iaivhwtatetetatetatatne
Peart ar tay tes efi REE Cr rig arte ea et Pt OER Oat atten eer
Oe tk ot tl ath et alo ch RO et hr 7 Letdem bamatia ent aentnaediteeie id
nA hea Heke he hemi tie Re Bo ha et Re . ° ~- = wr =
33 s 7
RA SS A te ee IO AP
LEE ENON OE Ei eB
RoAcAiiatntapiatnrtubetemeae eke ht Salis
PE POE ODA LE ELLE NN A NN eA
: 4 emer
- > . .
Se US Pree
- ey sor ee
abt et
OE A NR
S57 setae he PD Ne Nenrg a harem
ea ae
psa ad og et ae =. a
1S p99 Seem nen eh tps wre ota oat
ani eae, OR
rr, iy saad wa
Bae ere
NF
THE
GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE.
DECADE IV. VOL. VIII.
JANUARY—DECEMBER, 1901.
SS . OS Les,
GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE
OR,
Monthly Journal of Geology:
WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED
WEEE GH OLmOG ES i
NOS. CCCCXXXIX TO CCCCL.
EDITED BY
HENRY WOODWARD, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., F.Z.8., F.R.M.S.,
LATE OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY};
PRESIDENT OF THE PALZONTOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY,
VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE ZOOLOGICAL AND MALACOLOGICAL SOCIETIES ;
MEMBER OF THE LYCEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, NEW YORK; AND OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL
SOCIETY, PHILADELPHIA; HONORARY MEMBER OF THE YORKSHIRE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY;
OF THE GEOLOGISTS’ ASSOCIATION, LONDON; OF THE INSTITUTION OF MINING AND
METALLURGY, LONDON; CF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES OF EDINBURGH,
GLASGOW, HALIFAX, LIVERPOOL, AND SOUTH AFRICA; CORRESPONDING
MEMBER OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF BELGIUM; OF THE
IMPERIAL SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY OF MOSCOW; OF
THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF MONTREAL;
AND OF THE MALACOLOGICAL
SOCIETY OF BELGIUM.
ASSISTED BY
ROBERT ETHERIDGE, F.R.S. L.&E., F.G.S., F.C.8., &e.
WILFRID H. HUDLESTON, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S., F.LS., F.C.8.
GEORGE J. HINDE, Px.D., F.B.S., F.G.8., &.
AND
HORACE BOLINGBROKE WOODWARD, F.R.S., F.G.S., &c.
NEW SERIES. DECADE Iv. VOL. VIII.
JANUARY—DECEMBER, 1901.
5
EON Do OFN-:
MESSRS. DULAU & CO., 87, SOHO SQUARE, W.
1901.
HERTFORD :
PRINTED BY STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS.
LIST OF PLATES.
PLATE FACING PAGE
ee venlock Limestonevirilobites 3) ae a 2s | 5
II. Geological Viewsin Central France. . . . - ... =. =- ~- ~ 60
III. Geological Views in Central France. . . . . . - ~~. - = £62
IV. Geological Views in Central France. . . . . . .- +--+ - 64
V. Portrait of Professor Lapworth, LL.D., F.R.S. . . . . - . 289
Wit ake Louiseand Mirror Lake: .. «s+ 4-6 < 3 4 «+ ~ 5 {9%
Wil, OrbyrGen enolic G6 6 596 6 6 6 o 6 o o Jl
ili Cirripedes'and ‘Trilobites? «=. ei = 6s 4 - - «2a +s ele
TX. Diagram to illustrate Periodic Oscillations of Sea-level . . . - 172
X. Pine-board and Oak Eroded by Sand-blast of the Shore . . . . 193
XI. Gasteropoda, Wenlock Limestone, Dudley. . . . . . - . . 249
XII. Cretaceous Crustacea from Faxe, Denmark . .... . =. =. SOl
Nie horivaitot Or. Gustat Vindsiromy- ney ey -) see
XIV. Portrait of the Rev. Professor Bonney, D.Se., LL.D., F.R.S., etc. 385
ANE olluran Gasteropoday sa. G Stan ica sc. fs ks) repeals fs (2 GeUO
NIV e Siberian Anthracomyevete: sss . 5 =. . - » = » « 400
mevitse Devonian Fossils; Lynton: 2.9. 050-5 os ve st 8
MV eDevonian Hossilss Torquay) = 5 -)a se es 2 oe = OeO
90 eIk
Bays 8")
Pe Hi
cali Le
Lag
BS
uss
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT.
Impressions of Echinoderms in Triassic Sandstones :
Photograph of the Bottom of a Flask containing Spherulitic Structure :
Belinurus kiltorkensis Ae bid
Wing of Fouguea cambrensis fom the Chale measures
Bone Needle from Cave on the River Wye . :
Skull of Ochotona (Lagomys) pusillus from Cave on itis River Wye
Skull of Décrostonyx (Myodes) torquatus from Cave on the River Wye .
Upper Molars of Dicrostonyx (Myodes) torquatus from Cave on the River Wye
Lower Molars of Dicrostonyx (Myodes) torquatus from Cave on the River Wye
Lower and Upper Molars of Lemmus is yodes) lemmus from Cave on the
River Wye
Neolithic Implement from Tras, Pahang site Peninsula,
Pollicipes polymerus, G. B. Sowerby .
Catophragmus polymerus, Darwin. :
Brachylepas cretacea, H. Woodw., gen. nov.
Black Shale with Diplograptus from Carabaya, Eo
Arms of the Royal Hammerers
Estheria anomala, T. R. Jones, sp. nov.
Diagram of Area of Earthquake of September 22, 1900
Map of Lake District of Central Africa .
Map of Lake Tanganyika ;
Diagram to illustrate lines of Volcanic oon:
Diagram-Section on the East side of Ruwenzori . :
Left Ramus of Mandible of Pal@omastodon Beadnelli, ence
Dentition of Maritheriwm Lyonsi, Andrews :
Mandible and Lower Teeth of Bradytherium grave, aa ,
Left Upper Cheek-teeth of Bradytheriwm grave, Andrews .
Pleurotoma prisca, Solander, sp.
Diagram-Section illustrating Limburgite
Diagram-Section illustrating Limburgite
Vertebre of Gigantophis Garstini, Andrews
Vertebra of Meriophis Schweinfurthi, Andrews .
Left Humerus of Psephophorus cocenus, Andrews
Skull and Mandible of Stereogenys Cromeri, Andrews an:
Diagram of Divisions of Carapace in a Brachyuran Decapod Grtetavoun
Encrusted Block in the Eeca Shale, Ladysmith, Natal .
Relative Position of Travelled Blocks, Ladysmith :
Sigmoidal Folding in Devonian Rocks, Hele Bay, Ilfracombe .
Strabops Fletcheri, Beecher ; Cambrian, Missouri
104
104
PRRs FRE PF:
aatit ‘
TEELILUY E,
THE
GHOLOGICAL MAGAZINE.
NEW) SERIES. .DECADE; IV. VOL... VIII.
No. IL—JANUARY, 1901.
Ores Geran AC, Acres Giese
———.>-—_
I.—Note oN THE StrRvucTuRE or SARSENs.
By Professor J. W. Jupp, C.B., LL.D., F.R.S., .V.P.G.S., etc.
[Introductory Note.—After the publication of my paper on the
Sarsens, or Sarsen Stones, in the Wiltshire Archeological and
Natural History Society’s Magazine, vol. xxiii (1886), pp. 122-154,
many friendly communications gave me further information on the
subject, and additional references to published facts and opinions.
From this correspondence, and my own notes made in the country,
I propose to utilize much that seems to be of interest. The most
important of these additions to our knowledge of the Sarsens is the
following memoir on their constitution and structure by my friend
Prof. Dr. J. W. Judd, C.B., F.B.S., etc., of the Royal College of
Science, who most obligingly examined with care the microscopical
structure of many specimens from authenticated localities. With
his kind permission this valuable communication (dated March 9th,
1888) is here printed.—T. Rurrerr Jonss. |
HE microscopic examination of a series of thin sections, cut
from the Sarsens, shows that their minute structure varies as
strikingly as does the appearance of their fractured surfaces.
Microscopically, the Sarsens are seen to be made up of two kinds
of materials, clastic fragments of crystalline minerals and a cement
(base or matrix) of a microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline character.
The relative proportion of these two constituents varies very widely
in different cases.
The Sarsens with saccharoid fracture stand at one end of the
series. An admirable example from Camberley, North Surrey, is
seen to be almost wholly made up of sand grains, with very little in
the way of cement visible. Much of the cementing material in this
rock is ferruginous, and the rock is more incoherent than is the case
with most Sarsens.
_ At the other end of the series stand the Sarsens exhibiting
a fracture resembling that of some cherts. Under the microscope
the greater part of their mass is seen to be made up of excessively
minute and imperfectly developed quartz microlites, and these
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. I. L
2 Professor J. W. Judd—Structure of Sarsens.
occasionally exhibit a tendency to the spherulitic arrangement.
A beautiful example of this kind of Sarsen is one from Poxwell
Ring, near Dorchester. In this case the original sand grains seem
to have almost wholly disappeared, and an aggregate of grains of
secondary quartz has been formed, which crystallize out freely
on the sides of cavities. In parts, the section shows admirable
spherulitic structure, and the iron-oxides have separated into small
globular masses. The appearances exhibited are strikingly like
those of some flints with highly crystalline structure.
All the other sections examined show the detrital crystalline
particles enveloped in more or less of the fine-grained secondary
matrix. The detrital grains consist mainly of quartz. By far the
greater part of these quartz grains exhibit the bands of liquid
cavities so characteristic of the quartz of granites and gneisses ;
corroded quartz grains with glass or stone cavities, evidently derived
from quartz-felsites, occur, but are much less rare, as are also the
polysynthetic grains, some of which may have been derived from
schistose rocks. With the quartz grains are a few unmistakable
particles of flint, but these are never numerous. TFelspars and other
minerals are usually rare. Sometimes the grains appear to be well
rounded, and at other times they seem perfectly angular; but it is
probable that in all cases a considerable amount of corrosion of the
surfaces of the grains has taken place. Only in one or two doubtful
cases have I seen what could be taken as a deposition of secondary
silica upon, and in optical continuity with, the detrital quartz.
In a specimen from the valley of the Kennet (Enborne Lodge
gravel-pit) we have perfectly angular quartz grains embedded in
a nearly compact cement—one which can be resolved only under
very high microscopic power.
A very remarkable variety of Sarsen is one from Staple-Fitzpaine,
about 10 miles west of Taunton. In this rock the grains are much
larger than in any other Sarsen that I have examined; they are
markedly angular, and though quartz grains form a majority of the
whole, yet felspars and other minerals occur much more usually
than in the other specimens examined. If this should be found
to be the rule with Sarsens from the most westerly localities, it
would indicate that the granitic and metamorphic rocks which
yielded the materials of which they are composed lay to the west
of the London Basin.
[In a subsequent letter (February 27th, 1889) Professor Judd
states that this “specimen from Staple-Fitzpaine has a fragment of
whitened flint in it. The microscopic characters of which are
unmistakably those of a silicified Chalk-mud full of fragments of
Globigerina.”’ ]
The cement of the flint-conglomerate of Hertfordshire consists of
quartz grains, with a few grains of flint, embedded in a crypto-.
crystalline siliceous groundmass. There is no very striking
resemblance between the cement of this conglomerate and that of
any of the Sarsens which I have examined.
Professor R. Burckhardt—Triassice Starfishes. 3
IJ].—NoTE ON CERTAIN IMPRESSIONS OF ECHINODERMS OBSERVED ON
THE SANDSTONE SLABS IN WHICH THE SKELETONS oF HypzrRo-
DAPEDON GORDONI AND RHYNCHOSAURUS ARE PRESERVED.
By Prof. Rupotr Burcknarnt, Ph.D., of the University of Basel, Switzerland.
HEN searching for traces of the dermal structure preserved
in the specimen of Hyperodapedon in the British Museum
(Natural History) in London,’ my attention was drawn to certain
spots where the matrix showed projections and pits of a polygonal
shape, which I detected when I took the photographs of this Triassic
reptile. Primarily occupying myself with the matrix of the principal
slab, in which the skeleton is enclosed, I quite thought I had only
to deal with dermal structures similar to those discovered in
Rhynchosaurus.
One of these spots, lying between the ninth and tenth ribs of the
left side, particularly attracted my attention. This I was at first
inclined to regard as a dermal ossification, the pentagonal character
of which was unquestionable. On closer inspection I found,
however, the whole of the matrix densely covered with similar
structures, a circumstance which became still more perplexing in
proportion as I discovered their immense numbers, which were
equally abundant at a considerable distance from the body, and also
in the matrix of the counterpart which had not been touched by the
chisel. The matrix of the Rhynchosaurian fossils from Warwickshire
also showed the same character; indeed, I found some on these slabs
in even better condition of preservation.
Prints of Echinoderms in the Triassic Sandstones of Warwickshire and Elgin,
From a specimen in the British Museum (Natural History), x 3.
Actual petrefactions they were not, but simply the hollow
impressions leaving a film behind, between the coarse grains of the
sand. In size they vary between 3mm. and 3cm. in diameter.
The matrix is crowded with these bodies, which are deposited over
each other, all of them lying in the same plane as the skeleton of
1 See ‘‘ On Hyperodapedon Gordoni’’: Grou. Mac., 1900, Nov. and Dee.
4 Professor R. Burckhardt—Triassic Starfishes.
Hyperodapedon. Those facing the observer with their upper sides
have left teat-like projections in the stone; others appear as funnel-
shaped depressions made by a massive body.
In shape they are star-like pentagons, of about the same form
as the bodies of Euryalidee. :
In diagonal opposition to the main portion of the star-shaped
bed lies a small pentagonal plate consisting of five parts, which
radiate from a central piece. I believe I have also detected some
radiating striz on the outer pentagon in a few exceptionally well-
preserved examples, as well as some finer striz, skirting the margim
of the extreme pentagonal radially, where they arrange themselves:
in regular order. Besides these pentagons I noticed some series of
smaller segments of about 4 mm., which to the number of six unite
with each other, though rarely more, in which latter case they are
very difficult of detection.
The conclusions I have arrived at as to these structures, and to
which I give expression quite reservedly to specialists engaged in
this branch of geology, are as follows :—
These pentagonal forms are empty caverns left by Echinoderms
of a Hurylaid shape, having peripheral arms, either simple or
forked. To whatever group of Echinoderms they may belong will
be a matter of investigation by specialists. Under no circumstances
are they parts of Hyperodapedon. The two pentagonal sets of which
they are composed, together with their projecting limbs, are forms:
which do not resemble any other type of the classes of invertebrates.
In favour also of this inference is their enormous quantity and the
great diversity in their sizes. The extreme delicacy of these
impressions is probably the reason why my examination of the
slabs did not yield a better result, as might have been the case if the
stones had been more recently quarried or specially prepared for this:
purpose.
That no remains of their external skeletons are preserved, is in
no way detrimental to this hypothesis, as a corollary to this is found
in the case of those hollows left by Elgin reptiles, which E. T.
Newton so admirably described from casts taken from their natural
moulds. No other fossils having been found in these localities except
reptiles, is also an argument in favour of such an interpretation as-
the above.
From a like presence of these casts in both localities, the Elgin
sandstones, which Smith Woodward quotes as “supposed Trias,”
should be of the same age as the sandstones belonging to the Upper
Triassic of Warwickshire and Shropshire.
Interesting as may be the task of pursuing this highly attractive
geological question, it is a matter of real regret that I am compelled
to deny myself the pleasure of conducting the investigation of this
subject further. I must confine myself here to the statement only,
that I have good reason for believing that I have observed similar
petrefactions of organic origin in some rather imperfect fragments
from the Maleri deposits in India.
= b~
2
oe Sa ae
Geol. Mag 1901. - Decade WNVol-VILPLI
G@MWoodward delet lith. West,Newman imp.
Wenlock Limestone Trilobites.
F. RB. Cowper Reed—Undescribed Trilobites. 5
I11.—Woopwarpian Musrum Nores: Sartrer’s UNDESCRIBED
Species. II.
By F. R. Cowper Rezep, M.A., F.G.S.
(PLATE I.)
Licwas scuTats, Salter. (PI. I, Figs. 1-4.)
1873. Lichas scutalis, Salter MSS.: Cat. Camb. Sil. Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 130
1877. ee ces, Woodward: Cat. Brit. Foss. Crust., p. 43.
1878. Lichas scutalis, Edgell MSS.: Cat. Camb. Sil. Foss. Mus, Pract. Geol., p. 84.
1891. Lichas verrucosus, Woods: Cat. Type Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 147.
fW\HERE are three specimens of this species in the Woodwardian
Museum, viz.: (1) Salter’s fine original specimen (a 954) from
the Wenlock Shale of Malvern, belonging to the first part of the
Fletcher Collection, acquired prior to 1873; (2) a poor specimen
probably from the same collection and horizon, locality unknown ;
and (3) an almost perfect specimen, also from the Wenlock Shale
of Malvern, belonging to that part of the Fletcher Collection
recently presented by Mrs. Fletcher. This specimen will be
designated the Fletcher specimen in distinction to Salter’s original
specimen. Both these specimens show almost the whole trilobite
preserved in excellent condition, and from them the following
description has been drawn up.
Draanosts.—Head-shield broadly parabolic, nearly twice as broad
as long, and slightly produced backwards at genal angles; strongly
convex from back to front and from side to side, slightly flattened
between the eyes across the middle portion of the posterior half;
anterior half of head-shield bent down very steeply to margin,
almost at a right angle to posterior half; sides bent down as steeply
in front, but less steeply towards genal angles, where they flatten out.
Glabella wide, occupying nearly whole middle third of head-
shield; forms most elevated portion of head-shield, but is not
swollen nor raised with independent convexity above fixed cheeks.
Median lobe much expanded in front, its narrow laterally-projecting
tongues overlapping anterior lateral lobes; constricted strongly at
level of anterior lateral furrow, behind which it gradually decreases
in width with nearly straight sides to the base of anterior lateral
lobes, where it again expands a little. Behind this point the median
lobe is only weakly marked off from the two pairs of posterior
lateral lobes, but is traceable in the Fletcher specimen to the
straight occipital furrow, where it has nearly double the width it
possessed between the anterior lateral lobes.
Anterior lateral lobes large, of broadly oval shape, rather wider
in front than behind, where the furrow which defines them is very
faint. They extend about two-thirds the whole length of the
glabella with their longer axes obliquely directed inwards, and
with a gentle convexity of their own, bending down strongly in
front with the median lobe and at the sides with the general
curvature of the head-shield. In front they are separated from the
6 F. R. Couper Reed—Undescribed Trilobites.
marginal furrow of the head-shield by the lateral projections of the
median lobe.
Middle lateral lobes subquadrate in shape, small and indistinctly
defined, being marked off in front from the anterior lobes by a very
faint depression sweeping round the hinder end of the latter lobes
and representing the middle lateral furrows. They are still more
indistinctly marked off posteriorly from the basal lobes by weak
grooves, while their outer sides are defined by the faint axal furrows
and their inner sides by the continuation of the anterior lateral
furrows to the occipital segment.
Basal lobes likewise weakly marked off from the rest of the
glabella and fixed cheeks, but relatively large, being nearly the size
of the middle lobes ; subrhomboidal rather than triangular in shape.
owing to the basal (posterior lateral) furrow starting, not from the
level of the occipital furrow but a little way in advance of it.
The posterior side of the basal lobes is marked off from the occipital
segment by the strong deep occipital furrow.
Occipital ring flattened and very broad in the middle behind the
straight portion of the occipital furrow at the base of the median
lobe of the glabella, but with its lateral portions only about half
the width, and bent backwards behind the basal lobes.
Axal furrows strongly marked only along the outer side of the
anterior end of the anterior lateral lobes, being posteriorly very
weak, as above mentioned. Behind the point where they pass into
the marginal furrow which bounds the glabella in front they arch
outwards, curving round inwards posteriorly as they define the
anterior lateral lobes, to the base of which they nearly extend with
a deeply impressed course. Here the middle lateral furrows pass
imperceptibly into them. Behind this point the axal furrows
become very weak, and curve outwards along the outer side of the
middle and basal lobes to end in the occipital furrow.
Anterior lateral furrows arise far forwards, curving round the broad
anterior end of the anterior lateral lobes, and then run with nearly
a straight course backwards along the inner side of these lobes,
slightly converging. At the posterior end of the latter each furrow
bends a little outwards to end in a small pit from which the middle
furrow starts. About half-way along the inner side of these anterior
lobes there is a slight outward kink in these anterior furrows, from
which a faint groove runs outwards a little distance across the lobe,
such as has been noticed in Lichas ornatus (Angelin),' Lichas
anglicus (Beyr.), and other species. Behind the pits at the base of
the anterior lobes the anterior lateral furrows are traceable as faint
slightly divergent grooves (especially clear in the Fletcher specimen),
which finally meet the occipital furrow at the inner posterior angle
of the basal lobes.
Middle lateral furrows weak and short, starting from the pit on
the anterior furrows and curving round the base of the anterior
lobes to merge imperceptibly into the stronger axal furrows.
1 Schmidt: Rev. Ostbalt. Silur. Trilob,, Abth. ii (1885), p. 109, t. vi, fig. 18a.
F. R. Cowper Reed—Undescribed Trilobites.
“NI
Basal furrows extremely faint. As mentioned above, they are
not straight lateral prolongations of the median portion of the
occipital furrow, as is the case in many species, but they arise
a short distance in front of it on the backward continuation of the
anterior lateral furrow, and curve slightly forwards to join the axal
furrow nearly at right angles.
In Salter’s original specimen there is in addition to the above
furrows a shallow transverse depression arched backwards, extending
across the neck of the median lobe at the base of the anterior lateral
lobes and between the pits on the anterior furrows. A similar
transverse groove is seen in Lichas palmatus (Barr.), LZ. scaber
(Beyr.),' and ZL. anglicus (Beyr.).
Occipital furrow composed of a central straight portion, not
deeply impressed, and of lateral portions curving strongly backwards
and strongly marked behind the basal lobes.
Fixed cheeks small, with an anterior wing forming a very narrow
strip between the axal furrow and the facial suture. At the base
of the anterior lateral lobes of the glabella, where the axal furrow
bends in, the cheeks increase in width, expanding behind the eye
and entering into the general convexity of the head-shield.
Hye-lobes of moderate size, prominent, horizontally-extended
outwards on a level with the general convexity of the glabella,
and situated just in front of the base of the anterior lateral lobes.
A short furrow separates them from the fixed cheeks. In front
of the glabella is a flattened horizontally-extended border of
moderate width, widening a little laterally as it passes into that
of the free cheeks, and marked off by a shallow marginal furrow.
Free cheeks triangular in shape, with an inner strongly convex
portion abruptly elevated above the flattened broad border, and
marked off behind by the occipital furrow and scarcely in front by
the very weakly-defined marginal furrow which circumscribes its
base and joins the occipital furrow at nearly a right angle. This
inner convex portion of the free cheek bears the eye at its summit,
but nearer the front than the anterior border.
Eye semicircular and prominent, rising up vertically with a high
visual surface beneath the overhanging eye-lobe.
Border of free cheek flattened, rapidly increasing in width from
the front to the genal angle, owing to the inward course of the
marginal furrow. Genal angles slightly produced into blunt points.
Ornamentation.—The glabella, occipital ring, fixed cheeks, and
the convex portion of the free cheeks are ornamented with tubercles
of moderate size, rather sparingly distributed. On the flattened
border of the free cheeks, particularly near the genal angles, there
are also a few similar tubercles.
Thorax.—The thorax in the Fletcher specimen is nearly perfect
and shows nine narrow segments, but in Salter’s original specimen
it is not so well preserved and only seven segments can be dis-
tinguished. In each case the specimen has its head and tail strongly
bent upwards, and this has caused the body to break across at the
1 Barrande: Syst. Silur. Bohem., vol. i (1851), pl. xxix, figs. 7 and 24.
8 EF. BR. Cowper Reed—Undescribed Trilobites.
junction of the head and thorax, forcing back the head over the
first few segments of the body and concealing them. In the Fletcher
specimen there are indications of one segment being thus covered,
making the actual number of thoracic rings to be ten.
Axis of thorax gently convex, broad, tapering gradually to the
pygidium, each ring consisting of a simple narrow band, apparently
devoid of ornamentation. The anterior rings of the axis appear to
be wider than the corresponding pleurz, but the posterior ones to be
narrower. Axal furrows weak.
Pleurz semicylindrical, horizontally extended as far as the
falerum, but then bent downwards, flattening again towards their
extremities, which are separate and free. The fulcrum is distant
from the axal furrow about one-third of the length of the pleura,
and is obtusely rounded. Each pleura curves gently forwards to.
the fulcrum, then bends more strongly backwards, and again bends
forward slightly towards its extremity. The surface of each pleura
is marked along its inner portion by a nearly median furrow, which
yuns straight outwards to the fulerum and then curves backwards
over the outer portion to the point, dividing this outer portion into
a flattened anterior and an elevated posterior part, but near the end
the whole breadth of the pleura is flattened. The extremity is
bluntly pointed. There are a few obscure traces of tubercles on the
pleuree.
Pygidium.—Broad and roughly pentagonal, gently convex from
side to side, having its lateral lobes bent down, but flattened along
its margin. Its component segments are closely fused together, and
only the two anterior pleura on each side are marked out.
The pygidium is arched forwards in front; posteriorly it is
forked, and each side is angulated by the projection of the extremities
of the second pair of pleura.
The posterior margin lying in the fork is rather less than half the
anterior width of the pygidium. The re-entrant angle is about 135°,
and the sides meet the lateral borders at an angle of a little over
90° at the obtusely rounded divergent points of the fork. (In the
Fletcher specimen these points are rather more acute.)
Axis cylindrical, convex, and prominent, being strongly raised
above the lateral lobes. Its posterior end is pointed and prolonged
to reach the posterior margin of the pygidium at the re-entrant
angle, sloping down rapidly to the level of the flattened border.
The cylindrical portion of the axis measures only about two-thirds
the total length of the pygidium.
First axial ring only distinct, and marked off behind by a strong
continuous furrow. Very obscure traces of four or five rings behind
it. Axal furrows well marked on each side of the cylindrical portion,
but very faint behind it and scarcely traceable to the margin.
Lateral lobes of pygidium, bent down on each side of the axis and
consisting of a convex inner portion and a flattened marginal portion.
Hach lateral lobe measures anteriorly about 13 times the width of
the axis.
First pair of pleura: distinct, each pleura expanding outwardly to
F. RB. Cowper Reed— Undescribed Trilobites. i)
double its axial width, and with a squarely truncated extremity,
not projecting beyond the margin. A straight diagonal furrow
marks the surface, but does not reach the extremity, and the outer
anterior angle of the truncated end is flattened as in the pleura of
the thorax, as if for rolling-up. The groove separating the first from
the second pleura runs obliquely backwards and outwards at an
-angle of about 30° to the front margin of the pygidium, curving
gently forwards at its outer end.
Second pair of pleura distinct, each pleura increasing rapidly to
double the width possessed by the first pleura on the margin; end
broad, truncated, and with posterior angle projecting beyond the
inargin as a distinct tooth ; posteriorly marked off by weak furrow
‘making an angle of about 45° with front margin of the pygidium.
A median, slightly oblique furrow traverses the ‘surface of the pleura,
but stops short of the margin.
The position of the projecting ends of this second pair of pleure
“is about half-way along the lateral margins of the pygidium. Behind
them the margin takes a slight curve “inwards to the points of the
posterior fori.
The lateral lobes behind the second pair of pleuree show no
segmentation or furrows, but probably are composed of two pairs of
pleurze, one ending at the lateral pointed extremities of the posterior
margin and the other at the axal furrows in the re-entrant angle.
A few scattered tubercles are visible on the flattened marginal
portion of the lateral lobes, especially near the posterior angles.
MEASUREMENTS.
Me le
mm. mm.
Leneth of head-shield Pee wate Bo 13°0 Kae 11°5
Width ot head-shield oh =i — 26-0 rae PALLY
Length of glabella... dae aes 11-0 ft 8a
Width of elabella at front end. ae sbe 10°5 ase 10:0
Width of glabella at level of eyes”... ate ORO) wees 73
Width of glabella at neck-furrow ... ae 9-0 re 9-0
Width ot thorax aa. ay. ae about 22:0 oe 19-0
Width of axis of thorax Heo BAG --- uncertain ... 8:0
Length of pygidium ... 500 sie 11°5 aie 10-0
Width of pygidium at front end rs Boe 18:0 as 18-0
Width of pygidium between posterior angles 9-0 fed 8:0
Width of axis of pygidium ... ade 6-0 RE 6-0
I = Salter’s specimen. II = Fletcher’s specimen.
N.B.—In the Fletcher specimen the hypostome is also seen in its
proper position on the lower surface of the upturned head. It is
subpentagonal in shape; its length is less than its breadth, which
is greatest across the middle. The central portion, which is also of
greater breadth than length, is marked off by a continuous furrow
from the border, is gently convex, and occupies about two-thirds of
the whole length of the hypostome ; its anterior end is strongly
arched forwards, and its sides and posterior edge are nearly straight
and parallel respectively to the lateral and posterior margins of the
hypostome. <A pair of faint short furrows run obliquely inwards
from the lateral angles. The border is broad and flattened, extending
10 FR. Cowper Reed—Undescribed Trilobites.
down the sides of the central portion from the lateral angles and
round the posterior margin, where it is broadest and slightly
excavated. The posterior angles are obtusely rounded.
MEASUREMENTS.
Length of hypostome Bho
Width of hypostome across middle
Length of central portion
Width of central portion not “is
Width of posterior border ie Se 50
Remarks.—To none of the other British species of Zichas from
the Wenlock Series does L. scutalis show any close resemblance.
LL. verrucosus (Hichw.),' with which it has been confounded, belongs
to a lower stratigraphical horizon, and differs in the following
particulars,—the shape of the median lobe of the glabella, the
form and size of the basal lobes, the course of the axal furrows,
the position of the basal furrows, the course of the occipital furrow,
the absence of a transverse groove across the median lobe of the
glabella, the position of the eye and eye-lobes, the shape of
the pygidium and the furrows on its lateral lobes, the shape of its
axis, etc., etc. In fact, Z. verrucosus is so utterly different from
L, scutalis that it is surprising that they were ever considered
identical or even closely allied. It is needless to enter into a minute
comparison of the two species, as their specific separation is obvious.
Schmidt (loc. cit.) remarks that Z. scutalis is quite distinct from
L. verrucosus (Hichw.).
The species which shows most points of resemblance is Barrande’s
L. ambiguus® from Ktage Ee2, which is more or less equivalent
to our Wenlock. This species has a glabella with anterior
lateral furrows continued down to the neck- furrow, with weal:
middle and basal furrows, and with axal furrows having the
same general course and development as JZ. scutalis, though less
curved inwards in the middle. The anterior lateral lobes are
closely similar, even to the indentation on the inner side, but they
are less oblique ; the middle lobes are rather less distinct, and the
basal lobes are only separable from them by their more swollen
character. There is also a somewhat similar shallow depression
across the neck of the median lobe. The smaller convexity of the
head-shield and the greater parallelism of the sides of the glabella are
points of difference. The occipital segment is also narrower, and the
occipital furrow has a different course. The thorax of Z. ambiguus
is unknown. It is in the pygidium that we find the most striking
points of resemblance: the shape of the axis and its continuation to
the posterior margin, the presence of only two pairs of pleuree on
the lateral lobes with their furrows, the projection of the extremities.
of the second pair beyond the margin, the smooth unfurrowed
posterior portion of the lateral lobes, the flattened margin, the
Narn o 8
ocoomos
' Eichwald: Beitr. z. Kenntn. Russl., Bd. viii (1843), p. 68, t. iii, fig. 23.
Schmidt: Rev. Ostbalt. Silur. Tvilob., Abth. ii (1885), p. 62, t. ii, figs. 1-11.
* Barrande: Syst. Silur. Bohem., yol. i (1851), p. 606, pl. xxviii, figs. 16-21.
F. R. Cowper Reed—Undescribed Tritobites. 1
posterior fork. The pygidium differs in being relatively narrower,
in possessing a shorter axis with more rings, in the extremities of
the first pleurze projecting beyond the margin, and in the posterior
margin being less deeply excavated.
Proretus Fuetcuert, Salter. (Pl. I, Figs. 5 and 6.)
1873. Proetus Fletcheri, Salter: Cat. Camb. Sil. Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 134
(a4 825, @ 828).
1877. Proetus Fietcheri, Salter: Woodward, Cat. Brit. Foss. Crust., p. 56.
1891. Proetus Fletcheri, Salter: Woods, Cat. Type Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 191.
This species, which is recorded by Salter (loc. cit.) from the
Wenlock Limestone of Dudley, is mentioned by him after
Pr. latifrons (McCoy) as “a broader species in all parts, more like
Pr. Ryckholti (Barr.) than Pr. latifrons (McCoy).”
There are three specimens of Pr. Fletcheri in the Woodwardian
Museum, which were labelled by Salter a 825 (2) and a 828, and are
thus entered in his “Catalogue.” But mounted on the same tablet
are seven other unlabelled specimens of Proetus, of which only one
belongs to this species, all the others showing points of difference.
There are four other specimens of the true Pr. Fletcheri in the
Woodwardian Museum, three of which are from the Fletcher
Collection and the other from the Leckenby.
The specimens from which the following description is drawn up
are those three labelled by Salter a 825 (2) and a 828.
Diacnosts.—General shape longitudinally oval, more than twice
as long as broad.
Head-shield broadly parabolic, about twice as wide as long, gently
concave posteriorly, moderately convex from side to side, bent down
in front. Genal angles produced into spines.
Glabella very broadly oval, as broad as long, more than one-third
the width of the head-shield at base, narrowing slightly towards the
obtusely rounded anterior end, which reaches the anterior border of
the head-shield ; gently convex from side to side, bent down steeply
in front of eyes.! Surface marked by two pairs of furrows, but
anterior pair generally obsolete. Basal pair of furrows short, weak,
shallow; curve slightly backwards; situated at level of middle of
eye and at more than one-third the length of glabella from neck-
furrow. Anterior pair of furrows when present very weak, directed
obliquely backwards from level of anterior end of eye.
In Salter’s specimen a 825 (here figured PI. I, Fig. 5) there is an
additional pair of small pit-like impressions on the glabella, situated
behind the basal furrows and close to the occipital furrow, and about
half-way between the axal furrows and the median line of the glabella.
I have not noticed them preserved in the other specimens, but they
may be compared with somewhat similarly placed basal pits on the
glabella of some specimens of Pr. bohenicus (Corda).
1 Owing to this strong downward bend of the front end of the glabella, the shape
seems to be subcircular in Fig. 5.
2 Barrande: Syst. Silur. Bohem., vol. i (1852), p. 452, pl. xvi, figs. 6, 7.
12 F. R. Cowper Reed—Uniescribed Trilobites.
Axal furrows weak in front of the eye, and passing into the
marginal furrow at the front end of the glabella. Between the eye-
lobe and glabella, and posterior to the eye, they are deep and strong.
Occipital furrow stronger than axal furrows, and arched forward
in the middle and at each side in front of the lateral occipital nodule.
Occipital ring rounded, considerably wider than a thoracic axial
ving, and furnished with a small median tubercle and a pair of
lateral nodules, which are sharply circumscribed, of oval shape,
swollen, prominent, and occupying nearly the whole width of the
occipital ring at the base of the axal furrows,
In front of the glabella is a raised and rounded border, well
defined by a strong marginal furrow.
Fixed cheeks with narrow anterior wing and large, semicircular,
horizontally - flattened eye-lobe, strongly elevated to nearly the
height of glabella. Eye-lobes reach from anterior lateral furrows
of glabella to behind basal pair, but do not project enough laterally
to cover whole upper surface of convex eye. Posterior wing of
fixed cheek small and triangular, owing to course of facial suture.
Occipital segment of cheek rounded, raised, and narrower than
occipital ring behind glabella.
Facial sutures cut anterior border of head-shield at a distance
apart equal to basal width of glabella. From these points of section
they curve backwards and slightly inwards to front of eye, then
bend out and circumscribe eye-lobe, and behind it curve sharply
outwards to cut neck-ring obliquely at an angle of 20°-30°, reaching
the posterior margin close to the base of the genal spine.
Free cheeks triangular, furnished with broad, rounded, and striated
border, continued backwards at the genal angle into the genal spine,
which is broad at the base, tapers rather rapidly to its pointed
extremity, and is less than half the length of the head-shield. It is
ornamented with longitudinal striations. The marginal and occipital
furrows meet each other at the genal angle at an angle of nearly
‘60°. The inner portion of the free cheeks is strongly elevated and
convex, with steep anterior but gentler lateral and posterior slopes.
‘On the summit it bears the large prominent eye which extends for
nearly two-thirds the length of the glabella. A shallow groove
encircles base of eye, and runs round it from the level of the occipital
furrow to the anterior lateral furrow of the glabella.
Thorax about equal in length to head-shield, consisting of ten
segments, with a broad, gradually tapering, cylindrical axis, nearly
half as wide again as the pleural portions. Rings of axis simple,
regular, and devoid of ornamentation. Axal furrows distinct, but
not deeply impressed.
Pleuree semicylindrical ; each consisting of an inner, straight, hori-
zontally-extended portion and an outer, longer, extra-fuleral portion,
which is bent gently downwards and backwards at an angle of 45°.
Inner portion crossed by diagonal furrow, making an angle of about
20° with the straight anterior edge. This furrow divides the inner
portion into two unequal parts, of which the posterior is much
the larger. On the extra-fulcral portion the furrow is obsolete, and
E.R. Cowper Reed—Undescribed Trilobites. 15.
the anterior part of the pleura is flattened into an articulating surface
which passes underneath the preceding pleura. Fulcrum well-
marked and angular, at the junction of the inner and outer portions
of the pleura. Extremities of pleura truncated and rounded.
Pygidium semicircular, about two-thirds the length of the thorax ;.
with simple entire margin, and distinct raised border. The anterior
edge of pygidium resembles that of a pleural ring, the inner part
being short and straight and the outer part oblique with an
articulating surface. Lateral and posterior margins incurved and
concentrically striated below.
Axis conical, strongly elevated above the flattened lateral lobes,
and tapering more rapidly than axis of thorax to an obtusely pointed
extremity, reaching the marginal furrow inside the raised border.
Seven to eight rings recognizable on axis, of which only the three
first are clearly separated by strong intersegmental furrows, the:
posterior ones being more or less indistinct. Lateral lobes gently
bent down on each side, and marked with three or four pleurz
with inner horizontal portion generally distinguishable, but devoid
of fulcrum. A weak longitudinal furrow runs down the centre of
each pleura.
Border of pygidium distinct and raised slightly above level of
lateral lobes, narrower at anterior lateral angles and behind axis
than in middle of sides. It is marked off by a shallow marginal
groove, and in one specimen (a 825 of Salter’s Catalogue) the
pleurze and their furrows are faintly traceable across it, but in some
individuals it is very indistinct.
Ornamentation.—The whole surface of the head and pygidium is
finely granulated.
MeasurEMeEnts.—Salter’s specimen a 825 :—
mm.
Length of whole trilobite = Bae ie 22:0
Length of head-shield ... ae ate oe: 8-0
Leneth of thorax aoe ele eats ahs 8-0
Length of pygidium —... 500 O08 506 6:0
Width of head-shield at base ... af ioe 15°5
Width of pygidium as 383 om. 565 10°5
Width of glabella at base ies abc $3 6-0
Remarks.—This species resembles Pr. bohenicus, Corda,’ in the
following particulars: (1) shape, relative size, and proportions of
glabella; (2) presence of lateral nodules and median tubercle on
occipital ring ; (3) relative proportions of thoracic axis and pleurve ;
(4) characters of pleure ; (5) shape of pygidium, pygidial axis, and
border; (6) granulated test.
Pr. bohemicus differs, however, in having a semicircular rather
than parabolic head-shield, in possessing very short genal spines,
smaller eyes and eye-lobes, and a relatively narrower border to the
head-shield ; in the presence of three pairs of lateral furrows on the
elabella; in the greater length of the thorax ; and in the smaller size
1 Corda: Prodr. Béhm.Trilob. (1847), p. 73, pl. iv, fig. 43. Barrande: Syst.
Silur. Bohem., vol. i (1852), p. 452, pl. xvi, figs, 1-15.
14 Henry Bassett, Jun.—Preparation of Spherulites.
of the pygidial pleura. On the other hand, Pr. Ryckholti (Barr.),* to
which Salter saw a resemblance, agrees in the shape of its head-
shield, in the faintness of the lateral furrows of the glabella, in the
size of the genal spines; in the median tubercle on the occipital ring ;
in the relative size of the eyes; and in the general aspect of the
pygidium. But it differs in the shape and proportions of the glabella
and of the thorax; in the absence of lateral occipital nodules; in
the shape of the pleure; in the more rapidly tapering axis of the
pygidium; and in the smooth test. Pr. Fletchert shows, therefore,
a much closer resemblance to Pr. bohemicus than to Pr. Ryckholti.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE I.
Fre. 1.—Lichas scutalis. Salter’s original specimen, a 954; Wenlock Limestone,
Malvern. x 13.
Fig. 2.—Lichas scutalis. Fletcher Collection specimen ; Wenlock Limestone,
Malvern. x 13.
Fic. 8.—Lichas scutalis. Hypostome of Fletcher Collection specimen. x 2.
Fie. 4.—Lichas scutalis. Outline restoration. x 24.
Fic. 5.—Proetus Fletcheri. Salter’s specimen, « 825; Wenlock Limestone, Dudley.
x 2.
Fie. 6.—Proetus Fletcheri. Side view of same specimen.
Notre.—The two figured specimens of Lichas scutalis are bent up at the head and
tail, causing some foreshortening of these parts in the figures, and the ends of the
‘pleurze to be widely separated.
IV.—NotE oN THE PREPARATION OF SPHERULITES.
By Henry Basserr, Jun.
eae, February, while working in the Chemical Laboratory of
University College, London, I had occasion to make some
sulphanilic acid. This was done in the usual way by heating a mixture
of 100 grammes of concentrated sulphuric acid and 30 grammes of
aniline to 180°-190° C. in an oil bath for four hours. The flask
containing the mixture was left in the oil bath to cool, and on
examining it the next day I was surprised to find that the solid mass
inside had developed a beautiful spherulitic structure. As I believe
this has never been observed before, it may be worth a description.
In colour the material is a bluish (or sometimes greenish) grey,
and it is practically a mass of spherulites, some of which are an
inch in diameter. ‘They are mostly well developed, and are slightly
lighter in tint than any intervening portions of the mass in which
a spherulitic structure is only faintly visible. They consist of
concentric layers, alternately nearly white and pale blue in colour,
with rather ragged edges, as may be seen in the figure. Adjacent
spherulites, or sometimes even what are apparently simple ones,
often exhibit sharp divisional planes like joints, from the one having
grown up against another as they were developing from independent
centres. Though these centres cannot in all cases be seen, there is
sufficient evidence in others to justify applying this explanation to
all. The mass, judging from the position of the spherulites, seems
to have started crystallizing from a number of independent points,
both on the surface of the glass and on the surface of the molten
mixture.
* Barrande: Syst. Silur. Bohem., vol. i (1852), p. 489, pl. xv, figs. 15-19.
Henry Bassett, Jun.—Preparation of Spherulites. 15
As pure sulphanilic acid is colourless the bluish-grey colour must
be due to the production in the course of the reaction of a small
quantity of impurity, which is of the nature of an aniline dye.
When we come to study the spherulites more closely we find that,
not only do they exhibit an alternation of colour in concentric shells,
but also that near the upper surface of the mass, as incomplete
spherulites developed downwards these were prolonged as a kind
of film on the surface of the glass above the solid mass, this film
no doubt being originally caused by the adherence to the glass of
a small quantity of liquid when the vessel was shaken. An
examination of this thin section (as it were) of a spherulite shows
that the pale bands in the solid mass are continued on the surface
of the glass as bands of closely packed crystals, while the dark
bands coincide with the bands on the glass where there are very
Photograph of the bottom of a flask containing the spherulitie structure.
few crystals. It is thus quite obvious that the alternate dark and
light rings of the spherulites have been caused by a zoning out
of the sulphanilic acid, the interstices having been filled up by the
blue, very viscous magma (for only about 40 per cent. of the mass
is sulphanilic acid, the rest being chiefly sulphuric acid). On this
supposition the rings would be formed as follows: —A ring of
radiating crystals would first be formed round some nucleus, but as
the surrounding magma would thus be deprived of most of the
sulphanilic acid it contained in solution, this ring would be succeeded
by a ring where there were very few crystals, then another ring
with a great many crystals would follow, and so on. The formation
of these spherulites would thus be very analogous to the formation
of ‘Napoleonite’ and spheroidal granites, to take extreme cases,
16 Henry Bassett, Jun.— Preparation of Spherutites.
while even spherulites in glassy igneous rocks often show similar
colour-banding. This zoning out of the sulphanilic acid accounts.
for the ragged edges of the rings, while the existence of a hollow
at the top of the mass where the spherical surface of the spherulites
can be seen also points to the liquid magma having thus been
soaked up.
I have since several times repeated the experiment, and find that
the spherulitic structure is developed every time, provided that the-
liquid is allowed to cool slowly, although even when cooled quickly
one or two may be formed. The size of the spherulites obtained
varies greatly ; on one occasion I prepared one which was two inches.
in diameter, but, as is so often the case in nature, the moderate-sized
ones are generally the prettiest. Sometimes, after having left the
flask to cool, I found next day that the material had not all solidified,
but that there was a floating crust with spherulites growing
downwards and also a solid layer at the bottom with spherulites
growing upwards, thus confirming the opinion as to independent
development from the two surfaces which I had formed from the-
examination of the first batch obtained. JI should add, however,
that the spherulitic structure is not always developed on the free
surface of the mass, nor have I been able to prepare again the-
spherulitic films (if I may so call them) on the sides of the flask.
The time taken for the mass to crystallize completely varies from
one to three days, depending, I imagine, on the amount of impurity
present. When the crystallization takes place very slowly it is very
beautiful to watch the small spherulites gradually growing in a dark,
almost black, magma, until finally it is completely transformed into.
spherulites. In this intermediate state the specimen looks very
much like spherulitic obsidian.
When the spherulites are formed very slowly the zones, which
are so noticeable in specimens which have formed more quickly,
are not nearly so frequent or well-marked. ‘This perhaps is due to.
the fact that, as the crystallization is so slow, diffusion is able to
prevent the magma round the centres of crystallization becoming’
exhausted.
I may add that the sulphuric acid present renders the mass very
deliquescent, so that in order to preserve it the flask containing it
should be sealed off in the blowpipe flame.
After about two months’ keeping the mass begins to recrystallize,
and, in course of time, the original structure is entirely obliterated
and replaced by an immense number of small spherulites about
1mm. in diameter. This molecular change is curious, but the fact
that not even the external form of the original spherulites is pre-
served, is probably due to the presence of fluid, which, when
recrystallization took place, was able to escape and collect at the
bottom of the flask.
My thanks are due to Mr. Coomara-Swamy for having very
kindly photographed the structure for me. This figure, however,
does not represent the best specimen, for the shape of the vessel
in which that had been formed was unfortunately unsuitable for
photographing.
J. W. Stather—Sources of Yorkshire Boulders. Lz
V.—Tuer Sources anp Distrisution or THE Far-TRAVELLED
Bovuupers or East YORKSHIRE.
By J. W. Sratuer, F.G.S.
BOUT ten years ago, when studying the drifts of East Yorkshire,
Mr. G. W. Lamplugh counted and roughly classified the larger
boulders of Flamborough Head and other selected localities on the
coast. This work has been continued by members of the Hull
Geological Society, who have up to the present time recorded nearly
four thousand boulders, of twelve inches and upwards in diameter.
To avoid possible error, arising from the moving beach and other
causes, only the boulders actually in place in the clay were noted, or
such as had obviously recently fallen from the cliffs. The whole
of the coastline from Spurn to Flamborough has been surveyed in
this way, and also portions of the coast north of Flamborough as far
as Saltburn. The lists thus prepared have been published from
time to time by the Hull Geological Society and by the Erratic
Blocks Committee of the British Association.
These lists bring to light several interesting and previously
unnoticed facts with regard to the distribution of the far-travelled
boulders, especially when the lists obtained at Dimlington and
Redcliff in South Yorkshire are compared with the lists from
Upgang and Saltburn in the north. Before, however, discussing the
statistics of the boulders, it will be advisable to give a brief
description of the localities where the lists were compiled.
(i) Dimlington is situated on the sea-coast near the southern
extremity of Holderness. The cliffs average about eighty feet in
height for upwards of two miles, and are entirely composed of
glacial material, chiefly boulder-clay. Here were noted 354 boulders
of twelve inches and upwards in diameter.'
(ii) Redcliff is on the north shore of the Humber, near North
Ferriby, and is twenty-four miles west-north-west of Dimlington.
The cliff continues along the Humber side for two-thirds of a mile
with an average height of eighteen feet, and together with the
adjacent beach is composed of boulder-clay. The boulders recorded
here were 575 in number.*
(iii) Upgang is one and a half miles north of Whitby; the cliff
sections are one hundred feet or more in height, and consist largely
of boulder-clay. In this neighbourhood Mr. Lamplugh counted and
classified two hundred boulders of twelve inches and upwards in
diameter, the majority of which were of local origin; the percentages
given in the table below are based on his list.*
(iv) The cliffs between Saltburn and Redcar present the most
northern exposure of boulder-clay on the Yorkshire coast. These
sections yielded 133 boulders of twelve inches and upwards in
diameter.*
Trans. Hull Geol. Soe., vol. iii, p. 6.
Proc. Yorkshire Geol. and Polytech. Soc., vol. xiii, pt. 2, p. 211.
Ibid., vol. xi, pt. 3, p. 408.
Trans. Hull Geol. Soc., vol. iii, p. 7.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. I. 2
1
2
3
4
18 J. W. Stather—Sources of Yorkshire Boulders.
After eliminating all the local boulders from the lists, at the
above-mentioned localities, the relative proportion between the
several groups of far-travelled boulders is as follows :—
I. 1.2 |. ate ie
Groure Dimurncton.| Repcuirr.| Upcanc. | SALTBURN.
per cent. per cent. | per cent. | per cent.
