this and of the Glacial period were too imperfect to form any definite conclusion upon. Since then further observations in the Alps, and more especially the observations of the
A Revision of the Echinoidea from the Australian Tertiaries
Authors: Duncan P. Martin
Published: October 2009

In a communication to the Geological Society on the Echinodermata of the Australian Cainozoic deposits, which was printed in the Quarterly Journal of the Society, 1877, vol. xxxiii. p. 42, a list of the species of fossil Echinoidea which had been published up to that date was given, and eleven new species were described. Since the publication of that communication, there has been an important addition made to the Australian Tertiary fauna by Prof. R. Tate, F.G.S.
&
, who described
Salenia tertiaria
from the middle Tertiaries of Aldinga, south of Adelaide. This author also mentioned the occurrence of several genera which had not been considered to be members of the Australian Echinoid fauna, but he did not describe any of their species. Observations have been published upon the very interesting
Salenia
by A. Agassiz † and myself‡. The only other communications on the subject of the Echinoidea have come from Prof. M'Coy§, who introduced three species of
Pericosmus
and a
Clypeaster
to the fauna, and, moreover, made some most valuable criticisms upon the work of previous observers. He has had excellent specimens, the examination of which has thrown much light upon some doubtful species.

In spite of the comparative paucity of species in this fauna, it has been very constantly before those palzeontologists who have studied the other Echinoidean faunas of the East, and who have attempted to comprehend the affinities of the ancient faunas and that of the abyssal oceans. The extraordinary grouping of Cretaceous and Tertiary, as well as
Notes on the Triassic Beds at Colwick Wood, near Nottingham
Authors: Wilson Edw.
Published: October 2009

The small fishes described were found by me in the summer of the year 1879, in the roof of a tunnel which was being driven through the side of the hill at Colwick Wood, near Nottingham, for the Leen Valley Outfall Sewer. They come from the Lower Sandstone or ‘Waterstones’ of the Upper Keuper, which at this point rest upon the ‘Basement-beds’ of the Lower Keuper. The fishes were apparently limited to the lowest stratum of the ‘Waterstones,’ a bed of greenish-yellow sandstone 10 inches thick, with intercalated streaks of red and green marl, and a seam of pebbles at its base, and to the bottom inch or two of that stratum. This bed may be seen cropping out in an adjoining field on the hillside which here forms the escarpment of the Trent Valley, but it is not fossiliferous at that point; and although there have been many opportunities of examining the strata at the same horizon on the east side of Nottingham, and at other places in the vicinity, no traces of any similar organisms have, so far, been discovered elsewhere in the district. In addition to the exceptional interest that is always to be derived from the presence of organic remains in Triassic rocks, as a rule so barren of life, there were two points specially noticeable in connexion with the occurrence of these fossils in the Keuper at Nottingham; namely, first, the great number of the fish, there being quit a shoal of them for a
On the Lower Part of the Upper Cretaceous Series in West Suffolk and Norfolk
Authors: Jukes-Browne A. J. , Hill W.
Published: October 2009

The zonal subdivisions of the Cambridgeshire Chalk were first described in 1880, and more fully in the Memoirs of the Geological Survey, in 1881, the outcrops of the Totternhoe Stone and the Melbourn Rock having then been traced as far as Burwell and Newmarket respectively; but the survey of the Suffolk Chalk having been previously completed, the lines were not continued on the Survey map.

The section exposed in the cliffs near Hunstanton has often been described, but the beds there seen are very different from those which occupy a similar stratigraphical position near Newmarket; it was evident, therefore, that between these two places the beds forming the lower part of the Chalk underwent a considerable amount of lateral change, and that, until more was known of the manner in which one facies of the Lower Chalk passed into the other, no correlation of the Norfolk and Cambridge sections could be more than suggestive.

Moreover, in the absence of this information, one of us has found much difficulty in correlating the subdivisions of the Lincolnshire Chalk with that of the Midland counties, and he felt that when once the constitution of the Norfolk Chalk was properly understood, that of Lincolnshire, which bears great resemblance to it, would no longer offer any difficulty.

It being clear, therefore, that important issues depended upon an investigation of the changes that take place in the Cretaceous rocks as they pass from Suffolk into Norfolk, it was with the object of exploring this
terra incognita
On Grooves and Quartzite Boulders in the Roger Mine at Dukinfield
Authors: Radcliffe James
Published: October 2009

The Roger Mine, shown on Ordnance sheet no. 105, six-inch scale, of Ashton-under-Lyne and Dukinfield, is extensively worked at Denton, Dukinfield, Ashton-under-Lyne, and in the neighbourhood of Oldham.