1. Carboniferous limestones
and sandstones ... ... 55 59 70 73
2. Basalt (Whin Sill) ... ... 32 30 24 20
3. Magnesian limestone 000 0 0 B) uf
4. Granite, gneiss, etc.... ... 13 11 1 01
100 100 | 100 100
It will be seen from the above table that among the far-
travelled boulders of the Hast Yorkshire drift deposits, Carboniferous
rocks (group 1) take numerically the leading position; and the
Carboniferous area west and north of the Tees is generally regarded
as their place of origin. Group 2 consists of boulders of black
basalt, very plentiful in East Yorkshire and very easy to distinguish.
The source of these basalts is undoubtedly the Whin Sill. It is
clear, then, that groups 1 and 2 have travelled into our district
from practically the same area; nevertheless, it will be seen, on
referring to the above table, that the relative proportions of the
boulders from the two groups vary considerably from point to
point. Thus, while both groups probably decrease numerically
southwards, the percentages show that the basaltic group increases
relatively from Saltburn southwards. The obvious explanation seems
to be that large boulders of basalt bear transport better than similar
masses from the Carboniferous sedimentary rocks.
The Magnesian limestone (group 3) occurring in the East York-
shire boulder-clays is matched by the rock found zn siéé at Roker,
near Sunderland. This limestone is rarely found except as pebbles
in South Holderness, but these grow perceptibly in numbers and
size northwards. Large boulders begin to appear north of Scar-
borough, and at Whitby and Saltburn they form from 5 to 7 per cent.
of the foreign boulders present in the clays.
Besides the above-mentioned rocks, the East Yorkshire drifts,
especially in the southern parts of Holderness, are rich in boulders
of igneous rocks of widely diverse types, and these are included in
group 4. Phillips long ago pointed out that in the drifts of the
Yorkshire coast there were rocks from the English Lake District ;
and it is now certain also that the Cheviots and Scandinavia are
well represented; but the source of by far the greater number of
the rocks included in this group is not yet known. The table
shows that the boulders of group 4 diminish both numerically and
1 This group was not represented by any boulders of the requisite size in the cliff
sections when this table was compiled, but several large boulders of Shap granite
were seen in the gardens and about the town, which had probably been derived
from the neighbouring drifts.
J. W. Stather—Sources of Yorkshire Boulders. 19
proportionately northwards, the figures being 13 per cent. at
Dimlington and 1 per cent. at Whitby. This northward decrease
of the group as a whole is all the more noteworthy when we
remember that the Shap granites and the Cheviot porphyrites, both
included in group 4, increase rapidly in the same direction. This
seeming anomaly arises, I think, from the influence of the boulders
from Scandinavia. Among the boulders of South Holderness occur
very commonly rocks which agree with certain well-known types
of Scandinavia; of these the best known are the augite-syenite
(laurvikite) and the rhomb-porphyry. These types, although not
by any means unknown in the drifts of North Yorkshire, are much
rarer there than in the south. For instance, at Dimlington one
hundred specimens of the Scandinavian rocks above named would
be found to one of Shap granite, while, on the other hand, at Robin
Hood’s Bay or Runswick Bay (both near Whitby) the Shaps out-
number the Norsemen by at least twenty to one. Seeing, then, that
the known Scandinavian rocks in group 4 are much more common in
the south of the county than in the north, and that the distribution
of the unidentified rock types included in the same group agrees in
this respect with the Scandinavian rocks, I think it may be fairly
inferred, that these unidentified rocks are probably largely from
Scandinavia also.
Mr. Harker arrived at a similar conclusion when examining
Mr. Lamplugh’s Flamborough specimens.! He regarded the bulk
of the granitic and gneissic specimens as having been derived
either from Scandinavia or from the Scottish Highlands, and
remarks: ‘“‘Among these are some undoubted Norwegian rocks,
while none can be pointed out as certainly brought from Scotland.
It may be, then, that the whole of the doubtful rocks are also of
Norwegian origin.”
It is worthy of note with regard to the smaller boulders and
pebbles of the boulder-clay and gravels of East Yorkshire that
among these the percentage of the far-travelled rocks is much
higher than among the larger boulders. There are certain types
also among the smaller specimens which seldom appear as large
boulders. Among these is a fairly definite group of rocks, which
are known among Hast Yorkshire collectors as porphyrites, and are
referred with some confidence to the Cheviot Hills. The evidence
in support of this conclusion may be briefly stated as follows :—
(1) The erratics seem to match the descriptions of the Cheviot
rocks published by Mr. J. J. H. Teall and others. (2) Pebbles of
these rocks increase, both in numbers and in size, as we approach
the Cheviot district. (3) During a recent excursion (July, 1900) to
the Cheviot Hills, arranged by the Yorkshire Geological and Poly-
technic Society, many rocks similar to these East Yorkshire erratics
were seen in place.
There is still another note to be made with regard to the Cheviot
boulders, and that refers to their vertical distribution. I think it
will be found, that the Cheviot rocks are more plentiful in the
1 Proc. Yorkshire Geol. and Polytech. Soc., vol. xi, pt. 3, p. 409.
20 R. H. Tiddeman—Formation of Reef Knolls.
upper clays along our coast than in the lower beds. But however
this may be, it is quite certain that the somewhat scanty drift that
reaches farthest up the valleys on our coast, and climbs the eastern
flank of the Yorkshire wolds, and the Oolitic moorlands, is, as far as-
the foreign boulders are concerned, composed almost entirely of
rocks from the Cheviot area. The Scarborough district supplies:
a good example of this rule. The comparatively low ground
adjacent to the sea is covered with thick drift full of boulders of
the usual types. On the other hand, Seamer Moor, which is a mile-
and a half west of the town and six hundred feet in height, is-
capped by drift, the foreign pebbles of which are largely porphyrites..
It must not be understood from this, however, that other types are:
entirely absent at high levels. Occasional specimens from probably
all the groups are found wherever the drifts extend. But the rule
is, that at high levels and along the western margin of the drift
generally, the porphyrites prevail. And if we follow that very
ill-defined line which separates the drift areas from the driftless,
it will be generally found that the outermost fringe of straggling
pebbles on the fields is largely composed of porphyrites.
All the facts respecting the distribution of the boulders of
East Yorkshire, as far as I have seen, appear to agree with the
supposition put forward by Mr. Lamplugh in his paper on the drifts
of Flamborough Head,! viz., that the North Sea ice-sheet attained its
maximum development and reached farthest inland before the ice
flowing from the north-west had reached this part of the coast, and
that the North Sea ice dwindled away as the flow from the Pennine-
Chain and the Cheviots gained strength.
VI.—On tHe Formation oF Reer Knotts.’
By R. H. Trppeman, M.A., F.G.S.
(Communicated by permission of the Director-General of the Geological Survey.)
T the meeting of the British Association at Newcastle in 1889
I brought out my interpretation of the probable origin of the
limestone knolls of Yorkshire.’
It was shown that the Lower Carboniferous Rocks in the North
of England had two distinct types—that the Yoredale or Northern
type extended from the Craven Faults to the Tyne, and that the
Southern or Bowland type occupied the country from the Craven
Faults to near the Western Seaside plain and extended south as
far as Derbyshire. Without now recalling the two tables of the
succession there given, I mentioned specially the curious construction
of certain mounds of limestone which I called reef-knolls, gave my
reasons for supposing that they had been gradually built up on
a slowly sinking sea bottom by the gradual accretion of animal
remains somewhat in a similar manner to coral reefs. I also showed
that from the enormously disproportionate thickness of rocks in the
Q.J.G.S., vol. xlvii, p. 428.
1
2 Read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Bradford, Sept., 1900.
> Report Brit. Assoc,, 1889.
R. H. Tiddeman—Formation of Reef Knolls. 21
area of the downthrow side and from other considerations there was
every reason to suppose that the Craven Faults were actually taking
place during the formation of those rocks.
My friend Mr. J. E. Marr, F.R.S., has in a most courteous way,
whilst taking my geological mapping as for the most part correct,
found reasons for dissenting from all the groundwork on which it
was founded.’ In combating Mr. Marr’s views I offer no opinion
on knolls of other localities or other ages which he brings forward
an support of his views. I speak only of the Carboniferous knolls
of which I have written, and with which I am well acquainted.
Speaking generally, 1 think the differences between us may be thus
‘summarized :—
1. Mr. Marr disagrees with my reading of the succession and
thickness of the rocks on the south side of the Craven Faults, and,
whilst I consider that we have two distinct successions of different
thickness caused by a difference in the rate of submergence in the
two districts, and by shallower and deeper seas, he regards the
rocks on both sides as having been one series of like thickness in
orderly sequence to the north, but, so to speak, shuffled by earth-
movements on the south of those faults and repeated several times
by overthrusts.
la. In illustration let us take a pack of cards, say arranged in
‘suits as representing the regular country on the north side, and
several packs similarly arranged to represent the greater thickness
on the south side. Shuffle these last to represent the supposed
disturbance and overthrusting. Shall we always find after
shuffling the same general succession? Yet over a tract reaching
from Draughton to Chipping and from Settle to Derbyshire, we do
get such a general succession, and that does not at all resemble the
‘succession on the north side of the faults. The overthrusting to do
this effectually must cover the whole of this wide area comprised in
three or four counties, and not confine its operations to a narrow
disturbed belt near the Craven Faults. Is Mr. Marr prepared to
make his orogenic movements extend over so large an area, and
thereby arrange the whole country, which they break up, into so
orderly a disposition ?
2. Mr. Marr regards the great difference between the black and
white limestone, the form and constitution of the reef-knolls, the
abundance in them of perfect fossil forms in a well-preserved state,
the conglomerates and breccias which accompany them, as all being
the result of what he calls orogenic movements ; in other words, of
the folding repetition and overthrusting of the rocks, with here and
there relief of pressure. More especially is the last called in as
being the reason for the abundant and well-preserved fossils and the
change of the limestones.
It is extremely difficult for me to accept these views. If we could
believe that a black, well and thinly bedded limestone can by any
physical change be converted into a white crystalline mass with
1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soe., vol. lv, pp. 327-361.
22 R. H. Tiddeman—Formation of Reef Knoils.
little visible bedding, but with abundant fossils in a perfect state,
we have still to learn what has become of the shales which are
almost always present with the black limestone. If squeezed out,
as might be suggested, they would at least leave partings behind,
and the rock would be more bedded than it is:
Mr. Marr contemplates the likelihood of several different lime-
stones being shifted together to make one reef-knoll, but if so, are
we not as likely to get the thin sandstones of the Pendleside Grit
‘sandwiched into them as well? Yet sandstones and shale-beds are
unknown in the reef-knolls.
Mr. Marr makes a number of statements about what he calls the
Vs of the Middle Craven Fault. His opinion is that this is a great
thrust-plane dipping gently north, and that the Coal-measures are
forced beneath the limestone, and so on along its course. A bed of
coal in the limestone at Ingleton is regarded by him as having been
forced up from underlying Coal-measures by pressure, and not as-
originally interbedded. Unfortunately for these views, there are no
proper Vs or dipping planes of faulting indicated in the map. The
sinuous track of the Craven Fault is not so drawn to accommodate-
any theory, but is merely put where the exposures of rock show it
to run. Its wanderings are either dictated by or stand in relation
to the two principal lines of jointing in the limestone, which range
W.N.W. and N.N.W. Sometimes one direction, sometimes the
other, has the mastery. At Clapham the line is absolutely straight,
and does not curve up-stream as suggested by Mr. Marr. The coal-
seam mentioned is well known to me. On searching it I found
several Producti, fairly perfect, embedded in it and filled with it, and
the conclusion I came to was that it was either a coal-seam which
had grown on a reef and been submerged, or a deposit of seaweed.
These Producti seem to disagree with the injection theory. Such
coal-seams are found occasionally in the limestone. One near
Kirkby Lonsdale has been worked for coal.
Mr. Marr has mentioned two places where knolls of grit occur.
Ido not admit that a knoll of grit can have anything in common
with the reef-knolls of Craven unless it be the external form; but if
such structures were made by earth thrusts and abounded, it would
no doubt be a strong point in favour of his views. One of these
grit knolls is said to be in the canal at the back of Shipton Castle.
I think this must be an error. I know of no sandstone in that
locality, though I know it well. I have consulted others who are,
as geologists, conversant with Shipton, competent to form an opinion,
and they agree with me that nothing but limestone and shales occur
in that canal at that point. The beds there are certainly contorted,
but they are not sandstone, and contortions do not necessarily imply
reef-knolls.
I feel unable to regard Mr. Marr’s ‘model knoll’ as in any respect
resembling what I have called reef-knolls. That is, according to his.
views, a broken plication of a thin hard bed of limestone in a mass
of softer shale, the shale surrounding its broken fragments. The-
knolls to which I allude are almost solid limestone from top to base.
Notices of Memoirs—H. J. L. Beadnell—Geology of Egypt. 23
They have no alternations of hard and soft beds, and, so far as I have
seen, no repetition of beds by folding. The evidences of movement
on their flanks, if any, are not more than one would expect from the
vertical pressure of a more or less plastic shale upon what is at least
a less plastic limestone.
I admit fully that there are abundant evidences in the district of
faulting, of great pressure, and quite likely of overthrusts; but to
say that these have given to these rocks a change of character, or are
responsible for the order of their succession, appears to me to be
invoking an unnecessarily powerful but yet inadequate force. Such
thrust-planes as are implied would meet the geologist in the field
at every turn, and force themselves into recognition. They would
admit of easy mapping, and no statement of their existence would
be complete without some such systematic recognition.
INjG22rCinsS Cie") VWEEVEOLEES=
I.— On some Recent GerouocicaL Discovertes IN THE NILE
VaLLey and Lisyan Desert.! By Hucu J. L. Brapnext,
F.G.S., F.R.G.S.
N this paper the author draws attention to some interesting
discoveries made by him during the last three or four years
while attached to the Geological Survey of Egypt. When the
latter Survey was established in 1896 the publications and maps,
both geological and geographical, of the Rohlfs Expedition of
1873-74 still remained the only source of information on the greater
part of Egypt.
In his geological reports Zittel, the geologist of the Rohlfs
Expedition, calls special attention to the absence of any uncon-
formity between the Cretaceous and Hocene deposits, in fact
mentioning this as one of the most important results obtained.
More extended researches have, however, enabled the author “ to
bring forward incontestable evidence from at least two areas in the
Libyan Desert, namely, Abu-Roash, near Cairo, and Baharia Oasis,
that instead of this perfectly gradual petrographical and paleeonto-
logical passage, undisturbed by any unconformity, from the upper-
most marine Chalk into the oldest Tertiary beds, there is as a matter
of fact a strongly marked unconformity, representing a long lapse
of time in the process of sedimentation. During this period the
Cretaceous was elevated into land, often with intense folding and
faulting, and underwent considerable denudation before subsidence
led to the entire or partial submergence of the area below the sea, and
allowed the deposition of successive beds of Eocene in a markedly
overlapping manner.”
The accompanying table is compiled chiefly from the work of
Professor Zittel and the Geological Survey of Egypt.
1 Abstract of a paper read (with the permission of Captain H. G. Lyons, R.E.,
F.G.S., the Director-General of the Egyptian Geological Survey) before the Inter-
national Geological Congress at Paris, 1900.
“sisuauodosnjo 7 pue ‘eaulwagy “i
‘nnyaquy niliboug ‘sniwalinagh 4
"AT YI skevpo pue souoyspueg
‘AQTIVA HIIN GNV LYASHC NVAGIT AHL NI SHIUMS SQOMOVIGYO GNVY ANNO AHL AO WIAVeL
‘snumahwigrs 8a7y ‘souojspues pue skejg | ‘uvrusurouen
-oqoayr Suinohqu muapwiposaja ry “oqo ‘sapyouppnar ‘9071
‘sisuayano.t MagsMrUlazT UJIM SaM04s |-2UMy dy ‘srsuayavos wagsniuazy ‘vag
pues poyesoriva pue sauojsotury |-vgqy vuosoydhg YIM souoysouryT
“WOSPOYOUNT VIMlO.Lgsan rT
*S0.00SDA- 1.09 Saz20IpD.LUT ‘Sout : ain
*SoTO}SpUes -DIog) (woazovya0.4 7, ) nyjavoaja 7 ‘wip TUTOUE =|
| pue shvfo werqn yy ueIUoIn Ty, 10, wermoues -1ua bay DOULIANT YIM SOUO0JSOULLT |
‘somojspuvs pie sAvpo TeIqn yy : : a
Ss pot eoo oT sgneereron ote sped ‘somoqysounty AUTT IT a
: . c hllay DINING YIM SLL] ONS)
sprees operpomroquy ony Jo amos ATAPIONT | rvovymgy snssisqomyag ¢-oyo | “wvruoyueg |B | S
a ae “uopoyoup (‘229809 VALgSC) ‘270881. T, Eppes
ae : 2 ed DY70S8LT, JIM SOTOYSOTAT] PUL SpAB]AL B
Tae SPL Z1PUO OFAN JO Eg | ‘werwedurey) ©
‘sXvpo Ayeoy Aors-Yse pur ystusary ‘oqo ‘snguop
“B90 JSOTUTT ‘o40 ‘sisualf[vlug Wap0ag ‘siumjnarsaa | -0js1ud xndog ‘sisuatfving W9j00q arante
Aye O91 AA poydhiy ‘vywao sajhyounup ‘sayy | “ihanwag vilboug ‘sr.vmpnaisaa ‘aya ‘sagsipnar ‘snghpuody med
[-19109UAA *S[RIOD YYIM YVYO oT AA | PHYdhwy ‘sye10o YIM yey 91g AA | ‘vagsQ ‘sTeI0O YI HLRYO oP AL
‘RATIVA SATIN ‘SISVQ VIHUV(, *SISVQ VINVHVG “HSVOY-ALY
"(ojo ‘vereyy “eayerey ‘etet Jo) soyeyg vusy ) . { ‘UBsIIpusyzT
“ayo “usaquog snpnvar ‘nongayy, wmonyT ‘waliqu vurynotadg YL souoysounly j ST a | ‘wermosseng
‘ojo ‘soTLOJSOWUT] wuxjoaM Fy ‘speq vsswuUnYIVD “NVKAIT Uatdady— ‘UBIUIPUOT be
Q
*SOUOJSOUT] SISUaYarLH sazYNUUNAT TIM ‘WVLLVMOW, WLAO'T : 5
“NVLLVIOW, UWLdd() Urs TLE td
-naan.ihidnd sapropg1g pue ‘.tahaurgner “Ar Spypautsague “AT “yaqyouT saqynuUnUnAT YYIM ‘SISeO BAI JO ANDO ATdty ‘TBIMOJABT
Notices of Memoirs—H. J. I. Beadnell—Geology of Egypt. 25
The author then discusses separately several typical localities,
which may be briefly alluded to.
Abu-Roash.—This peculiarly interesting Cretaceous complex, near
‘Cairo, has been described by Walther and Schweinfurth as having
been brought into position among the Eocene deposits by faults
along its four sides. This view, however, is strongly opposed by
the author, who maintains that the fault theory is absolutely
untenable, “as a most casual examination of the boundary of the
‘Cretaceous, at almost any point where its junction with the Eocene
was visible, instead of suggesting the existence of faults, yielded
‘indubitable evidence of their absence, and the presence instead of
a well-marked unconformity.” At some points ‘“‘the upper surface
of the white chalk of the Cretaceous shows a most irregularly
eroded surface, which is covered by a bed of rolled pebbles, some-
times a metre thick, the latter being overlaid by a thick bed of
Eocene shelly limestone, followed by a series full of characteristic
‘Upper Mokattam fossils.” The author further points out the
existence in this area of Danian beds, the uppermost member
(White Chalk) being apparently homotaxial with the White Chalk
-of Baharia and Farafra.
Baharia Oasis.— Of the remarkable sand belt which occurs
between the Nile Valley and this oasis, the author says :—‘ This
‘sand belt has a total breadth of five kilometres, and runs slightly
west of north and east of south (parallel, in fact, to the normal
direction of the wind). Its origin is much further north, probably
in the neighbourhood of the oasis of Moghara, while to the south
it runs, as far as known unbroken, into the depression of Kharga,
whence, after a slight break, it continues southwards. Its length
is thus certainly over 350 kilometres. The dunes are composed of
light-yellow, siliceous, well-rounded sand-grains. The steepest sides
are those facing west, wbich have an angle of 80°-31°. It is
a remarkable sight, this narrow band of sand dunes extending across
the open desert as far as the eye can reach, maintaining an almost
-exactly straight course, an even breadth, and with sides as well
defined as if drawn with the edge of a ruler.”
The author’s work shows that, contrary to original ideas, there is
‘in reality a remarkable development of Cretaceous rocks in the
oasis of Baharia and the surrounding desert on the west and south
sides.
The lowest beds, consisting of sandstones, clays, and marls, attain
a thickness of 170 metres, and are of Cenomanian age. Above them
come limestones and variegated sandstones (45 metres), followed by
white chalk of Danian age, 40 metres thick. (See Table.)
As at Abu-Roash, the junction between the Cretaceous and
Hocene is unconformable, the deposits of the latter overlapping
successively the different beds of the former.
The author, in discussing the age and origin of the peculiar
ferruginous quartzites which so constantly cap the numerous
dsolated hills within the depression, brings forward evidence which
tends to show that these “ were deposited in a lake which formed
26 Notices of Memoirs—H. J. L. Beadneli— Geology of Egypt.
here when there existed only a slight depression in the Hocene and
Cretaceous rocks, ages in fact before erosion had carved out the
depression to its present form. The large amount of ferruginous
material and general character of the beds point to freshwater
lacustrine deposition and precipitation. Lithologically they are
often exactly similar to the Oligocene beds of the Fayum and Jebel
Ahmar, and to the deposits on the road between Feshn and the
oasis, and it may be that they are of the same age.”
The author states that the igneous rocks of Baharia are of Post-
Cretaceous, probably Oligocene, age, contemporaneous with the
basalt sheets of the Fayum, of Abu-Roash and the desert to the
west, and of Abu-Zabel; and that the andesites of the Libyan
desert at Bahnessa, Gara Soda, and Jebel Gebail were likewise
erupted at the same time.
After describing the important folds which occur in Baharia the
author continues :—‘‘The Cretaceous beds as a whole evidently
form a large anticline . . . . which has its axis more or less.
parallel to the syncline already described. It is continued into the
north end of Farafra, where the dip is well marked . . . ~-
Yet the Eocene beds forming the plateau are in general quite
horizontal, even in close proximity to inclined Cretaceous beds
ate it seems certain that the Cretaceous beds, after the
deposition of the White Chalk of Danian age, underwent upheaval,
denudation, and finally depression, before the deposition of the
earliest Tertiary beds.
“In this part of Egypt it appears that the subsiding Cretaceous.
land had the form of a long, flat, irregular ridge of anticlinal
structure, extending from Dakhla oasis through Farafra, Baharia,
and Abu-Roash. The northern end of this ridge was the last to.
subside and receive Eocene deposits, which accounts for the fact
that in Farafra the Cretaceous is overlaid, always unconformably,
by the Esna Shales of the Lower Libyan, in Baharia by limestones.
of the Upper Libyan, and at Abu-Roash by still younger beds of
Lower and Upper Mokattam age.”
The author finds other evidence which “suggests the probability
that there was another period of possibly even more important
earth-movements in Post-Eocene times. In this case, it seems not
unlikely that the folding was closely connected with the important
series of earth-movements which took place in North-East Africa
and South-West Asia in early Pliocene times, and which gave rise to
the formation of the chief topographical features of the country, such
as the Nile and Jordan valleys and their attendant series of lakes.”
The author’s theory as to the origin of these wonderful depressions.
in the Libyan desert is interesting, and may be quoted in full. He
writes :—‘ Baharia is a self-contained depression without drainage
outlet, so that the ordinary methods of removal of disintegrated
material do not here apply. Next, we have a large, flat, anticlinal
ridge of Cretaceous beds, with at least one subsidiary, sharp, parallel,
synclinal fold, overlaid by more or less horizontal beds of Eocene
limestone. Since the elevation of this part of North Africa into dry
Notices of Memoirs—H. J. L. Beadneli—Geology of Egypt. 27
land in late Tertiary times, denudation must have gone on con-
tinuously over the whole surface of the country.
“The most important denuding agent at the present day in the
Libyan desert is wind-borne sand, the erosive action of which is.
‘very powerful and at once apparent to every traveller in these
regions; but in the past there may have been, and probably were,
other eroding agencies as well at work on the surface of this part of
North Africa. Imagine, then, the general planing down of the
country little by little through a long interval of time, until the
anticlinal ridge of Cretaceous beds was reached, with its attendant
soft sandstones and clays. As soon as the latter were exposed the
action of denudation would have rapidly quickened, chiefly by the
breaking up of the constituents of these beds by changes of tempera-
ture, rains and frosts, and the removal of the resulting sand and
dust by wind. In this way must these wonderful depressions have
been formed.
“Generalizing, then, we may say that where there have been
extensive deposits of soft beds, and these have become exposed by
the action of denudation, there large depressions have been cut out.
The existence of soft Cenomanian sandstones and clays is thus the
primary cause of the existence of the depression of Baharia, the soft
Esna shales have played a similar role in that of Farafra, while,
again, Dakhla is cut out in a thick series of soft beds of Danian age.
The other oases and depressions probably owe their existence largely
to the same cause.”
Farafra and Dakhla Oasis.—In Farafra the author’s chief additions
to our knowledge were rather geographical than geological, although
some evidence is brought forward to show that the very fossiliferous
clays on the road between Farafra and Dakhla are somewhat younger
than the age assigned to them by Zittel.
In Dakhila oasis thick and extensive highly phosphatic bone-beds:
of considerable commercial value were discovered.
Fayum.—It was in this province that there existed, some 2,000
years before Herodotus, the celebrated Lake Moeris, the exact site
of which has led to so much discussion. The author shows that
the geological evidence, in the shape of clays with numerous fresh-
water shells and fish-remains, of the same species as those at present
inhabiting the existing lake, proves that the ancient lake occupied
the lowest part of the depression, i.e. that now occupied by the Birket
el Qurun and a considerable area of the low surrounding country.
His position, in fact, closely agrees with that assigned to the jake by
Major Brown, who bases his conclusions chiefly on considerations
of level.
An extensive series of fluvio-marine beds, with intercalated sheets
of basalt near the top, is shown to overlie the Upper Mokattam
formation throughout the north part of the Fayum. This series is
provisionally regarded as Oligocene. At the top come the silicified,
wood-bearing sandstones, which stretch northwards across the desert
to beyond the latitude of Cairo.
Within the Fayum depression, high up on the slopes or summits.
28 Notices of Memoirs—H. J. L. Beadnell—Geology of Egypt.
of the surrounding ridges, are found extensive raised beaches,
probably of marine Pliocene age, at which time the sea stretched
far up the Nile Valley.
Nile Valley.—In conclusion, some highly interesting facts are
brought forward with regard to the Nile Valley itself, which the
author summarizes as follows:—‘‘The general north and south
direction of the Nile Valley in Egypt, the remarkable high, lofty,
wall-like cliffs by which it is hemmed in, the absence of any true
river deposits at any considerable height above the river, the almost
-entire absence of hills or outliers of the plateau within the valley,
the proved existence of bounding faults throughout a long stretch
-of the valley, lead us to infer that the formation of this gorge was
brought about by faulting, rifting, and folding, and not cut out in
the usual way by river action.”
Between Cairo and Assuan the Nile Valley floor is covered for
ithe most part with deposits of comparatively recent geological age,
which may be divided into (1) Marine, Pliocene; (2) Lacustrine,
Pleistocene ; and (3) Fluviatile, Recent.
The marine Pliocene deposits, discovered near Esna by Mr. Barron
and the author in 1897, consist of a thick series of limestones and
anterbedded conglomerates. In the limestones numerous foraminifera
were found, and have been described by Mr. F. Chapman.
The lacustrine series consist of fresh-water deposits of the most
variable nature, including gravels, conglomerates, clays, marls, lime-
‘stones, and tufas. They have been mapped and examined by the
author throughout a large length of the Nile Valley from Qena to
Cairo. Calcareous tufas, crowded with the most beautiful impressions
-of leaves and twigs, abound in places. At Isawia the limestones of
the series are of considerable commercial importance, supplying the
material for the construction of the great dam at Assiut. Finally,
the fluviatile deposits include the Nile mud and other recent
accumulations.
In conclusion, the author shows the probable date of the formation
‘of the Nile Valley gorge to be Lower Pliocene, and refers it to the
same great series of earth-movements which determined and formed
the main physical feature of North-East Africa and part of Asia.
After the deposition of the Pliocene beds a gradual elevation led to
the final retreat of the sea, the valley then becoming the site of
a series of fresh-water lakes in which were deposited large quantities
of calcareous tufa, which enclosed the numerous leaves carried into
the lakes from the surrounding forests.
Finally, “‘in later Pleistocene times drainage must have become
well established down the Nile Valley, and a river, the youthful
Father Nile, commenced its career by carving out a channel through
‘the valley deposits, before, owing to changed conditions, it finally
took to depositing layer upon layer of ‘ Nile mud,’ thus forming the
‘strip of cultivable and inhabitable country without which the Land
of Egypt, as we know it, would be non-existent.”
Notices of Memoirs— Vegetation of the Coal Period. 29
II.—British AssocratioN FoR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.
Braprorp, 1900. Joint Discussion, Sections C and K. On
THE CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH THE Puanrs OF THE CoaL
PERIOD GREW.
1. Frora or tHe Coat-mrasures. By R. Krpston, F.R.S.E., F.G.S.
EAVING out of consideration a few genera of which we possess
little or no definite knowledge, the flora of the Coal-measures
consists of Ferns, Calamites, Lycopods, Sphenophyllexw, Cordaites,
and Coniferze.
In genera and species the Ferns are probably more numerous than
the whole of the other groups, and contain representatives of the
Eusporangiate and Leptosporangiate members of the class. The
Eusporangiate, or those ferns whose sporangia are unprovided with
an annulus, were more numerous in the Carboniferous period than
at present, though in the Coal-measures they do not appear to have
been more numerous than the genera with annulate sporangia. ‘Tree
ferns, though not very common, are more frequent in the Upper
than in the Lower Coal-measures, in the lowest beds of which they
seem to be very rare.
The Calamites are largely represented throughout the whole of
the Coal-measures, Asterophyllites (Culamocladus) and Aninularia
probably being their foliage.
Lycopods are also very numerous, and are represented by many
important genera — Lycopodites, Lepidodendron, Lepidophloios,
Bothrodendron, and Sigillaria, with their rhizomes Stigmaria and
Stigmariopsis. These genera contributed largely to the formation
of Coal.
The genus Sphenophyllum was also frequent during Coal-measure
times, and forms a type of vegetation essentially distinct from any
existing group.
The Gymnosperms are represented by Cordaites, Conifer, and
Cycads.
The Cordaites had tree-like trunks and long yucca-like leaves.
They are plentiful in the Coal-measures, and, like the arborescent
lycopods, must have been a prominent feature in a Carboniferous
forest scene.
The Coniferz, so far as I have seen, are only represented by
a single specimen of Walchia from the Upper Coal-measures ; and
though Cycads have been discovered in the Upper Coal-measures on
_the Continent, I am not aware of any British species which can be
referred with certainty to this group.
2. Tue Ortern oF Coat. By A. Srranay, M.A., F.G.S.
The deposition of the Coal-measures was due to the subsidence of
large portions of the earth’s crust to a depth often amounting to
several thousand feet. The subsidence, being unequal, led to the
formation of coal-basins, parts of the margins of which are still
recognizable. That the intervening areas rose no less rapidly than
the basins sank is proved by the vast denudation suffered by the
earlier Palzeozoic rocks during the Carboniferous period.
30 Notices of Memoirs—Vegetation of the Coal Period.
The subsidence was counterbalanced during Coal-measure times
‘by sedimentation, for the occurrence of marine beds among deposits
of a generally estuarine aspect proves that the surface was maintained
at or near sea-level. The Carboniferous sediments consist, in the
majority of coalfields, of marine limestones in the lower part, of
marine grits and conglomerates in the middle part, and of estuaro-
marine sandstones and shales in the upper part. The sequence is
due, firstly, to the admission of the sea to the subsiding areas; and
lastly, to the restoration of level brought about by sedimentation and
denudation. But there is evidence also of the sedimentation having
been more or less spasmodic. Thus the Limestone Series generally
consists of repetitions of small groups of strata, each group being
-composed of sandstone, followed by shale, shale followed by lime-
stone. Similarly the Coal-measures present repetitions of sandstone
followed by shale, shale by coal. Limestone in the one case and
-coal in the other are therefore comparable in this respect, that each
represents an episode when sedimentation had come to a pause.
Early views as to the origin of coal, namely, that it was formed of
vegetable matter drifted beyond the region to which the finest
mineral sediment could reach, were in accordance with these facts.
More minute examination of the strata, however, revealed proofs
of land-surfaces in the Coal-measures, and it was generally accepted
that the coal-seams represent forests in the place of their growth.
‘The evidence may be summarized as follows :—
(1) Rain-pittings, sun-cracks, and footprints prove that the surfaces
-of some of the beds were exposed to the air.
(2) Erect tree-trunks of large size, in some cases attached to large
spreading roots, are not uncommon. JLand-shells, millipedes, and
the skeletons of air-breathing reptiles have occasionally been found
within the hollow trunks.’
(3) The underclays of coal-seams are traversed in all directions by
‘branching rootlets, unlike the drifted fragments in the bedding
planes of the other strata. They were described as an invariable
accompaniment of coals, and as being the soils in which the coal-
forest was rooted.
(4) Coal-seams, with thin minute partings, persist over vast areas,
and it was thought impossible that so wide and regular a distribution
-of vegetable matter could have been accomplished by drifting.
(5) The chemical composition of the coals was believed to prove
that the vegetable matter underwent partial decomposition in the
open air before being submerged or buried.
This evidence, however, though it proves the existence of land
surfaces, is not conclusive of the coal-seams being forests in place of
growth. The rain-pittings, sun-cracks, and footprints occur, not in
the coals, but in the intervening strata. Of the erect tree-trunks
a large proportion occur in sandstones devoid of coal, a few only
having been found to stand upon an underclay, or to be associated
1 ©. Brongniart and others have shown that air-breathing insects of the orders
Neuroptera, Orthoptera, Thysanura, and Homoptera, were very nwmerous in the
Coal-period in Europe and America.—Hpit. Geox. Mac.
Notices of Memoirs— Vegetation of the Coal Period. dL
with seams of coal. Vast areas of coal have been worked without
any such trunks having been encountered. The majority of the
trunks, moreover, are destitute of spreading roots, and are believed
to have been floated to their present positions. The land-shells,
insect and reptilian remains, are of extremely rare occurrence.
The underclays do not resemble soils, inasmuch as they are
perfectly homogeneous, and lie with absolute parallelism to the other
members of a stratified series. They are not always present beneath
coal-seams, but, on the other hand, often occur in them or above
them. Frequently they have no coal associated with them. The
rootlets in them have no connection with the coal, which is a well-
stratified deposit with a sharply defined base.
The persistence of the partings and characters of the coal over
wide areas is in favour of their being subaqueous deposits, for on so
large an expanse of land there must have been river-systems and
variations in the vegetation. The stream-beds, known to miners as
‘wash-outs,’ are not proportioned in size to the supposed land-
surfaces.
Subaérial decomposition of part of a mass of vegetable matter
would take place whether it were floating or resting on dry land.
Spores, which enter largely into the composition of many coals,
would travel long distances either by wind or water.
Some coal-seams show clear proof of a drifted origin, as, for
example, those which are made up of a mass of small water-worn
chips of wood or bark. Other seams pass horizontally into bands
of ironstone, and one case has been observed of a coal changing
gradually into a dolomitic tufa, doubtless formed in a stagnant
lagoon. Putting aside exceptional cases, the sequence of events
which preceded the deposition of a normal coal-seam seems to have
been—firstly, the outspreading of sand or gravel with drifted plant-
remains, followed by shale as the currents lost velocity. The water
was extremely shallow, and even retreated at times, so as to leave
the surface open to the air. The last sediments were extremely
fine, homogeneous, and almost wholly siliceous, and in them a mass
of presumably aquatic vegetation rooted itself. This further im-
pediment to movement in the water cut off all sediment, and the
material brought into the area then consisted only of wind-borne
vegetable dust or floating vegetable matter carrying an occasional
boulder. Lastly, the formation of the coal-seam was brought to
a close by a sudden invasion of the area by moving water. The
‘mass of vegetable matter, often after suffering some little erosion,
was buried by sandstone or shale rich in large drifted remains of
plants or trees, and the whole process was recommenced.
3. BorantcaL EvipENCE BEARING ON THE CLIMATIC AND OTHER
PuysicaL ConpITIONS UNDER WHICH CoAL WAS FORMED. By
A. C. Sewarp, F.R.S.
Botanical investigations into the nature and composition of the
vegetation which has left abundant traces in the sediments of the
Coal-measures may be expected to throw some light on the natural
32 Notices of Memoirs— Vegetation of the Coal Period.
conditions which prevailed during that period in the earth’s history
that was par excellence the age of coal production. The minute
examination of petrified tissues has rendered possible a restoration
of the internal framework of several extinct types of plant-life, and
has carried us a step further towards the solution of evolutionary
problems. It is possible, even with our present knowledge, to-
make a limited use of anatomical structure as an index of life-
conditions, and to restore in some degree from structural records the
physiological and physical conditions of plant-life characteristic of
the close of the Carboniferous epoch.
(1) Lvidence furnished by the Coal-period Floras as to Climatic and
other Physical Conditions.
The uniformity in the character of the vegetation has no doubt
been somewhat exaggerated ; e.g., the Glossopéeris flora of Australia,
South Africa, and South America. The existence of botanical
provinces in Upper Paleozoic times.
A comparison of the Coal-period vegetation with that of the
present day as regards (i) the relative abundance of certain classes
of plants, (ii) the geographical distribution of certain families of
plants during the Carboniferous epoch and at the present day. The
importance of bearing in mind the progress of plant-evolution as.
a factor affecting the consideration of such comparisons. The
possible existence of a Paleozoic Mountain flora of which no-
records have been preserved.
(2) The Form, Habit, and Manner of Occurrence of Individual Plants
as Indices of Conditions of Growth.
Comparison of Calamites and horse-tails. Fossil forests of
Calamites. Psaronius stems in siti and bearing roots at different
levels, suggesting growth in a region of rapid sedimentation.
Vertical stems either in loco natali or drifted. Climbing plants.
possibly represented by Sphenophyllum, some species of ferns and
Medullosez. Function of the so-called Aphlebia leaves of ferns.
(5) Anatomical Evidence.
The value of evidence afforded by anatomical features. Risks of
comparison between structural character of extinct and recent plants.
Structure considered from the point of view of evolution, as the
result of adaptation to external conditions, and to mechanical and
physiological requirements.
(a) Spores and leaves. — Abundance of spores provided with
filamentous or hooked appendages ; adaptation of spores to floating
or to wind-dispersal. ‘The leaf structure of Calamites, ferns, ete. ;
presence of stomata, palissade tissue, and water-glands; the
‘parichnos’ or aérating tissue in the leaves of Lepidodendree and
Sigillarieze.
(B) Stems and roots.—Absence of annual rings of growth. The
large size of water-conducting elements connected with rapid transport
(e.g. Sphenophyllum) or with storage of water (e.g. Megaloxylon).
The chambered pith of Cordaites, quoted as evidence of rapid
elongation, of little or no physiological significance. Abundance-
Notices of Memoirs— Vegetation of the Coal Period. 33
of secretory tissue. Anatomical characteristics of a Lepidodendroid
type of stem; great development of secondary tissue in the outer
cortex, little or no true cork, lax inner cortex. Lacunar tissue in
the roots of Calamites; hollow appendages of Stigmaria. Indications
of xerophytic characters may be the result of growth in salt marshes.
(4) Evidence as to the Manner of Formation of Coal.
(a) The structure of calcareous nodules found in coal-seams ; the
preservation of delicate tissues, the occurrence of fungal hyphz, and
the petrification of Stigmarian appendages as evidence in favour
of the subaqueous accumulation of the plant-débris found in the
calcareous nodules.
(b) Ordinary coal microscopically examined. Spores, fragments
of tissues, bacteria, and the ground substance of coal. Coal found in
the cavities of cells in carbonized tissues. Suggested non-vegetable
origin of the matrix of coal. ‘Boulders’ and coal-balls included in
coal-seams.
(c) Boghead, Cannel coal, and Oil-shales. Recent investigations
of Bertrand, Renault, and others. The structure and mode of origin
of torbanite, kerosene, shale, etc. Suggested origin of Boghead
from the minute bodies of alge (fleurs d’eau), spores, etc., embedded
in a brown ulmic substance found on the floor of a lake. Absence
of clastic material. Cannel coal characterized by abundance of
spores.
(d) Paper-coal of Russia.—The paper-coal of Culm age in the
Moscow basin consists largely of the cuticles of a Lepidodendroid
plant. Bacterial action as an agent in the destruction of plants and
as a factor in the production of coal.
4, By J. E. Marr, F.R.S.
(1) What is coal 2—A non-scientific term introduced into scientific
nomenclature for substances of divers character, and, therefore,
probably of different modes of origin.
(2) Was the Carboniferous period one where conditions suitable to
formation of coal were unusually widespread ?
Coincidence at this period of dominant giant cryptogams, extensive
plains of sedimentation, and suitable climatic conditions. Such
coincidence never occurred before or after the Carboniferous period.
(3) What work should be done in order to advance our knowledge
‘of origin of coal ?
In the past light has been thrown on coal-formation by chemical,
petrological, paleontological, and stratigraphical studies, and these
should be continued.
(a) Chemical.—Importance of study of chemical composition of
fire-clays and other accompaniments of coal in addition to coal itself.
(b) Petrological.— Dr. Sorby’s work on origin of grains of
mechanically formed rocks (sandstones, etc.) should be continued.
(c) Palgontological.—Studies of faunas and floras throwing light
on physical and also on climatic conditions.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. I. 3
2) Notices of Memoirs—On Strire-Maps.
(d) Stratigraphical_—Much detailed work is required in many
parts of the world to discover over what periods coal-formation
occurred in exceptional amount. Tendency at outset to refer all
Upper Palzeozoic coal-formations to the Coal-measures.
III.—On tHe Construction anp Uses of Srrixe-Maps.’ By
J. Lomas, A.R.C.S., F.G.S.
N studying the deformations which a series of rocks have undergone,
we are apt to regard the vertical movements as all-important,
and neglect the horizontal movements to which they have been
subjected. This is largely owing to the difficulties experienced
in picturing such horizontal movements and representing them
on a plan. Lines dependent on surface inequalities confuse the
worker when he seeks to use the ordinary geological maps for this
purpose. It is easy to get rid of these lines by projecting the
strikes of the beds on to a horizontal plane. We then have the
appearance that would be produced if the country were planed down
to a horizontal surface. The outcrops would coincide with the
strikes, and any deviation from straight lines would indicate
horizontal movements. Vertical movements would also be shown
on such a plan by the closing up of outcrops of beds of equal
thickness. All the data necessary to represent these features
on a strike-map are given in the ordinary Geological Survey
sheets. To construct such a map, first trace the dips given
on the geological map and draw short lines at the points of the
arrows, at right angles to the direction of dip. We thus have
represented the strikes of the beds at a number of points. Now
it is necessary to connect these up by lines to show the strike at
intermediate places. It would not be safe to connect one line with
another, as the strikes may refer to different beds. In order to
overcome this difficulty, draw a series of lines parallel to the strike
line on both sides of it. On doing this for all the positions it will
be found that the lines either connect themselves in linear series,
or we have represented a series of tangents to curves which become
evident when the lines are prolonged in the direction of the strike.
Care should be taken not to connect in the same line strikes with
dips in contrary directions, and it is well to represent the dip side of
the strike lines by a short mark ——7——. When the amount of
dip is known, as well as the direction, we can represent the
steepness of the folds by suitable shading, either by hachures or
closeness of strike lines. As an illustration I exhibit strike maps
of the district about Clitheroe, including the well-known knolls
at Worsa and Gerna. The anticlinal ridge just north of Chatburn
is clearly shown, and the strata dipping with wavy folds towards
the Ribble on the north and Clitheroe on the south. The Salt Hill
quarries are excavated in this southern slope at a place where the
fold becomes acute. The knolls at Worsa and Gerna appear like
whirls or eddies, such as may be seen in a stream when the flow is
obstructed by boulders in the stream bed.
1 Read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Bradford, Sept., 1900.
Notices of Memoirs—G. Abbott—Magnesian Concretions. 85
JV.—Tue Conoretionary Types In THE CELLULAR MAGNESIAN
Limestone oF Duruam.' By G. Assorr, M.R.C.S.
4 SSOCIATED with the Cannon-ball bed near Sunderland is
t\ acellular limestone which is much more extensive, and exhibits
still more remarkable physical features. Although described by
Professor Sedgwick more than sixty years ago with other magnesian
beds in the North of England, it is still comparatively unknown. He
divided the concretions in these strata into four classes, but I have
been unable to find any classified collection except the one in the
Newcastle Museum, and even in this series it is only partially done.
My own studies at Fulweli and Hendon lead me to suggest a new
classification, with five primary forms, viz.: (1) rods, (2) bands,
(5) rings, (4) balls and modified spheres, (5) eggs. Combinations of
these forms constitute the major part of these massive beds, and
frequently a bed of less than a foot thick shows examples of several
different combinations. These I place in ten classes, though they may
have to be added to. The chief types are (1) tubes, (2) ‘ cauliflowers,’
(5) basaltiform, (4) irregular, (5 and 6) troughs and bands (two
kinds), (7) ‘floral,’ (8 and 9) ‘honeycomb’ or coralloid (two kinds),
(10) pseudo-organic.
I exhibit photographs on the screen showing both the primary
forms and the combinations as seen (wherever possible) in the
undisturbed rock sections.
My own conclusions are as follows :—
1. That the rod structure is secondary to the formation of the
conspicuous bands which run across the beds at various angles.
(These bands need to be distinguished from the bands mentioned
among the ‘primary forms.’) The conspicuous bands act as planes
of origin for the ‘rods,’ and do not cross through the long axes of
the rods themselves. They appear never to cross the bedding
planes, though occasionally they follow them and also the outline
of the joints. The question therefore arises, whether this does not
give us a clue to the age and sequence of the changes which have
occurred in these beds, and whether the previous existence of joints
does not mean that the beds were already above the sea-level when
the changes commenced.
2. The rods invariably start from the last-mentioned bands, and
may be seen at every possible angle. As they have grown upwards
and obliquely as well as downwards the term ‘stalactitic’ is a very
misleading one to use. As Mr. Garwood stated long ago, these beds
‘present many points which appear irreconcilable with the theory of
their stalactitic origin.”
3. The first step in the series of changes which have taken
place was probably an orderly but unsymmetrical arrangement of
amorphous molecules of calcium carbonate which separated them-
Selves from those of the carbonate of magnesia.
4. The internal architecture is due to such arrangement of
amorphous particles of lime which has since been coated with an
1 Read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Bradford, Sept., 1900.
36 ~=Notices of Memoirs—A. C. Seward’s Jurassic Flora.
outer crystalline layer. In some cases, however, the entire mass-
has undergone a complete subsequent change into a crystalline
structure.
5. Pearl-spar (crystals of the combined carbonates) is seldom met
with. I failed to find any.
6. In the Fulwell beds there are very few fossils, and where met
with, as at Marsden, concretionary action is seldom traceable near them.
7. The specimens at Fulwell which arouse the most interest
are coralloid masses (‘honeycomb’ of the quarrymen). They are-
confined, so far as I could discover, to a stratum, about 14 foot thick,
above the marl bed, and lie in close juxtaposition to each other,
which accounts for their peculiar external shape.
In conclusion I would point out the close resemblance which exists:
between the ‘lines’ and ‘planes’ in these concretionary beds, and
the ‘lines’ which shoot across congealing water. In some respects
the architecture of the magnesian beds compares with the ice
decorations seen on our window-panes in frosty weather.
V.—Txe Jurassic Frora OF Eas Youxsman By, pane
SewarD, F.R.S.
HE plant-beds exposed in the cliff sections of the Yorkshire
coast have afforded unusually rich data towards a restoration
of the characteristics and composition of a certain facies of Mesozoic
vegetation. Rich collections of plants from Gristhorpe Bay and
other well-known localities are found in the British Museum (Natural
History), also in the Museums of Scarborough, Whitby, Cambridge,
Oxford, Manchester, York, Newcastle, Leeds, and elsewhere. The
Natural History Museum, Paris, contains several important York-
shire plants, some of which have been described by Brongniart and
Saporta. The following species have been recognized from the Hast
Yorkshire area :—
Marchantites erectus (Leck., ex Bean MS.); Zquisetites columnaris,.
Brongn. ; Hquisetites Beant (Bunb.); Lycopodites falcatus, L. & H. ;
Cladophlebis denticulata (Brongn.); C. haiburnensis (L. & H.); C. lobi-
folia (Phill.); Coniopteris arguta (L. & H.); C. hymenophylloides
(Brongn.); C. quinqueloba (Phill.) ; Dictyophyllum rugosum, L. & H. ;
Klukia exilis (Phill.) ; Laccopteris polypodioides (Brongn.); L. Wood-
wardi (Leck.) ; Matonidium Goepperti (Ett.) ; Pachypteris lanceolata,
Brongn. ; Ruffordia Goepperti (Dunk.); Sagenopteris Phillipsi
(Brongn.) ; Sphenopteris Murrayana (Brongn.); S. Williamsoni,
Brongn. ; Teniopteris major, L. & H.; Z. vittata, Brongn. ; Todites-
Williamsoni (Brongn.); Anomozamites ‘Nilssoni (Phill.) ; ” Araucarites
Phillipsi, Carr; Baiera gracilis, Bunb.; B. Lindleyana (Schimp. ) ;
B. Phillipsi, Nath. ; Beania gracilis, Carr ; Bruchyphyllum mammillare,
Brongn. ; Cheirolepis setosus (Phill.) ; Cryptomerites divaricatus,
Bunb. ; Ctenis falcata, L. & EL Cockanoushin Murrayana (L. & H.) ;.
Dioonites Nathorsti, sp. nov. Ginkgo gaia (Brongn.); G. whitbi-
ensis, Nath. ; Mageiopsis anne sp. nov. ; Nilssonia compta (Phill.) ;
1 Read before the British Association, Section C: es Bradford, Sept., 1900.
Reviews—The Bateman Collection in the Sheffield Museum. 37
N. mediana (Leck., ex Bean MS.); N. tenuinervis, Nath. ; Otozamites
acuminatus (L. & H.); O. Beani (L. & H.); O. Bunburyanus, Zign. ;
O. Feistmanteli, Zign.; O. graphicus (Leck., ex Bean MS.) ; O. obtusus
(L. & H.), var. ooliticus; O. parallelus (Phill.) ; Pagiophyllum William-
soni (Brongn.) ; Podozamites lanceolatus (L. & H.); Ptilozamites
(Leck., ex Bean MS.) ; Tawites zamioides (Leck.) ; Williamsonia
gigas (L. & H.); W. pecten (Phill.).
The English flora is compared by the author with Rhetic, Jurassic,
and Wealden floras of other regions; a comparison is made also
between the fossil flora and the vegetation of the present day.
VI—On rue Fish Fauna or THe YorksHtre Coarrenps.'’ By
Epe@ar D. Wexieurn, F.G.S.
( NLY the Lower and Middle Coal-measures are present. The
author described the Lower Measures, their extent and general
characters, with their beds of marine and fresh-water origin. The
Middle Measures and their general character: formed in a series of
fresh-water lake basins. ‘The author described the fish-remains,
where found and in what state of preservation. Hlasmobranchs,
Teleosteans (and in some cases Dipnoans), commingled, i.e. marine
and fresh-water types in the same beds; Hlasmobranchs found in
marine and fresh-water beds ; Dipnoi only found under fresh-water
conditions. Teleostean orders, Crossopterygii and Actinopterygil
found in both fresh-water and marine beds. The conditions under
which coal was deposited was shown to have a bearing on the
occurrence and habits of the fishes. The swim-bladder of Ccela-
canths, and its peculiar use to them under certain conditions. The
Elasmobranchii were represented by eleven genera and twenty-three
species ; Ichthyodorulites by seven genera and eight species; Dipnoi
by two genera and two species; and the Teleostomi by twelve
genera and thirty-three species. A tabular list of fish-remains was
given showing their stratigraphical distribution ; several new fish-
bearing coal shales were recorded, the distribution and vertical
range of the Yorkshire coal-fishes being thus greatly extended ;
several genera and species new to Yorkshire, and others new to
science, were referred to by the author.
a Se = ee eel =I a
X.—Cartatocue or THE BatEMAN COLLECTION oF ANTIQUITIES IN
THE SHEFFIELD Pusric Musrum. Prepared by E. Howarrua,
F.R.A.S., F.Z.S., Curator of the Public Museum and Mappin Art
Gallery. Svo; pp. xxiv and 254, with 262 illustrations in the
text. Published by order of the Committee. (London: Dulau
& Co., 1899. Price 3s. 6d.)
(}\HE very valuable and interesting collection which forms the
subject of this excellent Catalogue is not only entirely British,
but is confined to Derbyshire, Staffordshire, and Yorkshire, and is
the work of three generations of Batemans of Middleton Hall,
1 Read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Bradford, Sept., 1900.
388 Reviews—The Bateman Collection in the Sheffield Museum.
Derbyshire, from 1759 to 1847, assisted by Mr. Samuel Carrington
in Staffordshire, Mr. James Ruddock in the North Riding of York-
shire, Mr. Stephen Glover in Derbyshire, and Mr. Samuel Mitchell
of Sheffield, an antiquary of wide erudition.
Following the Collection, the Catalogue is arranged as under, viz. :
Critic Periop: Stone and bronze weapons and utensils, Nos. 1-526,
pp. 1-89 ; urns and other pottery, Nos. 757-896, pp. 91-156 ;
miscellaneous objects, crania, querns, Nos. 897-985, pp. 157—
174; tools, personal ornaments, Nos. 527-598, pp. 175-190.
Romano-Britisu Prriop: Nos. 599-687 and 986-1117, pp. 191-218.
Aneto-Saxon Prrtop: Nos. 688-756, pp. 219-281.
Miscettangous Oxsxects; Nos. 1118-1288, pp. 282-254.
In his excellent Introduction Mr. Howarth observes that: ‘‘ Records
of the dead are almost the only means whereby any reliable account
can be constructed of the life and customs of the earliest inhabitants
of Britain, with whom writing was unknown; pictorial art, if not
quite beyond their skill, was of the simplest kind, and their
dwellings were of such a temporary and unsubstantial character that
all traces of them vanished before the historical period. The care
of the dead forms their most lasting memorials, and it is these
sepultural mounds that furnish the principal information respecting
the early Britons. Derbyshire has contained many conspicuous.
examples of ancient barrows, tumuli, or grave-mounds, and,
fortunately, amongst the Bateman family there were men of leisure,
means, and knowledge, with the taste for exploring these sepulchral
storehouses and carefully preserving them ; and it was chiefly owing
to the labours of Mr. Thomas Bateman that the collection which
bore his family name was formed.” (p/p. v.
“Under the Celtic Period are grouped all those objects found in
the burial-places, or in any way associated with the ancient Britons,
whether belonging to the round-headed or long-headed races, two.
distinct types which may have sprung from two different groups
afterwards associated together. Authorities agree in regarding the
earliest race inhabiting these islands as Celts, and as the exact
indications of time are few there is the freer scope for the imagina-
tion. Let us take it, then, that 1600 years before Christ, Britain
was inhabited by a Celtic race of long-headed men of low mental
development and small stature. The Phcenicians traded with Britain
for tin, lead, and skins, 600 years before Christ ; and about 500 B.c.
Hecatus, a Greek writer, describes Britain as an island opposite the
coast of Gaul about as large as Sicily.
“In or about the year 350 B.c. the Belge, a tribe descended from
the Scythians, invaded the island. They were men of larger stature
than the Celts, their heads were round rather than long, and they
were inured to the dangers and hardships of war. The Belge
conquered and occupied the southern and south-western counties,
driving the Celts to the north and north-west. When the Romans
invaded the island, first in 55 B.c. under Julius Cesar, and about
a century later in the reign of Claudius, the Belgz were the tribes
Reviews—The Bateman Collection in the Sheffield Museum. 39
first encountered. The skulls found in the barrows mainly belong
to the round-headed type, some of them being mesaticephalous,
representing the characters of the two types.” (p. vi.)
It is interesting to notice the “very great care and trouble
expended over the construction of many of the grave-mounds,
probably those in which were deposited chiefs of tribes or important
individuals of the community, for it is impossible that these huge
mounds, which sometimes contain only a single interment, and
never very many, could have been constructed for all the people
who died. It is these barrows or tumuli which furnish the evidence
of the customs, habits, and rites of these ancient people.
“The chief characteristic of a Celtic place of burial is a large
mound, sometimes circular, in other cases oval, and more rarely
long-shaped, the latter being regarded as the most ancient. These
mounds differ considerably in dimensions, from 20 to 200 feet in
diameter and from 1 to 24 feet in height. They were usually
placed in a conspicuous position on or near the summit of some
natural elevation of the land. The mounds of earth and stone are
called barrows, and are formed of materials from the immediate
neighbourhood of the situation in which they were placed. In
some cases a mound of stones or a cairn was erected over the
dead.” (p. vii.)
Burial by Cremation.—‘ Where the bodies were cremated the
ashes were afterwards carefully collected together, tied up in some
fabric, and placed on the ground; or they were covered by or put
into an urn, and frequently placed in a cist or in a cavity hewn in
the rock.”
Ordinary Interment.—“ Inhumation was the more common mode
of burial, the body probably being wrapped in some skin or garment,
for although these have long since perished, pins, buttons, and other
articles found in barrows indicate that they were used as fastenings
for sepulchral clothing of some kind. Some barrows contain burnt
and unburnt bones, one body having been interred in the position in
which it died, while the others were burnt; and it may be inferred
from these occurrences that the sacrifice of human life at the death
of a chief was practised amongst the ancient Britons, as is the custom
in recent times with many uncivilized races. The wife, children, or
slaves may thus have been immolated to keep the head of the family
company in a future world.” (p. viii.)
Objects found in Celtic Tumuli and Barrows.—“ The contents of the
graves lead strongly to the supposition that belief in a future state
was held by these primitive people, provision evidently being made
for them to carry on their work and amusements. Besides the
cinerary urns, which were obviously intended to contain the cremated
bones, other vessels of three distinct types have been found with
interments, both of burnt and unburnt bodies. These are generally
known as food-vessels, drinking-cups, and incense-cups, though it
must not be inferred that they were strictly used for the purposes
implied in those names.” (p. viii.)
“Implements and weapons, both in stone and bronze, are
40 Reviews—The Bateman Collection in the Sheffield Museum.
frequently found in barrows, as also personal ornaments in the
shape of necklaces, glass beads, buttons, bronze and bone pins.
Numerous examples of these finds are recorded, amongst them being
some pieces of red ochre, the rouge of that period, used for decorating
the body. Although the use of iron was then unknown, pieces of
rubbed and polished iron-ore have been found in barrows, as if they
had some special significance as charms.
“Stone and bronze weapons are sometimes found in the same
grave, the two materials evidently being used at the same period,
probably this marking the time when bronze first came into use
and before it had been generally adopted. A leaf-shaped dagger is
the principal bronze weapon found in a grave, bronze implements
being much less numerous than those of stone. The pins in bronze
and bone and the buttons in Kimmeridge Coal show that some
form of dress was worn which these were intended to fasten.” (p. ix.)
Mr. Howarth draws the following conclusions :—‘“ It would appear
from the teachings of the tombs of the ancient Britons that they
were in a semi-savage state, without any fixed religion, with the
sagacity to make tools, vessels, weapons, and implements for daily
use. That the use of stone only gradually gave place to the use of
bronze from an acquired knowledge of the properties of the ores
of copper, tin, zinc, and lead. While no special differentiation
of purpose is shown in their manufactures, yet they indicated
a separation of certain objects for distinct uses. Clothing was worn
amongst them, consisting of skins and probably manufactured stuffs,
such as jute and flax. They cultivated the soil to a certain extent,
and had domestic animals for labour and sustenance. While
believing in a future state, their ideas of religion were of a very
vague character, and they still practised certain barbarous rites
which belong only to savages. The period which is covered by the
history of Celtic barrows probably extends over many hundreds of
years, and they show the advance the people had made during that
time, ranging through the later or neolithic stone-period to the
opening of the age of bronze, the people of the Paleolithic period
being much more ancient than the architects of these barrows, and
of a much more primitive type.” (p. xviii.)
Space does not permit us to give a fuller notice of this very
excellent and well-illustrated Catalogue and Guide to one of the
most valuable collections of its kind to be seen in any museum in
this country. We venture to suggest to the author that the very
beautiful necklaces, said to be of ‘Kimmeridge Coal,’ figured on
p- 09 (J. 98, 431, G. 79), p. 61 (J. 98, 484, G. 113), and p. 63
(G. 158), were really originally made of jet from Whitby, which,
owing to damp, ete., have lost their pristine lustre and become decom-
posed by age and long interment in the earth, until they resemble
Kimmeridge Coal or ‘Brown-coal’ in aspect. We compliment
Mr. Howarth upon the production of this excellent Catalogue of the
Bateman Collection, and the Committee of the Sheffield Museum in
authorizing the publication with such ample illustrations. The
Collection itself is well worthy of a pilgrimage to Sheffield, nor is it
the only one to be seen in this admirable Museum.
Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London. 41
Xl.—Tuae Gerotocy or THE CouNTRY BETWEEN ATHERSTONE AND
Cuarnwoop Forest. By C. Fox-Srraneways, F.G.S. With
Norrs on CuHarnwoop Forest by Professor W. W. Warts,
M.A., F.G.S. 8vo; pp. 102. (London: printed for H.M.
Stationery Office, 1900. Price 2s.)
{FVHIS Memoir, which has been written in explanation of the New
Series map, Sheet 155, contains a good deal of detailed
information of practical value respecting the northern part of the
Warwickshire Coalfield and the southern part of the Leicestershire
Coalfield. A number of records of borings and sinkings are given.
Professor Watts contributes a summary of the interesting observations
which he made while mapping in detail the old rocks of Charnwood
Forest. These he groups in the ‘Charnian System,’ whose position
in the great Pre-Cambrian sequence cannot at present be determined.
Among the other rocks dealt with by Mr. Strangways are the
Stockingford Shales (Cambrian), the Permian and Trias, the Glacial,
and more recent deposits. With the aid of Mr. Whitaker he con-
tributes a useful geological bibliography of Leicestershire.
Ea On ws Ai» ROC Hha DENG sS-
GroLocicaL Society or Lonpon.
I.—November 7, 1900.—J. J. H. Teall, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., President,
in the Chair. The following communications were read :—
1. “Additional Notes on the Drifts of the Baltic Coast of
Germany.” By Professor T. G. Bonney, D.Se., LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S.,
and the Rev. E. Hill, M.A., F.G.S8.
The authors, prior to revisiting Riigen, examined sections of the
Drift to the west of Warnemiinde, with a view of comparing it with
that of the Cromer coast. Where the cliffs reach their greatest
elevation, two or three miles from that town, they are composed of
a stony clay, which occasionally becomes sandy. At intervals,
however, sand interbanded with clay occurs, filling what appear to
be small valleys in the Drift. A layer of grit and stones, occasionally
associated with a boulder, occurs once or twice between these sands
and clays. The valleys are excavated in the great mass of stony
clay which extends for four or five miles to the west of Warnemiinde;
and the synclinal slope of the layers and the contortion of the under-
lying bedded sands indicate that the mass filling them has been let
~ down as a whole, either by solution of the Chalk beneath the Drift
or by the melting of underlying ice. Of these two hypotheses the
authors view the latter with the more favour, but it also has its
difficulties.
In Riigen, Arkona was visited; here Chalk occurs, apparently as
a sort of island in the Drift. At the well-known locality by the
lighthouse it seems to overlie a drift, but on closer examination the
latter appears more probably to have filled a cavity excavated in the
Chalk, this apparent inlier of Drift probably being only a remnant
of a much larger mass; therefore it is likely that this part of the
42 Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London.
coast nearly corresponds with a pre-Glacial chalk-cliff against which
the Drift was deposited.
In the Jasmund district the authors lay special emphasis on three-
points:— (1) The ‘inliers’ of Drift appear to occupy valleys
excavated in the Chalk; (2) these valleys can be traced for some:
distance inland; (8) the steep walls of Chalk towards which the
Drift dips sharply, and against which it ends abruptly (usually on
the southern side), often trend gradually inland, as if the present
coastline had passed obliquely across an old valley. In one or
two instances the Drift is slightly twisted up against this steep
face of Chalk. The authors call attention to cases where the Drift
clearly rests against old surfaces and cliffs of Chalk; and to one in
particular, which was not visible in 1898, where (a) clay, (b) sand,
and (c) clay occupy a shallow valiey, and have assumed a synclinal
form. The authors give reasons to show that neither solution of
the Chalk, nor ice-thrust, nor folding, nor even faulting, can
satisfactorily explain the peculiar relations of the Drift and Chalk
in Riigen; and they can find no better explanation than that offered:
in their previous paper.
2. “On certain Altered Rocks from near Bastogne and their
Relations to others in the District.” By Catherine A. Raisin, D.Sc.
(Communicated by Professor T. G. Bonney, D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S.,
F.G.8.)
Professor Renard, from the petrographical study of specimens,
and Professor Gosselet, after description of the district and its
stratigraphy, have attributed the changes in these rocks to:
mechanical disturbances. Dumont had previously described many
examples and inclined to the view of contact-alteration, which was-
favoured by Von Lasaulx’s discovery of a granite in the Hohe Venn
and M. Dupont’s identification of chiastolite from Libramont.
The present paper treats especially of the garnetiferous and
hornblendic rocks, giving the full petrographical and field details.
of a few examples. It points out that the effects of pressure are
evident over the whole district, while mineral modifications.
resembling the results of slight contact-action are found in certain
areas. In a few cases these modifications are more marked, and
sometimes increase as we approach veins composed of quartz,
felspar, and mica, such as might be connected with a concealed
granite.
The peculiar garnetiferous and hornblendic rocks, although
occurring within the zone of alteration, are extremely limited,
often forming patches or bands a few feet across. They differ, as.
described in the paper, from ordinary contact-altered rocks. The-
evidence, in the authoress’s opinion, is in favour of Prof. Bonney’s.
suggestion that they are due to some form of hot-spring action.
1L.—Nov. 21, 1900.—J. J. H. Teall, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., President,
in the Chair. The following communications were read :—
1. “A Monchiquite from Mount Girnar, Junagarh (Kathiawar).”
By John William Evans, D.Sc., LL.B., F.G.S.
Reports and Proceedings— Geological Society of London. 43.
After a brief account of the rocks of the monchiquite type, in
which ferromagnesian silicates are embedded in an isotropic matrix
with the chemical constitution of analcime, the author describes an.
example from Mount Girnar, where it is associated with a nepheline-
syenite intrusive in a mica-augite-diorite.
The most striking feature of this rock is the occurrence of
colourless spheres of various sizes up to about 1mm. in diameter.
The rest of the rock is mainly composed of a hornblende of the
barkevikite type; a pale-green augite is also present. Both the
spherical spaces and the interstices between the ferromagnesian
silicates are usually filled with an isotropic material which has the
composition and most of the physical properties of analcime. This
material does not, however, show the anomalous double-refraction
which is characteristic of that mineral, nor has it any crystalline
outlines, being simply an allotriomorphie glass-like groundmass. It
contains a large number of acicular inclusions, most of which do not
affect polarized light; they exhibit a parallel arrangement in one or
more directions, and appear to indicate a high degree of symmetry.
Cleavage -cracks with similar orientation may be occasionally
observed. As it is clearly a crystalline body, its isotropic nature
refers it to the cubic system, and its identity with analcime may
be considered proved. It is evident that this mineral, growing
outward from different centres, has formed the spherical spaces by
pushing aside the previously crystallized minerals until they came
into contact one with the other, and has afterwards crystallized in
the interstices between them.
The presence of a groundmass of analcime (or one having the
same composition) in all the members of the widely distributed
monchiquite group of rocks implies the occurrence in different
localities of a residuary magma of uniform composition, which
remains liquid after the other constituents of the rock have
crystallized out. Analcime must, therefore, represent an eutectic
compound. If the cooling were sufficiently rapid the magma
would consolidate as a glass, as may be the case with some
monchiquites. On the other hand, where such a magma has
separated and cooled slowly enough, a nepheline-syenite will be
formed.
At some points the analcime in the spheres and in the interstices.
has become decomposed into alkali-felspars and nepheline, as in the
pseudo-leucites of Dr. Hussak, so that in these places the rock
might be described as a hornblende-tinguaite. In other parts much
of the analcime has passed into cancrinite.
The presence of a mineral of the eudialyte-eucolite group is also
noticed.
2. “The Geology of Mynydd-y-Garn (Anglesey).” By Charles A.
Matley, Esq., B.Sc., F.G.S.
Mynydd-y-Garn, a hill of less than 600 feet elevation, stands
above the village of Llanfair-y’nghornwy in North-West Anglesey.
The mass of the hill is an inlier of sericitic and chloritic phyllites
(Garn Phyllites), surmounted by a massive conglomerate (Garn
44. Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London.
Conglomerate), and surrounded by black slates and shales of
apparently Upper Llandeilo age. The general dip of all the rocks
is northerly and north- easterly.
The Garn Phyllites are usually green altered shales and fine
gritty rocks, and are intensely contorted near their southern
boundary. Even where not contorted they show under the micro-
‘scope evidence of powerful earth-movement. They are considered
by the author to be part of the ‘Green Series’ of Northern
Anglesey. They are cut off to the west and south by a curved
fault, probably a thrust, which brings them against Llandeilo slates
and breccias.
The Garn Conglomerate, Grit, and Breccia, a formation perhaps
400 feet thick, rests upon the Garn Phyllites and contains fragments
derived from them, as well as pebbles of quartz, grit, gneissose and
granitic rocks, etc. It passes up gradually into black slates, from
which a few Upper Llandeilo fossils have been collected. In the
black slates an oolitic ironstone or ferruginous mudstone has been
found, which may perhaps be on the same horizon as the similar
xock recorded by the author in Northern Anglesey.
On the eastern side of Mynydd-y-Garn is another group of rocks,
the Llanfair-y’nghornwy Beds, which the author correlates with
the basal part of his Llanbadrig Series. They consist of phyllites
resembling those below the Garn Conglomerate, but they contain
also beds and masses of quartzite, grit, and limestone. They are
much broken, and partly in the condition of crush-conglomerates.
They have been thrust over the Llandeilo black slates, and the
thrust-plane has been traced to the coast at Porth yr Ebol. This
thrust is continuous with that which forms the southern boundary of
the ‘Green Series’ of Northern Anglesey.
The district around Mynydd-y-Garn has been affected since
Llandeilo times by two powerful earth-movements, acting one from
the north, the other from the north-east. The first-mentioned
prevailed in the area west and north-west of the hill, where the
pre-Llandeilo rocks are frequently shattered to crush-conglomerates.
Around Mynydd-y-Garn itself and east of it the principal direction
of movement has been from the north-east; south of the hill the
structure is perhaps the result of the interference of these two
movements.
9
8. “On some Altered Tufaceous Rhyolitic Rocks from Dufton
Pike (Westmorland).” By Frank Rutley, Hsq., F.G.S. With
Analyses by Philip Holland, Esq., F.1.C., F.C.S.
The specimens described were collected by the late Prof. Green
and Mr. G. J. Goodchild from the Borrowdale volcanic series which
constitutes the central mass of Dufton Pike, and the chief interest
attaching to them is their alteration, probably as the result of
solfataric action. One of the rocks, which has the composition of
a soda-rhyolite, contains felspar, augite, magnetite, and possibly
‘spinel or garnet, scapolite, and ilmenite. The porphyritic crystals of
felspar are much corroded, and are sometimes mere spongy masses in
which mica and opal-silica have been developed, together with small
Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London. 45.
quantities of carbonates. In a second example, felspar fragments-
appear as a meshwork of rods which extinguish simultaneously,
and are embedded in an isotropic groundmass crowded with globu-
lites and little rods. A faint streakiness, which cannot be fluxion-
structure, passes through the matrix of the rock and the meshwork
of the felspar fragments without deflection. Analyses of the rocks.
and diagrams constructed from their molecular ratios correspond
closely with those of soda-rhyolite and potash-rhyolite respectively.
IlI.—Dee. 5, 1900.—J. J. H. Teall, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., President,
in the Chair. The following communications were read :—
1. “On the Corallian Rocks of St. Ives (Hunts) and Elsworth.”
By C. B. Wedd, Esq., B.A., F.G.S. (Communicated by permission
of the Director-General of the Geological Survey.)
Starting 24 miles south-west of Elsworth, the author traces the
Elsworth Rock at intervals through Croxton, Yelling, Papworth
Everard, etc., to Eisworth, and thence towards Fen Drayton and
near Swavesey. The Oxford Clay is found to the west of it, and the
Ampthill Clay to the east. Frequent fossil lists are given, and
the character of the rock is described at the different exposures.
Again, from Haughton Hall, west of St. Ives, the ‘St. Ives Rock’
is traced through that town and towards Holywell. The actual
connection with the Elsworth Rock cannot be seen owing to an area
of fen. But that the two rocks are identical the author considers
is proved by the consistency of the two rocks, the absence of any
other rock-bed, the dip of the strata, and the presence of Ampthill
Clay above. The Corallian strata of the area appear to have been
deposited more slowly than the Oxfordian strata. Of the two
zonal ammonites of the Corallian, the dominant form in the Elsworth
Rock and in the stone-bands of the Ampthill Clay is of the plicatilis
and not the perarmatus type.
2. “The Unconformity of the Upper (red) Coal-measures to the
Middle (grey) Coal-measures of the Shropshire Coalfields, and its
bearing upon the Extension of the latter under the Triassic Rocks.”
By William James Clarke, Esq. (Communicated by W. Shone,
Esq., F.G.8.)
The Upper Red Measures have a much greater extension in the
Shropshire Coalfields than the productive measures below. In the
Shrewsbury field they are the only Carboniferous rocks present, and
rest on pre-Carboniferous rocks.
When the sections of collieries at and near Madeley are plotted
on the assumption that the base of the Upper Carboniferous rocks
is horizontal, the Lower Measures are found to be bent into a
syncline rising sharply to the north-north-west and more gently to
the south-south-east. A second syncline, broader and deeper,
extends from Stirchly towards Hadley, but the westerly rise is often
hidden by the boundary-fault of the coalfield. This phenomenon is
known locally as the ‘Symon Fault’; and instead of taking Scott’s
view that it represents a hollow denuded in the Lower Coal-measures,
the author considers it due to folding before late Carboniferous times.
46 Obituary—Mr. C. J. A. Meger.
A third little syncline occurs at the Inett and Caughley. Similar
‘phenomena are exhibited in the Forest of Wyre Coalfield, where
a series of unproductive measures come in between the Lower and
Upper Coal-measures. The axis of the folds runs east-north-east-
ward, and their amplitude and length diminish in proceeding from
north-west to south-east. Inter-Carboniferous folds also occur in
“the North Wales and North Staffordshire fields.
3. “Bajocian and Contiguous Deposits in the Northern Cottes-
-wolds: the Main Hill Mass.” By S. S. Buckman, Hsq., F.G.S.
After giving comparative sections at Cleeve, Leckhampton Hill,
and Birdlip, to show the disappearance of three horizons at the
second locality and five more at wag third, the author interprets the
absence of the beds as due to ‘ pene-contemporaneous erosion,’
brought about by the elevation of rocks, due to small earth-
movements along a main south-west to north-east axis and subsidiary
axes north-west to south-east. In the Northern Cotteswolds the
beds which come in at Cleeve disappear, while there is a development
-of the Harford Sands, the Tilestone, and the Snowshill Clay above
the Lower Trigonia-Grit. A series of detailed sections along the
main hill-mass is given. On tracing the rocks from west to east
across the Northern Cotteswolds, the whole of the Inferior Oolite
disappears, except quite the upper portion, which rests directly on
Upper Lias, and the Upper Lias itself undergoes denudation;
eastward the latter thickens again, and basal beds of Inferior Oolite
yeappear. ‘Thus the axis of an important anticline is along the
Vale of Moreton. The general result of the observations does not
‘confirm Professor Hull’s view that these members of the Jurassic
are thinning and disappearing eastward. The observed phenomena
were really brought about by contemporaneous erosions; whereof
‘the principal one occurred before the deposition of the Upper
Trigonta-Grit. A revised map of Bajocian denudation is given,
and it is shown that, owing to anticlinal axes along the Vales of
Bourton and Moreton, pene-contemporaneous erosion must have
had considerable influence in determining the position of these
valleys. Such erosion is likely to have taken place along similar
lines at different times, and therefore may be connected with folds
in Paleozoic rocks and may have a bearing on the thickness of
rocks overlying the Coal-measures. A table of the dates of the
-chief erosions in Jurassic times is appended to the paper.
OBITUARY.
CHARLES JOHN ADRIAN MEYER,
Born May 23, 1832. Diep Juny 16, 1900.
By the death of Mr. Charles Meyer we have lost a geologist who
‘has contributed largely to our knowledge of Cretaceous rocks and
fossils. He belonged to a family in whom a love of natural history
was inherent, and from the time of his leaving school until his
appointment to the Civil Service he greatly assisted in the pre-
.paration of a new edition of H. L. Meyer’s “ Illustrations of British
2 dm a
_Obituary—Mr. C. J. A. Meer. 47
Birds.” Always a careful and patient observer, he acquired a close
acquaintance with the habits and song-notes of British birds, and
never ceased to take an interest in them.
In July, 1857, he was appointed to a post in the Accountant
‘General’s Office of that time, in a division which was subsequently
transferred to the Chancery Courts under the title of the Supreme
Court Pay Office. At that time his family lived near Godalming,
and his attention was attracted to the fossils to be found in an old
quarry in the Lower Greensand near the house. These interested
him so much that he began to study them and the rocks containing
‘them, and this laid the foundation of that interest in geology which
bore good fruit in after years. From that time he always devoted
his short holidays to visiting places of geological interest, chiefly
along the south coast, and almost always where rocks of Cretaceous
age were to be seen.
He had a remarkably keen eye for fossils, and knew the value of
recording the exact bed from which they came; hence his notebooks
contain carefully measured sections, and his published papers show
that he had always the correlation of beds in different places before
his mind.
He gradually gathered together a fine collection of Cretaceous
fossils, comprising many thousand specimens, obtained entirely by
his own hands. It comprises fossils from the Lower Greensand,
Gault, ‘Upper Greensand,’ and Blackdown Beds, from the Devon-
shire Cenomanian, and from the several stages of the Chalk, and it
contains many unique specimens. This collection, by the generosity
of his sister, Miss OU. Meyer, has been presented to the University of
Cambridge, together with a smaller but fine collection of London
‘Clay fossils collected by his brother, Mr. Christian H. Meyer, C.E.,
during the dockyard extension works at Portsmouth.
The first paper published by Mr. C. J. A. Meyer was a note on
the age of the Blackdown Beds in 1863, and from that time to 1878
he contributed frequently to the pages of the GronoaicaL Magazine
and of the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. A list of
his papers is given below, but two of the most notable may be
specially mentioned,
In his paper “On tie Relations of the Weaiden and Punfield
Formation” he took a view which was opposed to that held by
another well-known geologist, and maintained it with such success
that it is now generally accepted as correct.
His paper on the Cretaceous Rocks of Beer Head is really a very
condensed account of his exploration of the Devon cliffs from
Sidmouth to Lyme Regis. He visited this coast again and again,
-collecting carefully from every bed in the succession; and as he
was practically the first to explore this fine collecting ground, he
obtained a large number of excellent specimens, especially from
those beds which he numbered 10, 11, and 12, and which lie at the
base of the Chalk. He continued to collect from these cliffs for
many years after the publication of his paper, and the value of his
researches was acknowledged by Messrs. Jukes-Browne and W. Hill
48 Obituary—Mr. C. J. A. Meijer.
in their paper on the “ Delimitation of the Cenomanian” (1896),
when he communicated to them a list of the many additional fossils.
he had obtained from these beds, with notes on some of the species.
Specimens from his collection have been figured by Messrs.
Davidson, Lycett, and Woods in the volumes of the Palzonto-
graphical Society, and no doubt others will appear in the monograph:
Mr. Woods has undertaken.
Mr. Meyer was distinguished for his quiet and courteous manner,
his habit of patient enquiry and of accurate observation, and by his.
willingness to impart any information that he possessed. When we
remember that his life was really spent in the routine of office work,
and that all his scientific work was done in his evenings and in his.
short holidays, we may well wonder that he did so much, and
regret that he was not able to give more time to a pursuit for which
he was so well qualified.
We are indebted to Miss C. Meyer for some of the information
in the above notice.
LIST OF PAPERS.
Meyer, C. J. A.
Age of the Blackdown Greensand. (Geologist, vol. vi, 1863, pp. 50-86.)
Three Days at Farringdon. Position of Sponge-gravel. (Geologist, vol. vii, 1864,
pp- 5-11.)
A New Sots otf Zerebrateila, trom the Bargate Stone (Z. trzfida). (Geologist,
vol. vil, 1864, pp. 166-7.)
Notes on Brachiopoda from the Pebble-bed of the Lower Greensand of Surrey ; witlr
descriptions of the new species, and remarks on the correlation of the:
Greensand Beds of Kent, Surrey, and Berks, and of the Farringdon Sponge-
gravel, and the Tourtia of Belgium. (Gro. Mae., Vol. 1, 1864, pp. 249-257.)
On the Discovery of Ophiura Wetherelli at Herne Bay. (Gzox. J Mae., Vol. II,
1865, p. 572.)
Notes on the Correlation of the Cretaceous Rocks of the South-East and West of
England. (Grou. Mac., Vol. III, 1866, pp. 138-18, Pl. II.)
Notes on Cretaceous Brachiopoda, and on the Development of the Loop and Septum:
in Zerebratella. (Grou. Mac., Vol. V, 1868, pp. 268-272.)
On the Lower Greensand of Godalming. (Geol. Assoc.—separate paper, 20 pp.
Read before the Association 4th Dec., 1868.)
Note on the Passage of the Red Chalk of Speeton into an underlying Clay-bed..
(Gzou. Mage., Vol. VI, 1869, pp. 13-14.)
On Lower Tertiary Deposits recently exposed at Portsmouth. (Quart. Journ. Geol.
Soc., vol. xxvii, 1871, pp. 74-89; Phil. Mag., vol. xli, 1871, p. 546.)
On the Wealden as a Fluvio-lacustrine Formation, and on the Relation of the:
so-called ‘ Punfield Formation’ to the Wealden and Neocomian. (Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxviii, 1872, pp. 243-255.)
Further Notes on the Punfield Section. (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxix, 1873,
. 10-76.
On the Cretaceous Rocks of Beer Head and the adjacent Cliff-sections, and on the
relative Horizons therein of the Warminster and Blackdown Fossiliferous.
Deposits. (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxx, 1874, pp. 369-893.)
Micrasters in the English Chalk.—Two or more species? (Grou. Mac., Dec. II,.
Vol. V, 1878, pp. 115-117.)
Notes respecting Chloritic Marl and Upper Greensand. (Grou. Mac., Dee. II,.
Vol. V, 1878, pp. 547-551.)
An Excursion to Guildiord. (Report in Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. v, 1878, pp. 161, 163.)
Meyer, C. J. A., & Juxes-Browne, A. J.
Chloritic Marl and Warminster Greensand. (Gon. Mac., Dec. IV, Vol. I, 1894,.
_ pp. 494-499.)
pS I ST NL LT LAS
THE
GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE.
NEW -ceRlES. | DECADE LV. “VOU VII;
No. Il.—FEBRUARY, 1901.
HER MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY
QUEEN VICTORIA
PASSED AWAY 22 JANUARY, 1901,
BELOVED AND MOURNED BY ALL HER PEOPLE, AFTER
A GLORIOUS REIGN OF 64 YEARS.
OEE HEINF ALA -ANEe ECS ee SS.
I.—Britiso Puetstocene Fisues.
By KE. T. Newron, F.R.S., F.G.S., ete.
[[\HE search for small vertebrates in deposits of Pleistocene age
has, within the last few years, been prosecuted with much zeal
by several workers, and has brought to light the remains of many
species of mammals, as well as birds, reptiles, and amphibia; the
bones in some instances occurring in great numbers. The remains of
fishes, however, have but rarely been found with the bones of other
vertebrata, and never in any abundance. Some interesting discoveries
of fish-remains have nevertheless been made; but the records of
them are scattered through various publications, and it seems very
desirable to bring all this information together.
It is sixty years since Sir C. Lyell,’ in a paper read before the
Geological Society (January, 1840), first made known that remains
of fresh-water fishes had been found, by himself and Mr. J. B.
Wigham, in the fresh-water deposit which occurs in the cliffs at
Mundesley, Norfolk. These remains had been examined by the
Rev. Leonard Jennings and Mr. Yarrel, and were referred by them
to Perch, Carp, Pike, and Trout.
In the following year (January, 1841) Sir C. Lyell * made
a further communication to the same society, in which he stated that
the fish-remains noted in the earlier paper, together with some
additional specimens from the same locality, had been submitted to
M. Agassiz, who thought the Perch, Pike, and Trout differed from
the living species, and that the remains referred to Carp were really
' Proc. Geol. Soc., vol. iii (1843), p. 171. Lond. & Edinb. Phil. Mag., May, 1840.
2 «On the Fresh-water Fossil Fishes of Mundesley as determined by M. Agassiz’? :
Proc. Geol. Soc., vol. iii (1843), p. 362. Ann. Mag, Nat. Hist., vol. vii (1842), p. 61.
DECADE I[V.—VOL. VIII.—NO. II.
50 E. T. Newton—British Pleistocene Fishes.
a species of Leuciscus. No statement was made as to the nature of
the remains which had been found, nor what became of the specimens.
M. Agassiz seems to have been impressed with the idea that
no fossil forms could be identical with living species, and this,
apparently, led him to attach greater importance to the slight
differences, which he saw between the Mundesley remains and the
corresponding parts of living fishes, than would be allowed by
naturalists of the present day. Certain fish-remains, more recently
obtained from these fresh-water deposits at Mundesley, which in
all probability represent the same forms as those found by Lyell,
cannot, I think, be separated from living species.
In the year 1854 Professor J. Morris’ recorded Esox sp., from
the Pleistocene of Copford, Essex : the specimens were jaws and
teeth in the collection of Mr. Brown, and they are now preserved in
the British Museum, South Kensington (Nos. 86,658-60). Other
remains of Pike from Copford were presented to the British
Museum by the Rev. O. Fisher (No. 4,848).
Twenty years elapsed before Mr. William Davies* recognized, in
1874, the remains of Pike in the collection of Sir Antonio Brady,
from the Brickearth of Ilford, specimens which are now in the
British Museum, South Kensington (No. 45,810). These remains
were doubtfully named Zsox lucius?, but were acknowledged to be
inseparable from that species, and in 1890 were so named, without
doubt, by Messrs. A. Smith Woodward and C. Davies Sherborn.*
During Mr. Clement Reid’s* Geological Survey of the ‘Country
around Cromer,” he obtained a number of specimens from the
classical Mundesley river bed, and among them remains of Pike,
Esox lucins (M.P.G.—C.R. 665-6). Since the Survey Memoir
was published, Mr. Reid has collected from the same place scales
and teeth referable to Perca fluviatilis (M.P.G.—C.R. 666) and
a tooth of the genus Zeuciscus (M.P.G.—C.R. 869). We are
thus able to confirm the occurrence of three of the forms recorded
by Sir C. Lyell; and there seems no sufficient grounds for referring
them to other than recent species. ‘T'wo or three different kinds of
scales remain at present unidentified, but none of them can be
definitely named Salmo, the fourth genus mentioned by Sir C. Lyell.
Mr. Reid’s researches in the neighbourhood of Holderness, York-
shire, enabled him to record Perca fluviatilis from both Hornsea
(M.P.G.—C.R. 1.119) and Withernsea (M.P.G.—C.R. 1,071).
In the year 1888 Mr. G. W. Lamplugh® gave an account of
a deposit at Sewerby, near Bridlington Quay, which yielded bones
of Klephas, Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, etc., and is doubtless of
Pleistocene age. With these mammalian bones were also found
vertebra of fishes, which almost certainly belong to Codfish. This
record is the more interesting as it is the only known instance of
1 Catalogue of British Fossils, 2nd ed. (1854), p. 326.
? Cat. Pleistocene Vert. Coll. Sir Ant. Brady, 1874, p. 61.
3 Catalogue of British Fossil Vertebrata.
4 Mem. Geol. Surv., 1882, p. 126.
5 Mem. Geol. Surv., 1885, pp. 82 and 85.
© “An Ancient Sea Beach near Bridlington Quay’’: Brit. Assoc. Report for 1888.
E. T. Newton—British Pleistocene Fishes. ol
marine fish-remains being found in a British Pleistocene deposit.
The proximity of the sea would easily account for the presence of
these fish bones, as well as for the marine molluscs which were
found with them; but it also suggests the possibility of a more
recent introduction. Mr. Lamplugh’s careful work is, however,
a guarantee that the fish bones were cotemporary with those of the
Mammoth, and the condition of the specimens, which are now in
the Jermyn Street Museum, is precisely the same.
Two teeth, probably of Pike, found by Mr. B. B. Woodward in
the Crayford Brickearth in 1891, are now in the British Museum.
In the year 1894 Mr. F. C. J. Spurrell presented to the Museum
of Practical Geology a number of specimens from the Brickearth of
Erith, and among these were some teeth of Hsox luctus (No. 5,646).
Mr. Clement Reid’s most interesting work on the series of strata
found at Hoxne,' in Norfolk, not only brought to light a large
number of plants, but also of small bones of vertebrata, among which,
from Bed EH, were remains of Perca fluviatilis (M.P.G., 6,084) and
Leuciscus rutilus (M.P.G., 6,085). In the following year, 1897, the
results of Mr. Reid’s similar researches at Hitchin® were published,
and from beds on the same horizon as D and E at Hoxne he was
able to record Perca fluviatilis, Hsox lucius, Tinca vulgaris, Leuciscus
erythrophthalmus, and L. rutilus (M.P.G., 6,801).
For some time past Mr. M. A. C. Hinton and Mr. A. §.
Kennard have been searching the various Pleistocene beds at
Grays Thurrock, and have obtained a good number of bones and
teeth of small vertebrates, among which are many belonging to
fresh-water fishes. Some account of these was read before the
Essex Field Club* on October 27th, 1900. About a dozen otoliths,
which agree most nearly with those of the Ruff, are provisionally
referred to Acerina vulgaris ?; a number of teeth doubtless belong
to the Pike, Hsox lucius; several pharyngeal bones and numerous
isolated teeth are referred partly to Roach, Zeuciscus rutilus, and
partly to Dace, Z. vulgaris; one tooth has the characteristic curved
and crenulated crown of the Rudd, Z. erythrophthalmus; and there is
a single vertebra, having the peculiar tubular neural arch found in
the Eel, which is with much hesitation named Anguilla? vulgaris ?
There is a series of small vertebrata from Grays Thurrock in the
Brown Collection in the British Museum (No. 28,079), among which
are remains of fishes referable to Pike, Rudd, and probably Dace.
Many otoliths of fishes have been collected by Mr. Clement Reid
from Pleistocene beds on the foreshore at Selsea; they belong to
about sixteen different forms, but none of them have been definitely
recognized as of living species. It is almost certain that the greater
number of these otoliths have been derived from the denudation of
Kocene strata in the neighbourhood, and they cannot, therefore, be
included among the British Pleistocene fishes.
The discoveries of Pleistocene fish-remains on the Continent have
1 Brit. Assoc. Report for 1896.
2 Proc. Roy. Soc., vol. 1xi (1897), p. 45.
3 Essex Naturalist (in the press, not yet published).
52 Professor G. A. J. Cole—On Belinurus kiltorkensis.
been even fewer than in England. Dr. Alf. Nehring,’ in his “Ueber-
sicht tiber 24 mitteleuropiische Quartiir-Faunen,” mentions the
following :—From (1) ‘“‘ Westeregeln bei Magdeburg ” (p. 474), Hsox
luctus; (2) ‘‘Die Rauberhéhle am Schelmengraben zwischen Niirnberg
und Regensburg” (p. 488), Silurus glanis, Esox luctus, Cyprinus carpio ;
(3) “Der Hohlefels im Achthal bei Ulm” (p. 490), Cyprinus carpio
(or Perca fluviatilis) ; (4) ‘“‘ Die Fuchslocher am Rothen Berge bei
Saalfeld” (p. 495), Esoa lucius; (5) “ Die Hohle von Balve in West-
falen” (p. 504), Hsox lucius. The age of the specimens from the
first two localities is doubtful.
Dr. A. Smith Woodward has kindly called my attention to
Professor F. Bassani’s* record of Anguilla vulgaris, Cyprinus carpio,
and Leuciscus aula from beds at Pianico, Lombardy, which
Dr. Forsyth-Major assures me are of early Pleistocene age.
British Puieistrocene FIsHES AT PRESENT KNOWN,
With the Localities from which they were obtained and the Collections
in which they are preserved.
B.M. = British Museum. M.P.G. = Museum of Practical Geology.
H. & K. = Collection of Messrs. Hinton and Kennard.
Perca fiuviatilis, Linn. (Perch) : Mundesley, Hornsea, Withernsea,
Hitchin, Hoxne (M.P.G.).
Acerina vulgaris ?, Cuv. & Val. (Ruff) : Grays Thurrock (H. & K.).
Salmo sp. (? Trout): Mundesley (fide Lyell).
Esozx lucius, Linn. (Pike): Erith, Hitchin (M.P.G.) ; Copford, Ilford
(B.M.); Grays Thurrock (B.M. and H. & K.).
Leuciscus rutilus, Linn. (Roach): Mundesley ?, Hitchin, Hoxne
(M.P.G.) ; Grays Thurrock (H. & K.).
Leuciscus vulgaris, lem. (Dace) : Grays Thurrock (B.M. and H.&K.).
Leuciscus erythrophthalmus, Linn. (Rudd) : Hitchin (M.P.G.) ; Grays
Thurrock (B.M. and H. & K.).
Tinca vulgaris, Cuv. (Tench) : Hitchin (M.P.G.).
Anguilla ? vulgaris ?, Turton (Hel) : Grays Thurrock (H. & K.).
Gadus morhua ?, Linn. (Codfish) : Sewerby (M.P.G.).
IJ.—On Barinurus kitTorRKENsis, Baty.
By Professor Grenvinie A. J. Contz, M.R.I.A., F.G.S.
rE 1899 Messrs. Rupert Jones and Henry Woodward stated that
Belinurus “has not at present been found in rocks of earlier age
than the Coal-measures.” Belinurus grand@vus, described in the same
paper, was referred, with probability, to the Lower Carboniferous.
A writer (“ R. W. EH.) in the Ottawa Naturalist* for January,
1900, thereupon called attention to the record of Belinurus from the
Kiltorcan Beds of Ireland. This record is founded on Mr. W. H.
1 Zeitsch. d. Deutsch. geol. Gesell., 1880, p. 468, where reference will be found
to the original records.
* Atti Soc. Ital. Sci. Nat. vol. xxix (1886), p. 344.
3 “« Contributions to Fossil Crustacea’’: Gzou. Mac., 1899, p. 389.
* Quoted in Grou. Mac., 1900, p. 177.
Professor G. A. J. Cole—On Belinurus kiltorkensis. 58
‘ Baily’s discovery ' of “a well-marked head (or carapace), to which
is attached portions of two of the thoracic segments.” Dr. Henry
Woodward,’ in 1878, accepted this determination, on the basis of
sketches furnished to him by Mr. Baily, who had by this time
discovered a second, though distorted, specimen. The Kiltorcan
Beds, it may be remarked, are of Upper Old Red Sandstone age,
and are part of the ‘ Yellow Sandstone Series,’ which passes con-
formably up into the Lower Carboniferous Shale. They are not,
therefore, of such high antiquity as the writer in the Ottawa
Naturalist suggests.
Fic. 1.—Sketch of the less imperfect specimen of Belinurus kiltorkensis, Baily,
showing the principal features visible with a platyscopic lens. Natural size.
The carapace is viewed from the under side.
Fic. 2.—Sketch of the distorted specimen, viewed from the upper side with the aid
of a platyscopic lens. Natural size. The details of the central portion are
best seen in this example, though the whole is greatly broadened.
The question having thus been raised, I obtained the permission
of the Director-General of the Geological Survey to examine the
specimens preserved in the collections in the Dublin Museum.
Mr. Baily’s specimens have, at some later time, been relabelled
as ‘Limuloides’; but the carapace is certainly not of the hemiaspid
type. It presents the continuous unnotched margin shown in
Mr. Baily’s original drawing. The better specimen is, I feel
confident, presented to us from the under side, and shows more
detail than has hitherto been attributed to it. The flat border,
1mm. wide, is followed by a smoothly curving region, from which
the protuberances rise which correspond in part to the glabella in the
trilobites. The form of these is best seen from the annexed
sketches, which, like Mr. Baily’s, have been made from the original
specimens. The distorted example is seen both as an external cast
and in relief, and the four elevated portions stand out distinctly
on it. They seem to have been highest at their margins, a rim
thus occurring about a depressed area on each. This feature is also
_ seen in Mr. Griesbach’s drawings of the better known species of
Belinurus.?
The eyes indicated by Baily are based on a thickening that occurs
on the edge of the ‘ glabella,’ where it descends to meet the
smoother lateral area. The evidence is slight, but agrees with what
is already known of Belinurus.
There are indications of radial ribbings on either side of the
‘ «¢ On Fossils obtained at Kiltorkan Quarry, Co. Kilkenny’’?: Report Brit. Assoc.
for 1869, p. 78.
2 «* British Fossil Crustacea ’’ (Paleeontographical Society), p. 238.
3 «Brit. Foss. Crust.’? (Pal. Soe.), pl. xxx.
d4 Professor T. Rupert Jones—History of Sarsens.
‘olabella,’ like those that have been attributed to impressions of
the limuloid limbs.
The ‘pleure’ (if we may use the nomenclature adopted in the
case of trilobites, with which these forms provide so valuable a link)
are furrowed, while in Hemiaspis (Limuloides) they are unfurrowed.
Traces of three segments are preserved in the more perfect specimen.
Even the somewhat abrupt posterior bend, so characteristic of the
pleuree of #elinurus reging, is noticeable in the first segment of
Belinurus kiltorkensis, aud was doubtless repeated in the others.
Protolimulus (Prestwichia) eriensis, described from the Devonian
of Pennsylvania by H. S. Williams and A. 8. Packard,’ is only
known by its under surface; but the cephalic shield does not
resemble that of the Kiltorkan specimens.
I feel, then, that Belinurus may safely be regarded as occurring
in the Upper Old Red Sandstone of Ireland, which some authors have
proposed to inciude in the Lower Carboniferous Series. There seems
no reason to depart from the determination made by Mr. Baily and
Dr. Woodward thirty years ago, a determination that has become
widely known through the works of Zittel and other paleontologists.
II].—History oF THE SARSENS.
By Professor T. Rupzrr Jonzs, F.R.S., F.G.S., ete.
AppITI0NAL Notres.—These further references and fuller quotations
are here given with the view of making the History of the Sarsens,
or Sarsen Stones, more complete and more easily available,
especially by indicating the chronological succession of observed
facts and published opinions.
§ 1. Origin and Constitution of the Stones called ‘ Sarsens.’
§ 2. Fossils in Sarsens.
§ 3. Localities. I. In the Counties north of the Thames: (1) Northamptonshire,
(2) Suffolk, (3) Essex, (4) Hertfordshire, (5) Buckinghamshire, (6) Oxford-
shire, (7) Middlesex. Il. In the Counties south of the Thames: (8) Kent,
(9) Surrey, (10) Hampshire, (11) Berkshire, (12) Wiltshire, (13) Dorset,
(14) Somerset, (15) Devon.
§ 4. Bibliographic List.
§ 1. Onicin anp ConstituTIoN oF SARSENS.
(See also Part i in Wilts Mag., 1886, p. 126.)
1819. G. B. Greenough, in his “Critical Examination of the
First Principles of Geology,” p. 112, says that the Greyweather
Stones (‘ Greywether sandstone,’ etc., p. 293), scattered over the
southern counties of England, have been evidently derived from
the destruction of a rock which once lay over the Chalk.
1871. In the Transactions of the Newbury District Field Club,
vol. i, p. 99, Sarsens are referred to as “‘indurated blocks of sand-
stones and conglomerates.”
1882 and 1885. Sir Archibald Geikie, treating of siliceous
cements in sandstones, writes, ‘‘where the component particles are
1 Packard, ‘‘ Carboniferous Xiphosurous Fauna of North America’’: Mem. Nat.
Acad. Sci. Washington, vol. iii (1886), p. 150.
Professor T. Rupert Jones —History of Sarsens. ay)
bound together by a flinty substance, as in the exposed blocks of
Eocene sandstone known as ‘Grey-weathers’” in Wiltshire, and
which occurs also [Landenian, sandstone] over the north of France
towards the Ardennes” (‘“ T'extbook,” 2nd ed., 1885, p. 162).