At Dukinfield coal is being worked at a depth of five hundred and fifty yards, and averages about four feet in thickness. Quartzite boulders have from time to time been found in this mine, and have been noticed on various occasions in communications to the Manchester Geological Society, in vols. xiii. and xiv. of their Transactions.

The groovings and boulders are not found in any mine or strata in this neighbourhood, except in what is known as the Roger Mine, which lies near the top of the middle series of the Manchester coalfield. But occasionally quartzite pebbles have been found by Mr. G. Wild, of Bardsley, in the Arley and Pomfret Mines. The single groovings vary in depth from a few inches to eighteen inches, and in width from one foot to three feet. Occasionally several of these grooves run close together, and then widen out into one broad “scour,” or groove, of fifteen or even eighteen feet wide, as if the base of a large moving body had come in contact with the upper surface of the coal-bed. These grooves have been traced at intervals over a distance of from five to six hundred yards in length, and from fifty to sixty yards in width.

The Roger-Mine seam of coal is composed of three divisions :― the “upper,“ a soft, bright
On some New Features in
Pelanechinus corallinus
.
Authors: Groom T. T.
Published: October 2009

In vol. xxxiv. p. 924, of the ‘Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,’ Mr. Walter Keeping, F.G.S., described two specimens of a form previously referred by Dr. Wright to the genus
Hemipedina
. He showed that this form was quite distinct from
Hemipedina
, and gave it the name of
Pelanechinus
. It showed, in his opinion, affinities with the Echinothuridæ on the one hand and the Diadematidæ on the other.

These two specimens have hitherto been the only ones known, with the exception of a few fragments described by Dr. Wright.

I was fortunate enough to find in 1881 in the Coral Rag at Calne, in a quarry at the north end of the town, a third specimen which shows some interesting features hitherto undescribed.

The diameter of the test is about 85 millim.; it is considerably flattened from above downwards. The whole of the oral surface is beautifully preserved, with the exception of a sector including one ambulacral and the greater part of two interambulacral areas. The teeth are exposed
in situ
, together with most of the peristomial imbricating plates; the latter, however, are not exhibited so clearly as in the specimen in the Woodwardian Museum. A zone, about 15 millim. wide, belonging to the oral surface is also preserved. My specimen quite confirms Mr. Keeping's opinion that the test was flexible.

The plates have frequently separated along the line of suture, especially on the aboral surface, while the median interambulaeral line and the lines of junction between the ambulacral and
On Boulders found in Seams of Coal
Authors: Spencer John
Published: October 2009

In working the coal-seams of Lancashire, particularly in those seams found near the Gannister mine, from time to time isolated boulders have been discovered, the position of which it is not easy to explain.

These boulders are not always of the same kind. They generally consist of granite, quartz, or quartzite, and probably of local rocks which do not particularly attract the attention of the workmen in the collieries. They vary in size from an inch to six or eight inches in diameter, the largest being of granite.

A fine specimen has lately been found at Old Meadows Pit, near Bacup, Lancashire, by Mr. John Lord, Bacup. It weighs 6 lb. The granite is composed of quartz, reddish felspar, and hornblende.

This boulder was imbedded in the chief coal of the Rossendale district, the Gannister or Mountain Mine, at a distance of 180 ft. from the surface of the ground. Between this seam and the surface, besides sandstones and shales, are found the Upper Foot or Bullion Coal, the Forty Yards' Mine, and a small Cannel Coal, as seen in the accompanying section:—

There was no trace of disturbance in the strata near where the boulder was found. Similar boulders have been found at Crawshawbooth and Goodshaw Hill, about four miles from Burnley, at, Wholaw Nook and Burnt Hills Coalpits, in the same district, and at Higher Dog Hill, Oldham. They are also said to occur in the neighbourhood of Leeds.