In a letter, Sir Archibald has obligingly stated that the first and
best account on which the reference to the above was based is by
Dr. C. Barrois, Ann. Soc. Géol. du Nord, vol. vi (1878-9), p. 366.
See also his short paper in the Assoc. Frangaise, 1879, p. 666.
Gosselet quotes Barrois in his great work “ L’Ardenne,” 1888, p. 829.
Further references are also given by these two authors.
1885. The Rev. A. Irving, taking it for granted that a large river
in Eocene times flowed from a region of Paleozoic rocks in the west,
in the direction of the Thames Valley to the east, said that the detritus
would be quartzose and felspathic; the felspars would ultimately be
decomposed by the agency of carbonic acid, and gelatinous hydrated
silica would be produced. (Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. viii, pp. 156, 157.)
1887. The Rev. A. Irving, in a letter dated March 6th, 1887,
writes :—‘* You have overlooked one point which I have tried to bring
out in some relief—the fact that the surface acquires a porcellanous
texture, not due to cementation by iron (for from the superficial
layer the iron is entirely leached out), but to an actual change of the
material by a solution-process. I suggested (three or four years
ago) CO, as the chief agent ; but later work has shown me that the
organic acids contained in peaty water have played a far more
potent part in this sub-metamorphic change.”
1888. In the Geronogican Macazine, Dec. III, Vol. V,
Dr. T. G. Bonney states that the Sarsens of the Tertiaries are of
concretionary origin: ‘ In the Sarsen Stones, and with matrix of
the Hertfordshire Puddingstones, there is chalcedonic silica converting
sandstone into quartzite” (pp. 298-500).
1888. J. Prestwich: ‘‘ Geology,” etc. vol. ix, p. 342. These
sands [cf the Woolwich and Reading Series] also occasionally
contain concreted blocks in irregular local beds of sandstone,
sometimes with very hard siliceous cement.” Footnote at p. 342:
“Mr, Whitaker and Prof. Rupert Jones think that in Berkshire and
Wiltshire they [the Sarsens] are more frequently derived from the
Bagshot Sands.” The ‘Puddingstone’ of Bucks and Herts is here
referred to the Reading Beds. Further on, at p. 364, it is stated
that Sarsens occur in the Bagshot Sands of Frimley and Chobham.
N.B. — Concretionary action has produced in many Sarsens
mammillations on a large scale, which show on some surfaces
irregular, coalescent, smooth swellings, with shallow, valley-like
slopes and depressions, like those on the so-called ‘ bowel-stones ’
of the Lower Greensand near Aylesbury. H. B. Woodward’s
“Geology of England and Wales,” 2nd ed. (1887), p. 877. Such
mammillated Sarsens occur in Suffolk, Wiltshire, and elsewhere.
N.B.—The convexity of the lower face of a Sarsen lying in its
original sand-bed is due to the concretionary formation of the stone.
1901. J. W. Judd’s “Note on the Structure of Sarsens”
(Guoxt. Mac., January, 1901, pp. 1, 2) gives definite descriptions
56 Professor T. Rupert Jones—History of Sarsens.
of the intimate constitution of many Sarsens from authenticated
localities.
N.B.—Besides the Tertiary sandstones, other and older white
sandstones have yielded large and small blocks, now on the surface
or in superficial deposits; for instance, Upper and Lower Greensand,
Liassic sands, Millstone Grit, etc.
§ 2. Fosstzs.
(Refer also to pp. 142-147 of Part i in Wilts Mag., 1886.)
1871. Professor John Phillips, in his “Geology of Oxford,” 1871,
p. 447, states :—‘‘I have never found shells in any of these stones
lying in their native beds, and have some scruple in mentioning that
they do occur in a layer in one of the blocks at Stonehenge. But,
as I did not choose by chiselling that monumental stone to attract
attention to it, probably it may for many years to come escape all
injury except that which it must suffer from the strokes of time.”
1878. In the churchyard of Sandhurst, a large Sarsen perforated
with pipe-like holes lies at the foot of the old yew-tree there.
(T. R. J., Trans. Newbury Distr. F. Club, vol. ii, p. 249.)
1887. C. ©. King suggested that in the Avebury district the
Sarsens were more particularly perforated by rootlets, and that, if so,
the shoals or sandbanks formerly bearing the trees were better
conditioned for the vegetation than other parts of the formation.
1888. J. Prestwich: “Geology,” etc. vol. ii, p. 344. The
indications in the Sarsens of the former presence of rootlets, possibly
of Palms, are here mentioned.
1888. ‘The same kind of fossil tubular marks in Sarsens may be
seen in some blocks on the side of the Newbury-Hermitage road, or
Long Lane, west of Coldash Common.
1897. Rootlet-holes, mostly vertical, occur in a Sarsen in a brick-
field near Watford, Herts.—C. D. Sherborn.
N.B.—The perforations due to rootlets have been widened on the
exposed surfaces of the stones by water-action and blown sand, so as
to leave the surface variously pit-marked.—T. R. J.
N.B.— Analogous pipe-like remains of rootlets occur as long,
amall, vertical holes, in the Hastings sand-rock, East Cliff, Hastings
(Geologist, vol. v, 1862, pp. 185, 136, fig. 9; and Grou. Mage.,
1875, p. 589) ; in the Triassic (?) Sandstone of South Sweden; and
in some of the estuarine, Jurassic shales of Yorkshire, near Whitby
(A. C. Seward) and near Scarborough.—T. R. J.
§ 3. Locaxrtiss.
I. (1) Northamptonshire.—1896. Mr. Edwin Sloper observed in
a pit at the Northampton Brickworks at Blisworth a Sarsen that
had evidently fallen from the base of the Drift overlying the Lias
clay there. This Sarsen was to be cared for by being placed in the
gardens of the Hotel at Blisworth. It consists of a white sandstone
with siliceous cement, and with filamentous cavities, which are
faintly stained with limonite.
(2) Suffolk.—1889. Sarsens are abundant in the neighbourhood
of Nayland, at corners of cross-roads and elsewhere. Fine-grained
Professor T. Rupert Jones—History of Sarsens. o7
ssaccharoidal, and stained. Many with large and small tubular holes,
some of which are split open and form furrows on the surfaces, often
due to old natural splitting.
1889. Hartest Green, Suffolk. A large brownish Sarsen (5 ft. 8 ins.
x 5 ft. Zins. x 3 ft. 6ins.), much rounded (almost like a boulder),
fine-grained and whitish inside, where wounded by blows of stones.
Much pitted naturally on the outside. Flattened at the top, and
worn smooth by boys’ play. It was taken years ago out of a field
now occupied by Mr. Griggs, and required eight horses to drag it.
It is stated in a letter from a resident there that “it measures 12 feet
round (probably touching the ground for 6 feet of its length), and
about 4 feet across, weighing 5 or 6 tons.” It is not alluded to
as a boulder by the Committee on Boulders, ete. (British Association).
1889. At Newton Green there is a large Sarsen stone (43 X
3 xX 2 feet) by the side of the pond next to the ‘Saracen’s Head ”
Inn, which shows on one side a ‘bowelly’ surface, and the other
sides split flat.
1889. One stone (3 feet long) with bowelly surface, and with
tubules, is at Frost Farm, Stoke, near Nayland. Near Nayland, at
the corner of cross-road from Bures to Colchester, there is a Sarsen
7 ft. 6in. long, roughly oval in outline. By the side of the high
road near the Popsey bridge, a little east of the Anchor bridge, Nay-
Jand, a Sarsen standing on the bank (3 x 1} feet) shows a natural
surface with a large hole, also a boldly mammillated surface
{bowelly). Its upper end and sides are split flat; lower end buried.
1889. Ina letter dated Ipswich, September 12th, 1889, the late
Dr, J. E. Taylor obligingly informed me, with regard to some Sarsen
stones found at Ipswich, that “the Reading stone-bed specimen [not
a Sarsen] is highly calcareous, but I have found no traces of
Foraminifera in it. The mammillated stone is purely siliceous.
. . The siliceous stones are abundant hereabouts; the others not
so. I got them both [the stones referred to] during the excavation
of the deep sewers in one of the streets of this town.”
(3) Hssex.—1896. T. V. Holmes: Proc. Geol. Assoc.,. vol. xiv,
p. 190. A large Sarsen is here mentioned that has been removed
from the Glacial Gravel at Writtle Wick, near Chelmsford. <A note
on the possible origin of the word Sarsen is also given.
1896. A. E. Salter: Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xiv, p. 394. In the
Hpping Forest gravel A. E. Salter noticed ‘‘Sandstones and Sarsens,
both large, various, and plentiful. At Epping Forest I saw three,
measuring 9in. by Sin. 12in. by 6in., and 20in. by 5 in.
respectively.” In the high-level Glacial Gravel at Witherthorn,
four miles east of Ongar, ‘large Sarsens (2 ft. by 14 ft.) ” (p. 395).
At Woodton, inthe Yare Valley, ‘‘a block of Hertfordshire Pudding-
stone was found” (p. 399).
(4) Hertfordshire. —1897 and 1899. The Rev. Alex. Irving
describes both Sarsens and Herts Puddingstones as common in the
Stort Valley (Herts and Essex). He refers both to the Bagshot
Series, the latter particularly to the Pebble-beds; and he states that
doth rocks are agglutinated by the same kind of siliceous cement
08 Professor T. Rupert Jones—History of Sarseis.
(Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xv, pp. 196 and 236). He duly mentions:
that Mr. Whitaker regards the Hertfordshire Puddingstone of the
neighbourhood under notice as having, in part at least, been con-
solidated pebble-beds of the Woolwich and Reading Series, like
those at Addington, near Croydon. See also Mr. Whitaker’s Address.
to the Herts Nat. Hist. Soc., Proc., vol. x, pt. 4 (September, 1899),
raliG:
7 (5) Buckinghamshire-—1890. A row of coarse, gravelly Sarsens
lies along the side of the road up to the church at Badenham. They
were placed there by the Rector, who said that such stone underlies.
the Rectory house and lawn close by; and some blocks of it were
still lying about there. In the church tower, up along the re-entrant
angles of the buttresses and tower, numerous ordinary fine-grained
Sarsens are built in with the flint-work. Professor Prestwich said,
June 21st, 1890, that the coarse-grained Sarsens at Bradenham came
from the base of the Tertiaries.
In Buckinghamshire Sarsens are known as ‘Wycombe stones,’ and
in the Bagshot district as ‘ Heath stones.’
(6) Oxfordshire.—1871. Professor J. Phillips regarded the
Sarsen stones as concretionary portions of extensive sand-beds once
overlying the district with its previously excavated Chalk valleys.
The loose sands were carried away by denudation, and the solid
portions suffered displacement. Some containing flint pebbles and
fragments lie on the north side of the Wiltshire downs. Some large
Sarsens are found in the Drift, for instance at Long Wittenham,
near Abingdon. See his ‘Geology of Oxford and the Valley of the
Thames,” 1871, pp. 447 and 462.
(7) Middlesex.—1891. Horace B. Woodward, in the Grou. Mac.,
Dee. III, Vol. VIII, pp. 119-121, succinctly described a very large
Greywether, of irregularly quadrangular form, that was found
lying in the London Clay, at the bottom of the Thames.
Valley Gravel, at Moscow Road, Bayswater, in enlarging the
cellarage of the “King’s Head.” It was 9ft. 6ins. long, and at
least 2 ft. Sins. thick. Mr. H. B. Woodward remarks that Sarsens
have been found in many places at the same horizon in the base
of the Thames Valley Gravel—at the Law Courts in the Strand,
and near Kew Bridge; at Haling in the Brent Valley ; at Ilford, and
at Grays; but not usually of large size nor common. He notes
also that Sarsens and Hertfordshire Puddingstone occur in the
Brickearth in Buckinghamshire, derived in Glacial times from the
wreck of Woolwich Beds and Bagshot Sands. The Thames Valley
got its gravel mainly from the Glacial Drift. The Bayswater Sarsen
is six miles distant from nearest known Glacial Drift ; and, he says,
“it is quite possible that this particular block may have been
derived directly from an outlier of Bagshot Sands, or it may have
been left as a relic of Preglacial denudation near the spot where it
has now been found.” i
1895. At the Grove, Stanmore (the residence of Mrs. Brightwen),.
large Sarsens have been collected from the neighbourhood and made
into a grotto. One slab measures about 6 X 8 xX 2 feet; another,
Miss M. S. Johnston—Geological Notes on Central France. 59
about 6 x 6 x 2 feet. The surfaces of these two large slabs have
been deeply scored by running water, and pierced in all directions
by rootlet and other holes.—C. D. S. 4
1896. In the Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xiv, p. 158, Mr. Allen
Brown states that “a large tabular water-worn Sarsen, and a portion
of it broken off in Quaternary times,’ were found in the gravel at
Hanwell; and that another Sarsen occurred at the base of the
gravel at the back of Hanwell Station.
1900. In “The Pits,” old gravel workings, an allotment, now
wooded, belonging to William Sherborn, Esq., and formerly part of
Bedford Common, Middlesex, there is a large Sarsen, measuring
about 5 x 5 X 2 feet, from one end of which a block about a foot
thick was removed.—C. D. 8.
1900. In front of the roadside inn (the “ Griffin”’) at Totteridge
or Whetstone, near Highgate, stands a short thick Sarsen, about
25 inches high above ground, and 20 inches broad at top and
18 inches below. It is locally said to be as large again below the
surface; and to have been used as a ‘ whetstone’ for their weapons
by the soldiers going to the Battle of Barnet (1471).—A. O. Brown.
1900. Horace B. Woodward describes a Greywether from the
Gravel of South Kensington, in the Got. Mac., December, 1990,
p- 543 (with figure). It measures 3 ft.10ins. x 3 ft. dins. x 2 ft,
and is in many respects analogous to the specimen from Bayswater
described above. A smaller one has just been found on the same
spot (January 23, 1901).
(To be continued.)
IV.—Some Grotocicat Norres on Centra FRANCE.
By M. S. Jounsron.
(PLATES ILIV.)
THOUGHT, perhaps, some readers of the GeoLocicaL MAGAZINE
might be interested in a few notes taken during the Inter-
national Geological Congress excursion to the Massif of Central
France and the region of the Causses, and on the chief rocks there,
with the best places for finding examples.
- By making Clermont Ferrand a starting-point, the Puy de Dome
may be visited first. he road winds its way up from the extensive
plain of Limagne. This plain, of Tertiary age, extends all along the
foot of the Monts Démes from Brionde to the Loire. It is formed
by an alluvial deposit left by au ancient lake of the age of the Paris
Basin, whose waters at periods of high level probably flowed into
Lac Limagne. The Mouts Domes rise abruptly from this plain,
their basalt flows forming in places precipitous cliffs.
At Royat, the great basalt flow of Quaternary age is reached, at
the foot of which abundant minerai springs gush out. On either
side of the lava rise rounded hills of granite; the typical granite
of these hills is grey and coarsely crystalline.
The Puy de Déme is composed of trachyte. The typical rock
contains large crystals of sanidinve, and is very acid, having 62 per
cent. of silica. M. Michel-Lévy is of opinion that the trachyte is
60 Miss M.S. Johnston—Geological Notes on Cential France.
a dyke which has been buried in the scoria, projected from the
crater, of which every vestige has been obliterated. On the north
side of the Puy de Déme there is a curious sandy scoriaceous
deposit, containing small rounded grains and specular iron. The
grains are considered by M. Michel-Lévy to be lapilli from the
volcano. Down the side of the Nid de Poule there is a large
deposit of scoria and bombs of various forms. .
The Puy de Pariou is a scoriaceous cone, with an immense lava
‘stream. of andesite flowing round the eastern side of the cone to the
‘basaltic plateau of Prudelles, which imposed so great a barrier that
‘the stream divided and flowed down to the Limagne plain on either
side of. the plateau. Between Puy de Pariou and Prudelles, at
Le Cressigny, a cordierite gneiss may. be found, while the Pliocene
‘basalt of Prudelles contains zeolites.
Proceeding from Royat by train to La Bourboule, the confines of
Mont Dore massif are entered upon. The line runs round the north
of the Monts Domes. At Volvic a fine andesitic stream is crossed ;
‘this stone is much quarried for building purposes, whose durable
qualities are well seen in the cathedral of Clermont Ferrand.
On arriving at La Bourboule, the first section of interest is at
a short distance from the station at Lusclade, where rhyolites,
perlites, phonolites, and trachytes are found. One section of rhyolite,
facing the road to Mont Dore and at a small gorge, shows remarkable
stratification, the rhyolite being of two kinds, glassy and fibrous.
Up the gorge the rhyolite becomes perlitic, and masses of ophitic
basalt from the heights above have fallen into the bed of the stream.
Phonolites without nepheline, with nosean and haiiyne, are found
a few yards further to the south.
The district of Mont Dore is formed by two principal centres
of eruption—one at the Pic de Sancy, the other between the
-Banne d’Ordenche, Puy de la Croix Morand, and Puy de lAngle,
overlooking the gorge mentioned above. The Pic de Sancy is
trachytic,. and fine porphyroidal trachyte may be found on its
morthern slopes. In the ravines of the Grande Cascade and
Egravat remarkable sections are seen, tuffs and conglomerates of
trachyte or andesite alternating with compact flows of different
rocks, as trachytes, andesites, basalts, and labradorites.' The greater
part of the massif is formed of materials of every size from fine
cinerites to conglomerates.
Cinerites containing vegetable remains are well exposed on the
west side of the valley of the Dore, to the north-west of Mont Dore
les bains.. At the Ravin. de la Grande Scierie is an interesting
example of denudation and successive volcanic phenomena. The
bottom of, the ravine is of cinerite, which rises on either side and
as capped by porphyritic trachyte. After the first erosion of the
valley a stream of lava poured down it, partly filling it, and which
was in its turn eroded and has left its mark in a bank of andesite on
both sides of the ravine. A little further on is a basaltic dyke rising
* A labradorite of French geologists is a basic andesite of English geologists.
GEOL. MAG. 1901. DecwlVeaVola Vit. Ply ET
Fic. 1.—The Orgues de Bort, left bank of the Dordogne.
Fic. 2.—Promontory of Basalt, Carlat.
GEOLOGICAL VIEWS IN CENTRAL FRANCE,
y
sk
le RE
Is
HONG ie or
SetINGY §
Miss M. 8S. Johnston—Geological Notes on Central France. 61
as an isolated hill in the centre of a circular valley. This is the
Roche Vendeix.
After traversing some woods the road opens on to a fine
panorama, an immense circle bounded by the mountains of Mont
Dore, the Cantal and Cézallier, and the hills of lesser heights, the
Orgues de Bort and the Limousin. The village of Latour is built
on a basaltic promontory. The columns of basalt are magnificent ;
their broad tops serve as excellent foundations to the houses, and are
especially well seen in the small hill, on which once stood a castle.
Here the road descends into the valley, and the scenery is changed.
Rounded and striated hills of granite betoken the presence of
ancient glaciers, and between them stretch marshy fields of peat,
whose undersoil is formed of scratched pebbles and erratic blocks of
every size. The glaciers were of Pliocene age and when the
voleanoes of Auvergne were at their highest. The glaciers have
scooped out curiously shaped valleys, and the moraines lie along
successive hills, whose contours are rounded and lowered as far
as La Pradelle, when the materials spread themselves out over
a flat tableland, which constitutes the plateau of Lanobre and
extends to the Orgues de Bort, whose precipitous escarpment
dominates the left bank of the Dordogne. It may be added that
at Bagnols erratic blocks, forming immense heaps, repose on
rounded, polished, or striated cordierite gneiss.
From Bort a short drive brings one up to the Orgues de Bort ;
these ‘orgues’ are of phonolite (Pl. II, Fig. 1). A cap of phonolite,
rising in immense columns, overspreads a hill of augen gneiss. Many
of the ‘eyes’ in this gneiss are very large and in regular and con-
tinuous layers.
The view from this hill is very fine. The massifs of Mont Dore
and the Cantal are both seen; the Dordogne and the Rhue have cut
narrow precipitous valleys on the north and east, but on the south,
after the junction of the two streams, the valley widens and there
are some small glacier-formed lakes, which are filling with peat.
On leaving Bort by train for Aurillac the line, a marvel of
engineering skill, winds between the spurs of the Cantal, which
the train crosses, ascends, and descends in constant succession.
Before reaching the slopes of the Cantal a small Carboniferous
deposit is crossed, in which mines are worked at Champagnac.
Aurillac is built on the banks of the Jordanne, and on
crossing the railway to the south of the town the alluvial terraces
of Quaternary age, with the rounded hills of mica-schist rising
above them, are very noticeable. There is also in this valley other
evidences of glacial action, and at Vezac a Quaternary moraine
is prominent, forming waterfalls and rapids in the small stream.
The next interesting section on the road to Carlat is an andesitic
conglomerate at Cabanes. ‘This conglomerate is found in great
blocks amongst tuffs and andesitic dust, and forming a high hill.
The theory concerning this deposit is, that it may be the projection
of what was the last effort of the voleano. From this hill is also
seen a wonderful promontory of basalt. This promontory is formed
62 Miss M. S. Johnston—Geological Notes on Central France.
of very regular columns and overlies a Pliocene river bed, situated
some hundred feet above the valley of the Goul. The basalt is
‘breached in places; the largest, as seen in Pl. II, Fig. 2, has
caused the andesitic breccia below to be seen.
_ After leaving Carlat the road takes a sharp turn to the south,
and a section of cinerite, with loose felspar crystals, is found near
the top of a hill overlain by concretionary Miocene sand.
The road now continues around the southern spurs of the Cantal,
which presents new vistas of beauty at every turn, and on reaching
Curebourse a magnificent panorama of the valley of the Cére is
obtained. Ata short distance from Curebourse and above Vic-sur-
Cére is the celebrated section of Mougudo of compact cinerite,
containing fossil planis. About twenty-two species of plants have
been found there, in the shape of leaves, twigs, trunks, and
wood opal.
- The road now follows the valley of the Cére, where there is an
abundance of volcanic breccia, mostly capped by columns. of: basalt.
At Thiezac, near St. Jacut, isa noticeable section across the valley
and one which may be easily distinguished at sight.. On the north-
west side the highest rocks are of andesite, then a band of
porphyritic: basalt, beneath this. a mass of breccia, with dykes of
andesite and labradorite overlying the mica-schists. The formation
of the small hill, on which stands. a white statue of the Virgin, is
a dyked breccia, while on the south-east side of the Cére rises
a dome of trachyte and phonolite, tilting the breccia containing
andesite and cinerite dykes, and capped by andesite and Oligocene
basalt.
The two most striking features now in the landscape are the peak
of the Puy Grion, a weathered phonolite dyke on the left, and the
Plomb du Cantal, the highest summit in this region, and situated on
the edge of the crater ring on the right. The lateral ravines and
the flanks of the cirques are riddled with dykes, as are also the cliffs
along the valley of the Allagnon, which is reached by the tunnel
-of Lioran, three-quarters of a mile long.
At a waterfall not far from Lioran a trachyte called the ‘roche
de deuil’ is to be found, and at Laveissiére, a short distance: further
on, the base of an ancient volcano: may be seen resting on
Oligocene limestone. The Rocher de Bonnevie rises in successive
tiers of basaltic columns above the town of Murat, and there is also
a fine example of columns, showing various directions of contact
cooling in the hill below Brédon church. In the. village of Brédon
are cave dwellings, which were inhabited as late as fifteen years ago.
_ From: Murat a good: excursion can: be made to the Puy Mary
(Pl. IIT, Fig. 38). The road leads up the valley of the Chevade to the
‘Col d’Entremont, where there is a large exposure of augitic andesite,
with haiiyne, which is used for tiles. Many of the specimens are
good sounding clinkstones. At this point the road descends: and
crosses the valley of the Dienne, which has its origin at the foot
of the Puy Mary, and is a good example of a glacially and aerially
denuded valley.
GEOL. MAG. Igot. Deer iVE- Vols VILL Cl. whe
Fic. 3.—Puy Mary and the Valley of the Dienne.
ios)
Fic, 4.—Phonolite Hills in the Megal, Velay.
GEOLOGICAL VIEWS IN CENTRAL FRANCE,
Miss M. S. Johnston—Geological Notes on Central France. 63
The peak of the Puy Mary is capped by an andesite, with
porphyritic felspars and hornblende, overlying a band of porphy-
roidal basalt, which is situated on a mass of breccia; the whole
three deposits being dyked by phonolite, basalt, and andesite.
From the top of this Puy a fine view of the crater of the Cantal
is obtained. The Cantal massif was formed by one crater, the
remains of which may be traced from the Puy Mary; its ring
is eight miles in diameter, the highest points being the Plomb
de Cantal, the Puy Mary, and the Puy Chavaroche. In the centre
of the crater are several cone-shaped hills of phonolite, the Puy
Grion being the highest. These are weathered dykes, phonolite
having the peculiarity of weathering into cones, as will be observed
in Pl. III, Fig. 4 of the phonolite hills of the Megal district.
The order of deposition in the Cantal region is—Miocene basalt,
trachyte, and phonolite; andesitic breccia ; andesitic and phonolitic
flows ; and finally, the plateau basalt.
On leaving the Cantal district and proceeding by train to Le Puy,
another voleanic area may be studied, that of Velay. The chief
points to be noticed along the line are the union of Quaternary
moraines from the valleys of the Allagnon and Allange at
Neussargues, and at Merdogne a remarkable basaltic rock over-
spreading cinerites, containing Miocene flora; at this point also the
valley casts off its glacial character, and narrows itself between walls
-of gneiss, often amphibolic. At Lempdes the plain of the Limagne
us reached, but soon the line turns to the south, and after Arvant
it passes over some part of the Oligocene plain and then on to the
‘gneiss again. At Darsac is to be seen a characteristic view of
the plains of basalt, with the scoriaceous cones of the axis of the
Velay chain in the distance.
The plain in which Le Puy is situated bears striking evidence
-of the wearing away of volcanoes. In the centre are two isolated
rocks of breccia, the Roches Corneille and Aguilhac, surrounded
by Oligocene deposits. From the Roche Corneille is seen the plain,
whose edges rise on all sides in terraces and hills, first of ravined
‘Oligocene deposits, then of volcanic remains. Over the hills to the
south and east are the Mezen and Megal peaks. On the north,
in the middle distance, is a small voleano which has been cut in
half; the crater pipe and outer slopes can still be clearly traced.
The hills of Polignac and Denise are both of interest. At Denise
the hill is composed of a pipe of scoria, often containing granite, and
‘two varieties of breccia, one of Middle Pliocene age, the other of
the age of Elephas meridionalis: in the latter was found the ‘ Man
of Denise,’ but how he got there is still a vexed question; his
skeleton has been placed in the Le Puy Museum.
The Loire flows along to the east of Le Puy, but in early
‘Quaternary times the principal river flowed away to the west
on the south of the town.
The Megal and Mezen district is one of the most interesting
round Le Puy. This region is the oldest volcanic area of the Velay,
-and is composed almost entirely of basalt and phonolite ; indeed, the
64: Miss I. 8. Johnston—Geological Notes on Central France.
latter is so abundant that it is called ‘le pays des phonolites,’ and
the rock gives a characteristic appearance to the landscape (PI. ILI,
Fig. 4).. Some of the best sections for obtaining it are at Lardeyrol,
specimens without nepheline; at Mont Pidgier, containing a vast
quantity-; at Boussoulet and. Montvert, a phonolite rich in nepheline
and xgyrine; near Estables the ‘rocher d’Aiglet’; and the Mezem
peak itself:is mainly composed of this rock.
. On‘ the road’ from Le Puy to Blavozy are several excellent
sections: of arkose of Hocene age and Oligocene sandy clays and
spotted marls, while at Blavozy itself there is a very large deposit
of arkose, in which great crystals of orthoclase from the older:
granite appear. At Queyricres is found a good Miocene trachyte.
There are a few glacial lakes in this district, the chief one being
that of St. Front, crater-form in shape and worn in the basalt.
- Large crystals of orthoclase and hornblende can be picked up
in the labradorite tuffs of Besseyre, many of the hornblende crystals
being very nearly perfect in shape. Between Coubon and Le Puy
may be noticed the lava streams from the Mont Jonet of Quaternary
age, overspreading those of the Garde d’Ours, which was an active
volcano in Pliocene times.
- The geologist may now, if he chooses, pass fen the land formed
by the internal fires to that deposited in the waters, by driving
from Le Puy to Mende, a distance of ninety-two kilometres. One
first traverses igneous and metamorphic rocks as far as Mont Lozere,
at which point the Liassic and Jurassic plateaux are reached, and
where the road makes a rapid descent into the valley to Mende.
The rocks to be noted en route are first the bombs containing
peridotite found in a cone at Tarreyre. Basaltic plateaux are
crossed until one arrives at Langogne. The hills on the west
side of the valley of the Allier are of porphyritic granite; here
the felspathic crystals of orthoclase are very large.
From Chateauneuf de Randon one perceives the Causses, of
Secondary age, rising against the crystalline mass of Mont Lozére.
The Causses are immense undulating barren plateaux of limestone
of Jurassic age. There are frequent depressions called ‘ sink-holes,’
and the whole country from Mende to the Cevennes on the south
is supposed to be riddled with caverns; some with underground
streams, as at Bramabiau and Padirac, others, where there is an
entire absence of running water and where they are slowly filling
with stalactitic materials, as at Dargilan.
PL. IV, Fig. 5 is a view taken from the pathway up to Dargilan,
the entrance of the cave being at the top of the cliffs in Middle
Jurassic dolomitic limestone ; the rounded formation on the top
of the precipitous cliff is of Kellaway age. The Causses are also
cut up by cations, that of the Gorge de Tarn being the largest. The
river of. this gorge: is fed by underground springs, and its sides
are weathered out into pinnacles and buttresses.
In the Dourbie gorge, not far from Milhau, is Montpellier-le-
Vieux. The limestone on the top of the Causse Noir has been worn
away either by weathering or, as some think, by underground
‘'SONVYS TIVWYLNAOD NI SM3IA 1V9ID01039
‘ZapOY Avou
JOALT pUNOASIIpUN ay} OF Surpvoy “WN , NOpul,L—"9 “Oy
“JUO SOUT,
oissvin{ d]ppryy “uvpsaeq jo aavg sy) Mojag—'S ‘ory
“AL ld ‘IIMA. ‘I9A ‘AL 929d ‘1061 “OVIY “JOU
H. A. Allen—A South Wales Coal-measure Insect. 65
streams and afterwards aerial denudation. Here is the most wonderful
representation of an old city, with its ramparts, castles, and halls ;
there are, of course, many fantastically sculptured rocks, but the
Chateau Gailliard is a marvel, of which only the eye can form
any idea.
At Eglazine, in the Tarn gorge, is a basalt flow which has half
filled a denuded volcanic neck of breccia. In the basalt, which
is Pliocene in age, are large crystals of augite and inclusions of
olivine. The breccia also contains well-developed crystals of various
minerals.
The Tindoul (near Rodez) and Padirac (near Rocamadour) caverns
have very deep holes or ‘ puits’ to the entrance of the underground
galleries. The one at Padirac is 245 feet; the Tindoul is a little
less (PI. IV, Fig. 6).
The Bramabiau is situated near the east and west fault which
brings up the crystalline rocks of the Cevennes above those of
Jurassic age. This fault is very well marked by the configuration
of the country, as to the north of it are the table-like causses, to the
south rises the jagged outline of the Cevennes. The Cevennes are
the watershed of the Mediterranean and the ocean rivers, and their
south-east and north-west slopes present different aspects. From
Mont Aigoual, on the south and east, are seen narrow and steep
gorges in endless successions ; the spurs of the mountains, running
out in long rows, give the appearance of waves of the sea. On the
north and west the valleys are broader and less steep, and the
mountains have flatter tops.
Mont Aigoual is formed by a granite intruded into the Cambrian
sandstone, which has been metamorphosed into gneiss and schists.
The granite is porphyritic, containing large orthoclase crystals,
sometimes four or five inches long.
An excursion to these parts may be ended at Rocamadour,
a curious little village clinging to the precipitous side of a canon
and celebrated during many centuries for its pilgrimages.
V.—Own an Insect prom tHe CoaL-MEASURES oF Sourn WALES.
By H. A. Aten, F.G.S.
'{\HE rarity of insect remains from the Carboniferous rocks of the
British Isles is demonstrated by the small number of genera
and species included in the lists published by such authorities as
Dr. Henry Woodward ' and Mr. 8. H. Scudder.’ A portion of a wing,
with a neuration unlike that of any specimen yet described, having
recently been exhumed, it may be deemed not unworthy of notice.
The specimen was obtained by Mr. G. Roblings from the top of
the four-foot seam in the Lower Coal-measures of Llanbradach
Colliery, Cardiff. A fragment of shale split into two pieces exposes
nearly the whole of a wing lying almost flat; the distal portion of
' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxxii (1876), p. 63. Gror. Maa., 1887, p. 49,
PEI 5 ibid., p. 483, Pl. XIT.
* Mem. Boston Soe. Nat. Hist., vol. iii (1883), pp. 2138-224.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. II. 5
66 H. A. Allen—A South Wales Coal-measure Insect.
it, as far as the broken line in the figure, is seen on one half of the
shale, and a little more of the basal part on the other. The base is
wanting, and what remains of the basal portion has suffered much
injury. The length of the fragment, measured from the apex,
is 41 mm., and the greatest breadth of the wing, measured from
the costal to the posterior margin, is 13 mm.
Wing of Fouquea cambrensis, u.sp., from the Coal-measures of South Wales. x 2.
The costal nervure (the vena marginalis of Heer), numbered I in
the Figure, is marginal.
The subcostal (v. mediastina), II, is simple, and is situated about
midway between the costal and the anterior branch of the radius.
It curves gently towards the costal margin, and dies out at about
12 mm. from the apex of the wing.
The radius (v. scapularis), III, is bifurcated near the base; its
anterior portion is simple, curves gently towards the costal margin,
then turns rearward, and dies out near the apex of the wing. The
posterior portion of the radius is situated slightly in advance of the
long axis of the wing, and runs nearly in a straight line towards the
apex. It gives off a bifurcated branch at 15 mm., a simple one at
10 mm., and a second simple branch at 8mm. from the apex of the
wing. All these branches of the posterior portion of the radius
reach the posterior margin of the wing near the apex.
The median (v. externo-media), V, is forked at a short distance
from the base; the anterior branch runs parallel with the radius for
a distance of 6 mm., and then divides into two minor branches,
which reach the posterior margin by a slight curve. The posterior
branch of the median runs straight towards the margin, produces
a few branchlets, and, 9mm. from its point of bifurcation, sends an
offshoot direct to the margin; 4mm. further the branch bifurcates.
All the branches of the median join the apical half of the posterior
margin.
The cubitus (v. interno-media), VII, is directed towards the middle
of the posterior margin until within a distance of 2 mm., where it
turns sharply in the direction of the apex. A simple branch is
given off at 5mm. from the margin, and a few branchlets may be
seen running out from the main branch.
Nearer the base faint indications of nervures occur which may
form the anal system (v. analis), IX, but, on account of the injured
condition of the wing, their origin cannot be traced.
H. A. Allen—A South Wales Coal-measure Insect. 67
Over the areas between the principal nervures there is a delicate
reticulation. No transverse nervules are present, with the exception
of a few faint traces in the costal area. The specimen assumes the
colour of the shale in which it is embedded.
Of the few wings known from the British Carboniferous rocks,
those of Lithomantis carbonaria, from the Coal-measures of Scotland,
described by Dr. H. Woodward,' to a certain extent resemble our
specimen, but differ in the shape of the area situated anteriorly to
the subcostal nervure, i.e. the costal area, which in L. carbonaria is
narrow near the base and increases in width towards the apex,
whilst in our specimen the reverse obtains. The difference in the
shape of the wing and in the neuration will not admit of the
specimen above figured being referred to L. carbonaria, H. Woodw.
For corresponding reasons this new specimen cannot be placed
with Zithomantis Goldenbergi, Ch. Brongn.,? notwithstanding the
fact that the costal area is somewhat similar in shape. The posterior
or branched limb of the radius is situated much further from the
anterior margin than in either of the two species of Zithomantis
mentioned, and bears fewer branches.
Gryllacris (Corydalis) Brongniarti, Mant., from Coalbrookdale,
differs from the South Wales specimen in its neuration, especially in
the radius, which bifurcates much nearer the apex of the wing, and
also in the transverse nervules, which are strongly marked.
In the simplicity and general appearance of its neuration our wing
much resembles Dictyoneura sinuosa, Kliver,* but in that species the
important subcostal nervure is directed towards the apex and does
not curve towards the costal margin. M. Kliver’s specimen lacks
both base and apex, and therefore the above-mentioned character may
perhaps be deceptive.
The genus Fouquea, to which our specimen may be referred, is
described by Ch. Brongniart,! who states that “it agrees with
Lithomantis in its neuration, but differs greatly in the reticulation ;
the nervules which unite the nervures are so numerous that they
anastomose and form a veritable network.”
The shape of the wing, the position of the longitudinal nervures,
and the reticulation in our specimen bear a general resemblance to
Fouquea Lacroizxi, from Commentry, but neither of the two species
figured by C. Brongniart® exactly agree with it, since in both of
them the branches running from the principal nervures to the
posterior margin are more numerous. The cubitus also shows
a considerable difference.
The specimen differs from any described form that has come under
my notice, more especially in the cubitus. The injury to the base
of the wing is most unfortunate, and it is consequently impossible
? Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxxii (1876), p. 60, pl. ix, fig. 1.
Rech. Insects Fossiles, pl. xxxvii, figs. 1, 2.
Paleontographica, Bd. xxix (1883), p. 260, t. ii, fig. 4.
“* Rech. Insectes fossiles des Temps prim.,’’ p. 372; St. Etienne, 1893.
Op. cit., pl. xxxv, figs. 10, 11.
ocr 8
68 E. Greenly—Denudation in North Wales.
to trace any of the principal nervures to their source, but the wing
is otherwise in a good state of preservation.
It will be placed, provisionally, in the genus Fouquea, Ch. Brongn.,
and, in order to note the principality in which the wing was found,
I propose the name Fouquea cambrensis.
The specimen has been presented to the Geological Survey
Museum, London, by Mr. Roblings.
VI.—Recrent Denupation IN Nant Frrancon, NortaH WALEs.
By Epwarp Greenty, F.G.S.
EADERS of this Magazine may remember that early last
August there were descriptions in many provincial and even
in some London newspapers of an extensive ‘landslip,’ which had
occurred on the side of the mountain called Carnedd Dafydd, on
the eastern side of the valley of Nant Ffrancon, in North Wales.
The impression conveyed was perhaps somewhat exaggerated, and
yet the phenomenon was on a scale quite large enough to be of
geological importance.
In a brief but vividly written article in the GroLnogicaL MaGaziIne
for January, 1900, my friend Mr. J. R. Dakyns described a number
of cases of denudation on an important scale that had come under
his observation. It may be well, therefore, in the same way, and
under a similar title, to preserve a record of this landslip. There
was almost incessant rain from the 5th to the 10th of August, with
streams all in heavy spate and floods in many districts, and on
August 6th (I believe) at about 4 p.m. two torrents broke out on the
side of Carnedd Dafydd, carrying with them a great deal of debris,
and blocking the road in the valley for many yards. The spot is
on the eastern side of the valley, nearly opposite the house called
Pentre, shown on the Geological Survey and old Ordnance Maps.
The mountain side here is composed of the Bala volcanic series,
alternations of various igneous rocks with hard grits, resting, with
a south-easterly dip, upon a thick mass of softer and rather homo-
geneous black slates. The volcanic series form a great range of
crags along the brow of the mountain some hundreds of feet in
height, cut into huge buttresses and deep recesses, while the dark
slates give rise to long uniform steep slopes extending from the
foot of these crags to the bottom of the valley, and along them
the road is carried at a height at this point of about 200 feet above
the alluvial plain. These slopes are covered with great sheets of
scree, resting upon loose glacial debris, which, though rising here
and there into moraine-like mounds, have for the most part, and at
the point where the landslip occurred, a pretty uniform slope.
As we pass up the valley from the north we see nothing but two
streams of stones, grey and fresh-looking, near the road. They do not
extend far up the slopes, and appear, indeed, rather insignificant; but
this is due to the great depth of the valley, and when we arrive at
the place where they cross the road they are much more imposing
in appearance. From this point we see that they are fans of debris
spread out at the ends of two long channels, which, light grey and
evidently quite newly cut, are conspicuous features all down the
E. Greenly—Denudation in North Wales. 69
slopes from the foot of the crags. The northern one can be traced
by the eye a little way up into the crags themselves, but from below
we cannot tell whether the two channels, which disappear behind
a great rocky buttress, have or have not a common origin.
The northern stream of debris crossed the road, broke down the
wall, and poured over on the other side a fan or cone of great stones
all the way down to the alluvial plain, while the finer material was
spread out upon the alluvium itself, and some even reached as far
as the river Ogwen. This fan is about 58 yards wide at the road,
and begins a considerable distance above it, the angle at its top
being a moderate one.
Some of the debris is very coarse. I measured one block of
felsite 12 x 6 x 4 feet, standing on its narrow side, a little way
above the road. How far this had been carried by the torrent, I do
not know; it may have been embedded in the drift before, but from
its position on the fan it must have travelled a good many yards.
The southern stream crosses the road about 175 yards further on,
and is about 33 yards wide at that place. It is more conspicuous
in the distance than the other, and the amount of material at the
road is very great, but it does not go so far down into the valley, the
debris stopping on the steep slopes and not reaching the alluvium.
Above these fans the work has been wholly erosive. At the head
of the northern one the channel cut in the drift and scree seemed to
me to be more than 20 feet deep, and I think that it was cut down
to the solid slate here and there. On the steep rocky slopes at
the crag’s foot the gully had been swept very clean and white.
Whether the erosive work affected solid rock as well as drift,
T cannot tell. I saw no sign of a rock-fall in the crags, and to
ascertain whether there was any it would be necessary to go some
way up into the gully. The material of the fan, however, did not
seem to me quite angular enough to suggest any great fall of solid
rock, considering the short distance of transport.
Whether this be so or not, it is clear that torrential denudation,
the work of only one afternoon, and probably of a very short time
in that afternoon, has cut channels through 20 feet or more of drift
and scree on the mountain side, moved blocks of felsite of as much
as 285 cubic feet, and spread out fans of stones and debris a quarter
of a mile in length.
The fans and channel would be well worth being photographed.
In the Windsor Magazine of November last there is an account of
-a disaster near Driffield in the Chalk wolds of Yorkshire, said to
have been caused by a‘ waterspout.’ The article is illustrated by
photographs, not only of damage to buildings, but of channels and
fans of debris very like these; and the point of origin is there quite
clear. These views, indeed, are of considerable geological interest.
In view of the great importance of the subject of denudation, it
really seems a pity that instead of occasional papers, there should
not be some kind of regular organization for collecting and recording
descriptions of what is actually going on at the present time.
70 Dr. F. A. Bather—Alleged Prints of Triassic Echinoderms.
VII.—Autecrep Prints or Ecuinoperms 1n Triassic RupritireERous
SANDSTONES.
By F. A. Batuer, M.A., D.Se., F.G.S.
rt the GrotocicaL Magazine for January, 1901 (n.s., Dec. IV,
Vol. VIII, pp. 3, 4), Professor Burckhardt describes certain
markings in the sandstone matrix of specimens of Hyperodapedon
and Rhynchosaurus in the British Museum, from Elgin, Shropshire,
and Warwickshire (the last, however, not being, as implied by
the legend to the figure, represented in the Museum). He
believes that these are hollow imprints “left by Echinoderms of
a Euryalid shape, having peripheral arms, either simple or forked,”
but he appeals to specialists to decide to which group of Kchinoderms.
they are due. Since these marks are said to be exceedingly numerous,
and since Dr. Burckhardt uses them as evidence of contemporaneity,
I thought it my duty, as the specialist nearest at hand, to examine
these statements without delay.
Any student of Echinoderms would probably gather from Professor
Burckhardt’s description that the impressions were those of Penta-
crinid columnals, with a pentagonal lumen, and with occasional
cirri. The outlines drawn by Dr. Burckhardt do not really agree
with that of the disc of a Euryalid ophiuran, nor does the paucity
of alleged arm-structures confirm that suggestion. The asserted
abundance of the pentagons also favours the idea that they are due
to Crinoid columnals, for many sandstones filled with imprints of
those structures are known from all parts of the world and all ages,.
including the Trias. The only difficulty that a reader would find
in accepting this conclusion would be, that these immensely
numerous and by no means minute appearances have escaped the
notice of all the eminent geologists and paleontologists who have:
devoted to these sandstones the most anxious and pertinacious
scrutiny.
Examination of the actual specimens, in which I received the kind
help of Dr. A. Smith Woodward, has led to very different results.
In common with those of my colleagues whom Professor Burckhardt
endeavoured to convince, I am absolutely unable to distinguish the
appearances described and drawn by him. Anyone that looks long:
enough at a rough sandstone surface can make out as many patterns:
as there are faces in the fire. But a scientific question is not to.
be decided by the vote of a majority, and the fact that we cannot
see may only show that our senses are deficient. Fortunately there
is other evidence.
Professor Burckhardt himself adduces the “hollows left by Elgin
reptiles” in favour of his interpretation. But these hollows are all
quite smooth and are iron-stained darker than the matrix, in these.
respects resembling the hollows left by Echinoderm fragments in
many another sandstone. Moreover, the fractured rock surfaces of
the British Museum specimens under discussion do show imprints
in places, whether of dermal armour and scales, or abdominal ribs,
or perhaps fragments of some other creatures ; and all the markings
E. D. Wellburn—On Celacanthus. 71
clearly recognizable as of organic origin have a smooth surface.
But wherever or whatever the markings perceived by Dr. Burckhardt
may be, their whole surface is admittedly rough with “ the coarse
grains of the sand,” and they show no distinctive colour.
“In size” these impressions are said by Professor Burckhardt to
“vary between 3 mm. and 3cm. in diameter.” Now Hchinoderm
plates or tests of this area must have had an appreciable thickness,
and this thickness would be manifest in their hollow casts, since the
rock has undergone no extraordinary pressure. Therefore the spaces
should be visible in section wherever the rock is broken at a sharp
angle. But Dr. Burckhardt, who had a piece of the matrix specially
chipped off for examination, will doubtless admit that such is not
the case.
If the matrix did contain impressions or moulds of Echinoderm
objects of the nature described by Professor Burckhardt, one would
certainly expect to find them lying roughly parallel to the plane of
stratification, and we are indeed told that these bodies are “all of
them lying in the same plane as the skeleton of Hyperodupedon.”
But the skeleton in question is a large, irregular object, and the
exposed surfaces along which the matrix has been fractured are not
in any one plane, but lie at various angles. There is no trace of
lamination, and if any objects ever did lie on the rough fracture-
surfaces, they must have been deposited in most irregular fashion,
and the sandy floor of the Triassic lagoon in which these reptile
skeletons lay undisturbed must have been unlike any sea-bed before
or since. But it is well known that the Elgin sandstones are quite
objectionably like dozens of other sandstones, and one cannot doubt
that were Professor Burckhardt to pursue the geological studies he
finds so attractive, he would discover equally clear or equally obscure
appearances, in many rocks besides those “fragments from the Maleri
deposits in India.”
We conclude, then, that the phenomena described by the learned
professor are mainly subjective, such objective basis as they possess
being furnished solely by the mechanical arrangement of sand-grains
and the natural irregularity of a broken surface.
VIII.—On tHe Pecrorat Fin or C@LACANTHUS,
By Epcar D. Wettrvrn, L.R.C.P., F.G.S., F.R.1.P.H., etc.
MONG the fossil fishes of the Talbragar Beds (Jurassic ?)
described by Dr. A. Smith Woodward in a memoir of the
Geological Survey of New South Wales (1895), there is the ventral
portion of the abdominal region of a Coelacanth fish, having one of
the pectoral fins well shown. The fin is shown in counterpart, and
is thus described :—‘‘ It exhibits, as usual, the characteristic obtuse
lobation and the large fringe of articulated attenuated dermal rays,
and is unique in displaying some of the endoskeletal supporting
bones. These elements seem to have been well ossified, though
with persistent cartilage internally. At the base of the fin there
occurs. a broken fragment of bone ' incapable of determination ; but
1 My specimen would point to the fact that this is a fragment of the clavicle.
72 ~=Notices of Memoirs— Underground Waters of Craven.
in the lobe of the fin itself there is a series of four well-defined,
hourglass-shaped supports. Of these bones the anterior three are
much elongated, and nearly equally slender, while the fourth is
much more robust and expanded at its distal end. The four elements
radiate from the anterior half of the base of the fin; and it seems
very probable that some smaller cartilage behind and near the distal
border of the lobe have disappeared from lack of ossification. The
fin-rays gradually increase in length from the anterior border to the
middle of the lobe, whence they decrease again backwards, and
finally become extremely delicate.”
In my collection there is a specimen of Ocelacanthus tingleyensis,
Davis, from the Cannel Coal, Middle Coal-measures, Tingley, York-
shire, crushed vertically, which exhibits the pectoral fins, and one,
the left, shows characters very similar to those given by Dr. Smith
Woodward. ‘The clavicle is well shown and springing from a point
about its centre; and opposite to the process which is usually seen
on these bones there are six basal supports, of which the anterior
four are elongated and more or less uniform in thickness, the
fifth is more nearly hourglass-shaped, and the sixth (fourth of
Dr. Woodward ?) is more robust and widely expanded distally. No
supports are seen posteriorly to the sixth, but as the dermal rays
extend some distance behind this point, and as the lobe of the fin
has here suffered somewhat from crushing, it seems highly probable
that there were two, if not three, supports posterior to the sixth, but
that they have in the specimen been destroyed during fossilization.
At their distal extremities each support is opposed to two or more
of the dermal rays, which, as pointed out by Dr. Woodward,
‘“‘increase in length from the anterior border to the middle of the
lobe, whence they decrease backwards, and finally become extremely
fine.” All the rays are closely articulated distally.
From the above it will at once be seen, as pointed out by
Dr. Woodward, that the pectoral fin of Celacanthus is a striking
contrast to that of the existing Crossopterygian Polypterus, the
basalia more closely approaching that of the Actinopterygii.
INfSaRsteAwNSY! Oa aVEaIMeoelie SS).
I.—Tne Movements or UnpErGrounp Waters oF ORraven.’—
First Report of the Committee, consisting of Professor W. W.
Warts (Chairman), Mr. A. R. Dwerrynouse (Secretary), Pro-
fessor A. SurtHELits, Rev. E. Jonus, Mr. Waiter Morrison,
M.P., Mr. G. Bray, Rev. W. Lower Carrer, Mr. W. Fatrury,
Mr. P. F. Kenpaut, and Mr. J. E. Marr. (Drawn up by the
Secretary.)
ee Committee is carrying out the investigation in conjunction
with a Committee of the Yorkshire Geological and Polytechnic
Society. The present is merely an interim report, as the work is
still in progress.
* Read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Bradford, Sept., 1900.
Notices of Memoirs—Underground Waters of Craven. 73
It was decided that the first piece of work should consist of an
investigation of the underground flow of water in Ingleborough.
This hill forms with its neighbour, Simon’s Fell, a detached massif,
which is peculiarly suitable for investigations of this nature. The
summit of the group is formed of Millstone Grit, then follow
Yoredale Shales and Sandstones, the whole resting on a plateau of
Carboniferous Limestone. Many streams rise on the upper slopes
of the hills and flow over the Yoredales, but without exception their
waters are swallowed directly they pass on to the Carboniferous
Limestone, to reappear as springs in the valleys which trench the
plateau.
The Committee first turned its attention to tracing the water
which flows into Gaping Ghyll hole. It was generally believed
that the water issued at a large spring immediately above the bridge
at Clapham Beck Head and immediately below the entrance to
Ingleborough Cavern. On April 28 specimens of the water from
this spring were taken for analysis before the introduction of any
test. Two cwt. of ammonium sulphate was then put into the water
flowing into Gaping Ghyll, and at the same time the amount of the
water was gauged and found to be equivalent to 251,856 gallons
per diem. A few hours later a second quantity of 2 cwt. of the same
substance was introduced. On the same day 14 |b. of fluorescein in
alkaline solution was put into a pot-hole known as Long Kin East,
about 1,300 yards north-east of Gaping Ghyll.
In view of the important influence which the direction of the
joints in the limestone had been found to exercise over the flow of
underground water,’ the direction of the joints in the limestone
elints in the neighbourhood of Long Kin East was taken, and was
found to be N.N.W. to S.S.E., and to run in such a direction as to
Jead to the probability that the water would reappear at the springs
at the head of Austwick Beck, and these were consequently watched.
The ammonium sulphate put in at Gaping Ghyll reappeared at
the large spring at Clapham Beck Head on the morning of May 38,
and continued to flow until the evening of May 6, when the water
again became normal. Thus the time occupied by the ammonium
sulphate in travelling from Gaping Ghyll to Clapham Beck Head,
a distance of one mile, was about five days. No ammonium sulphate
was found in any of the other springs in Clapdale. This result
proved beyond doubt that Gaping Ghyll was connected with Clapham
Beck Head.
The fluorescein put in at Long Kin East showed itself at Austwick
Beck Head, but not at any of the neighbouring springs, on May 11,
having taken over thirteen days to travel, the delay being probably
due to the small amount of water flowing at the time of the
experiments,
These results are of considerable importance, as they definitely
reveal two lines of divergent movement of these underground
waters, and indicate a subterranean watershed of much interest.
1 See previous investigations of the Yorks. Geol. and Polyt. Soc. Committee.
74 = Notices of Memoirs— Underground Waters of Craven.
The influence of the master-joints of the Carboniferous Limestone
in determining the direction of flow of these underground waters
was also, as at Malham, clearly shown.
The next set of experiments was carried out by the joint Com-
mittee on June 8 and following days.
In order to confirm the results in connection with the Gaping
Ghyll to Clapham Beck Head flow, and further to ascertain more
definitely if there existed any connection between Gaping Ghyll
and the smaller springs in Clapdale, 10 cwt. of common salt was
‘put into the waters of Gaping Ghyll on June 4, and a further 10 cwt.
on June 5, samples of the water from each of the springs being
taken several times a day until June 25.
One pound of fluorescein in alkaline solution was introduced into
the stream flowing through Ingleborough Cave on June 8 at 10 p.m.,
at the point where the water plunges down a hole in the floor of the
cave, and marked ‘ Abyss’ in the 6-inch Ordnance map. Five ewt.
of ammonium sulphate was introduced into a sink on the allotment,
about 500 yards north-east of Long Kin Hast, on June 9, at 3 p.m. ;
and at 3:15 p.m. on the same day 11b. of fluorescein in alkaline
solution was poured into the stream which flows past the shooting-
box on the allotment and sinks near the Bench Mark 1320/1.
The fluorescein introduced into the abyss came out of Clapham
Beck Head, and possibly at Moses Well and other springs in
Clapdale, but this point requires further investigation, the evidence
being as yet somewhat unsatisfactory. The salt from Gaping Ghylk
appeared at Clapham Beck Head on June 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, and
21, being at its maximum on June 18, but not at any of the other
springs.
The ammonium sulphate put into the sink on the allotment
appeared at Austwick Beck Head on June 22, the other springs im
the neighbourhood being unaffected on that day; but on the 24th
and 25th there were slight increases in the amount of ammonia in
two small springs in Clapdale, viz., the small spring below Clapdale
Farm and Cat Hole Sike. As one of these streams is close to the
farmyard, and the other was at the time nearly dry and flowing:
through pasture land, no importance is attached to these slight
increases. Of the fluorescein put in below the shooting-box no
trace has since been found, and the same is the case with } lb. of
methylene blue introduced into Grey Wife Sike, above Newby Cote.
Several most interesting problems still await solution in this area,
one of them being the relations of the Silurian floor which underlies.
the Carboniferous Limestone of the plateau to the flow of under-
ground water. The two sinks Gaping Ghyll and Long Kin Kast.
are Only about 1,300 yards apart, and yet the waters of the one take:
a direction quite distinct from those of the other, and eventually
emerge in a separate valley, the distance between the springs being
1$ miles apart, the great mass of Carboniferous Limestone known as.
Norber, a hill upwards of 1,300 feet in height, lying between the
two valleys. In Crummack Dale it is seen that the Silurian rocks
Notices of Memoirs— Underground Waters, N.W. Yorks. 75
form a ridge running in an approximately north-west and south-east
direction, and unconformably overlain by the Carboniferous Lime-
stone. If this line be continued it separates the Gaping Ghyll to
Clapham Beck Head flow from that of Long Kin East to Austwick
Beck Head. ‘Thus it appears that this ridge of Silurian rocks forms
an underground water-parting, which the Committee hopes to be
able to trace for a considerable distance across the area.
The magnitude of this undertaking will be to some extent realized
when it is stated that upwards of 400 samples of water have been
tested for common salt, ammonium, and fluorescein, making in all
upwards of 1,200 tests. The whole of the grant of £40 has been
spent upon the investigation, and a small sum in addition. The
experiments which have been carried out have indicated which are
the most suitable reagents for use in different cases, and it is
consequently hoped that future investigations will be carried out
at rather less cost than has been the case up to the present. The
Committee ask to be reappointed, with a grant of £50.
If.—Tue Unpercrounp Waters or Nortu-Wrst YORKSHIRE."
By Rev. W. Lower Carrer, M.A., F.G.8., Hon. Sec. Under-
ground Waters Committee, Yorkshire Geological and Polytechnic
Society.
Part I. The Sources of the Aire.
(\HE Silurian and Carboniferous rocks between Malham Tarn and
Malham are traversed by two branches of the Craven Fault with
the downthrow to the south. Malham Tarn lies on Silurian, and
its overflow sinks in the limestone directly the northern fault is
crossed. The drainage of the area to the west of the Tarn
disappears at the Smelt Mill Sink. The drainage of the area east of
the Tarn is carried off by Gordale Beck, along the course of which
some water sinks into the jointed limestone. To these three sinks.
correspond three principal outlets, the stream at Malham Cove,
Aire Head Springs, and the springs at the bottom of Gordale.
The history of previous investigations is then given. From the
centre of Malham Cove a dry limestone gorge runs in a northerly
direction to the Tarn. Up to the beginning of this century flood-
waters were known to traverse this valley and discharge over the
Cove. There are several sinks along the line of this dry valley.
Now all the overflow is taken by three sinks south of the Tarn.
Various efforts have been made to trace the connection between
the sinks and outlets. Flushes of water from the Tarn have been
shown to affect Aire Head before Malham Cove. Experiments by
introducing chaff, bran, magenta, and uranin into the sinks failed to
show any traces at the outlets,
The present investigation was carried out during 1899, by a
Committee of Engineers, Chemists, and Geologists, appointed by
the Yorkshire Geological and Polytechnic Society. Flushes of
water were sent down from the Tarn to the Tarn Water Sinks.
1 Read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Bradford, Sept., 1900.
%6 Notices of Memoirs— Underground Waters, N.W. Yorks.
Aire Head Springs responded in two hours. With large flushes
a rise in Malham Beck was also observed.
‘The chemical investigations were as follows :—
* Ammonium sulphate was put in below the Malham Tarn Sluice
on June 22, and appeared at Aire Head from July 4 to1l. Distinct
traces were pice found at Malham Cove on the same dates.
Common salt and fluorescein, put in at the Smelt Mill Sink between
June 22 and 28, appeared at Malham Cove from July 4 to 11.
. Fluorescein, put in at Tranlands Beck on June 22, appeared at
Scalegill Mill on June 23.
Ammonium sulphate, put into upper Gordale Beck on August 26,
appeared at the springs below Gordale Scar on September 7.
Common salt, put into Cawden ‘ Burst ’ on September 18, appeared
at Mire’s Barn from September 25 to 27.
- Fluorescein put into the bottom of Grey Gill Cave was not traced.
A geological investigation of the area showed that the limestone
is traversed by two sets of prominent joints, of which the master-
joints, which run in a north-west to south-east direction, are very
well developed. ‘These master-joints are found to largely determine
the flow of the underground waters. The direction of these master-
joints unites the Smelt Mill Sinks and Malham Cove directly, and
that may be taken as the direction of flow. A parallel line from
Malham Tarn Sinks would bring the water from them to Grey Gill,
a dry valley in the escarpment. to the east of Malham Cove. No
evidences of moving water were found there.
To the south of the Mid-Craven Fault the jointing of the lime-
stone is found to be variable; but prominent joints were found
bearing in a north-east and south-west direction. If the Tarn water
followed these joints on crossing the fault it would traverse a
direction almost at right angles to its previous course, and following
the limestone in its bend underneath a synclinal of Yoredale shale,
would be likely to reappear at Aire Head Springs, which is the
nearest. point for re-emergence on the southern side of the anticlinal.
The master-joints north of the Mid-Craven Fault would similarly
earry the water which sinks into the bed of Gordale Beck south-
eastward into the limestone, and if, as it nears the fault, it followed
a set of joints running at right angles to the previous set, it would
come out at the springs at the foot of Gordale Scar, which was
found to be the case by the chemical tests. Gordale itself turns in
this direction from some cause.
The conclusions of the Committee are :—
1. That Malham Cove Spring discharges the water from Smelt
Mill Sink and the limestone area west of the dry valley; and under
certain conditions some of the Tarn water.
2. That Aire Head Springs discharge the main portion of the
water disappearing down Malham Tarn “Water Sinks.
3. That Gordale Beck Springs discharge the water qin in
Upper Gordale.
4. That chemicals put into Cawden ‘Burst’ appeared at
Mire’s Barn.
Notices of Memoirs—Ingleborough Caves and Pot-holes. 77
5. That Tranlands Beck Sinks discharge at Scalegill Mill.
6. The investigations show that within the area the main direction
District.! By 8. W. Currriss.
HE portion of Yorkshire to which this paper refers is contained
in Sheets 49, 50, and 60 (New Series) of the 1-inch Ordnance
Survey. The great Craven Faults which traverse it in a north-west
to south-east direction have produced a difference of level of the
strata of several thousands of feet; the limestones on the south
side of the Faults being far below the surface.
The Silurian slates and grits form the basement beds, and are
exposed in several of the valleys. On these rests the Carboniferous
Limestone, which has a thickness of about 500 feet from the base to
the present exposed surface on Ingleborough. The name Carboni-
ferous Limestone is here applied only to distinguish a particular bed
of rock in the district. Above this are a series of thinner limestones,
shales, and sandstones (the Yoredales of Professor Phillips), capped
by Millstone Grit.
Towards the west the Carboniferous Limestone has been cut off
by the Dent Fault, while the Craven Faults determine its extension
towards the south. The main line of fault passes through Ingleton,
Clapham, and Austwick to Settle, then eastwards by Malham.
North of this is another fault, near the first at Austwick, but about
14 miles apart at Malham. Further north the most interesting
caves and pot-holes are found in an area comprising the Leck Fells,
Kingsdale, Chapel-le-Dale, Ribblesdale, and around Ingleborough.
The whole area may be divided into three sections :—
1. The Yoredales, comprising the rocks of that name. These
limestones being comparatively thin, and intercalated with beds of
shale and sandstone, the caves are small and obstructed with earth,
through which the water percolates. They are at an elevation of
from 1,500 to 1,600 feet, and do not materially affect the drainage
of the ground.
2. The Southern Carboniferous, including the Carboniferous Lime-
stone between the two Craven Faults. Although part of the same
formation as the Carboniferous Limestoue north of the Fault, yet
the caves in the two sections differ entirely in their characteristics.
Here they are distinguished by an absence of running water, the
walls are covered with a considerable thickness of calcareous deposit,
and their entrances are blocked with clay and rock débris. The
well-known Victoria and Attermire Caves are included in this section.
A further characteristic is the entire absence of pot-holes—vertical
chasms in the ground caused by falling water enlarging the rock
fissures.
8. The Main Carboniferous, which includes the remainder of the
Carboniferous Limestone within the area defined. Here there are no
! Read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Bradford, Sept., 1900.
78 Notices of Memoirs—C. B. Wedd—Corallian Limestones.
dry caves, all being active drainage channels. Pot-holes also are
‘very abundant. In the Leck Fell and Kingsdale districts the caves
are almost without exception those of engulfment, while in Chapel-
le-Dale and Ribblesdale they are chiefly caves of débouchure. The
first-named are usually low at the entrance. The passages then
increase in height to 20 feet or more, but rarely exceed 6 feet in
width, usually much narrower. Some may be traversed a quarter
of a mile or more, such as Lost John’s Cave, which terminates in
-a subterranean pot-hole over 100 feet deep. The caves of débouchure
are much morenumerous. The mouth is generally wide and shallow,
with a flat roof. A cascade or waterfall is usually found some little
distance in, beyond which the passage is a simple water-worn
channel, gradually shallowing and broadening until too low to
permit of further progress.
The pot-holes occur at or near the top of the limestone, at between
1,100 and 1,300 feet elevation, and always where there are surface
streams, which fall into the chasms. Over thirty have been named,
nearly all of which have been descended by the writer and friends,
memhers of the Yorkshire Ramblers Club, many of them for the
first time. Half the number are over 100 feet deep. Gaping Ghyll,
on Ingleborough, attains a depth of 350 feet, and was first descended
by Monsieur E. A. Martel, in 1895. Rowten Pot, in Kingsdale,
was conquered in 1897, and found to be 365 feet deep, thus being
‘the deepest known pot-hole in the country.
No evidence of the presence of the Silurian rocks has been found,
‘the lowest observable rock being either light or black limestone.
‘The average Summer temperature in both caves and pot-holes is
48° Fahr.
The writer has prepared a special map of the district on which
-are shown all the known caves and pot-holes, with the surface
-streams. Such a map illustrates in a forcible manner the interesting
fact that the entire surface drainage of Ingleborough is swallowed
up by the limestone. Not a single stream from the higher levels
-continues an uninterrupted course into the valley below.
1V.—Tue Ovtcror oF THE CoraLitIan Limestones or HiswortH
anD Sr. Ives.!. By C. B. Wepp, B.A., F.G.S.
(Communicated by permission of the Director-General of the Geological Survey.)
HE ferruginous and oolitic limestones known as the Elsworth
and St. Ives Rocks are now generally believed to be one and
the same, an opinion supported by my own work in that district
‘recently. The limestone in question has long been known to occur
at St. Ives in brick-pits, being well exposed to the west of the town.
Jt was known also to occur throughout the village of Elsworth.
Mr. Cameron noticed a fossiliferous rock outcropping near Hilton,
between Elsworth and St. Ives. No other surface exposures were
‘known, but a similar rock was found in the railway cutting at
Bluntisham, north-east of St. Ives, at Swavesey, east of the same
? Read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Bradford, Sept., 1900.
Notices of Memoirs—W. Gibson—Coal-measures. 79
place, and Bourn, south of Elsworth, and a few other localities,
and like rock was found in Wells.
The outcrop can be traced almost continuously from a mile west of
the brickyard at St. Ives, striking eastwards along the northern flank
-of the Ouse valley, and passing north of St. Ives to Needingworth ;
here it bends abruptly southwards to Holywell and forms a gentle
rise. The southern part of the village of Holywell stands on
a gravel-capped escarpment of the rock; a collection of fossils in the
Woodwardian Museum, Cambridge, agreeing closely with those of
the Elsworth and St. Ives Rocks, was believed to have come from
Holywell. East of Holywell the outcrop must cross the Ouse valley;
I found traces of the rock in a drain some distance west of Swavesey.
From here, south-westwards, it is not seen again till it appears at
the surface between Hilton and Conington, where a rock was noted
by Mr. Cameron. Southwards from here the outcrop crosses a valley
to the rising ground west of Elsworth, through which village
a narrow tongue of the rock runs still further south. The main
-outcrop, however, flanks the northern slope of the drift-capped high
ground to the west, and can be traced along the slope through
Papworth Everard, westwards to Yelling, following the contour of
the ground. At both of these localities there are good and highly
fossiliferous exposures in streams. Thence the outcrop disappears
southwards under drift, but the rock may be seen again to the south,
less than two miles south of Croxton, in a ditch in the valley of the
Abbotsley Brook.
To the north, east, and south-east of the line of outcrop of this
limestone, the ground is occupied by Ampthill Clay, to the west by
‘Oxford Clay. It will thus be seen that the Elsworth and St. Ives
Rocks, besides agreeing closely in their fauna, outcrop along the
same line of strike, with Ampthill Clay above and Oxford Clay below.
The dip is always small, and the rock at Bluntisham, if it reaches
the surface at all, does so probably as an inlier, though it may be
‘directly connected at the surface with the outcrop east of St. Ives.
V.—On Rarrip Cuances in THE THICKNESS AND CHARACTER OF
THE Coat-mMEasuRES oF Norrn Srarrorpsuire.’ By W.
Gipson, F'.G.S.
(Communicated by permission of the Director-General of the Geological Survey.)
ARIABILITY in thickness and character of the strata is
universal throughout the Carboniferous period, but is nowhere
more marked in the Midlands than in the coalfield of the North
Staffordshire Potteries.
This important coalfield consists of two portions. On the east
the productive measures lie in a well-marked syncline, while on the
west the strata rise in a sharp anticline extending from Silverdale
to Talke. The two productive areas are separated by a strip of
ground two and a half miles broad, composed of barren upper
ameasures.
* Read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Bradford, Sept., 1900.
80 Notices of Memoirs—E. D. Wellburn—Millstone Fish.
A notable difference in the thickness of the strata and nature of
the coal-seams characterizes these structurally distinct areas. In the
centre of the syncline, near Shelton, the vertical distance between
the highest ironstone, or summit of the productive measures, to the
Bullhurst coal, or lowest workable seam, is about 1,300 yards. On
the anticline at Apedale only 800 yards of strata separate the same
horizons. This makes a remarkable decrease in thickness of
500 yards of strata in a distance of under three miles. The
reduction in thickness westward of the productive measures is
continued, though in a less degree, in the upper barren series, but
owing to the absence of shaft sections the amount cannot be definitely
stated. It is known, however, that the red marls forming the lower
portion of the upper barren series are more than 1,000 feet thick
near Etruria station on the Shelton property, and about 850 feet
thick near Silverdale, on the south-eastern limb of the anticline.
With the decrease in thickness a change has taken place in the
lower coals of the productive series. ‘The seams which are house or
steam coals on the east change into gas and coking coals on the west.
This great variability seems to show that separate areas of deposit
were being marked out by local movements of elevation and
depression, and thus fulfilling in North Staffordshire the conditions
characteristic of the Carboniferous of the Midlands generally, as
pointed out by Professor Lapworth.'
In North Staffordshire it happens that the areas of maximum and
minimum deposit correspond with a syncline and anticline. If this
be true generally, and not merely a local coincidence, we may expect
the coals in the unexplored coalfield which lies at the surface to the
west of the anticline, and which represents the eastern margin of
the great synclinal of Coal-measures beneath the Cheshire plain, to
be of a different quality from those in the anticline, while the
thickness of the measures will be increased.
VI.—On some Fosstz Fish From tor Mitiustone Grit Rocxs.*
By Enear D. Wetipoury, F.G.S.
HE Millstone Grits are naturally grouped into three divisions,
viz.: (1) Rough Rock; (2) Middle Grits; (8) Kinder Grits at
base. The Middle Grits, consisting of grits, sand, shales, are sub-
divided into A, B, C, and D beds, A being uppermost. The Pennine
Anticline is mostly composed of these rocks, and on the Lancashire
side at the head of Calder Valley, on the south side in a quarry
at the summit, there is a good exposure of the D shales; in these
the majority of fish remains were found ; a few occurred at the same
horizon at Wadsworth Moor, Sowerby, Kilne House Wood, and
Kecup, Yorkshire. The majority are in nodular masses, few in
shales, and are associated with a marine fauna. The fish-bearing
beds were formed under marine estuarine conditions. They are
of great geological and zoological interest, as largely increasing
a A Sketch of the Geology of the Birmingham District’: Geol. Assoc., 1898,
D. 5
B. Read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Bradford, Sept., 1900.
Reviews—Geikie’s Geology of Fife and Kinross. 81
our knowledge of the fish fauna in rocks whose yield of fish remains
has hitherto been extremely limited ; and zoologically inasmuch as
(1) one genus and several species are new; (2) one Lower Old
Red Sandstone fish is present; (3) the occurrence of the Lower
Carboniferous types, Orodus, Psephodus, Pristodus. The author
made some remarks on the fish remains, and exhibited a table of
their stratigraphical distribution.
Ww s.
aS Vs dE ash
I.—Tue Geronocy or Centra AND WESTERN Fire anp Krnross.
(Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Scotland.) By Sir
ARCHIBALD GEIKIE, F.R.S., D.C.L., ete., Director-General. With
Appendix of Fossils by B. N. Peacu, F.R.S. 8vo, cloth; pp. x,
284. (Glasgow: printed for H.M. Stationery Office, 1900.
Price 5s. 6d.)
f{\HIS well-printed memoir is in the main a description of the
geological formations which are represented in Sheet 40 of
the Geological Survey map of Scotland, which was published in
1867. The ground was surveyed in part by the author, and in part
by Mr. H. H. Howell, Prof. John Young, Prof. J. Geikie, and
Mr. B. N. Peach, when Murchison was Director-General. It is not
surprising, therefore, that the nomenclature, especially of the igneous
rocks, has undergone considerable changes, noticeable when we
compare the tablets on the map with the table on p. 13 of the
memoir. Much additional information on the coalfields has, however,
in recent years been obtained by Mr. J. 8. Grant-Wilson, and the
Director-General has himself revisited the area from time to time.
Consequently every effort has been made to bring the information
up to date by personal observation, and with the help of other
workers whose publications are listed in the Appendix. It is
needless to add that in point of style the memoir bears the
most favourable comparison with any previously published by the
Geological Survey.
The country described is a highly important one, extending from
the Firth of Tay west of Tay bridge to the Firth of Forth at
Queensferry. It is composed chiefly of Carboniferous rocks and
Old Red Sandstone, with numerous interstratified and intrusive
igneous rocks. In the northern part is the Ochil chain, formed
mainly of hard lavas of Lower Old Red Sandstone age ; the central
part, in which lies Loch Leven, is hollowed out of comparatively soft
red sandstones forming the plains of Kinross and the Howe of Fife;
and in the southern part there is again a belt of hilly ground, more
varied and broken than that in the north, and composed mainly of
Carboniferous rocks with hard eruptive sheets, which form the
Lomond Hills and other prominent heights.
While perusing the very interesting Introductory chapter it would
have been useful to the reader to have had a small map depicting
the main outlines of the geology and topography, with the names of
DECADE IY.—VOL. VIII.—NO. II. 0)
82 Reviews—Jukes-Browne & Hill—Gault and U. Greensand.
the chief hill ranges, rivers, and lakes. In succeeding chapters
the author gives a full account of the strata, entering into many
particulars concerning the eruptive rocks, and recording detailed
sections of the coal-bearing strata in the Carboniferous Limestone
series and Coal-measures.. In this great series the highest division
is the ‘‘ Upper or Barren Red Sandstone Group,” composed of red,
purple, grey, yellow, white, and variegated sandstones, shales, clays,
and marls, with some thin limestones and poor coals. Many fossils
have been obtained in this group by Mr. J. W. Kirkby, including
fishes (Diplodus, Megalichthys, etc.), crustacea (Bellinurus, Eurypterus,
Prestwichia, etc.), as well as molluscs such as Anthracomya and the
annelide Spirorbis pusillus, Full lists of them and of fossils from
the other formations are given by Mr. Peach in the Appendix ;
special mention being made of the long and enthusiastic labours of
Mr. Kirkby.
Sir A. Geikie remarks that “‘ The topography of the whole region
has been profoundly modified by the geological events of the Ice
Age. So thick was the mass of ice which then descended from the
Highlands, that it passed over the lofty ridge of the Ochils and the
other hills to the south, and turned eastwards into what is now
the Firth of Forth and the North Sea.” Of the glacial deposits,
and also of Recent deposits and the latest changes, many interesting
descriptions are given ; and there is a final chapter on the Economic
Minerals. Some detailed notes on the petrography of the Igneous
rocks are contributed by Mr. Herbert Kynaston, in an appendix.
II.—Mewmorrs oF tHE GroLogicaL Survey or THE Unttep Kinepom.
Tue Cretacreous Rocks or Brirary. Vol. I. The Gault and
Upper Greensand of England. By A. J. Juxus-Browns, B.A.,
F.G.S.; with contributions by Witu1am Hitt, F.G.S. Royal
8vo; pp. xiv, 499, with 85 figures and 5 plates. (London:
Wyman & Sons, 1900. Price 9s.)
N the preface Sir Archibald Geikie, the Director-General of the
Geological Survey, states that the present volume is the first
of two in which the Upper Cretaceous Rocks of England will be
described by Mr. Jukes-Browne, who has been collecting the
materials for the subject since 1884. Owing, however, to his
unfortunate ill-health, he has been unable to complete the necessary
field-work, but this obstacle has been overcome by the assistance of
his friend and coadjutor Mr. William Hill, who has examined the
outcrops of the formations in the South and East of England, and
in addition has carried out a series of important researches on
the mineral and organic constituents of the deposits by means of
microscopic sections and the examination of residues after treatment
with acid.
The strata described in this volume have, since early days, attracted
the attention of many of our British geologists, amongst whom may
be reckoned William Smith, Thomas Webster, William Phillips,
Dr. Mantell, Dr. Fitton, Sir R. Murchison, and R. A. C. Godwin-
Austen. Ata more recent period, Mr. C. J. A. Meyer, Mr. F. G. H.
Reviews—JTukes-Browne § Hill—Gault and U. Greensand. 83
Price, Dr. Charles Barrois, and others have studied their stratigraphy
and fossils in more detail. They have also been described in some
of the previously published memoirs of the Geological Survey, as in
those on the Isle of Wight by A. Strahan, on the Isle of Purbeck by
A. Strahan, those on West Suffolk and West Norfolk by W. Whitaker
and A. J. Jukes-Browne, and that in the neighbourhood of Cambridge
by W. H. Penning and A. J. Jukes-Browne. Chemical analyses of
the rocks, besides those already published, have been made by
Professor J. B. Harrison, Mr. Berry, and Dr. W. Pollard. Mr. F.
Chapman has determined the foraminifera of the Gault, whilst the
author and Mr. E. T. Newton, assisted by Mr. H. A. Allen and
Dr. Kitchin, have revised the synonymy of the rest of the fauna.
The author has made use of the knowledge to be obtained from the
above and other writers on the geology of these rocks to add to his
own observations, and thus render the monograph as complete as
possible.
The first chapter contains the introduction to the Upper Cretaceous
Series, which is regarded as consisting of the following four stages
or groups of strata :—
. Upper Chalk.
. Middle Chalk.
. Lower Chalk.
. Gault and Upper Greensand (Selbornian).
me bot
The combined thickness of these stages where the series is most
fully developed, as in the Isle of Wight, is about 1,900 feet. The
Upper Series, on the whole, succeeds conformably the Lower
Cretaceous Series, but there is evidence of a very general subsidence
of the region at an early period of the Upper Series, which produced
an overlap of the Lower Greensand by the Gault. In deep borings
in the East of England, the Gault is known to rest directly on
Paleozoic rocks, whilst in a westerly direction it is deposited
successively on Wealden, Jurassic, and Rhetic beds, and in the
Haldon Hills Greensand rests on the lower part of the New Red
Series. The general dip of the Upper Cretaceous is easterly, but
this is interrupted by several anticlinal flexures with an east and
west direction, which produce local dips to the north and south.
The most important of these are (1) that traversing South Dorset
and the Isle of Wight, which is believed to be continuous with the
anticlinal axis of the Pays de Bray; (2) a series of local and
parallel flexures in a tract extending from the Vales of Wardour
and Warminster through Central Hants and the southern part of
Sussex ; and (3) the anticlinal axis which runs through the Vales
of Pewsey and Kingsclere.
Chapter ii, giving an historical account of the Chalk, Upper
Greensand, and Gault, mainly deals with the origin of the term
‘Upper Greensand.” The name ‘ Greensand’ was used by William
Smith and T. Webster for the greensands, including also the Malm
or Firestone, between the Chalk and the Gault. Subsequently,
W. Phillips and Dr. Mantell mistook the sands below the Gault
84 Reviews—Jukes-Browne & Hill—Gault and U. Greensand.
(Lower Greensand) for the Greensand of William Smith, which
gave rise to much confusion. The true succession of the beds
was pointed out by Dr. Fitton in 1824, who suggested the name of
Merstham Beds for the firestone and greensand above the Gault and
Shanklin Sands for the sands below. The proposition of Webster
that the beds should be respectively called ‘ Upper Greensand ’ and
‘ Lower Greensand ’ finally prevailed, and these terms were adopted
by the Geological Survey in 1839 and have since continued in
general use.
It was not until a later date that the accepted character of the
Gault and Upper Greensand as definite and distinct formations of
the Cretaceous System was called in question. Mr. Godwin-Austen
stated in 1850 that the Upper Greensand was a purely conventional
name, and that the differences between the fauna of the Devizes and
Blackdown Beds (Upper Greensand) and that of the Upper Gault
of Folkestone are only such as might be expected between arenaceous
and argillaceous portions of the same zone. He further added that
the Gault was not an independent formation, but merely the accumu-
lation of a given condition of deep-sea, synchronous as a whole
with that portion of the Cretaceous deposits which we call Upper
Greensand. Godwin-Austen’s views were supported and confirmed
by the investigations of Meyer, Price, Dr. Barrois, and more especially
by the author of this memoir, who maintained that the Gault and
Upper Greensand were merely different lithological facies of one
group of deposits. For the new group the name ‘Selbornian’ is
proposed by Jukes-Browne after the well-known Hampshire village
made famous by Gilbert White the naturalist. The name is the
more appropriate as the village is situated on the Malmstone, and
the Gault clays are well developed near by. The author does not
propose that ‘Selbornian’ should supersede the terms Gault and
Greensand, but that it should be employed in a similar relation to
them as the general term Wealden to the Weald Clay and Hastings
Sands. It is strange that this new term, though constantly used
throughout the memoir, should not have found a place on the
title-page. In justification of its introduction the author states—
“As a matter of fact gault clay and greensand are only two of
the different kinds of deposits that make up the group for which
the name Selbornian is now proposed; it is only by a stretch of the
imagination that malmstone can be called greensand, inasmuch as
an ordinary malm contains but a small proportion of quartz sand and
still less glauconite, so that it is not a sand nor is its colour green.
There are large areas over which the formation is really a tripartite
one, and could actually be mapped as consisting of Gault, Malmstone,
and Greensand; there are also areas where it consists wholly of
Gault, ie. of grey clays and marls; others, again, where it consists
entirely of sand and sandstone; and finally, there is a large area
where it is neither the one nor the other, but is represented by red
chalky limestone and red marl.”
Chapter iii, on the value of zones in the Cretaceous System, comes:
in here somewhat parenthetically, but, as hinted in the preface, it
Reviews—Jukes-Browne & Hill—Gault and U. Greensand. 85
may be regarded as in some measure introductory to the completed
monograph on the Cretaceous System. In it the author places on
record some of the conclusions drawn from a study of the zones in
this system, “especially with respect to the proper conception of
a zone, the use of an index species, and the limitations which must
be placed to the zonal method.” To give a succinct explanation of
a zone is by no means easy; the author says that “perhaps it may
be defined as a band of sedimentary material within which certain
species are either restricted or are specially abundant, and during the
formation of which certain species acquired their greatest exuberance
and their greatest geographical extension. More than this, however,
is implied by the modern idea of the term zone, for a zone is only one
of several successive zones ; it is not merely a specially fossiliferous
band in a thick mass of sediment, but is a subdivision of such a mass
or group of beds; such a group being generally divisible into two,
three, or more zones, one succeeding another.” The above definition
seems to us open to much criticism, which, however, cannot be
entered on here ; we should prefer the shorter definition of Mr. J. E.
Marr, here quoted: “Zones are belts of strata, each of which is
characterized by an assemblage of organic remains, of which one
abundant and characteristic form is chosen as an index.”
A general account of the Gault and Upper Greensand (Selbornian)
is given in Chapter iv, and it is claimed that the clays, marls, sands,
and sandstones of this Selbornian stage fall naturally into three
groups or sub-stages: (1) Lower Gault; (2) Upper Gault and Devizes
Beds ; (3) Warminster Beds.
Hitherto it has been usual in England to consider the clayey beds
containing Ammonites interruptus as the base of the Gault, and
the underlying sandy beds as belonging to the Lower Greensand.
In the uppermost beds of these lower sands at Folkestone and in
three other localities in the South of England Ammonites mammillatus
has been met with, whilst in France the same species occurs in
a zone of fossiliferous sandy beds in association with 4m. interruptus,
and by French geologists these beds are included in the Albian as
part of the basement bed of the Gault. The author considers this
will justify placing the sands with this fossil as the base of the
Gault in this country, although it has never been found here
associated with Am. interruptus. omy
The zone of clays with phosphatic nodules at its base, containing
Am. interruptus, torming bed 1 of Mr. Price, is about 10 feet in
thickness at Folkestone and from 20 to 50 feet in the Midland
Counties. The upper part of the Lower Gault, which includes
Price’s beds 2-7, is placed in the zone of Am. lautus. It can be
distinguished near Devizes, and is believed to form the larger part
of the Lower Gault in Oxfordshire and the adjoining counties.
The thickness of the Lower Gault in different parts of the country
varies between 34 feet and 200 feet, but there is much difficulty in
determining with certainty where a line can be drawn between the
Lower Gault and the Upper in many areas.
The next division comprises the Upper Gault and Upper Greensand
86 Reviews—Jukes-Browne f- Hill—Gault and U. Greensand.
(in part)—the Merstham or Devizes Beds, which are placed in the
zone of Ammonites rostratus. The lower portions of this zone con-
sists of marly clays, and above these are the well-known beds of
Malmstone or Firestone, siliceous rocks with a considerable amount
of silica in the colloid state, which has been derived from the
spicules of siliceous sponges. This Malmstone occupies a large area
in the South of England estimated at nearly 4,000 square miles.
It extends from near Westerham, Kent, on the east, and from its.
thickness along the western outcrop the author believes that it
stretched originally far to the westward over the counties of Oxford,
North Wilts, and Gloucestershire. This Malmstone passes into:
a fine-grained micaceous sandstone.
In the Isle of Wight and in the South-West of England, a large
portion of this zone of Am. rostratus consists of fine soft sands with
intermediate beds of hard calcareous sandstone ; in some places the
cemented materials take the form of oval or rounded doggers or
burr-stones. Again, in the Blackdown Hills of Devonshire and
near Stourton in Wiltshire, the sands of this zone contain siliceous
nodular accretions, formerly worked for whetstones, the silica in
which is derived from sponge remains.
The third division of the Selbornian comprises the highest portion
of the Upper Greensand, and as this is most highly developed near
Warminster it is known as the Warminster Beds, and included in
the zone of Pecten asper and Cardiaster fossarius. The zone of
Pecien asper near Warminster includes three sets of beds: (1) Green-
sand and sandstone; (2) fine grey sand with layers and nodules
of chert; and (3) a light greensand with calcareous concretions,
which forms the highest portion of the series and contains the
well-known Warminster fauna. The author states that no Ammonite:
or other Cephalopod has yet been found in this zone which does not
range into the Chalk above or into the beds below.
Pecten asper, the principal index fossil of this zone, has a wide
distribution both in this country and in France. In England it has:
been found in the Malmstone of Hampshire, that is, in the zone of
Am. rostratus, and occasionally it occurs in the same zone in France.
In the zone distinguished by its name it is found near Warminster
and other places in Wiltshire, also in Dorset, and the Isle of Wight.
It passes up into the Chloritic Marl, and occurs in the nodule bed at
the base of the Chalk near Chard, and in certain beds of Cenomanian.
age in Devonshire. In France also this species is common in the
‘craie glauconieuse,’ the equivalent of our Lower Chalk. Its mere
occurrence, therefore, cannot be considered as proof that the bed
containing it belongs to the Upper Greensand.
The Warminster or Pecten asper division of the Upper Greensand
is confined to the south-western and south-central counties from
the Isle of Wight to Buckinghamshire. Its maximum thickness
is estimated at 60 feet, but where the chert beds are not present
it is reduced to about 12 feet. The well-known chert beds of the
Undercliff in the Isle of Wight are included in this division.
Chapters v-xxii give detailed descriptions of the varying features.
Reviews—Jukes- Browne & Hili—Gault and U. Greensand. 87
of the zones of the Selbornian as they are exposed in different
counties, beginning with the easterly exposure on the coast at
Folkestone to its most westerly extension on the Haldon Hills, near
Exeter, from thence returning in a north-easterly direction through
the counties of Wilts, Berks, Oxford, Buckingham, Cambridge,
Norfolk, Lincoln, and York. The changes in the character of the
beds in areas not far removed are somewhat striking: we can only
briefly mention some of them.
Beginning at the well-known coast section at Folkestone, the
Lower Gault (excluding the debateable 6 feet of sand of the Am. mam-
millatus zone) consists mainly of grey and dark fossiliferous clays,
about 29 feet in thickness. The lower portion of the Upper Gault
is likewise of marly clays, having a thickness of 50 feet, and these
are overlaid by glauconitic sands and buff marls with but a few
fossils, 27 feet in thickness. Thus the total thickness of the
Selbornian at this spot is 106 feet, and the materials are mostly
marly or clayey.
In Surrey the Lower Gault consists of clays somewhat similar
to those in Kent, but fossils are comparatively scarce in them. No
definite boundary between the Upper and Lower Gault is known:
the upper beds are of a more sandy character, and they are succeeded
by the Malm and Firestone (Merstham Beds), representing the Upper
Gault and Upper Greensand, which are 60-80 feet in thickness
in the west of the county. The author considers that the entire
thickness of the Malmstone belongs to the zone of Am. rostratus,
together with the 8-10 feet bed of greenish sand which comes in
between the Malmstone and the base of the Chalk Marl, and that
the zone of Pecten asper is not represented. We do not find any
reference to the excellent section of the Merstham Beds exposed
in the last two or three years in the new cutting of the London,
Brighton, and South Coast Railway at Merstham.
The Selbornian is well shown in the coast sections of South
Dorset and Devon from Golden Cap to Axmouth. The lowest beds
are, at Golden Cap, pebbles, sands, and sandy clays, resting on the
Lias, nearly 30 feet in thickness; they contain Gault fossils, and are
referred to the upper part of the Lower Gault; above these is a series
of greenish and yellowish glauconitic sands, about 100 feet in thick-
ness, which may represent the zone of Am. rostratus, and over these
are some thin chert beds. Further westward, at Black Ven, the
sandy beds representing the Gault, containing some obscure fossils,
reach a thickness of about 180 feet, and the overlying chert beds,
belonging to the highest division of the Upper Greensand, are 40 feet
in thickness.
At Whitecliff, South Devon, the sands below the chert beds,
forming the lower division of the Upper Greensand, contain the
same fossils as occur in the Blackdown Beds, and are included in the
zone of Am. rostratus. They are less than 90 feet in thickness. — At
Hooken Cliff and Whitecliff, the chert beds of the highest division
of the Upper Greensand reach a maximum thickness of 70-80 feet :
they contain species of Hxogyra and Orbitolina concava, but Pecten
88 Reviews—Jukes-Browne & Hili—Gault and U. Greensand.
asper has not been found in them or in the topmost bed of calcareous
sandstone.
In Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire the Lower and Upper
Gault clays have been proved by borings in various places to reach
a thickness of 144-230 feet. Fossils occur in the Lower Gault
which elsewhere in the South-East of England are only found in
Upper Gault; for example, Am. rostratus, Am. varicosus, and
Am. ecristatus are associated with Am. lautus, Am. splendens, and
Am. tuberculatus. The Upper Gault becomes marly, and passes into
a micaceous marl and malmstone.
At Stoke Ferry in West Norfolk the Lower and Upper Gault
is represented by a blue clay about 56 feet in thickness; more than
half of it probably belongs to the zone of Am. rostratus. North-
wards the clay is replaced by calcareous material and gradually
thins out, so that at Hunstanton there is only about 34 feet of
red earthy limestone between the sands of the Lower Cretaceous
and the Lower Chalk. The author and Mr. Hill maintain the view
put forward by them in 1886 that the Red Chalk is the actual
stratigraphical equivalent of the Gault. They also agree with
Dr. Barrois that the zone of Pecten asper is wanting in Norfolk,
and that there is a direct passage from the Red Chalk to the
Chalk Marl.
The Red Chalk is shown again in Lincolnshire and in Yorkshire,
where it gradually passes into a stiff red marl with calcareous
nodules. Mr. F. Chapman has recorded 86 species of Foraminifera
from this rock in Norfolk and Yorkshire, and 52 of these, or about
60 per cent., have been found in the Gault of Folkestone, whilst only
25 occur in bed 2 of the Chalk Marl of Hastwear Bay, thus indicating
that the Red Chalk has a closer relation to the Upper Gault than
to the Chalk Marl.
In Chapters xxiv and xxv Mr. W. Hill describes the microscopical
structure and the mineral ingredients of the Gault, Red Chalk,
Greensands, Malmstones, etc. The Gault marls and clays consist
in part of very finely divided, apparently structureless material,
without reaction in polarized light between crossed nicols; in part
of fine detritus of quartz, mica, and glauconite, with entire and
fragmentary tests of organisms. Thin microscopic sections of the
Gault do not give good results, and its characters were best
ascertained by washing and sifting different samples.
The coarser particles of quartz, mica, and felspar fragments form
but a small proportion in typical Gault clays. Zircon, rutile,
tourmaline, magnetite, ilmenite, garnet, and cyanite were also
recognized by Mr. Teall. The glauconite occurs in irregular
rounded and mammillated grains, seldom more than 05mm, in
diameter, also as minute cylindrical rods, apparently moulded in
the canals of sponge spicules. Marcasite (disulphide of iron) is
also present in the form of small spherules, cylinders, and irregular
masses,
Mr. Chapman has determined 265 species and varieties of
Foraminifera from the Gault at Folkestone, and 66 species of
Reviews—E. Dale’s Peak of Derbyshire. 89
Ostracoda are also present with them. The tests of the Gault
Foraminifera have been but little altered in fossilization, and they
differ but slightly in appearance from those in recent deep-sea
deposits. . Molluscan shell fragments and prisms occur in all
Gaults, but siliceous organisms such as sponge spicules are rare.
Mr. Chapman has estimated the mean depth of the Lower Gault sea
at 830 fathoms and that of the Upper Gault at 866 fathoms, basing
his conclusions on the Foraminifera, but Mr. Jukes-Browne considers
these estimates to be excessive. The Gault, on the whole, bears con-
siderable resemblance to the Blue and Green Muds of modern seas.
Typical Malmstone is shown by Mr. Hill to consist principally of
eolloid silica with usually a small proportion—10-12 per cent.—
of quartz sand; other varieties are more or less calcareous. Besides
quartz sand, mica and glauconite are present in varying amounts.
The characteristic organic remains of the Malm and Firestone
(Gaize), and also of the beds and nodules of chert, are the detached
microscopic spicules of disintegrated siliceous sponges, of which these
rocks are mainly composed. In the Malmstone the spicules are
mostly of colloid silica, but in the cherts they are generally of
chalcedonic and crystalline silica. Frequently the spicules are
partially or entirely dissolved, leaving minute empty hollows, and
the rock is then of a light porous character. The dissolved silica
of the spicules is, in the Malm rock, often deposited in the form of
very minute globules or discs, in the cherts it formsa hard glassy rock.
The occurrence of such thick and widely extended masses of
Malmstone in the zone of Am. rostratus and of the chert layers and
nodules in the highest part of the Upper Greensand in the so-called
zone of Pecten asper, both largely derived from the remains of siliceous
sponges (they have been termed Sponge-beds by Hinde), forms the
most striking feature of the Selbornian stage.
In Chapters xxvi-xxix the underground extensions of the Gault
and Greensand, as shown by various deep borings in the London
and Hampshire Basins and the Eastern Counties, are referred to ;
the characters of the equivalent formations in Northern France are
given, with lists of fossils compiled by Dr. Barrois, Mr. Price, and
M. Delatour; the physical and geographical conditions under which
the Gault and Upper Greensand were deposited are discussed, and
the water supply and economic products are enumerated. :
In an appendix critical remarks on some species of fossils are
contributed by Mr. E. T. Newton and Mr. A. J. Jukes-Browne,
-and these are followed by an elaborate and exhaustive list of fossils
of the Selbornian, showing the particular zones and indicating also
the localities where they occur.
I11.—Tue Scenery anv Geonocy or THe Peakor Dersysurre. By
Exizasera Dare. pp. 166 and index, with 16 plates, 16 views,
andamap. (London: Sampson Low, Marston, & Co. Price 6s.)
TP\HIS is a tall, attractive-looking volume, with numerous illustra-
tions and plates; the former, however, have had scant justice
done to them, and the original photographs have suffered much in the
90 Reviews—E. Dale’s Peak of Derbyshire.
process of reproduction. The plates, as is stated in the preface,
are very largely borrowed from previous works; but why are they not
numbered in direct sequence, and why does the map include only
the southern escarpment of Kinder Scout, ‘the Peak’? In the
preface the authoress states that her object has been to make the
book serve as an introduction to the study of the science of geology ;
consequently the book treats of a much wider subject than one
might judge from the title, and we are dealing with a work on
elementary theoretical geology, with illustrations drawn from a
certain district. But even so, the authoress has not stuck to her
text, for the country illustrated and described is larger than the
Peak, and takes in other parts of Derbyshire and North Stafford-
shire. It had been better, we think, to have given the book its
proper title, in the interests of the possible purchaser, who, misled
by the title, finds himself let in for a pot pourri of bygone and
current geological views and speculations, rather than a description
of the glorious scenery of the Peak and its geology.
Chap. i (pp. 1-15) starts, ab initio, with the nebular hypothesis, and
then proceeds to explain what is meant by the order of superposition,
dutifully reproducing the time-honoured illustration of the pile of
books. Of course there follow tables of sequence of strata, and a short
account of the greater subdivisions of stratified rocks and their
contents; and the last two pages conclude with a brief account of
the linch geological map of the rocks round Buxton, as seen im
a bird’s-eye view of the country from Grinlow. This is not perhaps.
the best way of commencing the study of geology. Miss Dale is
eminently conservative, and while mentioning recent views, prefers-
to take the 1 inch map of the Geological Survey and the corresponding
memoir as the basis of her work, many of the illustrations and
several quotations from the latter publication being given.
Chap. 11 (pp. 16-39) treats of the Carboniferous Limestone, and
meludes a long account of the swallows and underground streams.
sO common in limestone districts. Many observations are open to
criticism ; for example, we are told (p. 17) that “‘it is unlikely that
such a pure limestone could have been formed near a land area of
any size.” The word ‘near’ is not exact; but limestones are being
laid down within distances of Continental coasts, which cannot be
said to be far. Again, we learn that above Odin Fissure the shales.
are seen resting on the limestone with a junction which is called by
geologists ‘unconformable.’ We have always regarded this section
as evidence of a small landslip, for the shales are certainly not in
place. At p. 19 we are told that carbonate of lime is soluble in water
containing carbon dioxide or any acid. This is not chemically
correct, for most acids~decompose CaCo;, and do not effect a simple
solution. We look in vain for any account of the stratification of
the limestone or the succession of its beds; indeed, the amount of
strdatigraphical geology in this chapter is very small, and paleontology
suffers no less. The whole subject of the fossils is scamped; the few
representations given had been better omitted. But we are informed
that figures have been given “that the collector may have some idea
Reviews—E, Datle’s Peak of Derbyshire. 91
of their original appearance ” (the italics are ours). The figures are
somewhat grotesque libels on the fossils. Of what use can it be to
depict Productus giganteus—Miss Dale prefers to keep the fossil
feminine—as a shell 12 inch across? Or what peculiar characteristics
of Aviculopecten are supposed to be demonstrated by fig, 16, which has
not seemed worthy of a specific name? An error has arisen with
regard to the shell called Rhynchouella pugnus (fig. 13), which is
evidently R. plewrodon, and Orthis resupinata (fig. 14), whichis probably
a large example of O. Michelini, but is certainly not typical of the
species it is supposed to represent. In all, eight specimens of various
fossils are drawn on pl. ili, but only one has a specific name. We meet
the curiously inexact statement that ‘of mollusca there are com-
paratively few. ‘The bivalve forms are represented by several
extinct species of Pecten and by an extinct genus called <Aviculo-
pecten.” We have been told on the same page that ‘all the
fossils are the remains of animals now extinct.” Further on, we are
told that “a genus with a straight shell has been called Orthoceras.”
We would ask in all sincerity, is this the sort of thing which
will help the study of geology? Palzontulogists, however, need
not despair, for Miss Dale, speaking of the Carboniferous sea,
tells us (p. 39) that “at the surface and in the depths of this sea,
lived and died countless numbers of animals such as man has never
seen”; and in the orthodox higher flights of imagination with which
certain authors have seen fit in the past to close their accounts of the
geology of the Coal-measures, we are told (p. 104) that ‘‘on the
ground beneath is a carpet of delicate green, composed of countless
smaller ferns and unknown flowerless plants, amongst which dart
lizards and now and then a scorpion.” One is, however, tempted
to ask Miss Dale if the imperfections of the geological record are
really as great as we are led to infer from these excerpts.