The boulders in every case are isolated. Sometimes they
On the Age of the Altered Limestone of Strath, Skye
Authors: Geikie Archibald
Published: October 2009

The alteration of the Lias limestone of Skye into white marble by the intrusion of masses of eruptive rock has been long regarded as one of the most interesting features of that attractive island. The first announcement of this metamorphism was made by Macculloch, in a paper read by him before this Society in the beginning of the year 1815. He there described the transition from ordinary unaltered shelly Secondary limestone into an irregular shapeless “marble limestone” in which all semblance of stratification had been lost, and of which the general structure resembled that of the Assynt limestone of Sutherland. He was at first inclined to regard this massive rock as a “primary” limestone, which it had naturally been supposed to be; for he found it exactly to resemble the limestones associated with schists and granites in various parts of the Highlands. But he discovered what he considered to be a regular alternation of the marble limestone and shell-limestone, which removed “the last shadow of a doubt” from his mind as to the real identity of the rocks. The obliteration of the stratification and the assumption of a more crystalline texture he believed to be not improbably due to the invasion of the limestone by eruptive masses of “syenite” *

Four years after the appearance of this memoir, Macculloch gathered together his numerous observations on the geology of the West of Scotland, and published them in his classic work on the Western Islands. Among the sections of that book which
Further Observations on the Correlation of the Eocene Strata in England, Belgium, and the North of France
Authors: Prestwich Joseph
Published: October 2009

It is not my intention to reopen the whole question of the position and correlation of the Eocene strata of England and France, but merely to bring again before the Society such portions of them as involve some yet unsettled points of classification and some necessary rectifications of my own work.

The synchronism of the Thanet Sands with the Lower Landenian, of the London Clay with the Lower Ypresian, of the Bracklesham Beds with the Calcaire Grossier, and of the Barton Beds with the Grès de Beauchamp is now perfectly well established. But with respect to the exact relation of the Sands of Bracheux and of the Soissonnais to the English Series, of the Oldhaven Beds to the Woolwich Series, and of the Lower and Upper Bagshots to equivalent strata in the Paris Basin, there are still differences of opinion and some open questions.

Since'the publication of my early papers on the Eocene strata, the important monographs on the Eocene Mollusca of Edwards* and Searles Wood† in this country, and the last great work of Deshayes‡ in France, have made large additions to the Eocene faunas of the English and French Tertiaries. At the same time, the work of the Geological Survey and others in the London and Hampshire Basins §; of MM. Hébert ∥, Dolfuss ∥, De Mercey ∥, and others in the Paris Basin; of MM. Gosselet ¶, Ortlieb, and Chelloneix ** in the North of France; and of MM. Briart and Cornet M. Dewalque, MM. Rutot, Van
On some
Remains of Squatina Cranei
, sp. nov., and the Mandible of
Belonostomus cinctus
, from the Chalk of Sussex, preserved in the Collection of Henry Willett, Esq., F.G.S., Brighton Museum
Authors: Woodward A. Smith
Published: October 2009

Last year, when attempting to elucidate the dentition of the Cretaceous Selachian genus
Ptychodus
, I had the honour of bringing before the notice of the Society an important specimen from the cabinet of Henry Willett, Esq., F.G.S., of Brighton; and in subsequent studies both of this and of contemporaneous ichthyic types I have been favoured by the same gentleman's kind permission to make use of the whole of his valuable collection. Among the fossils there are two, bearing upon the subject of recent inquiries, which seem to reveal points of considerable interest and significance; and of these I propose to offer a brief notice in the present communication. The one specimen adds the “Angel-fish” (
Squatina
) to the list of English Chalk Fishes, and apparently indicates a new species; the other makes known some hitherto unrecognized features in one of the most singular of Cretaceous Ganoids,
Belonostomus cinctus
.

I. Squatina Cranei, sp. nov. (Pl. VII. figs. 1-6.)

The remains referable to the Selachian genus
Squatina
consist of a crushed skull, with the mandibular and hyoid arches, and an associated fragment of the pectoral fin, with dermal tubercles. The fossil indicates a small animal, probably not more than thirty inches in length, and the most important of the features it presents are illustrated in figs. 1-6 of the accompanying Plate.

The skull has been crushed somewhat obliquely from above downwards, the jaws of the right side being displaced to a position beneath, the middle of the cranium, and the right hyomandibular cartilage
The Red-Rock Series of the Devon Coast-section
Authors: Irving A.
Published: October 2009

A stay at Sidmouth during the past summer (supplemented by a second visit to the county in the Christmas holidays) has afforded me the long-wished-for opportunity of forming a personal acquaintance with the Red-Rock series of the Devon region, rocks which were described many years ago by Mr. Godwin-Austen* under the name of New Red Sandstone, and have been more fully described since by Mr. Ussher†. The paper by the latter author is of great value, as it is a very mine of facts and observations. In working along the coast-sections, however, I saw reasons for doubting the correctness of including the whole series in the Trias, and as I went on and compared what I observed with the results of the work of former years‡ in the Dyas and Trias of Germany and of the northern and midland counties of England, I was forced to the conclusion that in the Devon region we have those two systems represented.