Miss Dale prefers to call the shales and thin limestones between
the grits and the massif of limestone, Yoredale, and to them devotes
chap. iii (pp. 40-59). We note that she follows the old 1 inch
Survey map, and regards the beds as of great thickness and assumes
faults to account for any succession where there does not appear to
be room for such a mass, e.g. along the line of the London and
North-Western Railway. We are tempted to ask why similar faults
are not necessary on the eastern limb of the anticline near Eyam,
and further south between Youlgrave and the Grits or between
the Grits and the limestone boundary at Matlock and Winster.
Personally we think that the thickness of this series has been greatly
overestimated. Is there also a series of Yoredale sandstones as well
as Farey’s grit? We regret that no continuous sections of these
beds from the various brooks are given, but as in the description
of the limestone, it does not seem to have been part of the
authoress’s plan to give any original account of the local geology.
The palxontology of the shales, a subject of the highest importance,
is only mentioned to be dismissed, and only one locality where
“chietly species of Goniatites, Aviculopecten, and plant-remuins
were found is given. A careful search will reward the worker in
92 Reviews—E. Dale’s Peak of Derbyshire.
these beds, and a fairly large fauna, very widely spread, is to be
found in them.
Chap. iv (pp. 60-84), on the Millstone Grit, strikes us as one of
the best parts of the book, and included in it we find a brief account
of the evolution of rivers. On p. 83 is a statement, however, which
may cause misconception: “‘ We know that even yet the Millstone
Grit is of exceeding thickness, although thousands of feet have been
yvemoved by denudation.” But Miss Dale surely does not mean that
the Grit series was ever thicker than it is at present, i.e. between
the limits of the base of the Coal-measures and the top of the Upper
Limestone shales, and in the interest of accuracy one is tempted to
ask—and surely one has the right to do so, for the book purports to
be an introduction to the science of geology —how thick is an exceeding
thickness? Miss Dale is fond of awe-inspiring superlatives. We
are also told that the “ Coal-measures once extended over the
Pennine anticline.” Did they? And where is the evidence for the
great volcanoes which are said to have existed to the north-east
and on the higher ground, round the swamps which became the
-coalfields ?
Chap. v (pp. 85-105) treats of the Coal-measures at length; it
discusses the fossil botany, various theories of the origin of coal, and the
climate of the Coal period, and ends with a picturesque description
of the scenery of the period. By the way, why are we told ‘over
all the land and water hangs a thick pall of grey cloud”? Did not
the Carboniferous flora require the aid of the sun to fix carbon?
One plate of Coal-measure fossils is given; fig. 45 is said to be
Naiadites, but the drawing has no resemblance whatever to any
species of that genus; it may possibly belong to Carbonicola, though
the drawing looks more like Vuculana. Fig. 47, a cast of the pith-
cavity of the stem of a Calamite, is not very clear, because we do not
quite see how the pith-cavity should bear fairly large branches ; and
should not the fish scale be spelled Rhizodopsis both in the plate
and the text ?
Chap. vi (pp. 106-127) deals with the Glacial Period, and we
@ladly appreciate Miss Dale’s local work on this subject.
Chap. vii is devoted to post-Glacial deposits and early Man, and
ends with an allusion to Pithecanthropus erectus.
Chap. viii deals with the development of geology and its relation
to modern thought, and in our opinion is utterly out of place in
a book of the kind. It is as equally unnecessary to allude to the
past struggles between knowledge and those who demanded a literal
interpretation of the Bible, as it is to talk in a volume which
purports to be a description of local geology and scenery, of tran-
scendental theology. Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes; somehow or
other we distrust textbooks of science which have excerpts from
religious books at the commencement.
The work of the book is unequal, here condescending to the
almost pedantic explanation of terms, there dealing with theories
which have little or no application in the Peak district proper,
and we confess we cannot quite see for what class of reader this
Reports and Proceedings— Geological Society of London. OS.
discursive book is intended. “Of the making of books there is no
end,” and there is a real need for accurate and thorough work
on local geology and scenery, but a treatise of very elementary
theoretical geology is quite another thing. W. H.
Pe Ooms AND LPROCHREDINGS.
GEoLoGicaL Socrery or Lonpon.
I.—December 19, 1900.—J. J. H. Teall, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., President,
in the Chair. The following communications were read:— _
1. “On the Igneous Rocks associated with the Cambrian Beds of
the Malvern Hills.” By Prof. T. T. Groom, M.A., D.Se., F.G.S.
The Cambrian beds of the Southern Malverns are associated with
a series of igneous rocks which have commonly been regarded as
volcanic, but are probably all intrusive. They consist of a series
of bosses, dykes, sills, and small laccolites intruded into the Upper
Cambrian Shales and into the Hollybush Sandstone. The dykes
appear to be confined to the sandstones, the sills and laccolites
chiefly to the shales, while the bosses are found in both. The rocks
consist of a series of ophitic olivine-diabases, a related series of
porphyritic olivine-basalts, and a series of porphyritic amphibole-
bearing rocks of andesitic habit, but probably to be classed with
the camptonites. The three types have a different distribution, and
do not appear to be connected together by intermediate gradations ;
the amphibole-bearing and the olivine-bearing rocks differ in their
mode of occurrence. According to existing analyses, the former
range in chemical composition from sub-basic to basic, and the latter
from thoroughly basic to ultrabasic. All the rocks have a local
stamp, but are probably most nearly related to the camptonitic
rocks of the Central English Midlands. Intrusion took place at
a period not earlier than the Tremadoc, and probably not later
than that of the May Hill Sandstone.
2. “On the Upper Greensand and Chloritic Marl of Mere and
Maiden Bradley in Wiltshire.” By A. J. Jukes-Browne, Esq., B.A.,
F.G.S., and John Scanes, Esq.
The district dealt with is on the borders of Wiltshire and
Somerset. The general succession is as follows :—
teet.
Lower Chalk, with Chloritic Marl at the base... $e 206
Sands with calcareous concretions ee oon Se oR LOLS
Sands with siliceous concretions (cherts) ... Bet ... 20 to 24
Coarse Greensand ... Sa ie ae Scie ee 15
Fine grey and buff sands ... eae a5 = about 120
Sandy marlstone ... See ‘oc ya as nee 16
Grey marl and clay (Gault) ee oes se ray 90
The chert-concretions and the sands in which they occur consist
very largely of spicules of lithistid sponges. One of the sandstone-
beds has yielded several species of Necrocarcinus, and may be the
‘94 Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London.
chief source of the crustacea which have been quoted from the
Warminster Greensand. Above the chert-beds, and below the
horizon at which Stauronema Carteri comes in, is a variable set of
beds which include a layer of concretions known as cornstones or
popple-stones. These beds are very rich in fossils, and include at
Maiden Bradley a layer of phosphatic nodules. They contain the
Rye Hill fauna of the Warminster Greensand, and it is proposed to
call them the zone of Catopygus columbarius. In Southern Wiltshire
there is usually a complete passage from this zone into the Chloritic
Marl; and as the cephalopoda of this zone are all Chalk Marl
species, the natural inference from the local evidence would be
to place the plane of separation between the Selbornian and
‘Cenomanian stages at the base of the ©. columbarius beds. In
Dorset, however, the break above these beds is so very marked and
‘strong that the authors think that the beds with the Rye Hill fauna
must be retained in the Selbornian. It is one of those cases in
which the paleontological and the stratigraphical breaks do not
coincide.
IL.—Jan. 9, 1901.—J. J. H. Teall, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., President,
in the Chair. The following communications were read :-—
1. “The Geology of South-Central Ceylon.” By John Parkinson,
Esq., F.G.S.
Tn this communication the author endeavours to give some account
-of the relations between the various granulitic rocks of Ceylon.
A series of more or less isolated sections were studied, the rocks in
each considered under separate heads, and conclusions put forward
relative to the whole. Two sections are described to the west, and
one to the north, of Kandy, in which the rocks are of a well-marked
type. Asarule they are strongly, often coarsely, banded; and the
relation of the light and dark bands is such as to leave the author to
conclude that this structure arose “through the streaking together of
the component parts of a magma which had undergone differentiation.”
The darker parts are characterized by the presence of green horn-
blende in varying quantity, associated with brown mica. Locally
garnets are abundant, and pyroxene is found in some slides. A fourth
section, south of Matalé, is of importance, since it is believed that
here a granulitic rock resembling some described under the section
which follows (Section V) is intrusive in a crystalline limestone.
Modifications in the intruder are described, which are supposed to
have arisen through the local incorporation of some of the older rock.
Under Section V rocks from Newara Eliya, Ohiya, and Bandarawella
are grouped together. These are often banded and vary considerably
in coarseness, but are distinguished, with few exceptions, by
a greenish colour accompanied by a greasy lustre, and usually by
the presence of garnet. “Hornblende, magnetite, and biotite are
associated with this mineral, and a pleochroic augite is not uncommon.
The structure of all the rocks described is granulitic; that is,
characterized by the irregularity in the outlines of the grains which
Correspondence—Professor T. G. Bonney. 95
‘build up the rock, and by the inclusion of one mineral by another.
Porphyritic felspars are recorded from several localities.
The author concludes that the rocks of Section V are nearly related
‘to those described in the earlier part of the paper, and points out the
-close resemblance of the whole to the Charnockite Series of Southern
India.
2. “Note on the Occurrence of Corundum as a Contact-Mineral at
Pont-Paul, near Morlaix (Finistére).” By A. K. Coomara-Swamy,
rg, B.oc., £-L:8., F.G.S.
The intrusive granite of Pont-Paul, near Morlaix, contains highly
altered fragments of sedimentary rock. The minerals found in
them are biotite, muscovite, corundum (first recorded by Professor
Barrois in 1887), plagioclase, andalusite, pyrite, magnetite, silli-
manite, green spinel, and zircon. The corundum forms sharply
idiomorphic tabular hexagonal crystals, striated and slightly stepped
-on the basal plane, and blue in colour. IJron-oxide is a constant
inclusion. The inclusions have probably been to some extent
injected with felspathic material. The original sediment was
probably poor in silica and rich in alumina, and there has been
sufficient molecular freedom for the formation of well-shaped crystals
-of corundum, comparatively free from inclusions. Sillimanite and
zircon are the only other minerals which exhibit crystalline form.
CORR ESPON DEW C EH.
YORKSHIRE BOULDERS.
Sir,—The value of Mr. Stather’s paper on the sources and dis-
tribution of Yorkshire boulders (p. 17), which is very great, is not
enhanced by the concluding paragraph. The Scandinavian Ice-sheet
seems to affect some geologists as King Charles’ head did Mr. Dick.
May I then ask Mr. Stather two questions :—(1) What route did
the Scandinavian Ice-sheet take when it anticipated the Norsemen
by invading England? (2) What caused it to retreat before the
advance of the British Ice-sheet? It was no doubt very polite to
give place to the ‘weaker vessel,’ but as the British hill districts
are smaller than and to the south of the Scandinavian, I should have
thought nature would not have allowed courtesy to supersede law.
T. G. Bonney.
OBLTUARY-
FREDERICK WILLIAM EGAN, B.A.
Born Jury 31, 1836. Diep January 6, 1901.
Mr. Ecan was born in Dublin on July 31st, 1836, and was the
third son of the late Mr. W. J. Egan, of Rockville, Dundrum.
Receiving his early education at Mr. Flynn’s school in Harcourt
Street, he entered Trinity College, where in due course he took
96 — Obituary—F.. W. Egan.
his degree of B.A. and a diploma in Engineering. Commencing
professional life as a railway engineer, he did considerable work in
connection with the Great Northern, Great Southern, and Dublin.
Wicklow, and Wexford Railways, then in course of construction,
In 1868 he quitted the somewhat -desultory employment of railway
engineer for a more permanent position on the staff of the Geological
Survey of Jreland, being appointed assistant geologist on the
nomination of the late Professor Jukes, F.R.S. In 1890 he was
prometed to the grade of geologist on the recommendation of the
present Director-General of the Survey, Sir A. Geikie, D.C.L., F.R.S.
His work was always characterized by the great care he bestowed
on it, no details being too insignificant for his attention, and while
he did not seek fame as an independent essayist, his contributions to
the Official Memoirs and other reports furnish a mass of information
which has often proved of considerable economic value. In the
Summer of 1899 he met with an unfortunate accident, being
violently thrown off a car while travelling in the execution of his
duties, and sustained severe injuries, from which he never fully
recovered. Some six months ago his complaint assumed a malignant
form, which terminated in his death, after a long period of much
suffering, on the 6th January. In personal character Mr. Egan
was one of the kindliest and most lovable of men, and beyond
the circle of his own family and immediate friends none will
regret his loss more than his colleagues of the Geological Survey,
to whom he was much endeared by his unfailing amiability,
obligingness, and thorough good-nature.—Irish Times, January 11th.
MISCHUIDANHOUS.
———
Tue Drrector-GENERAL OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE
Unirep Kincpom.—The announcement has just reached us (January
15th) that Sir Archibald Geikie has intimated his intention to retire
from the post of Director-General of the Geological Survey of the
United Kingdom, an office which he has so ably filled for the past
twenty years, on March Ist next. In 1855, at the age of 20, Sir
A. Geikie became an Assistant on the Geological Survey of Scotland,
and he was made Director for Scotland in 1867. In 1881 he was
appointed to succeed Sir Andrew Ramsay as Director-General of the
Geological Survey of the United Kingdom. He has seen forty-six
years’ service, but is now only in his 66th year. (See his life,
Grot. Mac. 1890, p. 49.) Early in March he will be entertained
by his friends at a complimentary dinner. All who wish to attend
should communicate with Mr. F. W. Rudler, Museum of Practical
Geology, 28, Jermyn Street, London, 8.W.—We rejoice to learn that
Sir A. Geikie has no intention of retiring from active participation
in geological work, and that neither his hammer nor his pen are to
be laid aside for some years to come.
—)
GEOL. MAG., 1901. Dec. IV, Vol. VIII, Pl. VI.
1, LAKE LOUISE; 2, MIRROR LAKE.
THE
GHOLOGICAL MAGAZINE.
NEW SERIES. DECADE IV. VOL. VIII.
No. III—MARCH, 1901.
SPRLGIiNA DL ABRTICheS-
———
I.—Some Lake Basins in Aperta AND Britisn Cotumsta.
By J. Parkinson, F.G.S,
(PLATE VI.)
OR several years careful study has been given to numerous lake
basins in England and elsewhere, with the result that many
previously considered as rock basins have not survived the ordeal.
Professor Bonney,' who has always opposed this hypothesis in the
case of large lakes, has described four authentic examples from the
Lepontine Alps, three of which I had the advantage of visiting with
him; and some few weeks before, Mr. Brend’ described others
from Caernarvonshire.
It may therefore be of interest to call attention to two lakes in
the Canadian Rocky Mountains and one from the Selkirk Range
which may lay claim to the rather rare distinction of being true
rock basins. We will take the former first. The country between
the Columbia River on the west and the infold of Cretaceous rock,
known as the Cascade trough, on the east in the neighbourhood of
Banff, is one of the most delightful that a traveller can enjoy. The
east-bound train on the Canadian Pacific Railway, after leaving
the Columbia River at Golden, the northern end of the Columbia
Kootanie Valley, follows the course of the Kicking Horse River
until the watershed between the Pacific and Atlantic slopes is
reached a little to the west of Laggan. With the exception of a long
strip of country between the Ottertail Mountains and the Vermilion
Range to the south of the Kicking Horse River, which is mapped as
“ joneous intrusive,” * the whole of the country comprised in the
area specified above is sedimentary. The line of the railway passes
over the Canadian Quartzite series to Silver City on the Bow River,
some seventeen miles to the east of Laggan. To the east of this,
again, lies the north-west Cretaceous fold.
1 Grou. Maa., 1898, p. 15.
2 Grou. Maa., 1897, p. 404. ‘
3 «* Reconnaissance Map of a portion of the Rocky Mountains between 49° and
51°30”’’: Canada Geol. Surv., 1885.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. III,
98 J. Parkinson—Lake Basins in Alberta & British Columbia.
The geological structure of this district is described by Mr. R. G.
McConnell, and it will be sufficient to refer to the salient points.
Mr. McConnell divides this region into two nearly equal parts,
taking the western side of the Sawback Range as the line of
division. To the east of this line the dip is consistently to the
west, due to the fact that a thrust from that direction has produced
a series of roughly parallel ridges, which have been “tilted and
shoved over one another into the form of a westerly dipping
compound monocline.” Rundle and Cascade Mountains, near Banff,
are examples of this type. On the western side as far as the
Columbia River no reversed faults are found, and “ ordinary and
overturned folds play the most important réle.” The lakes which
form the subject of the present note lie in the latter division some
two miles to the west of Laggan (5,008 feet). They are three in
number. lake Louise, the largest, a mile and a quarter long, lies
at a height of 5,645 feet above sea-level, and Lakes Mirror and
Agnes, overlooking their larger confrére, at heights of 6,500 feet
and 6,820 feet respectively. They have been described from the
point of view of the explorer and climber by Mr. Walter D. Wilcox,
in his interesting and admirably illustrated book “ The Canadian
Rockies,” from which the figures in Pl. VI are taken. At the end of
this work an excellent map of this region is given, and he has also
recently published a contour map and detailed study of Lake
Louise.’ Mr. Wilcox refers to Lake Agnes as being certainly a rock
basin, and remarks elsewhere? that only two rock-basin lakes were
observed by him, ‘one of which was a typical cirque lake,” no
doubt Lake Agnes. This little lake is about a third of a mile long
and about 150 yards across, and is surrounded on three sides by
mountains. The upper end is a cirque, its terminations culminating
in two horn-like peaks. This occupies the upper third of the cliff,
the middle third is precipitous rock, the lowest talus. On the left
bank the mountain slopes are steep. A peculiar dome-shaped hill,
the Beehive, 7,350 feet, and ridge, a continuation of the same, form
the right bank of Lake Agnes and overlook the left bank of Lake
Louise. The shape of the lake is modified by talus, but there is
no possibility of hidden outlet, nor can we find sign of glacial
deposits. The opening of this sack-shaped valley, with its tiny lake,
is wide, and formed of thickly bedded quartzite. The outflow stream
is nearer the left bank of the lake, and the rock floor slopes gently
down to it. A shallow groove has been worn away in the quartzite,
and the discharge stream empties as a small waterfall into Mirror
Lake below. The latter is rather less satisfactory from the
geologist’s point of view. It is circular in shape and about
150 yards in diameter for the most part, no doubt surrounded by
live rock, but modified in shape by talus and quite possibly by some
glacial deposits. Whether the latter have dammed the exit is
* Canada Geol. Sury., 1886, N.s., vol. ii, p. 310.
2 “*A Type of Lake Formation in Canada’’: Journ. Geol. Chieago, vol. vii (1899),
p. 2538.
J. Parkinson—Lake Basins in Alberta & British Columbia. 99
difficult to say, unless soundings were taken, but live rock (quartzite)
outcrops on the trail leading down to Lake Louise, not far below the
level of Mirror Lake. No exit stream can be found, and the over-
flow is said to find its way to Lake Louise by underground channels ;
a statement I see no reason to doubt, but the fact is unfavourable to
the hypothesis that Mirror Lake is a true rock basin.
The valley in which Lake Louise lies, 850 feet below, is clearly
blocked at the lower end of the lake by drift, but Wilcox states that
the bottom of Lake Louise is 230 feet below the very lowest part of
its dam, and the lower surface of its glacier must have ascended this
slope upon entering the Bow Valley. It is possible, then, that the
lake is a true rock basin.
One other example, also of a dubious nature, remains to be
mentioned, viz., that from the Selkirks, near the Great Glacier,
and some 1,500 feet above the station of Glacier on the C.P.R.,
directly overlooking the valley. It is called Lake Marian. Moun-
tains rise abruptly, with talus strewn around their bases for nearly
half the circumference of the lake; in front, where the pine-clad
slopes plunge down to the valley beneath, a quartzite outcrops.
This, or a crushed grit, is the common rock of the ascent from
Glacier, with some outcrops of broken silvery slate. On the re-
maining (eastern) side live rock, if it exists, is concealed by surface
soil and undergrowth, and the level is low. At first I thought Lake
Marian to be a true rock basin, but subsequent reflection inclines
me to the belief that glacial deposits may exist. The slopes on the
south-eastern side of the lake in the direction of Mount Abbott are
not precipitous, and it is possible that here a glacier left material
sufficient to retain the water.
We are left, therefore, with but one clear and certain example
of a rock basin, and it remains but to consider as briefly as may
be what causes operated in its formation. And firstly, differential
earth movements, as suggested by Mr. Brend for the Caernarvonshire
tarns, may be considered. The bedding of the rocks forming the
walls of the lake is remarkably well defined, and not far removed
from the horizontal, but on looking at the right bank from an
advantageous position, it becomes apparent that a slight dip up the
lake exists which is greater at the lower than at the upper end. As
the change, though slight, is abrupt, a small fault probably exists
at this point. ;
The cirque is no doubt pre-Glacial, but it is possible that the
configuration of the country has been altered in quite late times.
Dr. J. W. Spencer, in his well-known work on the “Origin of the
Basins of the Great Lakes in America,”! has demonstrated ‘terrestrial
Warpings’ more recent than the episode of the Upper Till. On the
western side of the continent Dr. G@. M. Dawson” mentions terraces
1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xlvi (1890), p. 530. ,
* «<The Superficial Geology of British Columbia’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,
vol. xxxiv (1878), p. 89. See also Dr. G. M. Dawson, ** On the Physiographical
Geology of the Rocky Mountain Region in Canada’’: Trans. Roy. Soc. anada,
vol. viii (1890), sect. 4, p. 68.
100 J. Parkinson—Lake Basins in Alberta & British Columbia.
on the Fraser and Thompson Rivers in British Columbia, from
2,400 to 3,000 feet. Of these he says: “ Many of the higher are
accumulations along the shore of a great sheet of water; most of the
lower have been carved out of deposits which at one time filled
the valleys from rim to rim, and more or less completely levelled
up the broken surface of the country, by the gradually receding
waters of a lake or of the sea, and eventually by the rivers them-
selves deepening their channels to their old pre-Glacial levels”
(p. 112). He concludes that the interior of British Columbia was.
submerged 4,000 to 5,000 feet during the formation of the Boulder-
clay (p. 108).
The second hypothesis ascribes sufficient erosive power to a glacier
in descending a sharp declivity such as the cirque at the head of
Lake Agnes. Such plunging action is appealed to by Professor
Bonney to explain the rock basins of Lakes Cadagno, Tremorgio,
and others on the Lepontine Alps. In the case of Lake Agnes
a glance at the map shows that here is ample gathering-ground for
ice. The line of the Continental watershed lies a mile and a half
to the west, with summits ranging, in the case of Pope’s Peak, to
9,595 feet. Mount St. Piran, to the north, has a height of 8,580 feet.
These between them form the north and north-north-west walls
of the tarn. If any erosive action can be ascribed to ice, the
present instance would afford an excellent opportunity for the
display of its power, and it is quite possible that this is the true
explanation.
At the time of my visit to Lake Agnes a third possibility
occurred to me which may have some value, at least, as a con-
tributory cause. The quartzite forms the lower bed in the walls.
of the lake, and must also occupy its floor, for the little waterfall
of discharge passes over it for some distance below the level of the
lake surface. The superincumbent beds are of a slaty nature, rather
finely bedded, and broken. This, taken in conjunction with the
dip of the whole up the lake, seemed to me to make it at least
possible that the ordinary agents of denudation in working out the
valley and its cirque-like head might form a basin which would
retain water, simply from the fact that there was a greater thickness:
of less resisting material at the upper than at the lower end. I put
this on record merely as a suggestion, but we may perhaps suppose
some such process as the following. In early days the valley would
incline steeply down to its lip, its bottom occupied by a stream
attaining at certain times of the year to the dignity of a torrent of
some dimensions. When worn down at its lower end to the level
of the more resisting quartzite, the erosive action of the water would
be checked at that point, but the constant freshets concentrated on
its upper end by reason of the cirque-like disposition of the cliff
would prevent the removing power of the water being materially
lessened at the valley head. ‘This process would go on possibly
with increasing slowness, but with a tendency analogous to that
ascribed to a glacier in descending a steep slope.
My sincere thanks are due to Professor Bonney for his kindness.
Dorothy Bate—A Bone Cave on the River Wye. 101
in reading the manuscript of this paper, and for many valuable
suggestions.
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE VI.
Fic. 1.—Photograph taken from the glacial deposits at the lower end of Lake Louise,
and looking towards Lakes Agnes and Mirror. The cirque at the head of the
former is well seen. The rounded promontory in front of the cirque is the
‘* Beehive.’’ To the right of this lies Mirror Lake, its position concealed by
the upper part of the belt of forest. The point x is the same in both figures.
Fic. 2.—Mirror Lake. The waterfall of discharge from Lake Agnes is the white
speck amongst the trees below the mark x .
IJ.—A sHorr Account or A Bone Cave in THE CARBONIFEROUS
LIMESTONE OF THE Wye VALLEY.
By Dorotuy M. A. Bare.
‘JHE bones of Pleistocene mammals and birds, a list of some of
which is given below, were found in a small cave in an out-
lying part of the Forest of Dean, close to the river Wye, where it is
flanked by steep and wooded hills that rise abruptly from either
bank. At short intervals along the sides of these hills limestone
cliffs and boulders stand out bare and white among the surrounding
trees. The slopes below are strewn, and in places completely
covered, with pieces of rock of all sizes that are continually becoming
loosened and fall from the outstanding crags above, in which are
numerous cracks, holes, and caves, the last, as a rule, being only of
small size.
The mouth of the cave in which these remains were found is
situated half-way up the face of one of the cliffs. It is completely
concealed from view by a thick growth of trees and bushes. This
probably accounts for its being little known and not previously
explored for animal remains, though, unfortunately, several human
jaw-bones lying on the floor of the cave were taken away by some
boys while searching for jackdaws’ nests. Some time ago the
greater part of the floor was dug up by miners looking for iron-ore.
This was a most unfortunate occurrence, as in this way the position
of the upper layers of earth and rock forming the floor of the cave
has been considerably obscured. At the same time the bones
contained in these deposits were mixed, specimens undoubtedly
differing greatly in age being found in close proximity ; furthermore,
some of the bones of species now living bore a very fresh appearance.
The walls of the cave have not been disturbed, for here numerous
minute bones are found in a good state of preservation. These were
lying even in exposed situations where they might easily have been
destroyed. This is perhaps the most curious feature of the cave, for
at its inner end on every ledge and in every crevice were found
small bones, most of them belonging to one or other of the smaller
species of voles and mice. These remains have disappeared from
the ledges near the entrance, doubtless on account of exposure to
wind and wet, and to the presence of jackdaws, which nest in large
numbers in all the cliffs.
102 Dorothy Bate—A Bone Cave on the River Wye.
The cave consists of two chambers, the larger of which
penetrates the cliff for about thirty yards, only decreasing slightly in
size from the entrance, which is large. The floor is partially covered
with a layer of earth, which in one place is about a foot and a half
thick. As already remarked, its original disposition has been more
or less altered by the workings of the miners. This earth contained
great quantities of small skulls and bones, the commonest among
them belonging to Microtus agrestis and I. amphibius.
Owing to lack of time I was unable to penetrate below this earth
except where some of the rock had already been removed. Portions
of the walls several feet above the present level of the floor are
encrusted with numberless small bones, impossible to extract in
good condition owing to the hardness of the limestone. If pieces
of rock were broken away similar bones were certain to be found
loose in any soft or crumbly places. In fact, they were plentiful
throughout the cave—in the earth, on the ledges, in the walls,
and even on the surface of the floor. The bones embedded in
the rock, as well as those concealed in the earth, were found
extending right up to the mouth of the cave. These must have
accumulated at a time when the cave was considerably larger than it
now is. This it undoubtedly was at one time, for, as the face of the
cliff has gradually been worn away, the slope below has become
strewn with fragments of rock of all sizes. Another proof of this is
that in its present state it would be impossible for such animals
as sheep and deer to reach the cave. Yet the bones of these animals,
and of others for whom it would be as difficult of access, are found
buried in the earth. It is now evidently inaccessible to foxes and
badgers, as there are no holes used by them here, although they
are to be seen in almost every other cave I have visited in the
district.
The smaller chamber opens into the main cave near the inner end
of the latter, and runs almost parallel with it towards the face of the
cliff. It has now no direct connection with the outside, although
there is an opening in the cliff with which it was probably formerly
connected. It is possible that the present entrance has only lately
been made. The roof is very low, forcing one to crawl on hands
and knees. Part of the floor has been disturbed in the same way as
in the outer chamber, but, unlike it, there is little of the earth in
which the greater number of the small bones were found. Probably
the real mouth of this cave has been closed up by the roof at this
point giving way, the rock having been loosened by water. At the
end nearest the face of the cliff there is always a certain amount of
water to be seen dripping from the wall. The rock over which it runs
down to the level of the floor has been formed into a series of ridges,
somewhat resembling those left on the sand by the receding tide,
though they differ in being higher and sharper and closer together.
This has a very striking appearance when a light is thrown on
its ribbed surface, which looks black and highly polished, and is
always glistening with moisture. Wherever this water penetrates
it leaves a deposit of stalagmite, which causes the rock to become
Dorothy Bate—A Bone Cave on the River Wye. 103
extremely hard, thus making any excavation a difficult task, and in
some places it is impossible to detach bones from the rock intact.
The cave contained the teeth and jaw-bones of six small mammals
that are now extinct in Great Britain. These are: Microtus ratticeps,
M.arvalis, M.nivalis, Lemmus lemmus, Dicrostonyx (= Myodes) torquatus,
and Ochotona (=Lagomys) pusillus. At the present day these species
are found chiefly in colder and more northern countries, the pika
being confined to the steppe regions of Eastern Europe and Siberia.
No remains of the reindeer or other large northern forms were
found, though from the presence of the lemmings and some of the
voles this might have been expected. Remains of the reindeer and
mammoth have been taken from a somewhat similar cave situated
not two miles distant. See British Museum (Natural History) Coll.
Remains of the following animals were found in this cave :—
Homo.—I have already mentioned that some jaw-bones were found
on the floor of the cave, but I have been unable to secure one or to
trace their present whereabouts. I procured one clavicle, several
vertebre, and a number of digital phalanges. The only implements
found were a bone needle, or hairpin, and a portion of a copper ring.
Bone needle, one-third less than original specimen.
The needle, which Sir Henry Howorth considers belongs to the
Bronze Age, is a very fine specimen in a perfect state of preservation.
It is five inches in length and has a circular hole pierced through
its broader end, from which it gradually tapers to a blunt point.
The larger end has the appearance of having been cut straight across
with some sharp instrument.
Rhinolopkus hipposideros.—Two lower jaw-bones and a portion
of one skull of this bat were among the remains found in the cave.
Talpa Europea.—One upper jaw of this species and two mandibular
rami were found in the cave together with several pelvic bones.
There is a considerable difference in the size of these two rami, one
of which, the larger, still retained a milk tooth. Fossil remains of
this mole have been found in the Norfolk Forest Bed as well as in
Pleistocene deposits. Mr. W. J. Lewis Abbot found numerous
bones belonging to this species in the Ightham fissure in Kent.
Sorex araneus.—The upper jaws of the common shrew were
fairly plentiful, one or two skulls being found in an almost perfect
state of preservation. They varied much in size, a considerable
difference being noticeable between the largest and the smallest
specimens obtained. The lower jaw-bones were less numerous ;
perhaps on account of their small size they were easily passed over
when buried in the earth. Less than half a dozen were secured, all
of them retaining ther full number of teeth. Remains of this shrew
have been found in the Forest Bed and in caves.
104 Dorothy Bate—A Bone Cave on the River Wye.
Neomys (= Crossopus) fodiens.—One upper jaw of the water-shrew
was found which still retained its full number of teeth. Its remains
have occurred in the Norfolk Forest Bed.
Microtus amphibius.—Jaw-bones and portions of skulls of the water-
vole were numerous in the cave earth. Many of the rami were
preserved in an almost perfect condition. Its remains have been
found in Pleistocene deposits and in a number of caves in England.
Microtus agrestis.—Remains of the field-vole were more plentiful
than those of any other of the species found in the cave. Similar
remains have been found in many caves in England. This vole
is still living in Britain and extends over the middle and north of
Europe, being commoner in the northern part of its range.
Microtus ratticeps—One or two portions of skulls and about
a dozen rami of the northern vole were found in this cave, and
agree with recent specimens in the British Museum. In a few of
the lower jaw-bones the teeth resemble the figure of M. gregalis
given by Dr. Nehring in a paper published in 1875, but the presence
of intermediate forms between this and the typical M. ratticeps makes
it probabie that all in this series ought to be referred to the latter
species. Fossil remains of M. ratticeps have been found in England
in the river deposit at Fisherton, in caves in Somersetshire, and in
the Ightham fissure in Kent. It no longer occurs in Great Britain,
but is now found in Northern Europe and Siberia.
Fic. 1.—Palatal view of skull of Ochotona (Lagomys) pusillus.
Fie. 2.—Dorsal aspect of part of skull of Dicrostonyx (Myodes) torquatus.
Fie. 3.—View of upper molars of Dicrostonyx (Myodes) torquatus.
Fies. 4-6.—View of lower molars of Dicrostonya (Myodes) torquatus.
Fies. 7, 8.—View of (7) lower and (8) upper molars of Zemmus (Myodes) lemmus.
Microtus arvalis.—Several jaw-bones, upper and lower, may be
referred to this species. Their upper teeth are easily distinguished
from those of M. agrestis by the character of the second molar, but
the lower teeth of these two species resemble each other very closely.
Dorothy Bate—A Bone Cave on the River Wye. 105
Remains of this field-vole have been found in the Forest Bed and in
fissures near Frome and at Ightham. It is no longer living in Great
Britain, but is the commonest field-vole of Central Europe, its range
extending as far as Western Siberia.
Nicrotus nivalis.—Two mandibular rami, which I have compared
with recent specimens in the British Museum, are referred to this
species. A third might possibly also belong to this vole, but is too
imperfect to admit of certain identification. At the present day it
is not found in Britain, but inhabits the Alps of Central Europe,
where it is not found at a lower elevation than 3,000 feet above the
sea-level. By Dr. Selys Longchamps it is said to occur in the
Pyrenees, and may possibly also be found elsewhere. The only
record of the fossil remains of this species being found in England
is that of Messrs. Blackmore and Alston, who doubtfully referred
to this species a jaw-bone found in the river deposit at Fisherton,
near Salisbury (P.Z.S., June, 1874).
Fvotomys ( = Microtus) glareolus.—Part of one skull and several
mandibular rami of the bank-vole were found in the cave earth.
In one or two of the rami, which belonged to immature animals,
the teeth had not yet developed roots. Its remains have been found
in the Forest Bed, in many caves, and in Pleistocene river deposits.
At the present day its range extends to the Arctic circle.
Lemmus ( = Myodes) lemmus.—Portions of five upper jaws of the
Norwegian lemming were found in the earth together with eight
lower jaw-bones, only one of which contained the full number of
teeth. This species is no longer found in Britain, its range at the
present day being confined to the Scandinavian peninsula and
Russian Lapland. Its remains have been found in a cave in
Somersetshire and in the Ightham fissure in Kent.
Dicrostonyx torquatus.—Nearly a dozen well-preserved mandibular
rami of this species were found, but only a portion of one upper
jaw. The Arctic lemming occurs in the Pleistocene of England
and the Continent, but is now entirely confined to the Arctic regions.
Ochotona ( = Lagomys) pusillus.—Portions of eight or nine skulls
of this species were found together with nineteen lower jaw-bones.
The remains of this tailless hare are interesting, as no representative
of the family is found in the British Islands at the present day.
This pika now only inhabits Eastern Russia and Siberia. _ Its fossil
remains have been procured from several other caves in England :
at Bleadon, Brixham, and Kent’s Hole.
_ Lepus timidus (Z. variabilis).—Portions of a skull and lower jaws,
both retaining teeth, are referred to this species. Remains of the
mountain hare have been found in several caves, in the Mendip
Hills, and at Knockninny and Shandon in Ireland.
Mus sylvaticus.—Eighteen lower jaw bones and portions of about
seven or eight skulls are referred to this species, which is still found
widely distributed over temperate Europe, and extending to Western
Siberia and the Caucasus. Its remains have been found in the
Forest Bed and at West Runton, Norfolk.
A great number of small limb bones, most of which probably
106 =F. R. Cowper Reed—Salier’s Undescribed Species.
belong to the small rodents, were found scattered over the cave
and buried in the earth with the other remains. Some other
remains are referred to the dog, sheep (which appears to have been
considerably smaller than the ordinary domestic variety), a species
of small deer, several bones of Rana temporaria, and three snail
shells, probably Helix hortensis. Dr. Andrews kindly identified
the remains of birds found in the cave. They belong to five
Species, remains of all of which have occurred in other caves in
Britain. They are Turdus sp., probably Turdus viscivorus, pigeon sp.,
Anas boschas, Lagopus scoticus, and Perdix perdia.
I wish to express my thanks to Dr. Andrews and Dr. Forsyth
Major for the very kind and valuable help I have received from
them, especially in assisting me to determine the extinct forms,
and also for Dr. Forsyth Major’s kind advice in selecting those
which have been figured in the text.
IJI.—Woopwarpian Museum Notes: Satrer’s UNDESCRIBED
Specizs. III.
By F. R. Cowrrr Rezzp, M.A., F.G.S.
(PLATE VII.)
Phacops (Odontocheile) caudatus, var. corrugatus, Salter. (PI. VII,
Figs. 1, 2.)
1873. Salter: Cat. Camb. Sil. Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 98 (a 461).
There are six specimens of this variety in the Woodwardian
Museum, all of which come from the Woolhope Limestone, of
Littlehope, and were labelled by Salter. Five of them are more
or less perfect head-shields, and the other is a pygidium in a good
state of preservation.
The head-shield shows the general characters of Ph. caudatus,
var. a, vulgaris, but the arrangement of the tubercles on the frontal
lobe of the glabella is peculiar, and resembles that of Chasmops, for
they form a V-shaped pattern, six or seven large tubercles com-
posing each arm of the V. The arms of the V enclose an angle
of about 30° to 40°. A few other large tubercles occur on the
frontal lobe close to the V, and starting from its apex show an
obscure radial arrangement. The margin of the head-shield, where
the shell is preserved, exhibits an ornamentation consisting of
closely-set, rather coarse granulations. The front margin is pro-
duced into an obtuse point.
The main characters of the pygidium are similar to those of the
typical variety of Ph. caudatus. The axis, however, shows ten
distinct rings with a less distinct eleventh one, and a short, faintly
annulated, terminal piece. The rings are less strongly defined in
the middle, owing to the transverse furrows being comparatively
weak in the middle while deeply impressed at the sides.
On the fourth and seventh axial rings is a pair of small oval areas,
slightly raised above the general surface and finely pitted (the
so-called ‘cutaneous glands’ of Salter, op. cit.). There are faint
Salter: Mon. Brit. Trilob. Pal. Soc., 1864, p. 51.
F. R. Cowper Reed—Sailter’s Undescribed Species. 107
traces of similar ‘glands’ on several of the other rings. The whole
axis, as well as the lateral lobes, is also ornamented with minute pits.
The lateral lobes show seven distinct pairs of pleure, ending
abruptly on the smooth narrow margin, but separated by strongly
raised ridges. The surface of each pleura is excavated, and bears
a furrow, in front of which the surface is sharply ridged up.
The furrow is close to and nearly parallel to the posterior
edge of the pleura. On the ridge along the anterior edge of the
furrow on each pleura, there is a so-called ‘cutaneous gland’
situated similarly to those figured by Salter! for Ph. caudatus. On
the first pleura this gland is near the axis; on the second it is near
the outer extremity ; on the third it is placed half-way along the
length of the pleura; and on the fourth it is near the axis. Those
on the fifth, sixth, and seventh pleurz repeat the arrangement of
the second, third, and fourth. A few tubercles are also found
scattered irregularly over the lateral lobes. The pygidial margin
was produced posteriorly into an aculeate mucro, but it is broken
off short in our specimen.
MEASUREMENTS.
mm.
Length of pygidium 22-0 (minus mucro).
Width of ditto ae Ase ae 24-0
Width of axis of pygidium (at front end) aD
oon ; 13°
Length of ditto ... nee
Arrinitiges.—Lindstrém’s species Ph. obtusa,* from the Gotland
beds, bears comparison with this variety of Ph. caudatus, but
though the furrowing of the glabella is closely similar, the V-shaped
arrangement of the tubercles seems to be absent and also the
‘cutaneous glands’ on the pygidium. The true significance and
function of these so-called glands is at present unknown, but, if we
may presume on our scanty knowledge of these structures to make
a suggestion, they appear to be similar to the macule on the
hypostomes of most trilobites which Lindstrom ®* after a detailed
study has recently concluded had a visual function. It may be
that these pygidial structures were organs of phosphorescence.
ENcRINURUS MULTIPLICATUS, Salter. (PI. VII, Fig. 3.)
1873. Encrinurus multiplicatus, Salter: Cat. Camb. Sil. Foss. Woodw. Mus.,
p. 51 (a 226). opt tt. F
1891. Encrinwrus multiplicatus, Salter (Woods) : Cat. Type Foss. Woodw. Mus.,
p. 144.
The original specimen is very imperfect, and consists of only
a partially preserved pygidium, so that the description of this
species must besomewhat incomplete. It is labelled as having been
found in the Middle Bala at Barking, Dent, and is preserved in
a tough dark-grey limestone. The pygidium has an elongated and
pointed form somewhat like E. multisegmentatus (Portl.), and possesses
1 Salter: Mon. Brit. Trilob. Pal. Soc., 1864, p. 52, woodcuts 11 and 12,
2 Ofy. k. Vet. Akad. Férhandl., No. 6, 1885, p. 41, pl. xii, figs. 3, 4, 7, 8, and
pl. xiii, fig. 1. |
3 Kongl. Svensk. Vet. Akad. Handl., B. 34, No. 8, 1901.
108 F. R. Cowper Reed—Salter’s Undescribed Species.
a long narrow axis tapering very gradually to its posterior extremity.
There are sixteen complete axial rings of gradually decreasing size,
extending for about two-thirds the length of the axis, and followed
by about twelve much narrower rings of equal size, interrupted in
the middle by a narrow smooth area, and extending to the point of
the axis, which is thus segmented along its whole length.
Only one of the lateral lobes is preserved, but this shows the
eleven pleure of which it is composed, and is bent down rather
strongly towards the posterior end. The anterior pleure curve
weakly backwards, but the posterior ones more strongly, and the
last one, which starts at the level of the sixteenth axial ring, runs
back alongside of the axis to the posterior margin. Each pleura
appears to be provided with a shallow median longitudinal furrow.
There are obscure traces of small tubercles on the surface, but
the ornamentation is very indistinct.
MEASUREMENTS.
mm,
Length of pygidium : aes side a 12-0
Width of ditto ... eis ... (estimated at) 10:0
AFFINITIES.—The most closely allied species might appear at first
sight to be £. multisegmentatus, Portlock,! but the resemblances lie
more in the large number of the segments than in the characters of the
parts of the pygidium. For the segmentation of the axis is different,
and the course of the pleurz is not the same. The segmentation
of the posterior part of the axis more resembles that of Z. punctatus,
though the anterior part with its complete rings is quite different,
and is similar to that in Portlock’s species. As far as the axis is
concerned, it thus seems to share the characters of these two species.
Turrilepas 2? ketleyanus, Salter.
1873. Twrrilepas ketleyanus, Salter: MS. Cat. Camb. Sil. Foss. Woodw. Mus.,
p. 129 (6 730).
1891. TZurrilepas ketieyanus, Woods: Cat. Type Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 132.
The two original specimens are very poorly preserved and frag-
mentary and the plates seem to be displaced from their original
position, and the description, therefore, is far from satisfactory.
The specimens are from the Wenlock Limestone of Dudley, and
were presented to the Woodwardian Museum by Mr. C. Ketley.
Dracnosts.—Two vertical rows of loosely arranged, alternating
plates of regular (?) shape, followed above by a closely imbricated
mass of irregular plates. There are four or five plates in each of
the vertical rows, but their shape is somewhat doubtful, as their
edges appear to be broken in most cases, but they seem to be
transversely oblong (not triangular), with their upper and lower
edges sub-parallel, and the outer edge rounded; they are also
slightly arched from side to side, and their surface is marked by fine
strie parallel to the outer edge and by minute pits and granulations.
| Portlock: Geol. Rep. Lond., 1848, p. 291, pl. iii, fig. 6. Térnquist: Undersokn.
Siljans. Trilobitf., 1884, p. 24, pl. i, figs. 18, 19.
fF. R. Cowper Reed—Salter’s Undeseribed Species. 109
In the upper mass of closely packed plates only the minute pits and
granulations are visible. These upper plates appear to be triangular
and to bear a carina.
Remarxks.—It is extremely doubtful if this fossil is the remains
of a crustacean, and it has been suggested with much probability
that it represents the column of one of the Anomalocystidx.! The
supposed shape of the plates in the double row cannot be regarded as
of much value, owing to their imperfect condition. It is unfortunate
that Salter chose to attach a specific name to such exceedingly
unsatisfactory specimens.
GASTEROPODA.
Susuites pupa, Salter. (PI. VII, Fig. 5.)
1873. pebgecheilue pupa, Salter: Cat. Camb. Sil. Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 156
a °
1891. ee ane pupa, Woods: Cat. Type Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 106.
There is one specimen in the Woodwardian Museum from the
Wenlock Limestone of Dudley (Fletcher Collection), labelled
Macrocheilus pupa (a 869) by Salter. Only the three lower
whorls are preserved, and these show no ornament; the two apical
whorls are broken off. The shape of the mouth is also well seen.
The regular, elongate, fusiform shell, the shallow suture-line, the
slight convexity of the whorls and their want of ornamentation,
the large body-whorl, equal in length to about half the shell, and
the narrow elongate aperture, inferiorly acuminate, show that it is
comparable to Subulites ventricosus (Hall),’ described and figured
also from the Wenlock of Sweden by Lindstrém.* It cannot be
assigned to the genus Macrochilina, on account of the shape and
characters of the mouth and the shallowness of the suture-line. This
species has also been found by Professor Hughes in the Lower
Llandovery of Blain y cwm.
MEASUREMENTS.
mm.
Length of specimen abe ue a She se 35:0
Estimated length when perfect ... seh er a 40-0
Width of body-whorl Ei ba 18:0
Trocuus CcALYPTRmA, Salter. (PI. VII, Fig. 4.)
1873. Euomphalus calyptrea, Salter: Cat. Camb. Sil. Foss., p. 157 (@ 862).
1891. Euomphalus calyptrea, Woods: Cat. Type Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 103.
The one small original specimen (a 862) from the Wenlock
Limestone of Dudley is all the material we possess. It is imperfect,
but the body-whorl is well preserved and shows the essential
features.
Dragnosis.—Shell small, trochiform, obtusely conical, of several
whorls (probably four or five), which are sub-ventricose. The body-
whorl has an angulated, rather prominent umbilical edge, and its
umbilical surface is flattened at right angles to the rest of the whorl,
1 H. Woodward: Grou. Mac., Dec. II, Vol. VII (1880), p. 198, Pl. VI, and
Woodcut, Fig. 6, p. 197.
2 Hall: Pal. N.Y., ii (1852), p. 347, pl. 83, fig. 7.
3 Lindstrém : Sil. Gastr. Pter. Gotl., 1884, pp. 193, 194, pl. xv, figs. 19-21.
110 Dr. R. H. Traquair—Fifeshire Carboniferous Fishes.
slightly raised in the centre and more so towards the aperture, which
appears to be subcircular, with the inner lip strong and thickened.
Surface of whorls ornamented by transverse, obliquely curved,
recular, and equidistant lamellar ribs. Umbilicus small and
apparently closed. | :
Remarks.—This form certainly does not belong to the genus
Euomphalus.. Its whole appearance is trochiform, and it bears
a close resemblance to Trochus Stuzbergi (Lindstrom),’ but differs
by the umbilical surface being flatter, by the marginal ridge being
less developed, and by the greater strength and regularity of the
growth-lamelle on the surface. Its ornamentation is not so
coarse as in Tr. undulans (Lindstrém),’ but the shape of this species
and its umbilical surface are very similar. The characters of the
mouth and umbilical surface distinguish it from Callonema obesum
(Lindstrém),? with which at first sight it bears some resemblance in
shape and ornamentation.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE VII.
Fre. 1.—Phacops (Odontocheile) caudatus, var. corrugatus, Salter. Head-shield
(a 481),:x 13. Woolhope Limestone, Littlehope.
Fig. 2.—Ditto. Pygidium (@ 461), x 2. Woolhope Limestone, Littlehope.
Fic. 3.—Encrinurus multiplicatus, Salter. Pygidium (a@ 226), x 3. M. Bala,
Barking, Dent.
Fie. 4.—Zrochus calyptrea, Salter sp. (7862), x 2. Wenlock Limestone, Dudley.
Fic. 5.—Subulites pupa, Salter sp. (a 869), x 15. Wenlock Limestone, Dudley. -
TV.—Nores on tHE Lower Carponirerous FisHes or HASTERN
FIFESHIRE.
By Dr. R. H. Traquarr, F.R.S., F.G.S.
(Read before the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh, January 16th, 1901.)
Wey much has as yet been done in the way of cataloguing the
fossil fishes of the Lower Carboniferous rocks of Hastern
Fifeshire. A few species and localities were noted by the late
Rev. Thomas Brown in 1860* and by Mr. Kirkby in 1880,° and
the late Mr. Robert Walker published a paper in 1872° in which
he described what he supposed to be a new species of Amblypterus
(A. anconoechmodus) from the Oil-shale works at Pitcorthy, near
Anstruther. In this paper Mr. Walker drew attention to the
abundance and variety of fish-remains in the oil-shale and ironstone
worked at that locality, promising to describe them in detail after-
wards—a promise which he was never able to fulfil. After his
1 Sil. Gastr. Pter. Gotl., p. 147, pl. xiv, figs. 59-69 (especially fig. 62).
2 Op. cit., p. 148, pl. xvi, figs. 8-10.
3 Op. cit., p. 189, pl. xv, fig. 27.
4 <¢ Notes on the Mountain Limestone and Lower Carboniferous Rocks of the
Fifeshire Coast from Burntisland to St. Andrews’’: Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinb.,
vol. xxii (1860), pp. 385-404.
5 <¢ On the Zones of Marine Fossils in the Calciferous Sandstones of Fife’’: Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxxvi (1880), pp. 559-590.
6 «* On a new species of Amblypterus and other Fossil Fish-remains from Pitcorthy,
Fife’’: Trans. Geol. Soc. Edinb., vol. ii, pt. 1, pp. 119-124, with plate.
_
© Geol Mag 1901. ; Decade W.Vol-VUl Pl. VII.
GM Woodward del. et lith. Nes
Ordovician and
Dr. R. H. Traquair —Fifeshire Carboniferous Fishes. 111
death in 1881, his important collection of fish-remains from this
and other localities in Hast Fife was acquired by the Edinburgh
Museum, and largely forms the basis of the present list. I myself
have also done some collecting in this region; and a good many
years ago the Museum acquired a number of specimens collected by
Mr. W. T. Kinnear at Ardross, some of which are of great interest.
The district in question is comprised in sheets 41 and 49 of the
Geological Survey Map of Scotland. All the species here noted
are from Lower Carboniferous rocks, the horizons represented being
the Upper part (Oil-shale group) of the Calciferous Sandstone Series
and the Lower part of the Carboniferous Limestone Series. Here
I may note that in 1890' J included the Teleostomi and Dipnoi
of the region in a list of the fishes of these orders occurring in Fife
and the Lothians, published by the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
The present list, however, includes the Elasmobranchs as well,
and also a few additional species now described as new.
CALCIFEROUS SANDSTONE SERIES.
EXLASMOBRANCHII,.
. Pleuracanthus horridulus, Traq. Pitcorthy.
. Diplodus parvulus, Traq. Pitcorthy.
Cladodus unicuspidatus, Traq., n.sp. Near Rock and Spindle.
- Callopristodus pectinatus (Ag.). Rocks east of St. Andrews ; Pitcorthy.
. Oracanthus armigerus, Traq. Teeth, at Ardross. f
. Gyracanthus, sp. Rocks east of St. Andrews; Pittenweem. Not sufficiently
well preserved for specific determination. ,
. Sphenacanthus serrulatus (Ag.). Piteorthy.
. Sphenacanthus Fifensis, n.sp. Rocks east of St. Andrews.
. Euphyacanthus semistriatus, Traq. Ardross.
10. Tristychius arcuatus, Ag. Piteorthy.
ll. Tristychius minor, Portlock. Pitcorthy.
12. Cynopodius crenuiatus, Traq. Pitcorthy.
13. Acanthodes sulcatus, Ag. Ardross.
TELEOSTOMI.
oan] DOr Co bo
Crossopterygit.
14. Rhizodus Hibberti (Ag.). Rocks on shore east of St. Andrews; Pitcorthy.
15. Rhizodus ornatus, Traq. Pitcorthy ; Pittenweem.
16. Strepsodus striatulus, 'Vraq. Pittenweem.
17. Strepsodus minor, Traq. Pitcorthy.
18. Celacanthopsis curta, n. g. and sp.
Actinopterygit.
19. Hlonichthys Robisoni (Hibbert). Pitcorthy.
20. Elonichthys striatus (Ag.). Pitcorthy.
21. Elonichthys pectinatus, Traq. Ardross.
22. Rhadinichthys ornatissimus (Ag.). Kiness Burn, near St. Andrews.
23. Rhadinichthys carinatus (Ag.). Pitcorthy ; Corn Ceres, near Kilrenny.
24. Rhadinichthys brevis, Traq. Pitcorthy.
25. Nematoptychius Greenocki (Ag.). Pitcorthy.
26. Gonatodus punctatus (Ag.). Pitcorthy. This is the Amblypterus anconoechmodus
of R. Walker.
27. Eurynotus crenatus, Ag. Pittenweem; Pitcorthy ; Corn Ceres; Kenly Mouth,
east of St. Andrews.
1 «© Tist of the Fossil Ganoidei and Dipnoiof Fife and the Lothians’’; Proc. Roy.
Soe. Edinb., vol. xvii (1890), pp. 385-400.
112) Dr. R. H. Traquair—Fifeshire Carboniferous Fishes.
Dripnot.
28. Ctenodus interruptus, Barkas. Pittenweem.
INCERTA SEDIS.
29. Hucentrurus paradoxus, n. g. and sp. Ardross.
CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONE SERIKS.
HLASMOBRANCHILI.
. Petalodus acuminatus, Ag. Ladedda, near St. Andrews.
. Oracanthus armigerus, Traq. Largo Ward.
. Sphenacanthus serrulatus, Ag. Denhead Ironstone, Denhead, near St. Andrews.
. Acanthodes, sp. Denhead.
me COD eS
TELEOSTOMI.
Crossopterygii.
. Rhizodus Hibberti (Ag.). Denhead.
. Rhizodus ornatus, Traq. Denhead.
. Megalichthys, sp. Denhead.
. Elonichthys Robisoni (Hibbert). Denhead.
. Elonichthys pectinatus, Traq. Denhead.
. Hurynotus crenatus, Ag. Denhead.
The above list contains all the species, thirty in number, which
are contained in the Natural History Department of the Edinburgh
Museum or in my own collection. Mr. Kirkby, however, records
Ctenacanthus, sp., from near the Rock and Spindle, and Pecilodus
obliquus, Ag., from a marine limestone of Calciferous Sandstone age
on the coast near Randerston Castle.
NotTEs oN SPECIES.
Diplodus.—I have found small Diplodus-teeth in shales on the
shore at Pittenweem, but which can hardly be safely identified
with any known form or considered as new.
Cladodus unicuspidatus, n.sp.—Base flat below, depth from back
to front about two-thirds the width from side to side, contour more
convex in front than behind. A single slender pointed cusp arises
from the middle of the front of the base, and is erect, straight when
seen from the front, sigmoidally recurved when viewed laterally,
covered with delicate raised ridges, which increase in number
downwards by intercalation. No trace of lateral cusps. Height of
cusp of most perfect specimen +’; inch, width of base laterally about
the same.
Under the term Monocladodus, Professor Claypole’ has separated
from Cladodus, Agassiz, two species from the Cleveland shale, on
account of the apparent want of lateral cusps. Allied to Cladodus,
and also possessing only one cusp, are Lambdodus and Hybocladodus
of St. John and Worthen.2 The present teeth, however, agree so
closely with Cladodus in all respects, save the want of lateral cusps
and the comparatively short lateral extent of the base, that I prefer
leaving them with that genus for the present.
A cluster of these teeth was found by myself many years ago
in a septarian nodule on the shore near the Rock and Spindle, east
1 American Geologist, vol. xi (1893), p. 329.
2 Geol. Sury. Illinois, vol. vi.
SO MAID NH
—_
Dr. R. H. Traquair—Fifeshire Carboniferous Fishes. 113
of St. Andrews. Owing to the hardness of the matrix it was
impossible to work out the superficial configuration of the teeth,
except in two instances where they happened to be covered by
white carbonate of lime.
Sphenacanthus Fifensis, n.sp.— Length of the largest specimen,
5% inches ; greatest antero-posterior diameter, # inch ; implanted
portion reaching up to 1? inches in front and 2} inches behind;
form straight and tapering; posterior area slightly concave, its
margins showing traces of abraded denticles; anterior margin of
exserted portion formed by a sharp median ridge ; sides ornamented
by straight ribs or rounded ridges, which increase in number
proximally by bifurcation, and are not nodose.
This spine, of which there are several specimens in the Walker
Collection, Edinburgh Museum, differs from Sph. serrulatus, Ag.,
by the multiplication of the lateral ribs by bifurcation instead of
intercalation. The want of nodosity of these ribs is of no con-
sequence, as the greatest difference occurs in this respect in different
individuals of Sph. serrulatus, and also of the closely allied Coal-
measure form Sph. hybodoides (Egerton). In a hard calcareous
sandstone from the coast east of St. Andrews.
Calacanthopsis curta, n. g. and sp.—Of this interesting fish only
one specimen has been obtained, and that one is unfortunately
deficient at the caudal extremity. What remains measures 2 inches
in length, and in this the length of the head is contained three
times, being also equal to the greatest depth. The head bones
are crushed and scarcely decipherable. Vertebral axis notochordal ;
abdominal region extending for 4 inch behind shoulder-girdle ; no
ribs are seen, but there is distinct evidence of the ossified air-bladder
characteristic of the Coelacanthide. Neural arches united with the
neural spines, which are long, very slender, and closely placed ;
hemal arches and spines similar in condition and configuration.
On the dorsal aspect and just above the termination of the abdominal
cavity a set of slender interspinous bones commences, these being
short at first but rapidly increasing in length, until they are as long
as the neural spines, and then the fish suddenly breaks up about
2 inches from the tip of the snout. Attached to the distal
extremities of these interspinous bones are fin-rays, very short
anteriorly, and still short at the point of truncation of the specimen.
It is probable that similar elements existed on the hemal aspect
of the skeleton, but have been lost. Paired fins not preserved,
except a few imperfect rays where the ventrals ought to be.
Indications of the presence of scales feeble. —
Strikingly new as this little fish is specifically, a word or two
must be said as to its family and generic relationships. The ossified
air-bladder and the configuration of its neural and heemal arches
and spines at once indicate that its family position is in the Coela-
canthide, but its differences from any known genus of this family
are very strongly marked. We have, firstly, the abbreviated form of
the fish, which is certainly not entirely due to post-mortem shortening
up, as the skeletal parts in front of the place where the specimen
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. III. 5
114 Dr. R. H. Traquair—Fifeshive Carboniferous Fishes.
is truncated lie nearly quite undisturbed; secondly, the great pro-
portional length of the neural and hzemal spines; thirdly, the
apparent absence of the two separate dorsal fins with their compound
supporting ‘axonosts,’ characteristic of the Coelacanthide. These
may have been lost in the present specimen, but the tips of the
neural spines come so close up to the dorsal margin that there
would not have been room for the last-named elements if of the
form prevalent in the genera of this family. Fourthly, the median
fin which we see beginning just opposite the posterior termination
of the abdominal cavity corresponds, in its relation to its supporting
elements, to the caudal of Celacanthus, but is immensely further
forward in its commencement. It is unfortunate that, owing to
the truncation of the fish shortly after the commencement of this
fin, we cannot see the extremity of the tail, but enough is shown
in the specimen to prove its novelty, both specific and generic.
The acquisition of more perfect specimens is, however, urgently
to be desired, as it is clear that if the dorsal fins with their compound
axonosts are really wanting in this form a change must be made
in the received definition of the Coelacanthide, as well as of the
Actinistian group of the Crossopterygii.
From Ardross, collected by Mr. W. T. Kinnear, and now in the
Edinburgh Museum.
Eucentrurus paradoxus, n. g. and sp.—This extraordinary little
organism measures 2? inches in length, of which 4 inch may be allotted
to the head, # inch to the body, and 1+ inch to the tail. The head
is a mass of calcareous matter, in which something suggestive of
a broad curved mandible can be seen, but admits of no further
description. The body, 2 inch broad in front, is composed of a greyish
film, which when examined by a strong lens is seen to consist
entirely of minute, slender, slightly curved, and sharply pointed
spinelets. The tail is tapering in form, consisting of amorphous-
looking calcareous matter, but on each side (assuming that the
creature is crushed vertically) is a conspicuous row of double
spinelets arranged exactly opposite each other. From a common
base arise two spinelets, which are placed close together and nearly
parallel to each other; one of them, the anterior, being only half
the length of the posterior one, which just behind the body may
attain a length of -3; inch, though towards the end of the tail they
become smaller; both of the spinelets are slender, slightly curved,
round in transverse section, smooth externally, sharply pointed, and
traversed internally by a central tubular pulp cavity. No trace
either of internal skeleton, or of limbs, or fins of any sort can
be seen.
This strange organism is another of the problems of Paleozoic
ichthyology, as it is scarcely possible to indicate its systematic
position with any degree of certainty. The nature of its dermal
armature would incline us to the belief that it is a Selachian, though
all other evidence to that effect is wanting.
From Ardross, collected by Mr. W. T. Kinnear, and now in the
Edinburgh Museum.
Professor T. Rupert Jones—History of Sarsens. 115
V.—Hisrory or THE SARSENS.
By Professor T. Rupert Jones, F.R.S., F.G.S., ete.
(Concluded from p. 59.)
II. (8) Kent.—1862. Mr. W. H. Bensted, in the Geologist, vol. v
(1862), pp. 449, 450, states: “The Druid Sandstone, of which
Kit’s Coty House, Stonehenge, and many other Druidical remains are
composed, is found scattered in great blocks over the surface of the
Chalk Hills, or buried superficially in beds of clay retained in the
hollows on the summits of the escarpments.” These stones, he
added, are the same as the Greywethers of Berks and Wilts; and
are occasionally pebbly, like the Hertfordshire Puddingstones.
1872. In Fergusson’s “ Rude Stone Monuments,” 1872, pp. 116-
120, some of the best specimens of Sarsens that remain as relics
of prehistoric monuments in Kent are noticed, especially those near
Aylesford, on the Medway.
1894. Thomas Wright, in his ‘“ Wanderings of an Antiquary,
chiefly in the track of the Romans in Britain,” 1894, pp. 176-178,
describes in detail some large circular pits that have been filled
with flints and capped with broad Sarsens, on Aylesford Common ;
these, he thought, were probably sepulchral, and may have had
a chamber opening out of the side at the bottom.
1900. Some small Sarsens from the gravel of the Darent at
Shoreham, in Kent, show many perforations of rootlets.—R. A. B.
(9) Surrey.—1814. T. Webster: Trans. Geol. Soc., vol. ii,
pp. 224, 225. At Pirbright, Surrey, loose blocks of stone similar to
what have been called Greywethers. Many loose masses of this rock
lie scattered on the surface of the Chalk country, particularly in
Berkshire and Wiltshire. Stonehenge chiefly composed of it, and
found on the spot. No doubt close resemblance to the siliceous
cement of the Hertfordshire Puddingstone.
1847. J. Prestwich. The position of the Sarsen Stones in the
Bagshot Sands: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. iii, p. 882. In the
Lower Bagshot Sands, “a few concretionary masses of saccharine
sandstone, which are more compact and harder than those in the
Upper Sands,” and by no means so abundant. “ Sandstone
concretions at o” in the diagram, fig. 3, of Frimley Ridge, in the
Upper Sands, at p. 382.
1876. The Sarsens in the artificially picturesque rockery of the
waterfall at the east end of Virginia Water are said to have been
brought from the neighbouring heath ; and those of the adjoining
eavern or grotto from a cromlech there. Murray’s ‘‘ Handbook of
Surrey,” 2nd ed., p. 137. ;
1895. A Sarsen-stone footbridge over a streamlet at Frimley
Green, Surrey, carries the footpath from the fields on one side of the
stream that runs down a lane, to the path along the other side of
the little stream, which runs beside the lane from Frimley Green,
and across some fields to the border of Surrey and Hants near the
Farnborough Station. The length of the bridge-stone is 4} or
5 feet; the width is about 24 feet equally all along; thickness
116 Professor T. Rupert Jones—History of Sarsens.
varies from 6 to 9 inches. The stones supporting the bridge and
bank are laid regularly ; they are all Sarsens, and others lie about
irregularly. One lies near the fence just beyond the path on the
further side of the bridge.—C. T. R. Jones.
1898. H. W. Monckton, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. liv.
pp. 185-198, treating of some gravels in the Bagshot district, notes
that Sarsens occur at the base of these gravels, which are of the
Glacial Period, and were probably of fluviatile origin. Sarsens-
with rootlet marks occur at Hasthampstead. He doubts if any
Sarsens occur in the Upper Bagshots, and supposes that probably
most were derived from the Woolwich and Reading Sands. All the
Sarsens must have been water-worn, or weather-worn before they
were left in the gravel.
N.B.—At Camberley, in North Surrey, a Sarsen having a partial
polish on one of its sides was noticed, and the polish is ascribed to
the contact and rubbing of the dried stems of grasses and other
plants (with siliceous tissue) moved by the wind.—T. R. J.
In Buckinghamshire Mr. Upfield Green, F.G.S., has observed both
pebbles and prominences on puddingstones, smoothed and ‘polished,
on the sides of water holes, in the Brickearth near Great Missenden.
1900. Sarsen at Ballard’s Farm, Croydon, a white saccharoidal
sandstone with siliceous cement. Dr. G. J. Hinde has kindly given
me the following notes on this large typical Sarsen near Croydon,
which is visited by geological classes from London. Its dimensions
are: length 4 ft. 10ins.; width at one end 2 ft. 9ins., at the other
2 feet ; thickness at one end 1 ft. 8 ins., at the other 11 inches, and at
another place 14 inches. It lies in a grass field on Ballard’s Farm,
on the south side of the bridle-path leading from Ballard’s Lodge to
the Addington Hills; and near to the outcrop of the sand-and-
pebble beds of the Woolwich and Reading Series, of which indeed
it is probably a concreted portion, like the similar blocks in the
Caterham Valley.
(10) Hampshire.-—1862. Captain H. Biundell (Staff College)
noticed a large Sarsen in a ploughed field, about 4 miles from
Winchester and 1 mile from Martyr Westley Rectory. It is 12 feet
long, 10 broad, and 8 deep, ‘‘and bears a strong polish on a great
part of one side,” glaciated or polished by the friction of siliciferous
stems of wheat. “The other side is hollowed out apparently
by water.” ?
1898. Mr. A. H. Salter has seen a Sarsen in the gravel at Lee-on-
the-Solent (Stubbington): Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. liv, p. 194.
(11) Berkshire-—1787. Daines Barrington made some remarks
on the Greywethers in Berkshire (Archeologia, iii, p. 442).
1818. In W. Mavor’s “ Report on the Agriculture of Berkshire,”
1818, at pp. 34, 35. The Sarsen Stones, or Greywethers as the
country people call them, are irregularly scattered over the Berk-
shire and Wiltshire Downs. They are pretty numerous in a valley
near Ashdown Park and on the road from thence to Lambourn.
1 See also Lieut.-Col. Nicolls on “‘ Sarsens,’’? Southampton, 1866: Grou. Mace.,.
Vol. IIL, pp. 296-298, Pl. XIII.
J
Professor T. Rupert Jones—History of Sarsens. 117
1854. T. Rupert Jones, in a lecture on the Geology of Newbury,
treated of the occurrence of “the great blocks of Druidstone,
Greywethers, or Sarsen-stones as the only remaining wreck of the
Lower Tertiaries of this area”; and further broken up in the gravel
of the vicinity.
1869. J. Adams, in a lecture on the Geology of Newbury
(newspaper, December, 1869), referred to a traditional trace of an
ancient cromlech near Hangmanstone, for people say that there
was a cave made of large stones, but it was pulled to pieces by
the farmer.
1869. The Sarsens of Berkshire now existing as relics of pre-
historic monuments, especially in Wayland Smith’s Cave, and the
groups in Ashdown Park, are the subject of a paper by Mr. A. L.
Lewis in the Trans. Internat. Congress of Prehistoric Archzol. at
Norwich, 1869, pp. 37-46. See also Fergusson’s ‘“‘Rude Stone
Monuments,” 1872, pp. 121, ete.
1887. Mr. Walter Money, F.S.A., referring to Sarsen Stones
in letters, notes that a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for
1760 mentions that two Roman milliaria or milestones were to be
seen near Aldworth ; and this statement is confirmed by Hearne,
Rowe Mores, and other authors. ‘‘These milliaria are now to be
seen” (says the writer in the Gent. Mag.) “between Streteley
and Alder, one of which lies a mile from Streteley, and by country
people is supposed to be placed by the Giants (as they call them) in
Alder [Aldworth] Church.” He refers to the monumental effigies of
the De la Beche family. A few years ago I investigated this subject
for the late Mr. Thompson Watkin, of Liverpool, and found that one
of these milliaria stood, not so many years ago, between Westridge
Farm (two miles from Streatley) and Aldworth, in a bank, and
that it was a large Sarsen Stone; and another I heard of as being
seen in Kiddington Bottom, one mile west of Streatley. One of
these, I learned, had been broken up for road-metal, and the other
was said to have been taken away by a gentleman at Wallingford
to be placed on his lawn.
Another statement is that many years ago the stone was taken
from its original position by the side of the Roman via from
Westridge to Streatley, and removed to a more convenient spot
about a quarter of a mile distant, where probably it still remains.
This stone, of gigantic size, was removed by the occupter of the
farm at Westridge with a team of eight horses. __
There is still a very large Sarsen Stone by the side of the Roman
way from Newbury to Streatley, between Hampstead Norris and
Aldworth, which was probably used as a milliarium. It is curious
that in Brittany and other places on the Continent, as well as in
England, where prehistoric stone structures are found, that there
are stories of the imprints of giants’ hands or feet, as the Friar’s
Heel at Stonehenge; and there is a story told at Aldworth at
the present day, that one of these milliaria (that in Kiddington
Bottom), between Aldworth and Streatley, had been thrown hither
by one of the Aldworth giants, and that the print of the giant’s
118 Professor T. Rupert Jones—History of Sarsens.
hand, made when he grasped the stone, may yet be distinctly
seen. This corroborates the writer of the account in the Gent. Mag.
of 1760.
Last year, on going over the Lambourn Downs, I was struck by
seeing a huge Sarsen Stone, evidently roughly squared, about 5 feet
out of the ground, by the side of the road. It has every appearance
of a milestone of the last century; and on examining its face next
to the road, I found that a flat face or panel had been cut as if to
receive a plate or letters; but neither Mr. Barnes, who was with
me, nor myself could trace any letters at all. There is little doubt
that this is a Roman milestone, as this ancient road leads direct to
Uffington Castle and White-horse Hill. This stone is called
‘Hangman’s Stone,’ the same story being told about it as of the
Hangmanstone near Chaddleworth, and about similar stones else-
where in England. The stone (4’ 6” long, 1’ wide, and 1’ 6” high
at each end) in Hangmanstone Lane is lying down, but the Lambourn
stone is vertical as with ordinary milestones. It is not known as
a boundary stone.
There are a great number of Sarsen Stones in the neighbourhood
of Ashbury, at the western extremity of Berks, on the northern
slope of the Downs, where they enter this county from Wiltshire ;
and it is singular that hamlets in this parish have the names of
Id-stone, Od-stone, and King-stone Winslow, and just beyond is
the parish of Bishop-stone (Wilts). Possibly the boundaries of
these places were indicated by stones, presumably Sarsens, from
their being so abundant at hand.
At Lambourn the boundary wall of the churchyard is built of
Sarsens; some of them are 5 feet in height. Others are used as
stepping-stones and for margins in the Bourn at Upper Lambourn.
Large Sarsens are still visible close to some old churches, as at
Compton Beauchamp, Hast Shefford, and Merlstone, a tithing of
Bucklebury ; and they may be remains of material accumulated
for pagan temples, at places now occupied by Christian churches.
“There was, and probably is, a row or avenue of Sarsen Stones
in Whiteknights Park, Reading, leading to the Wilderness, which
were said to have been supplied by the Kennet River Navigation,
in early times, from the neighbourhood of Hungerford and
Marlborough.”—W. M.
1887. J. R. Hedges. There are many Sarsen Stones collected
by Mr. Hedges for grotto-work at Wallingford Castle. Some are
perforated by rootlet marks.
1887. Numerous Sarsens, small and of irregular shape (probably
from the gravel in the neighbourhood), are arranged around a flower-
bed at Theale Railway Station.—T. R. J.
Dr. Silas Palmer noted several large Sarsens observable at Hill
Green, about 1 mile west of Leckhampstead Street, which is 6 miles
nearly north of Winterbourne, 1 mile south-west of Peasemore,
and about 2 miles north-east of Poughley in Welford Wood, and
2 miles north-east of the Hangmanstone in Hangmanstone Lane.
These are cared for by Mr. Harold Peake, of Westbrook House,
Professor T. Rupert Jones—History of Sarsens. 119
Boxford ; and Mr. Walter Money regards them as probably remnants
of a chambered Long Room.
1887. In 1887 a buried or subterranean group of large Sarsens
was discovered by Mr. Robert Walker at Middle Hole, a quarter
of a mile north-west of Middle Farm,! about 2 miles north of
Lambourn. Mr. F. J. Bennett (of the Geological Survey) gives the
following description in his letters :—
A large leaning or nearly prostrate stone at the top of the group
of stones had probably once been vertical, but had fallen down.
The stones had been placed in a round pit-like hole, extending at
least 10 feet north and south of the central stone (once upright).
A square excavation, more than 20 feet deep, was made, and some
hundred Sarsens were taken out, weighing from a quarter to six
hundredweight each ; and there were left in the hole some stones of
from 3 to 7 tons weight. In the hole the stones were in three
irregular piles. The central heap rested on a very large flat stone ;
the others were at the two sides. The intervals were occupied by
a stiff reddish clay with pottery, burnt and broken bones, wood-
ashes, and burnt earth. There is a large flat stone lying in the
valley not far off.
This north and south valley, or rather combe, in which this
accumulation of Sarsens was found, has been cut down by
denudation through the ‘Chalk-rock’ and the ‘Melbourne Rock,’
both recognizable in the side-slopes, and is floored with ‘ chalk-
rubble.’
This does not appear to be one of the deep, well-like pits, lined
with stones, tiles, clay, or wood, excavated for the purpose of
marking boundaries in Roman times. It may have been sepulchral ;
for Thomas Wright, in his “ Wanderings of an Antiquary, chiefly in
the track of the Romans in Britain,” 1894, pp. 176-178, describes
in detail some large circular pits that have been filled with flints,
and capped with broad Sarsens, on Aylesford Common ; these, he
thought, were probably sepulchral, and may have had a chamber
opening out of the side at the bottom. (See ante, p. 119.)
1892. “A trail of large blocks of sarsenstone 18 prolonged by
Hagbourne village to a line about 100 feet lower, on to the outcrop
of the Upper Greensand. Other slopes along these Downs exhibit
similar trails of sarsenstone.” (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., xlviii,
1892, p. 3138.) | i
At Newbury, Sarsens are frequent in the ‘ pitched crossings of
pavements at openings of yards; some are paved with squared setts.
Worn, subangular, small Sarsens are plentiful in the gravel-pit
south of the town.—T. R. J.
1896. W. Whitaker refers to the Sarsens at Streatley : Proc.
Geol. Assoc., vol. xiv, p. 176. re
(12) Wiltshire —1767. Sir Joseph Banks, in his “ Journal of an
Excursion to Eastbury and Bristol, etc., in May and June, 176%
(reproduced with notes by 8. G. Perceval in the Proceedings of
1 Referred to at p. 149 of pt. i, 1886.
120 Professor T. Rupert Jones—History of Sarsens.
the Bristol Naturalists’ Society, new series, vol. ix, pt. i, 1898),
refers to the Sarsen Stones as follows: ‘‘Observed between Silbury
and Marlborough the Stones called Grey weathers, which in one
particular valley were scattered about in great numbers on the
surface of the ground. The people in that neighbourhood were
breaking great numbers of them, either to mend the roads or build
houses, which gave me an opportunity of examining them and
bringing away some pieces, which I found to be of a very hard
and fine-grained Sand Stone. Whether it is found in beds in any
part of this countrey I will not venture to say, but remember that
some time ago, in seeing General Conway’s place near Henley
[| Oxfordshire], I saw a large heap of such stones, some of them of an
immense size; and, on asking where they were got from, was told
that they were found scattered all over that countrey, lying on the
stratum over the Chalk at different depths, and that those I saw had
been got together, at a large expence, for some work to be done in
the General’s grounds—I think a bridge.”
N.B.—This heap of large Sarsens must not be confused with the
dolmen from Jersey reconstructed by General Conway in his
grounds in the same locality, for the latter was necessarily only
of granitic and such like rocks, native to Jersey. See also ‘The
Channel Islands,” by W. T. Austin & R. G. Latham, 1862;
J. Fergusson’s “Rude Stone Monuments,” 1872, pp. 51, 52; and
W. C. Lukis in the Trans. Internat. Congress Prehistoric Archzol.
Norwich, 1869, p. 221.
1883. In the Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. ciii, p. 542, is a notice
of a paper read by Dr. G. T. Clark to the Bristol Philosophical
Society, in which he alludes to the ‘“Greyweathers” as being
‘scattered over the Chalky Downs of Wiltshire.”
1868. W.H. Hudleston, in the Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. vii, p. 188,
gives a succinct account of the four kinds of stones that constitute
the concentric rings of Stonehenge. The huge Sarsens composing
the outer ring he described as consisting of a compact quartzose
rock, derived from the Tertiary Sands. ‘‘'These are, in fact, siliceous
doggers or concretionary slabs of enormous size, which have hardened
én siti [in their original beds], and have resisted the atmospheric
agencies of destruction. Several fragments were picked up of this
material, which seemed to bear the marks of roots or something
of the sort. It is by no means improbable, therefore, that the
decomposition of vegetable matter, and consequent formation of
humus, and the various organic acids which arise from its gradual
alteration into carbonic acid, may have had something to do with
the coneretionary action. The influence of these organic acids on
silica has been the subject of interesting investigations in America.”
1871. Dr. Joseph Stevens, “On the Geology of North Hamp-
shire,” mentions the occurrence of a Greywether grindstone at
St. Mary Bourne, Wilts. (Trans. Newbury District Field Club,
vol. i, p. 86.)
1874. ©. E. Davy, in a paper contributed to the Newbury
District Field Club, “Letcombe Castle,” 1874, p. 23, describes
Professor T. Rupert Jones—History of Sarsens. 121
a naturally-shaped, angular, pyramidal, water-worn fragment of
Sarsen Stone as a prehistoric sacred stone.
1876. A critical account of the lithology of Stonehenge, by
N. Story Maskelyne, was published in the Wilts Archzol. Nat.
Hist. Soc. Mag., vol. xvii, pp. 149, etc.
1881. With regard to the carrying and raising large blocks of
stone, the late Dr. V. Ball gave details and an illustrative plate of
the method used among the hill-tribes of India. (‘* Economic Geology
of India,” 1881, p. 544, pl. vili; see also note in Pt. i, 1886, p. 125.)
1887. In a Reading newspaper (July 29, 1887) it was stated
that at Wardour Castle “the picturesque grounds are ornamented
with a pretty grotto and rockery, constructed from a number of
curious-shaped stones, which formed a prehistoric circle at Tetbury,”
said to have been at or near Place Farm. This circular work is
recorded as having had a large central stone, 12 feet high and 4 feet
wide. (Britton’s Topog. and Hist. Descript. Wilts, 1814; and
W. H. Jones, Wilts Mag., vol. vii, 1863.)
1887. The Stones of Stonehenge were the subject of Mr. W.
Whitaker’s remarks in the Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. ix, p. 580.
“Dividing them roughly into two sets, the natives and the foreigners
(the former, of course, being the bigger), the latter are mostly of
igneous rocks, and must have been brought from a long distance ;
the largest of these, the altar stone, is a sandstone, but unlike any
sandstone of the neighbourhood. The natives are all greywether-
sandstone, or Sarsen stones which have been shown to be derived
from some of the older Tertiary beds, here probably from the
Bagshot Sand, which in these western parts comes nearer to the
Chalk than further east. Their occurrence, therefore, points to
a vast denudation of Tertiary beds, masses of clays and sands, that
once spread far and wide over the now bare plateau of Chalk,
having been slowly swept away, leaving behind only those hardened
parts of the sands, that could withstand the denuding agents, as
witnesses of the former extension of the beds.” ; ie
1890. ‘Treating of some constructions by a prehistoric (Neolithic)
people in Wiltshire, Mr. F. J. Bennet alludes to the abundant local
occurrence of Sarsens (‘Sketch History of Marlborough in Neolithic
Times,” March, 1892, pp. 4,8). He also indicates how Sarsens were
used by the Neolithic folk in the boundary walls of the terraces of
cultivatable ground in Wiltshire. That they were used afterwards
in the building of houses, castles, churches, ete., 1s well known.
1894. Pebbles and flint-breccia in some Sarsens from Marlborough
Forest in Professor Prestwich’s collection, seen July, 1594. ‘
1896. From Avebury a_ white saccharoidal sandstone, with
siliceous cement, and containing an irregular, coarse, brush-like
group of sub-parallel, tubular, and filamentous cavities, probably
due to rootlets, stained with iron oxide.—F. Chapman.
1901. The block that fell this Winter at Stonehenge contains
a layer of flints. It is No. 17 L (the lintel) of the map of Stonehenge
by the Archeological Society of Wiltshire. —W. Cunnington,
January 9, 1901.
122 Professor T. Rupert Jones—History of Sarsens.
(18) Dorset.—1842. J. Sydenham: “Baal Durotrigensis =
A Dissertation on the Antient Colossal Figure at Cerne, Dorset-
shire, etc.,”” 1842. In a footnote at p. 18, the Sarsens at Little
Mayne (referred to at pp. 186 and 161 of my paper in the Wilts
Mag., 1886) are recognized as relics of circles and parts of avenues.
1871. KE. H. W. Dukin, “ Megalithic Remains in South Dorset,”
in the Relig. Quart. Archeol. Journ. and Review, 1871,
pp. 12-15 (separate copy), refers to the stones at Little Mayne.
Mr. C. Warne also (1872) notices those old stones in his “ Antient
Dorset,” quoting Sydenham’s “ Baal Durotrigensis.”
1871. Poxwell, Pogswell, or Pockswell, is a village about
5 miles north-east of Weymouth, on the Wareham Road, and at
about a quarter of a mile south-east of the church is a small circle
of rough Sarsens, brown in colour, with much quartz-crystals in
cavities. The stones are much split on the surfaces in squarish
irregular segments, with something like gaping fissures. (Dukin,
1871, and T. R. J. 1887.)
Amongst the Sarsens of Dorset, many of them now relics of
ancient structures, but originally scattered over the surface of the
country, there are evidently many conglomerates. The grooved,
or probably holed and broken, stone at Tennant Hill Circle, consists
of a “hard puddingstone or conglomerate” (Dukin, 1871, p. 12).
The circle at Winterbourne Abbas is described (ibid., pp. 4 and 5),
partly after Stukeley; and it is stated there are “ten stones of
a very hard sort, full of flints; the tallest to west eight feet high,
the north seven feet broad, six feet high” (op. cit., p. 5). The
usual ridiculous belief in devil handiwork still exists in Dorset
and Cornwall (op. cit., p. 9).
1887. At Fordington Green, Dorchester, at the east end, at the
corner of a house bearing the Ordnance Survey Bench-mark, is
a Sarsen; the top is three-faced (4 feet where widest, and 2 ft. 7 ins.
high), the sides rounded. This stone some people removed not very
long ago, but others had it brought back and replaced.—T. R. J.
(14) Somerset.—1888. Many Sarsens in the country around
Taunton along the roads and lanes, and in villages at corners, farm-
gates, etc.
In the Castle grounds at Taunton, in the gardens of the
Archeological Society, there is a Sarsen that has been set up as
a memorial stone to one of their officers. It is somewhat triangular
in outline, 4 ft. 6 ins. high, and 6 ft. Zins. at its widest part near the
base. Smoothly rounded and irregularly pitted on one face, and flat
(apparently split) on the other. It bears a tablet with inscription
to the memory of W. A. Jones, who was Secretary to the Society for
20 years. It also refers to the donation for buying the grounds for
the Society, made by the friends of Mr. W. A. Jones.—W. Bidgood.
1888. Numerous Sarsens are passed on the road from Taunton
for about 10 miles to Staple Fitzpaine, where in a hedge-bank are
several such stones, one of which, 5 feet long, and 4 feet high or
thick, above ground, with its surface rounded and water-worn, is
locally known as the ‘ Devil’s Stone’; for, having knowledge of the
Professor T. Rupert Jones—History of Sarsens. 123
intended building of a church there, he gathered a few rocks as he
came thither, but, getting tired, slept on the bank, until he awoke
in the morning, and to his astonishment saw the fine tower of the
church already up and finished. In his hurry to get up, his satchel
broke, the stones fell out, and one in particular remains there now!
This is the most western of the Sarsens that I know of.—T. R. J.
The microscopic structure of a piece of one of the blocks at or
near Staple Fitzpaine, which had the appearance of a Sarsen, is thus
described by Mr. Fred. Chapman, A.L.S.:—‘“ This rock is largely
composed of angular and subangular chips of quartz and chert,
cemented by a kind of paste of fine quartz sand and limonite.
The included fragments are very variable in size, the angular
predominating over the subangular. <A fair proportion of the
fragments are of secondary quartz; some clear, others with strings
of gas-cavities. There are a few chips of a somewhat brecciated
rock, not unlike a decomposed rhyolite in character. There is at
least one fragment of flint in the section examined. The chert
fragments, possibly of Cenomanian age, contain a few examples of
Globigerina cretacea. One of the larger pieces included in this
Sarsen (?) is a chert, crowded with Radiolaria, in a generally good
state of preservation, some of the organisms bearing long spines
beset with smaller spines. Dr. G. J. Hinde, who has been good
enough to examine the slide, thinks that there is not enough
evidence for the identification of genera, but that the chert 1s most
probably of Paleozoic age.”
1888. In the Museum of the Bath Institute I saw a somewhat
water-worn block of light-coloured saccharoidal sandstone, looking
very much like a Sarsen; chips of this stone show an ochreous tint
and siliceous cement. The Rev. H. H. Winwood, F.G.S., Honorary
Curator of the Museum, informs me that it came from the Victoria
Gravel-pit, on the right of the Somerset and Dorset Railway, where
the road crosses the line at South Hill. It measures 33 inches in
length, 16 inches where it is broadest, and 4 to 7 inches in thickness.
With other similar blocks it lay at the base of the gravel on the blue
Lias clay. At first he was inclined to regard it as having been
derived from the Millstone Grit of the Wick and Bristol district ;
but he has since seen sarsenic pebbles and blocks in the Gravel, and
he noticed a large Sarsen at the Westbury Ironworks. Near Down-
head, in the Mendips, he has observed numerous siliceous blocks
having the appearance of Sarsens ; but others just like them, lying
on the north slope of the Mendips at Ashwick, conta Liassic fossils.
Great caution, therefore, is necessary in determining these somewhat
similar siliceous blocks of Paleozoic, Secondary, and Tertiary age
respectively.—H. H. W. ; ‘
(15) Devon.—In 1822 Dr. Buckland described the large, isolated,
siliceous blocks, scattered about on the hills near Sidmouth, as being
much like the Hertfordshire Puddingstone, but having the included
flint “mostly angular” and not rounded. In 1826 he referred to
these in Devon, and others in Dorset and elsewhere, as being the
same as the recognized Greywethers. (Trans. Geol. Soc., ser. U,
vol. ii, pp. 126, 127.)
124 Professor T. Rupert Jones—History of Sarsens.
Brstiograruic List or WoRKS TREATING OF SARSENS,
Corrected, Enlarged, and Continued from the Wilts DMag., 1886,
pp. 185, 154.
1644. Richard Symonds’ Diary of the Marches kept by the Royal Army, etc.
Edited by C. E. Long for the Camden Society, 1859, p. 151.
1656-84. John Aubrey’s Nat. Hist. Wiltshire. Edited by J. Britton, 1847, p. 44.
1656-84. John Aubrey. The Topographical Collections, etc., by J. E. Jackson,
1862, p. 314. :
1673. Marlosreneh Corporation Accounts, by F. A. Carrington. Wiltshire
Archeological and Natural History Society’s Magazine, vol. ili (1857),
Dood bile
1787. Deinies Barrington. Archzeologia, vol. viii, p. 442.
1813. W.Mavor. Report on the Agriculture of Berkshire, pp. 34, 39.
1814. T. Webster. Trans. Geol. Soc. London, vol. ii, pp. 224, 225.
1819. G. B. Greenough. Critical Examination of the First Principles of Geology,
pp. 112 and 293.
1823. W. Buckland. Reliquiz Diluviane, p. 248.
1833. W. D. Conybeare and G. T. Clark. Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. ciii,
pt. 2, p. 452.
1833. G. A. Mantell. Geology of the South-East of England, pp. 48-40.
1836. W. Buckland and H. De la Beche. Trans. Geol. Soc., ser. 11, vol. iv, p. 4.
1847. J. Prestwich. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. iii, p. 382.
1852-8. W. Cunnington. Devizes Gazette, June, 1852, and June, 1853. Quoted
by W. Long, Wilts Mag., vol. iv (1858), p. 334, ete.
1854. J. Prestwich. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. (paper read May, 1853), vol. x,
p- 128, ete.
1854. T. R. Jones. Lecture on the Geological History of the Vicinity of Newbury,
Berks, p. 21.
1858. W. ene On Abury. Wilts Mag., vol. iv, p. 334, etc., quoting
W. Cunnington.
1858. A.C. Ramsay and others. Mem. Geol. Surv., Explan. Sheet 34, p. 41, etc.
1859. A. C. Ramsay and others. Catal. Rock-Specimens, etc., Mus. Pract.
Geol., 2nd ed., p. 288.
1859. G.P. Scrope. Wilts Mag., vol. v, p. 110.
1859. J. L. Ross (quoting R. Faulkner). Ibid., p. 168.
1860. R. Hunt. Mem. Geol. Surv. Great Britain, Mining Statistics, p. 167.
1861. E. Hull, W. Whitaker, and others. Mem. Geol. Surv., Explan. Sheet 13,
. 47, ete.
1862. H. Wonton and W. Whitaker. Ibid., Explan. Sheet 12, p. 51, ete.
1862. A. C. Ramsay and others. Catal. Rock-Specimens, etc., Mus. Pract.
Geol., 3rd ed., p. 163.
1862. W. Whitaker. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xviii, p. 271, etc.
1862. W.H. Bensted. Geologist, vol. v, pp. 449, 450.
1868. Q. Fisher. Geologist, vol. vi, p. 30.
1864. W. Whitaker. Mem. Geol. Surv., Explan. Sheet 7, p. 71, etc.
1865. T. Codrington. Wilts Mag., vol. ix, p. 167, ete.
1866. W. Long (quoting W. Cunnington’s paper of 1865, which was not printed
in full). Wilts Mag., vol. x, p. 71, ete.
1866. A.C. Smith. Wilts Mag., vol. x, p. 52, ete.
1866. W.T. Nicolls. Gzou. Mac., Vol. III, p. 296, etc.
1867. G. Maw. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxiii, pp. 110, 112, 118.
1868. J. Adams. Lecture on the Geology of the Country around Newbury.
Newbury News, December, 1868.
1869. A. L. Lewis. Trans. Internat. Congress Prehist. Archol. for 1868, p. 43.
1869. John Adams. Wilts Mag., vol. xi, pp. 274, 277, ete.
1869. W.Cunnington. Ibid., p. 348.
1869. Anon. (Stukeley’s notes.) Ibid., p. 344.
1870. ‘'T. Codrington. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soe., vol. xxv, p. 535.
1871. J. Adams. Trans. Newbury District Field Club, vol. i, pp. 104-107, 151.
1872. J. Fergusson. Rude Stone Monuments, pp. 92, 95.
1872. W. Whitaker. Mem. Geol. Surv., vol. iv, pp. 309, 323, etc.
1873.
1873.
1874.
1874.
1874.
1875.
1875.
1875.
1876.
1876.
1876.
1876.
1876.
1878.
1878.
1880.
1881.
1881.
1882.
1883.
1884.
1885.
1884.
1885.
1886.
1886.
1887.
1887.
1888.
1891.
1894.
1896.
1897.
1897.
1898.
1898.
1898.
1898.
1898.
1900.
1900.
1900.
1901.
A. R. Hunt—The Age of the Earth. 125.
J. Adams. Gron. Mac., Vol. X, p. 198, ete.
T. O. Ward. Grou. Maa., Vol. X, p. 425.
Joseph Stevens. Twenty-first Annual Report, Brighton and Sussex Nat.
Hist. Soc., p. 14, etc. (read October 9th, 1874).
R. Flalkner]. Gzou. Mac., Dec. II, Vol. I, p. 96.
Bryan King. (Stukeley’s notes.) Wilts Mag., vol. xiv, p. 230.
Joseph Stevens. Journ. Proc. Winchester and Hampshire Scient. Lit.
Soc., vol. i, pt. 4, p. 224, etc. (read March 9th, 1874).
Joseph Stevens. Report of the Marlborough College Nat. Hist. Soc.
T. Rupert Jones. Gron. Mac., Dec. II, Vol. II, p. 588.
T. Rupert Jones. Ibid., Vol. III, p. 523.
N. Story Maskelyne. Wilts Archivol. and Nat. Hist. Soc. Mag., vol. xvii,
p- 149. ;
E. T. Stevens. Jottings on Stonehenge, etc. (privately printed),
pp. 128, 204, ete. :
W. Long (quoting Symonds, 1644). Wilts Mag., vol. xvi, p. 68, ete.
H. B. Woodward. Geology of England and Wales, pp. 252, 363;
2nd ed. (1887), p. 449.
A. C. Ramsay. Phys. Geol. Geogr. Gt. Brit., 5th ed., p. 350.
T. Rupert Jones. Trans. Newbury Dist. Field Club, vol. ii, p. 248.
A. Irving. Nat. Hist. Sandhurst, pp. 80, 87.
J. A. Phillips. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxxvii, p. 18.
T. Rupert Jones. Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. vi, pp. 330, 436-7.
A. Geikie. Textbook of Geology, p. 342; 2nd ed. (1885), p. 329.
W. H. Hudleston. Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. vii, p. 138.
A. C. Smith. Guide to the Antiquities of North Wilts, pp. 27, 28, 127-9,
134, 150, 211.
W. Carruthers. Guox. Mac., Dec. III, Vol. IT, p. 361, ete.
A. Irving. Report Brit. Assoc. Meeting in 1883, p. 505.
A. Irving. Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. viii, pp. 156-160.
W. Whitaker. Geology of the Country around Ipswich, Hadleigh, and
Felixstowe, pp. 9, 15, 16, 94, etc. Mem. Geol. Surv.
T. Rupert Jones. History of the Sarsens. Wilts Archieol. and Nat. Hist.
Soc. Mag., No. 68, December, 1886, vol. xxiii, pp. 122-154.
A. Irvine. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xliii, p. 380.
W. Whitaker. Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. ix, p. 430.
T. G. Bonney. Guo. Mae., Dec. III, Vol. V, p. 300.
H. B. Woodward. Grou. Mac., Dec. III, Vol. VIII, pp. 101-121.
J. Prestwich’s Collection. Conglomerate and Flint Breccia from Marl-
borough.
W. Whitaker. Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xiv, p. 175.
Percy Richards. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. lini, pp. 421, 426.
A. Irving. Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xv, p. 196.
A. Irving. Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xv, p. 236.
A. E. Salter. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. liv, p. 194.
H. W. Monckton. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. liv, pp. 185-195.
W. Whitaker. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. liv, p. 193.
W. H. Shrubsole. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. liv, p. 194.
H. W. Monckton. Proc. Croydon Micros. and Nat. Hist. Club, p. xv.
T. E. Lones. Trans. Herts Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. x, pp. 160, 162.
_H. B. Woodward. Gron. Mac., Dec. IV, Vol. VII, p. 543.
J. W. Judd. Gzot. Mac., Dec. IV, Vol. VIII, p. 1.
Vil.—Tuer Ace or tHe EARTH AND THE SopiumM OF THE Sra.!
By Arruur R. Hunt, M.A., F.G.S8.
ROFESSOR J. JOLY. in his interesting paper estimating the
geological age of the earth from the amount of sodium
contained in the sea,! mentions in an appendix seven possible errors
which may render his estimate a minimum, and seven others which
may render it a maximum. Neither among the former errors
1 Trans. Roy. Dublin Soc., vol. vii (1899), p. 23.
(126 A. R. Hunt—The Age of the Earth.
guarded against in the appendix, nor in the body of the paper,
does there appear any reference to the possibility of sea-water being
absorbed by the surface rocks of the globe, either by capillary
attraction, as maintained by Daubrée, or by means of fissures, as
contended by De la Beche.
The possibility—nay, the probability—of sea-water obtaining
access to the deep-seated and heated regions of the globe was
admitted by Lyell, De la Beche, and Daubrée, and by other
eminent geologists; and although to a large extent neglected at the
present time, the arguments in favour of the hypothesis seem
worth considering.
My own attention was attracted to the subject as follows :—From
1879 to 1889 inclusive, I wrote seven papers on the detached blocks
which lie strewn on the bottom of the English Channel. The
primary object of the enquiry was to ascertain whether the blocks
represented a prolongation of the Dartmoor granite, as commonly
supposed, and whether they were in any way related to the meta-
morphic rocks of the neighbouring headlands of the Start, the
Prawle, and the Bolt.
I commenced the investigation in the full expectation that the
connection with Dartmoor would be proved at once.
I secured thirty-four crystalline rocks from the Channel, and
a large collection from Dartmoor. Not a single speck of tourmaline
or crystal of chloride of sodium did I detect in the twenty granites
and gneisses from the Channel; while not a single slice from
Dartmoor failed to indicate chlorides, and very few of the Dartmoor
rocks from which they were cut (if any) were without tourmaline.
The fluid inclusions in the Channel rocks were of a different type
from those in the Dartmoor rocks. The two series of rocks seemed
absolutely distinct.
This most unexpected result greatly excited my curiosity, and
T sought to find some explanation. Finally, in 1889, I hazarded the
suggestion that sea-water had gained access to the Dartmoor granite
in Carboniferous times; and in 1892, after an examination of the
South Devon schists, I, for entirely different reasons, threw out
the suggestion that they also had been influenced by the presence of
sea-water during their metamorphosis.
These suggestions were not only almost universally rejected by
geologists, but they caused considerable umbrage, so I discontinued
the enquiry, and put away my microscope.
However, before bringing my own work to a conclusion, I
examined the older authorities, and found that both Lyell and
De la Beche maintained the hypothesis that sea-water reached the
heated rocks, and that subsequently the late Mr. J. A. Phillips and
M. Daubrée were of the same opinion; and, strange to say, they all
had different reasons for their belief. My own conclusions were also
based on entirely independent evidence; and, indeed, so far as
appears from the records, all the observers thought out the problem
independently from different points of view. Lyell relied on the
steam emitted by volcanoes, De la Beche appealed to his mineral
A. R. Hunt—The Age of the Earth. 127
veins, Phillips pointed to hot salt-springs transforming the rocks at
considerable though accessible depths, Daubrée relied on experiment,
while I have been impressed by the characteristics of the vein rocks
of Dartmoor with their abundant sodium (as chloride and silicate),
and with the chlorite, amphibole, and albite of the green schists.