I propose to lay before the Society in this paper an account of the observations which I have made, and to state the conclusions which (on comparative grounds) I have drawn from them.

Sidmouth(East).

(1) The escarpment of the Sid, for some 300 yards from its mouth, consists of about 50 feet of thick-bedded coarse sandstones, of a prevalent peppery-grey colour, in fresh sections, the general red colour of their weathered surfaces being due to rain-wash from above and subsequent infiltration. They exhibit magnificent current-bedding, such as we commonly meet with in
A Contribution to the Geology and Physical Geography of the Cape Colony
Authors: Green A. H.
Published: October 2009

In the year 1882 I was commissioned by the Colonial Government to examine and report upon the Coals of the Cape Colony. My attention was of course chiefly directed to this special object; but, to carry out my task successfully, a clear comprehensive view of the geology of the Colony as a whole was needed, and this I did my best to arrive at. I was able to devote about four months to the work, and during that time I traversed a very large part of the Colony. But it is an extensive tract, and travelling over it is very slow, and it was obviously impossible in so short a time to do more than get a broad general notion of its geological structure. Two things stood me in good stead. First, the great physical features are so strongly marked that they stare you in the face as you go along; and, owing to the leisurely rate at which you travel, they remain in view long enough to be stamped on the memory; while the barren ruggedness and bare stony character of much of the country enable the observer, as the passes along, to note even from afar the character and lie of the rocks, the clear dry atmosphere making this possible at distances where, in our climate, all distinctness would be lost in haze. It is at first very striking, for instance, to find that you can distinctly trace the outcrop of a trap-sheet along a hillside ten miles
On the Gneissic Rocks off the Lizard
Authors: Fox Howard
Published: October 2009

At Mr. Teall's suggestion, I made, during the past autumn, a methodical examination of the outlying rocks at the Lizard, and forwarded to him series of specimens from the various rocks. They may be classed under three heads:—the coarse gneisses or “Mên Hyr” type, the light banded granulitic gneisses or “Wiltshire” type, and the transition micaceous rocks of “Labham-Reefs” type. The annexed map (fig. 7, facing p. 316) shows how these rocks lie with respect to each other and the mainland. The coarse gneisses compose the outer rocks, and the fine gneisses the inner rocks. The transition rocks associate the gneisses with the typical schists of the mainland.

Beginning at the extreme west, we find the “Mulvin” composed of a dark granulitic gneiss with a strike and dip both clearly conformable with the rocks of the Lizard Head, the strike being about N.N.W. and S.S.E., the dip E.N.E.

The “Taylor” rocks are a group of three coarse gneissic rocks. The outer of these has a basic porphyritic dyke running across it from the S.W. to the N.E. with a S.E. dip. This dyke varies in width from one to four feet, and branches at the western end. The middle or main “Taylor” rock has a small gully on its southern extremity. At low-water spring-tide a basic porphyritic dyke, 18 inches wide, is seen to traverse this gully in an E.N.E. and W.S.W. direction, dipping S.S.E. The inner “Taylor” rock is mostly composed of a coarse gneiss with some basic
On some Vertebrate Remains in the Triassic Strata of the South Coast of Devonshire between Budleigh Salterton and Sidmouth
Authors: Carter H. J.
Published: October 2009

In August last my attention was particularly called by the late Dr. John Millar, F.G.S., to the microscopic structure of the remains noticed by Mr. Metcalfe under No. 11 in his paper “On further discoveries of Vertebrate Remains in the Triassic Strata of the South Coast of Devonshire”†. These are small pellet-like amorphous bodies,
averaging from ¼ to ½ inch in diameter, composed of white calcareous matter, traversed in all directions by semitransparent crystalline plates showing bone-structure. These pellets occur plentifully in the fallen blocks of Triassic rock on the beach, which contain the remains of Labyrinthodonts &c. Dr. Millar remarked that they very much resembled coprolites and were identical in appearance with some in his possession from the Lias, which he would send me for comparison.

I had previously observed that the contained plates, when examined in water under the microscope, presented the same bone-structure as the scales of the Bony Pike of North America (
Lepidosteus osseus
), as shown by Prof. Quekett in his ‘Lectures on Histology’‡; and on grinding down a fossilized Lepidostean scale from Hordwell, Hants, I found its structure to be exactly like that of the recent species. On breaking up some of the pellets (which are formed of concentric layers), I found a fragment representing the angular part of a scale, on which the same agatoid lines of growth were visible as on the ganoid scales from Hordwell.

The slides of Ichthyosaurian coprolites sent
On the Lower Beds of the Upper Cretaceous Series in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire
Authors: Hill William
Published: October 2009

Until recently no attempt had been made to describe the zonal divisions of the lower beds of the upper part, of the Cretaceous series in Lincolnshire. Indeed, Prof. Judd remarked in 1869, “The time has not yet come for separating the great mass of the Chalk formation in this county into zones, .... such a task not having been accomplished in the best-explored districts of the Chalk” *.

In 1876 Dr. Charles Barrois†, having been unable to visit this county, follows, in his well-known work, the description given by Prof. Judd. It was not until the publication, in the spring of 1887, of the “Geology of part of East Lincolnshire,” a memoir of the Geological Survey, that a systematic attempt was made to correlate any part of the Chalk of Lincolnshire with that of the more southern counties of Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, &c.

But the author of this memoir laboured under a disadvantage; for, as he remarks (p. 28), “The zones of the latter county [Cambridge] have not yet been traced northward into Norfolk, where the Chalk begins to put on what may be termed the northern or Lincolnshire facies; the data requisite for the proper correlation of the two areas are therefore incomplete.” And again (p. 31), “As yet we know nothing of the changes which the Chalk zones undergo in their passage from Cambridge to Norfolk; and in the absence of this connecting stratigraphical evidence, the correlations now suggested are not to be received as a decided expression of
On some Eroded Agate Pebbles from the Soudan
Authors: Ball V.
Published: October 2009

Amond a large number of pebbles and rock specimens collected by Surgeon-Major Greene in the Soudan, and recently presented by him to the Science and Art Museum in Dublin, I found that the majority of the former were of very similar character to the Agate and Jasper pebbles derived from the basalte of India. Upon closer examination I observed that a certain proportion of them are eroded in a manner unlike anything I have ever noticed in India, though, if the cause of erosion is what I believe it to have been, it is most probable that similarly eroded pebbles would be found in certain localities there also. Inferentially we may conclude, from the nature of these pebbles, that they originally came from a region in which basaltic rocks occur to a considerable extent. That this conclusion is of no little importance will presently be seen.

Throughout India, wherever there is deficient subsoil drainage on the one hand, or excessive evaporation and limited rainfall on the other, saline matters make themselves apparent, either in saturated subsoil solutions, or by crystallizing out in the soil itself, in the latter case, during wet seasons, being sometimes the cause of saline lakes and pools.

The nature of these salts varies with that of the minerals constituting the rocks from which they have been derived; and in reference to the distribution of the various salts of sodium, potassium, and magnesium, extensive observations have been made, both in India and America, in connexion with the
Report on the Recent Work of the Geological Survey in the North-west Highlands of Scotland, based on the Field-notes and Maps
Authors: Peach B. N. , Horne J. , Gunn W. , Clough C. T. , Hinxman L. , Cadell H. M.
Published: October 2009

Introduction.

I
n
November 1884 a brief notice or report was published of the results of the work of the Geological Survey in Sutherland. The object of that report was mainly to announce that the detailed mapping of the region had convinced us that the views entertained by our former chief, Sir Roderick Murchison, were no longer tenable. It was then intended that an official Report should soon be published, embodying the details of the survey work and containing a full digest of all that had previously been done by other observers. But the complicated structure of the region and the necessity of continuing the mapping southward along the great line of disturbance have hitherto delayed the publication of this Report. It is felt, however, that instead of further postponement until the conditions of official publication are fulfilled, it will be of advantage to publish a
résumé
of the chief results which the Survey has up to the present time obtained, and hence the present communication is laid before the Society.

Previous Literature.

In fulfilment of the promise made in the preliminary notice above referred to, we now offer an outline of the work of previous observers, chiefly with the view of showing how far our own labours have been forestalled by theirs.

In 1819 Macculloch described a remarkable development of red sandstone, quartz-rocks, and limestones among the gneiss and schists of the North-west Highlands and Islands. He maintained that the red sandstones and conglomerates rest unconformably on the western gneiss
Notes on some of the Auriferous Tracts of Mysore Province, Southern India
Authors: Attwood George
Published: October 2009

During the end of the winter of the year 1886 and a portion of the spring of 1887 I was employed in Southern India inspecting a large area of mineral lands supposed to be auriferous (see Map, fig. 1), and during my travels by train, bullock-carts, and on foot (the latter about 600 miles), I collected some rock specimens and made notes and sketches of my observations, which I now submit for the consideration of the Society.

My notes are divided into three parts, namely:—

1.

1. The Melkote Area.

2.

2. The Seringapatam Area*.

3.

3. General observations on some of the auriferous tracts of Mysore Province from numerous traverses.

1. Melkote Area.

The first section (see Plan, fig. 2, and Section, fig. 3) which I will describe is in the Hassan District of the Province of Mysore, starting about one mile west of the sacred Hindoo city of Melkote, and extending in a north-easterly direction to about half a mile beyond the Lokapavani River.

A gneiss of a highly schistose character was first observed dipping sharply to the west and in it numerous small bands of flaky mica are found, which in places, has weathered and decayed, forming a sort of white plastic clay.

The shcistose gneiss is followed by a hard, coarse-grained gneiss, which forms the elevated portions of the Melkote hill- or mountain-range (3550 feet aboe sea-level at Madras), and has a general strike of north 20° east, dipping at angle of about 40° to the west.

Large
Note on Specimens from Mysore, collected by G. Attwood, Esq., F.G.S.
Authors: Bonney T. G.
Published: October 2009

1. Rock consisting of reddish garnets, very irregular in their outline, in a greenish-grey crystalline matrix, with brown weathering. Apparently a variety of eclogite.
Microsc.
: consists of garnet, quartz, felspar, hornblende, iron-oxide, rtrtile (?), and a few grains of a honeyyellow mineral. The garnet rarely shows a crystalline form ; often it encloses grains of other minerals, chiefly quartz ; sometimes it forms with them a kind of granular aggregate. The felspar is to a great extent replaced by secondary products, but some small grains of plagioclase are well preserved. One of the larger (rather decomposed) grains encloses quartz granules. The hornblende is green, sometimes rather dark, showing very characteristic dichroism and cleavage. The yellow mineral mentioned above is not abundant, generally granular in form, but in one case prismatic ; here extinction seems to take place at a small angle with the larger edge. The dichroism is not strong, and there is moderate chromatic polarization. It may be a variety of epidote; but I am uncertain. From the general structure of the rock, it appears to me to have formerly undergone mechanical disturbance, but so long since that there has been a practical recrystallization of constituents,
i. e.
very few distinct indications of crushing now remain. The rock rather reminds me of a variety of eclogite which I collected at Wahnapitae, on the Canada Pacific railway.

2. The rock in the hand-specimen appears to be a slightly foliated, dark, hornblende-schist, containing some very small garnets. Under the microscope
On the Law that governs the Action of Flowing Streams
Authors: Oldham R. D.
Published: October 2009

Of all the agents which Nature employs in her great and ceaseless work of change, of destruction and construction, of removal and renewal, probably none have been less studied, few are less understood, by geologists, than water in the form of streams and rivers.

In a general way it is known that, with sufficient velocity, a stream will erode its bed, and that if the velocity be reduced sufficiently it will deposit part or all of what solid material it may be carrying down its course. But, while mathematicians and engineers have been investigating, in all their details, the laws which govern the flow of water, geologists have done little to investigate the laws under which it acts in shaping the surface of the world we live in.

Rain, glaciers, and the sea; these seem almost to have limited the horizon of the geological view, and, without forgetting the researches of Prof. Hull, the essay of the late Mr. Greenwood, or the application of the principles enunciated by him to a special case by the late Mr. Fergusson, we may almost say that the intermediate link in the chain—the flowing stream—has either been regarded as unworthy of notice, or the vague general ideas and statements of the textbooks have been regarded as a complete and satisfactory account of the problem.

Yet in the whole range of physical geology there is no subject which will better repay a detailed investigation or open a wider field of intricate and interesting problem than