The conclusions of De la Beche seem the most noteworthy, seeing
that he was necessarily ignorant of the fact that the vein rocks of
Devon and Cornwall are charged with salt and brine. In 1839
that acute observer wrote—‘“‘ There is, therefore, nothing unreason-
able in supposing that a large proportion of the Cornish and Devon
fissures, now wholly or in part filled up, were opened either beneath
the sea or in such situations that portions of them were so placed
that it entered freely into them” (Report on Geology of Cornwall
and Devon, p. 378). Subsequently De la Beche cites an instance
of water filtrating through hard basalt, filling its internal cavities
with liquid, and setting up crystallization of ‘mesotype’ (loc. cit.,
p- 892). In 1851 De la Beche touches on the chemical combinations
of the chlorides in the fissures (Geol. Observer, p. 770).
In January, 1873, the late Mr. J. A. Phillips read a most interesting
paper to the Royal Society, which was subsequently communicated
to the Philosophical Magazine. In it the author discusses the
composition and origin of the waters of a salt-spring at Huel Seton
mine, with a chemical and microscopical examination of certain
rocks in its vicinity. The water is shown to be derived from the
sea, and to enter into chemical combination with the minerals of
the rocks through which it passes, producing brown hornblende,
pale-green actinolite, and chlorite. Another salt-spring, in the now
abandoned Huel Clifford mine, was 1,320 feet below the sea, and
issued at a temperature of 125° F. As Mr. Phillips does not refer
to De la Beche, he seems to have overlooked De la Beche’s views,
just as I unfortunately overlooked at first both De la Beche and
Phillips. The result, however, is that all three identical conclusions
were arrived at independently, and all on different grounds. Had
De la Beche lived to learn that the quartz in his fissures actually
contained brine and crystals of salt, and that the felspar of his veins,
instead of being the orthoclase of the main mass, was triclinic, and
more or less a soda-felspar, he would have realized with what
unerring sagacity he had hit his mark.
In 1880 Daubrée published his invaluable “ Géologie Expéri-
mentale,” of which work the third chapter is headed—*“ Expériences
sur la possibilité d’une enfiltration capillaire au travers des maticres
poreuses.”
Daubrée shows experimentally that bottom heat greatly accelerates
the passage of water through rocks in the face of a strong counter-
pressure of steam. He incidentally admits that such water may
be salt water, and that it would be capable of producing great
mechanical and chemical effects. But this is incidental; his object
is to explain the origin of voleanic steam, not to follow up the new
combinations of the sodium which the steam leaves behind in the
bowels of the earth.
128 R. B. Newton—Geology of the Malay Peninsula.
Lord Kelvin ' and Professor Joly agree in assuming that because
melted basalt is lighter than consolidated basalt the chilled surface
of a lava ocean would sink: Lord Kelvin further assumes that all
minerals crystallizing out of a melted basalt would also sink:
I would, however, venture to submit that the gases imprisoned
in the chilled surface layers would buoy them up, and that a good
many minerals, lighter than the magma, on rising to the surface
would form a scum or slag which, by blanketing the glowing lava,
would thereby check radiation. J have no especial interest in the
controversy as to the age of the Earth, and go no further than to
suggest that these points should be allowed their due weight in
the argument.
The application of the above sea-water hypothesis to the cases.
of Dartmoor and the schists is a somewhat intricate question, and
not worth discussing so long as the main principle is rejected.
VII.—Norrs on LitrERATURE BEARING UPON THE GEOLOGY OF
THE Matay PENINSULA; WITH AN AccounT oF A NEOLITHIC
IMPLEMENT FROM THAT COUNTRY.
By R. Buttew Newron, F.G.S., of the British Museum (Natural History).
N view of the interest lately shown by geologists and others.
engaged in the Malay Peninsula through Mr. H. F. Bellamy’s
discovery of Triassic Lamellibranchs in that area, a brief account of
the principal works on the geology of that portion of South-Hastern
Asia may prove of service. More particular reference will be made
to the sedimentary rocks, purely mineral papers being excluded
from consideration.
One of the earliest records on this subject is by William Jack,”
who in 1822 observed a red sandstone at Singapore which he regarded
as “the chief secondary rock ” of the district. He further mentioned
that the Island of Penang was entirely of granitic structure. Some-
what later the following remarks were made by J. Crawford:* “ At
Singapore a secondary formation is discoverable, and varieties of
sandstone and shale form the principal rocks, together with con-
glomerate, argillaceous sandstone and gray limestone.”
In 1847 Colonel James Low,* speaking of the same rock at
Singapore, stated that “the sandstone lies immediately under the
Oolitic beds, and would be therefore New Red Sandstone.” The
discovery of a bituminous coal on the southern coasts of the Island of
Junk-Ceylon off the Malay Peninsula was reported by J. R. Logan*
1 Trans. Victoria Inst., vol. xxxi, p. 24.
2 W. Jack, “ Notice respecting the Rocks of the Islands of Penang and Singapore”? :
Trans. Geol. Soc. London, ser. 11, vol. i, pt. 1 (1822), p. 165.
3 J. Crawford, ‘‘ Geological Observations made on a Voyage from Bengal to Siam
and Cochin China”’: Trans. Geol. Soc. London, ser. 11, vol. i, pt. 2 (1824), p. 406.
4 Col. Jas. Low, ‘ Notes on the Geological Features of Singapore’’: Journ.
Indian Archipelago, vol. i (1847), p. 83.
5 J. R. Logan, ‘‘ Notice of the Discovery of Coal on one of the Islands on the
Coast of the Malay Peninsula ’’ : Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. iv (1848), pp. 1, 2.
‘On the Local and Relative Geology of Singapore, etc.’?: Journ, Asiatic Soc.
Bengal, vol. xyi (1847), pp. 519-557, 667-684. ‘‘Sketch of the Physical
R. B. Newton—Geology of the Malay Peninsula. 129
during the following year, but no geological age was assigned to the
material. This author likewise contributed a number of papers between
1847 and 1851 on the geology of the Malay region, dealing more
particularly with that division of it which embraces Singapore and
the adjacent islands. He observed that limestone, sandstone, and
clays are the predominating stratified rocks along the western coast
from Junk-Ceylon to Penang; and that argillo-micaceous and argil-
laceous schists, associated with sandstones and common clays and
shales of various colours, occur between Southern Selangor and Johore.
During 1879 Mr. Patrick Doyle! referred to the granitic rock
of the Malay Peninsula as being “overlain generally by sandstone,
and frequently also by laterite or cellular ironstone, and to the
north by limestone.”
In 1882 Mr. D. D. Daly * mentioned that “the alluvial tin deposits
permeate the whole length of the Malayan Peninsula” ; and among
other items of geological interest, the occurrence of limestone caves
at Batu in Selangor was pointed out. The following year Mr. A. H.
Keane* remarked that “as far as has been ascertained, the main
geological formations [of the Malay Peninsula] would appear to
be Lower Devonian sandstones and unfossilized clay-slates, with
a basis of stanniferous granite everywhere cropping out. Although
no trace has been found of recent volcanic action, there are several
isolated and unstratified limestone masses from 500 to 2,000 feet
high, of a highly crystallised character, with no fossils of any kind.”
In the same year M. J.-E. de la Croix‘ alluded to the presence of
three groups of rocks in the Perak district of the Malay Peninsula:
(a) the eruptive series, which constitute the mountain masses; (b) the
sedimentary beds, which occur at intervals in detached fragments ;
(c) the alluvium formation, which completely covers the plains.
The sedimentary strata are represented by sandstone and limestone,
both of which are unfossiliferous and consequently of unknown age,
although stated to be anterior to the granites, which are eruptive and
metamorphosed.
In 1884 the late Rev. J. E. Tenison- Woods’ referred to a “ Paleozoic
Geography and Geology of the Malay Peninsula’’?: Journ. Indian Archipelago,
vol. ii (1848), pp. 83-188. ‘‘ Notices of the Geology of the East Coast of Johore”’ :
Journ. Indian Archipelago, vol. ii (1848), p. 625. ‘* The Rocks of Pulo Ubin” :
Verhandel. Bataviaasch Genootsch. Kunst. Wetenschap., vol. xxii (1849)
[read 1847], pp. 3-43. ‘Five Days in Naning”: Journ. Indian Archipelago,
vol. iii (1849), p. 282. ‘‘ Notices of the Geology of the Straits of Simgapore”’ :
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. vii (1851), pp. 310-344, pl. xviii (=geological map).
1 Patrick Doyle, ‘‘On some Tin-deposits of the Malayan Peninsula ”’ : Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxxv (1879), p. 229. wT ;
2D. D. Daly, “ Surveys and Explorations in the Native States of the Malay
Peninsula ’’: Proc. Roy. Geogr. Soc., N.s., vol. iv (1882), pp. 393-412.
3 A. H. Keane: ‘‘ Malay Peninsula,” an article in the Encyclopedia Britannica,
9th ed. (1883), vol. xv, p. 321. ;
4 J.-E. de la Croix, ‘‘ Le Royaume de Perak ’’: Bull. Soc. Geogr. Paris, ser. vir,
vol. iv (1883), pp. 342-348, with a plate containing geological map and sections.
5 J. KE. Tenison- Woods, ‘‘ Geology of the Malaysan Peninsula’: Nature, vol. xxx
(1884), p. 76. ‘Physical Geography of the Malaysan Peninsula “ : Nature,
vol. xxxi (1884), p. 152. ‘The Geology of Malaysia, Southern China, etc.
Nature, vol. xxxiii (1886), p. 231.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. III. g
130 Rh. B. Newton—Geology of the Malay Peninsula.
sandstone clay-slate” in the Malay Peninsula which he thought had
not been previously noticed; and subsequently the same writer
described the country as an elevated granitic axis with Paleozoic
schists and slates at its base, mentioning also the occurrence of
detached masses of weathered limestone without fossils.
In speaking of the gold deposits of Pahang, Mr. H. M. Becher *
stated in 1893 that ‘“‘the gold-quartz formation of Pahang traverses
an extensive series of sedimentary rocks. . . . . These rocks,
probably of Paleozoic age, are for the most part thinly bedded
slates with some sandstones, and fewer dark-coloured, impure
limestone beds.” Alluvial beds of modern origin were also
referred to.
Dr. Koto? followed in 1899 with a brief allusion to this area,
and, quoting from a previous author, mentioned the occurrence of
“‘ granites, old-looking sandstones, and slates,” extending down to
Singapore.
Finally, the present writer * described and figured the Lamellibranch
remains discovered by Mr. H. F. Bellamy in a sandstone obtained on
the Pahang Trunk Road near the Lipis River. A study of this fauna
proved it to be of Upper Triassic age ( = Rhetic), the matrix being
termed a ‘Myophorian Sandstone,’ on account of the prevalence
of the genus Myophoria. These shells, the first recorded fossils
from the Malay Peninsula, were determined as under :—
Chlamys Valoniensis, Leymerie, sp. Mytilus allied to MW. minutus, Goldfuss.
Pteria Pahangensis, R. B. Newton. Myophoria ornata, Munster.
Gervillia inflata, Schafhautl. Myophoria inequicostata, Klipstein.
Pteroperna Malayensis, R. B. Newton. Myophoria Malayensis, R. B. Newton.
Actinodesma Bellamyi, R. B. Newton. Myophoria, sp.
Pleurophorus elongatus, ? Moore.
Among unpublished observations it may be of interest to re-
produce, from a letter of recent date, an account of the geology
of the River Tui District, situated in the Pahang division of the
Malay Peninsula, written by Mr. R. M. W. Swan, F.G.S., who is
carrying out mining operations in that area. The Tui is described
as a small branch of the River Jelai, which joins the Lipis River
at Kwala Lipis, from which place it is about ten miles due north.
Thanks are due to Mr. Swan’s brother (Mr. Archibald A. Swan)
for permission to include this new matter in the present paper.
“Tn order to explain the geology of the place where we are
working it is necessary to say a few words on the geology of this
part of Pahang. The common rock of the country is a clay slate,
or perhaps more properly shale, for the cleavage of the rock
coincides with the original bedding planes, although these have been
1 H. M. Becher, ‘‘ The Gold-quartz Deposits of Pahang (Malay Peninsula) ”’ :
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xlix (1898), p. 84.
? Dr. B. Koto, ‘On the Geologic Structure of the Malayan Archipelago ”’ :
Journ. Coll. Sci. Univ. Tokyo, Japan, vol. xi, pt. 2 (1899), p. 85.
443 R. B. Newton, ‘‘On Marine Triassic Lamellibranchs discovered in the Malay
Peninsula” : Proc. Malac. Soc. London, vol. iv (1900), pp. 130-135, pl. xii.
R. B. Newton—Geology of the Malay Peninsula. 131
accentuated by pressure at right angles to them. These slates rest
on a basin in granite, and by a movement of this rock they have
been highly tilted, so that the average dip is about 80°. The
underlie here is westward, while nearer the dividing range of the
Peninsula it is eastward. The dip changes along a line about
64 miles westward from here. The strike of the slates is extremely
regular, and is parallel to the main dividing range, or 8° to 84° west
of the magnetic north. The mass of slate rock is penetrated by
numerous intrusions, which consist generally of granite or green-
stones. All the known mineral deposits of any value in Pahang
are either included in these intersecting rocks, or occur in close
proximity to them. The intrusions generally take the form of large
lenticular masses, which are often some miles in width. The
main axis of these masses is always parallel to the strike of the
slates, and the intrusive rocks sometimes show a cleavage produced
by side pressure, parallel to the cleavage of the slates.
“These intrusions are highly developed in some parts of the
country. There is a granite intrusion 1} miles to the westward
of the Tui. This is succeeded to the eastward by a belt of slate
about a mile in width, and then we have a belt of intrusive rock
about a mile in width, and it is on this that the Tui flows.
“ Overlying all these rocks, and resting on their upturned edges,
is a deposit of crystalline limestone, which was originally very
extensive, and of great thickness. It certainly has been some
thousand feet thick, and there is some evidence which seems to
show that it has overlain even the tops of the main dividing range.
But only a few isolated patches of this limestone now remain,
the rest having been eaten away by the comparatively rapid action
of denudation. The limestone in which we are mining is a small
patch which remains in the bottom of an ancient valley. ‘Tradition
indicates that the Chinese have exported much gold from this part
of Pahang, and there is good reason to believe that most of this
gold has been derived from the limestone, and has been left on the
surface when that rock has been dissolved away. I feel fairly
certain that such has been the origin of practically all the gold
exported from the Tui valley. :
“The clay deposit was composed of fine yellow clay, which
contained some spherical nodules of iron oxide, and rarely some
fragments of quartz. The gold was not distributed through the
mass, but occurred in occasional streaks or veins, which could not be
distinguished by the eye. . . - -
“This clay deposit, which covers the whole of the limestone in
the valley to a depth of about twenty feet, is the product of
decomposition of the greenstone which forms the sides of the valley,
and the peroxide of iron nodules which accompany it had their
source in the hornblende of that rock.”
Remarks.—From the foregoing notices it would appear that the
Malay Peninsula is largely composed of plutonic rocks more or less
covered by sedimentary strata, of which sandstone, slates, and
132 Rk. B. Newton—Geology of the Malay Peninsula.
limestone form a very considerable part. The fossils discovered by.
Mr. Bellamy have enabled the writer to refer the sandstone to
a Triassic age, but the horizon of the limestone and slate deposits
still remains doubtful. Quite recently, some samples of the lime-
stone were submitted to the writer for microscopical examination
by Mr. Archibald A. Swan, which his brother, Mr. R. M. W. Swan,
F.G.S., had collected and sent home from the River Tui District ; but
they, unfortunately, exhibit no organic structures, and are therefore
practically useless for determining their period of deposition. This
limestone! is of blackish colour, very much fissured with calcite
and quartz, and possessing slickensided surfaces; a microscopical
section with the aid of polarized light exhibiting the brilliant
coloration of its partial siliceous structure. In the neighbourhood
of the quartz veins, gold, blende, stibnite, and galena are more or
less observable. It occurs in a basin-shaped area situated on the
upturned edges of contorted slates of unknown age, which themselves
rest on a granite base. It is more than probable that this limestone
may crop out elsewhere in the neighbourhood of a less crystalline
character, and with paleontological features; but until such a dis-
covery takes place it is premature to assume its definite geological
age. Should it ultimately prove to be of Carboniferous age, then
it would probably form a continuation of that limestone found in
Sumatra (Padang) which has yielded to Brady * and other authors
the foraminiferal genus of Schwagerina (= Fusulina of Brady).
In referring again to the sandstone rocks of the Malay Peninsula
it may be mentioned that they represent part of the great Triassic
development which is such an important feature in the geological
structure of Hastern Asia, and which extends through Huropean
countries to Northern Africa, thence to Asia Minor, the Himalayas,
and to portions of the Chinese Empire, Japan, and Siberia. It is
found also in the Hast Indian Archipelago, especially Sumatra,
Rotti, and Timor; and, moreover, it is present in New Caledonia
and New Zealand.’ In all these regions the occurrence of Triassic
rocks has been accurately demonstrated by the paleontological
investigations of Stoliczka, Griesbach, Volz, Koken, Hugéne
Deslongchamps, Rothpletz, Naumann, Zittel, Loczy, and others.
Nerouruic ImptemEent.— Whilst writing on the geology of the
Malay Peninsula, it may not be out of place to allude to a Neolithic
implement from that country which was presented to the Geological
Department of the British Museum by Mr. W. Leonard Braddon,
M.R.C.S., during the latter part of 1896. Two examples exist of
‘ Specimens of the limestone have been presented to the Mineral Department
of the British Museum (Nat. Hist.) by Mr. A. A. Swan, a few examples being
retained for reference in the Geological Department.
2 H. B. Brady, ‘‘On some Fossil Foraminifera from the West Coast District,
Sumatra’’?: Grou. Mac., 1875, p. 537, pl. xiii, fig. 6.
3 See Lapparent’s map illustrating the Triassic distribution, ‘‘ Traité de Géologie,””
4th ed. (1900), p. 1042.
a
R. B. Newton—Geology of the Malay Peninsula. 133
this implement celt, both of which were found in a disused mine at
Tras, Pahang, having probably been utilized for mining purposes
in connection with the production of tin, which largely abounds in
this region.
They are similar in shape, being long, narrow, and of rectangular
section, with an inclination to a convex upper surface caused by
a gentle declivity at each end; widening very gradually to the
cutting end, which thins off into a moderately sharp, chisel-shaped
edge. The opposite and rather narrower extremity is more or less
of a wedge pattern, and somewhat tapering thereby, suggestive of
the implement having been fixed to a wooden handle to carry out
the functions of a ‘pick’ or similar instrument, an idea further
strengthened by the fact that near the same end are some coarse
scoring marks which run in various directions, resembling furrows,
most probably produced by the process of shafting with a strong
vegetable fibre. Similar scored lines are observable on some
Malay implements in the British Museum Collection at Bloomsbury.
The rock composing these implements outwardly resembles
a material of igneous origin, but Mr. G. T. Prior, M.A., of the
Mineral Department, British Museum, assures the writer that such
is not the case. It is more probably a mudstone or an indurated
slate, which under the microscope is seen to exhibit a fragmentary
structure with occasional crystals of felspar. Nor can any organisms
be traced in it such as the minuter forms of life, Radiolarians or
Foraminifera. It is a rock of extreme hardness, very closely
grained, and of a densely dull, black colour where fractured, and
having a clear metallic ring when struck.
Externally, the implements are partially coated with a thin layer
of light colour, which is easily powdered away by scraping, and
which has possibly been produced by entombment in an alluvial
deposit ; in other places smooth, polished surfaces are seen, evidently
the result of former handling and usage.
According to Sir John Evans, F.R.S., similar chisel-like implements,
but of various rock structures, occur very rarely in Britain and
Ireland, more commonly in Denmark and North America, and
sometimes in Siam and the Malay Peninsula. (Vide “The Ancient
Stone Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments of Great Britain,”
2nd ed., 1897, p. 121.) ;
Beyond the occurrence of these implements nothing further
appears to be known of the Neolithic period as affecting the Malay
Peninsula. The cave explorations undertaken by Mr. H. N. tidley
yielded no other relics connected with man’s history at that time, for
we read in his report: “It was to be hoped that remains throwing
light on the Stone-age men of the Malay Peninsula might have been
found in the caves, but as yet nothing has been found anywhere in
the Peninsula except the axes themselves” (“ Caves in the Malay
Peninsula”: Rep. Brit. Assoc. Bristol, 1898, pp. 571-582, 1899).
Although the literature on this subject is apparently very restricted,
the writer would gladly welcome any additional references known
to students of Ethnography.
134 R. B. Newton—Geology of the Malay Peninsula.
Dimensions of best example: Length, 12 inches ; width of
chisel end, 12 inches; width of narrower end, 14 inches; central
depth, 5° inches.
Milustrations of a Neolithic Implement obtained by Mr. W. L. Braddon from
a disused mine at Tras, Pahang, Malay Peninsula. Figures drawn one-third
natural size.
A.—Lower surface, showing scored markings.
B.—Side view showing slight convexity of upper surface. : .
C.—Rectangular section of the less perfect specimen, which measures 1 inch in
central depth.
Reviews—Geology of South Wales Coalfield. 135
VITI.—Orten or Coat.
By J. R. Daxyns, Esq.
N his interesting paper on “The Origin of Coal,” published in
the Gronocroat Magazine for January, 1901, p. 29, Mr. Strahan
says: “the Limestone Series generally consists of repetitions of small
groups of strata, each group being composed of sandstone, followed
by shale, shale followed by limestone.” It is not stated whether
this is intended to be an upward or downward succession; but
if the former is meant, as it seems to be, the sequence is very
different from that which exists in many parts of the country.
Amongst the Yoredale Rocks proper—by which I mean the beds
in the valley of the Yore and in such parts of the neighbourhood
as contain rocks of a similar type—the usual upward succession
is sandstone followed by limestone overlaid by shale. That is to
say, the limestones very often have basement sandstones, and are
nearly always immediately overlaid by shale. There are some
cases in which limestone is overlaid by sandstone, but these are
quite exceptional.
As it seems from recent discussions at Bradford to be not generally
known, I may as well state that the Yoredale type of beds does not
exist south of the Craven fault; as a matter of fact, it dies out
between Kettlewell and Grassington.
Mr. Strahan also says that ‘“underclays do not resemble soils,
inasmuch as they are perfectly homogeneous.” Now on many parts
of the Millstone Grit moorlands in Yorkshire, the hill peat rests
on yellowish clay, formed by the decomposition of the underlying
rocks. This clay (which may be called the peat underclay) looks
so like a Coal-measure underclay, that one is led to think that both
had a similar origin, however different may have been the circum-
stances. Of course, when an underclay occurs in the midst of a coal,
or on top of coal, it cannot have been formed by decomposition of
underlying rock. In such cases, which are exceptional, it must have
been drifted somewhat. But even if all underclays were drifted,
that would not prevent their having been the seats on which coal-
forming plants grew, and the striking resemblance of peat underclays
to coal underclays makes me think that the latter clays were the
seats on which the coal plants grew.
REVIEW S.
T.—Georogy or tue Sours Wares Coarrienp. Part II:
Tur Counrry arounp AserGAvenny. By Aubrey STRAnAN,
M.A., F.G.S., and Watcor GIBson, F.G.S.; with Notes by J. R.
Daxyns, M.A., and Prof. W. W. Warts, M.A., F.G.S. Memoirs
of the Geological Survey. 8vo; pp. 10s. (London : printed for
H.M. Stationery Office, 1900. Price 2s.)
IWVHIS memoir is written in explanation of the New Series map
I sheet 232. It includes a brief account of the Silurian rocks
of part of the Usk inlier, and a fuller account of the Old Red
136 Reviews—Geological Survey of Canada.
Sandstone which stands out boldly in the ‘Sugar Loaf.’ The result
of the resurvey of these rocks has been to show that there is a well-
defined plane up to which a Ludlow fauna and a Ludlow type
of sediment extend, while above it the Old Red type with Lower
Old Red fossils only have been recognized. Locally there is no
gradation from Silurian to Old Red Sandstone. On the other hand,
no break has been found in the Old Red Sandstone, although the
fossils show that both Lower and Upper divisions are present. It
is remarked that the formation is “not necessarily purely lacustrine
or fluviatile.”
From the Old Red Sandstone upwards there is perfect conformity
with the Carboniferous strata. The Carboniferous Limestone with
its base of Lower Limestone shales is a variable group, 500 feet
thick in the western part of the district and about 100 feet in the
eastern part. Professor Watts describes some of the oolitic bands
of limestone, and also an interesting mass of dolomite. Mr. Strahan
found that the white oolitic limestone in one area underwent a con-
siderable change in mineral character, and this proved to take place
both along the outcrop and vertically. Analyses showed that the
change was due to the replacement of a portion of the carbonate
of lime (about 30 per cent.) by carbonate of magnesia, and to a re-
crystallization of the whole rock, whereby all organic structure,
even the oolitic grains, were obliterated, and the rock became a true
crystalline dolomite. Reference is made to the probable connection
between the dolomitization and faults which would have afforded
means for the circulation of mineral waters. Full accounts are given
of the Millstone Grit and Coal-measures, including the iron-ores,
which are now but little worked. The coals are more extensively
worked now than formerly, and are being followed southwards
under the deeper parts of the basin.
In the account of the Glacial Drifts a description is given by
Mr. Gibson of a transported mass of Millstone Grit which forms
a small hill upwards of 200 yards in length, and was found to be
based on stiff glacial till. “The hill, therefore, is merely a huge
boulder, bearing witness to the great carrying power of the ice.”
I].—Tuer Grorogicat Survey or CANADA.
1.—ReEport on THE GroLoGy AND Natural RESOURCES OF THE
CoUNTRY TRAVERSED BY THE YELLOW Heap Pass RovtEe FROM
Epmonton to Tite Jaune CacuE, ComPRISING Portions OF
ALBERTA AND British Cotumpia. By James McEvoy, B.A.Sce.
Geological Survey of Canada, Annual Report, Vol. XI, Part D.
8vo; pp. 1p—44pD, with map. (Ottawa: S. E. Dawson, 1900.)
ie report is descriptive of an exploration which extended from
Edmonton westward through the Yellow Head Pass in the
Rocky Mountains, down the Fraser River to Téte Jaune Cache,
and thence to the head-waters of Canoe River, a tributary of the
Columbia. A map on a scale of 8 miles to 1 inch accompanies the
report; it embraces the whole of the area traversed, and extends in
Reviews—Geological Survey of Canada. 137
latitude from 52° 36’ to 53° 45’ N. and in longitude from 113° 20’
to 119° 35’ W. There are also views of the mountainous scenery
characteristic of parts of the Athabasca and Fraser Rivers.
The writer enumerates the various expeditions that have penetrated
this region, including those of the Hector-Palliser expedition (1859),
and the better known journey of Lord Milton and Dr. Cheadle
(18638, “The North-West Passage by Land’), as well as the later
one undertaken by Dr. A. R. C. Selwyn in 1871.
The formations met with in the district explored were as follows :—
Tertiary seh Paskapoo Beds. )s feapara?
Cretaceous , Edmonton Beds. ) -“7*™1°
“4 Pierre and Fox Hill.
Devono-Carboniferous.
( Castle Mountain Group.
{| Bow River Series.
Archean see Shuswap Series.
Cambrian
The Upper Laramie (Paskapoo Beds) were identified on the west
bank of the Pembina River, and consisted of about 50 feet or more
of thick beds of yellowish-grey sandstones. The Lower Laramie,
as distinguished by its fossils, was met with on Sandstone Creek,
a small tributary of the Athabasca River, where a section showed
that the rocks consisted of clayey sandstones, associated with coarser
sandstones, carbonaceous shales, and seams of coal.
Cretaceous rocks were represented by rather coarse green sand-
stone, interbedded near the mountains with greenish conglomerate,
with (further eastward) black argillaceous shale, including thin
seams of lignite. These rocks were seen in ascending Prairie
Creek, a tributary of the Athabasca, the mouth of which is about
ten miles from that of Sandstone Creek.
Owing apparently to the imperfect evidence afforded by the
fossils the succeeding group of rocks bears the dual title Devono-
Carboniferous. These were seen in three sections :—(1) 2,160 feet
thick in Folding Mountain, the first foot-hill of the Rockies, where
limestones, siliceous shales, and quartzites are brought up in
a “sharply folded, slightly overturned anticline.” (2) In Roche
Miette, described as a notable landmark in view at a great distance,
standing on the east side of the Athabasca River, a few miles below
Jasper Lake. Here, in a section 3,300 feet in thickness, limestones
and shales occur, the former holding the few and seemingly not
very characteristic fossils which served to indicate the horizon of
the beds, viz. Devonian. The following were the fossils obtained :
Atrypa reticularis; Diphyphyllum, sp.; Cyrtina, sp.; Spirifer (or
Spiriferina), sp.; cast of elongated spiral Gasteropod. (3) Carboni-
ferous rocks were met with near Henry House on the Athabasca
River, some 15 miles south of Jasper Lake. Here, again, the
evidence upon which the age of the rocks is based is somewhat
scanty, judging by the few fossils enumerated, as follows - Reticularia
setigera?; Productus (very finely ribbed) > Spirifer, Sp. } Dielasma
(ef. D. formosa, Hall). These were obtained in an exposure of
138 Reviews—Geological Survey of Canada.
“black shales and flaggy cream-weathering limestone,” three miles
below Henry House.
Rocks of undoubted Cambrian age were met with on the north-
east side of the valley between Téte Jaune Cache and Canoe River.
“The squeezed conglomerate of the lower part of the series may
be without much hesitation assigned to the horizon of the Bow.
River Series [Lower Cambrian], while the overlying schists and
argillites probably belong to the same series, but may include,
towards the top, beds of the upper division of the Cambrian or
Castle Mountain group.” No granite or other plutonic rocks were
met with in the vicinity of the route traversed.
A great series of mica-schists were seen on the south-west side of
the valley opposite Téte Jaune Cache, on Mica Mountain. The
whole series, though differing somewhat from the Shuswap Series
of the southern interior of British Columbia, shows the main
characteristics of that series, and may be classed as such. The
age of this series, as given by Dr. Dawson, is Archean. The line
of contact between these rocks and those of Cambrian age on the
opposite side of the valley is hidden by superficial deposits.
The glaciation of the mountainous part of the region surveyed is
briefly described, and evidence is found for the statement that the
valley of the Athabasca contained a large glacier flowing north-
ward down the stream. After the glacier had disappeared the
valley was occupied by a large lake standing at a level of 550 to
600 feet above that of Jasper Lake, or 3,260 feet above sea-level.
A long, distinct terrace, composed of silt and sand on the west side
of Jasper Lake, marks this level.
The report concludes with a brief account of the distribution of
the principal trees and of the game, large and small.
2.—On some ADDITIONAL OR IMPERFECTLY UnpeErstoop Fossits
FROM THE Cretracrtous Rocks oF THE QUEEN CHARLOTTE
IsLaANDS, WITH A Revisep List or THE SPECIES FROM THESE
Rocks. By J. F. Wuirnaves, LL.D)., F.G.S., F.R.C.S. Mesozoic
Fossils, Vol. I, Part IV, pp. 263-307, pls. xxxiii to xlix.
(Geological Survey of Canada, Ottawa, November, 1900.)
hw explained in the Prefatory Note by the Director, Dr. G. M.
Dawson, the present memoir is an illustrated description of
two collections of fossils from the Cretaceous rocks of the Queen
Charlotte Islands, made by Dr. C. F. Newcombe, of Victoria, British
Columbia, in 1895 and 1897. It contains also a revision of the
nomenclature of some of the fossils previously collected from the
same rocks by Mr. James Richardson in 1872 and Dr. G. M. Dawson
in 1878. A brief summary of its contents will suffice, and this may
be taken from Dr. Whiteaves’ prefatory remarks. The revised list
of species at the end of the memoir shows that 89 species of marine
invertebrates are now known from the Lower Shales of the coal-
bearing rocks of the Cretaceous system in the Queen Charlotte
Islands. Of these one is a Coral (Astrocenia), three are Brachiopods,
Reviews— Geological Survey of Canada. 139
representing the genera Terebratula and Rhynchonella, one is a
Crustacean (Homolopsis), and the rest are Mollusca. The Cephalo-
poda are much more numerous, both in species and individuals, than
the Gasteropoda, and the Ammonites are specially abundant. The
latter seem to be remarkable for the presence of several species of
Desmoceras (inclusive of Puzozia), and for the absence of Baculites,
and of the numerous species of Pachydiscus which are so character-
istic of the Vancouver Cretaceous. The number of species ot
Pelecypoda appears to be much larger even than that of the
Cephalopoda.
The Canadian species have been in many instances compared
with the original types contained in museums in the United States
and in Europe. Thus every effort seems to have been made to
ensure the utmost degree of accuracy in the identification of the
fossils described in this work, which, it may be mentioned, appears
fourteen years after the previous (third) part. The new species are
well illustrated in the seven lithographic plates by Mr. L. M. Lambe.
3.—GENERAL INDEX TO THE Reports oF Progress, 1863 to 1884.
Compiled by D. B. Dowttne, B.A.Sc. Svo; pp.475. (Geological
Survey of Canada, Ottawa: S. E. Dawson, 1900.)
HOSE who have researches to undertake in any subject having
a voluminous literature know well the value of that time-saving
adjunct, a good index. The arrangement of the one before us is as
follows :—Part I (pp. 5-20) contains the Reports, so classified that
any country or district in a province can be found in its chronological
order, the counties being set alphabetically under their respective
provinces. The reports indexed date from 1868 (a summary from
the commencement of the Survey) to 1884. ;
Part II (pp. 21-84) contains an alphabetical list of the “ special
examinations ”’ of ores, minerals, or fossils that have been subjected
to assay, analysis, microscopical examination, or scientific description.
Part III (pp. 85-475) forms the great bulk of the volume, and
is termed “General Index to Reports, 1863-84.” The arrangement
in this part under reference to a place is usually chronological,
commencing with the earliest, while under a subject the references
are alphabetical, or in the case of substances of frequent occurrence,
as gold, iron-ores, coal, etc., the localities may be grouped under
provinces. t
Special publications on paleontology and botany, which are issued
by the Survey from time to time, are not included in this Index,
but the “List of Publications” brought out at intervals supplies
this deficiency.
We doubt not that the present Index will prove of great use to
all who require to consult the publications of the Geological Survey
of Canada, and they will not be chary of their commendation of the
compiler whose zeal and industry made its completion possible.
May his example be followed by many !
/ ; : Artuur H. Foorp.
140 Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London.
REPORTS AND PROCHEHDINGS.-
GeroLocicaL Society oF Lonpon.
I. — January 23, 1901.—J. J. H. Teall, Hsq., M.A., BRaos
President, in the Chair.
After the formal business had been taken, the President,
having requested all those present to rise from their seats, said:
“T feel sure that the Fellows will desire to express their
deep sense of the grievous loss which this nation has sustained
in the death of our late beloved and most gracious Sovereign,
by assenting to the immediate adjournment of the meeting.”
The meeting was accordingly adjourned.
II.—February 6, 1901.—J. J. H. Teall, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., President,
in the Chair.
Dr. F. A. Bather, in exhibiting rock specimens, microscope
sections, and photographs illustrating blavierite, ophitic diabase,
felsitic porphyry, petro-siliceous breccia, and other igneous and
metamorphic rocks of the Mayenne, said that the specimens had
been collected by him in the course of an excursion of the Highth
International Geological Congress, under the guidance of M. D. P.
Oehlert. In the basins of Laval and Coévrons were many peculiar
rocks due to the folding and crushing of stratified rocks penetrated
by eruptive dykes. The tectonic features were illustrated by the
maps of M. Oehlert and by the photographs. The slides were
prepared in the Mineralogical Department of the Natural History
Museum, where all the specimens would be preserved.
Mr. H. T. Newton exhibited some graptolites, which had been
obtained by Mr. Herbert J. Jessop in the course of a prospecting
expedition in Eastern Peru. The locality was in lat. 15° 40'S. and
long. 72° 20’ W.; Limbani, near Crucero, in the neighbourhood
of the Rio Inambari. The graptolites are closely related to
Diplograptus foliaceus, and indicate deposits of late Ordovician age.
Mr. A. K. Coomara-Swamy exhibited and commented on a lantern
‘slide showing spherulitic structure in sulphanilic acid. This had
been described and figured by Mr. Henry Bassett, Jun., in the
GrotocicaL Macaztne for January, 1901, pp. 14-16.
The following communications were read :-—
1. “On the Structure and Affinities of the Rheetic Plant Vaiadita.”
By Miss Igerna B. J. Sollas, B.Sc., Newnham College, Cambridge.
(Communicated by Professor W. J. Sollas, M.A., D.Sc., LL.D.,
F.R.S., V.P.G.S.)
This plant, the remains of which are found in Gloucestershire,
was considered to be a monocotyledon by Buckman, but a moss by
Starkie Gardner. Material supplied by Mr. Seward and Mr. Wickes
has given the authoress ground for the belief that Naiadita is an
aquatic lycopod, and that it is the earliest recorded example of
Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London. 14}
a fossil member of the Lycopodiacez, resembling in proportions and
outward morphology the existing representatives of the group.
The specimens described show stems, leaves, and sporangia which
appear to be borne laterally on the stem and to be embraced by the
bases of the leaves. Stomata do not appear to occur, and the
association of leaves of different types leads to the conclusion that
the three described species are in reality but one. The stems
consist mainly of long, thin-walled tubes covered with an epidermis
of long rectangular cells; the leaves, in vertical section, show only
a single layer of complete cells. The absence of stomata and
cortical tissue may be explained, if the plant was submerged when
living; but it is possible that the lower tissues of the leaf are lost,
together with any stomata which may have been present.
2. “On the Origin of the Dunmail Raise (Lake District).” By
Richard D. Oldham, Esq., F.G.S.
The author considers that the gap through the Cumberland hills
is a natural feature whose remarkable character has not attracted
the attention which it deserves. In form it is an old river-valley,
now occupied by much smaller streams than that which formed it.
A windgap of this character cannot have been formed by recession
of watersheds or capture through erosion, for in such a case the
stream on one side or the other of the watershed must necessarily
fit its valley, while in the Dunmail Raise there is a misfit on both
sides. The gap was in existence before the Glacial Period, and
consequently cannot have been formed by ice. So, by a process
of exclusion, the explanation is arrived at, which fits in with the
surface forms, that the gap of the Dunmail Raise was formed by
a river, which flowed across the hills from north to south, and cut
down its channel pari passu with the elevation of the hills. The
fina] victory of upheaval over erosion, whereby this river was divided
into two separate drainage systems and the barrier of the Dunmail
Raise upheaved, may have synchronized with a diversion of the
head-waters' and consequent diminution of volume and _ erosive
power. It is pointed out that this explanation comes into conflict
with previously published theories of the origin of the drainage
system of the Lake District, inasmuch as the elevation postulated
seems too slow to be explicable by the intrusion of a laccolite; and
that the existence of a large river crossing the area of upheaval,
and the maintenance of its character as an antecedent river-valley
for a long period, show that the surface was originally a peneplain
of subaerial denudation, and not a plain of marine sedimentation or
erosion. From this it follows that the course of the main drainage
valleys may not have been determined by the original uplift, but,
with the exception of those which are old river-valleys, whose
direction of flow has been reversed on the northern side of the
uplift, may have been formed by the cutting back by erosion into
the rising mass of high ground—in other words, that the principal
valleys of the Lake District may be subsequent, not consequent
in origin.
142 Correspondence—G. W. Lamplugh.
CORRESPONDENCE.
NAMES FOR BRITISH ICE-SHEETS OF THE GLACIAL PERIOD.
Sir,—It has often occurred to me that the discussion of our
British Glacial phenomena would be facilitated by the adoption of
regional names, such as have been found so useful in this respect in
North America, for the different portions of the confluent ice-sheets
by which our Islands were partly surrounded and covered at the
period of maximum glaciation. I have especially felt the want
of such names in describing the supposed condition of the basins
of the North Sea and of the Irish Sea in Glacial times. The term
‘Scandinavian Ice-sheet’ often applied to the North Sea ice-field
appears to me to be misleading, since it seems to imply that the basin
was occupied solely by the outflow of glaciers from Scandinavia,
whereas it is far more probable that it was maintained and
augmented principally by the snowfall upon its own surface. The
term ‘Irish Sea Ice,’ sometimes used to denote the ice-sheet filling
that sea-basin, is likewise objectionable, as I found in a recent
discussion where it was understood to imply the marine ice of
a frozen sea.
After due consideration and discussion with colleagues interested
in the subject, I am inclined to think that the term ‘ Hast British
Tce-sheet’ will be found suitable for the mass which occupied the
bed of the North Sea off our eastern coasts, and spread thence, in
places, inland. This will then find its complement in the term
‘West British Ice-sheet’ for the land-ice which filled the basin
of the Irish Sea, and encroached upon our north-western lowlands.
We already speak of the ‘Pennine Ice’ for the great confluent
glaciers which covered the greater part of the Pennine region,
and of the ‘Lake District Ice’ for the masses of that region, and
these terms need no revision.
Then, for the ice which overspread the greater part of Scotland to
the exclusion of the ‘Hast British’ and ‘ West British’ sheets, we
might apply the general term ‘Caledonian,’ with such local sub-
division as may be hereafter found convenient. And, similarly, the
‘Hibernian’ (or ‘Ivernian’) would be that which covered Central
Ireland, and the ‘Cambrian’ that which shielded the greater part of
Wales.
More restricted local terms might still be introduced to distinguish
well-defined portions of these sheets, and the lobes into which they
probably split towards their termination.
I shall be glad to learn whether the terms above suggested are
likely to be approved of by glacialists who hold the ‘land-ice
theory ’ in regard to our drifts. G. W. Lampiues.
TONBRIDGE.
January 20, 1901.
Obituary— James Bennie. 148
CHEVIOT PORPHYRITES IN THE BOULDER-CLAY OF EAST
YORKSHIRE.
Sir,—I can confirm Mr. Stather’s opinion’ (expressed in the
GwotocicaL Macazine for January, 1901) that the porphyrites of
the East Yorkshire Boulder-clay were probably derived from the
Cheviots. When I was stationed at Bridlington Quay on the
Geological Survey, Mr. C. T. Clough, who mapped the Cheviots,
eame to the Quay in order to identify, if possible, the far-travelled
erratics in the Boulder-clay. We examined the shore and cliffs
from Bridlington Quay to Filey, and found a large number of
porphyritic rocks, which Mr. Clough said might very well have
come from the Cheviots. J. R. Daxyns.
Snowpon View, Nant Gwynnan, BEDDGELERT, CARNARVON.
7 February 11, 1901.
MUSEUM EXHIBITION CASES.
Srr,—The new Geological Museum now being erected here will
have high windows and a long south aspect. The effect of this
will be that the sun will fall suddenly on glazed cases and as
suddenly pass off them, thus by the expansion and contraction of
the air causing dust-carrying currents to force themselves through
every chink. From this cause it costs about three times as much to
keep cases and specimens clean on the side exposed to the sun as
it does in the shaded part of a museum. This may be obviated by
elastic diaphragms (which would hardly allow sufficient movement
for such large cases as ours) or by small sliding shutters packed
with cotton-wool something like Tyndall’s respirators.
Can any of your readers refer us to museums in which such
a system has been tried or give us any advice on the subject before
our cases have been built ? T. McKenny Hucues.
Woopwarpian Museum, CAMBRIDGE.
_ February 19, 1901.
OBtetuA BR Yy-
=
JAMES BENNIE.
Born SEPTEMBER 23, 1821. Drep JANUARY 28, 1901.
We regret to record the death of Mr. James Bennie, at the
age of 79 years. For many years he was one of the fossil
collectors of H.M. Geological Survey, and was well known to
local geologists in the west of Scotland. In early life, before he
_ joined the Survey, he was employed in a paper manufactory in
Glasgow, where he devoted his leisure hours to. the examination
of the glacial, interglacial, and post-glacial deposits of the west of
Scotland. He likewise collected fossils from the various Carboniferous
horizons in that region. he results of his labours were published
in the Transactions of the Glasgow Geological Society, and his
glacial researches were communicated to Dr. Croll in 1867, as
acknowledged in the “Life and Work” of that investigator. His
Survey career, which commenced in 1869, was marked by his great
1 See “The Sources and Distribution of the Far-Travelled Boulders of Kast
Yorkshire,’’ by J. W. Stather.
144 Miscellaneous.
knowledge of the fossiliferous bands in the Carboniferous rocks of
Central Scotland. He paid special attention to the occurrence of
micro-organisms in the weathered shales of that series, which resulted
in the discovery of many forms new to science, described and figured
by various specialists. He was the first to record the occurrence
of Holothurians in the Carboniferous rocks of Scotland, and was
likewise the first to obtain the remains of Arctic plants in the silt
and peat of vanished lakes that formerly occupied hollows in the
Boulder-clay. With the remains of Arctic plants he discovered
fragments of a phyllopod Crustacean, which is now found living only
in fresh-water lakes in Greenland and Spitzbergen. Two years ago.
he received the Murchison Fund from the Geological Society of
London, in recognition of his work. Quiet and unobtrusive in
manner, and fond of literature, he showed throughout his life a keen
love of nature.—Scotsman, January 30.
IMEIGS Cpa IE eA IN PIO) wi Se
aie wEn
Tue New Director oF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE UNITED:
Kinepom anp oF THE Museum or Practica GroLogy, JERMYN
Srrent, Lonnon.—We have just been informed that J. J. H. Teall,
Esq., M.A., Vice-President of the Royal Society, President of the
Geological Society of London, has been appointed to succeed
Sir Archibald Geikie, F.R.S., as head of the Geological Survey.
Mr. Teall is an eminent Petrologist and the author of many
important papers on geology; he has published a most valuable
monograph on British Petrography, with which special branch of
the science his name will always be connected. He is universally
esteemed amongst geologists, and especially by the members of the
staff of the Geological Survey, for his geniality and urbanity to all
his fellow-workers. As President of the Geological Society he has
also won golden opinions.
Tue New Proressor or Grotogy at University CoLLEcs,
Gower Streret.—The Rev. Professor Thomas George Bonney, D.Sc.,
LL.D., F.B.S., F.G.S., who succeeded Professor John Morris, F.G.S.,
in the chair of Geology at University College, in June, 1877, and
has occupied that post with such eminent success for 24 years,
retires this month and is succeeded by Mr. Edmund Johnstone
Garwood, M.A., F.G.S., of Trinity College, Cambridge, a gentleman
already distinguished by his geological observations and writings
in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, the Geological
Magazine, the Royal Geographical Society’s and other scientific
journals. Mr. Garwood has done excellent field work in the Alps,
the Himalayas, in Spitzbergen ; and in writing upon the Magnesian
Limestone and the ‘Great Whin Sill,’ and the Life-zones of the
British Carboniferous Rocks. He has been for some years a Lecturer
at Harrow, and as a University Extension Lecturer is well known
and esteemed by the scientific public.
Although Professor Bonney is relinquishing the Chair of Geology
at University College, he intends still to pursue his scientific and
literary work and will continue his clerical duties as heretofore.
Geol Mag. 1901. Decade IV.Vol VULPIVII. »
GM Woodward del. et hth. West,Newman imp.
Cirripedes and trilobites.
THE
GHOLOGICAL MAGAZINE.
NEW SERIES: DECADE IV. VOL. Vill:
No. IV.—APRIL, 1901.
Orr EGE INVA Ty, AIR rie mms?
—
T.—On ‘Pryrcowa creracea, aA CrrripEDE, FROM THE Upper
Cuatk or Norwich and MarGatre.
By..Henry Woopwarp, LL.D., F.R.S., V.P.Z.S., F.G.S.
(PLATE VIII, Fries. 1-3.)
N the year 1865 I noticed the occurrence of what appeared to be
a sessile Civripede from the Upper Chalk of Norwich, and
referred it to Leach’s genus Pyrgoma. For this unique example the
name of Pyrgoma cretacea was then proposed,' and afterwards, in
1868, it was more fully described and figured by me in the
Gerotocircat Magazine.” I also pointed out that Charles Darwin,
in his Monograph on the Fossil Cirrepedia,’ had described a fossil
form belonging to this genus under the name of Pyrgoma anglicum,
from the Coralline Crag of Ramsholt, Suffolk, a species found living
off the south coast of England and of Ireland, Sicily, Madeira, Cape
de Verde Islands, etc.; while Michelotti had named, but not
described, a species (Pyrgoma wndata) from the North Italian
Tertiary strata.
The only other form of sessile Cirripede known, which extends
back in time to the Chalk formation, is the genus Verruca, which
M. Bosquet of Maestricht first described in 1855 from the Chalk of
Limbourg under the name of Verruca prisca.* This species was
likewise discovered by J. de C. Sowerby in the Upper Chalk of
Norwich, and described under the same name by Charles Darwin.?
_ Like the genus Pyrgoma, Verruca occurs fossil (Verruca Strémia) in
the Glacial beds of Scotland, the Red and Coralline Crag of Suffolk,
and recent on the shores of Great Britain and Ireland, ete.
' Brit. Assoc. Birmingham (1865), Reports, p. 521. ree
2 Geox. Mac., Dec. I, Vol. V (1868), pp. 258-9, Pl. XIV, Figs. 1, 2.
3 <The Fossil Balanide and Verrucide ’’: Pal. Soc., 1854, p. 36, tab. ii, fig. 7
4 J. Bosquet: ‘“‘Mon. Crustacés foss. terr. Crét. Duché de Lim bourg,’’ p. 14,
figs. 1-7. Darwin makes a distinct family for this genus—the Vern verp™.
5 Mon. Pal. Soc., 1854, p. 43, tab. ii, fig. 10.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. IV. 10
146 Dr. H. Woodward—A New Cirripede from the Chalk.
Darwin, in describing the genus Pyrgoma,' says :—‘‘ The shell
consists of a single piece, generally without suture, even on the
internal surface; and this is the case, at least, in P. anglicum, in
extremely young colourless examples: nevertheless, in some speci-
mens of this very species, and of P. conjugatum, there were traces of
two, bué only two, sutures on the sheath, one on each side towards its
carinal end. The shell is often much depressed or actually flat; in
P. anglicum, however, the shell is steeply conical. The outline is
rather oval. The surface is furnished with more or less prominent
ridges, radiating from the orifice, which is oval and small.” (See
Pl. VII, Fig. 5.) “The shell,” he adds, “is unusually thick.”
“The basis, in all the species, is more or less regularly cup-formed
or sub-cylindrical. In P. grande it penetrates the coral (on which
it is fixed) to a surprising depth; but this is not the case with
P. anglicum, in which the basis is generally exserted, as it is in
a slight degree in P. grande.”
Of the opercular valves in the Chalk species, so important and
essential in the study of any of the Cirripedia, we still remain in
ignorance. I should not, therefore, have ventured to reopen the
previous description of the so-called ‘ Pyrgoma cretacea,’ had it not
happened that a new and important light has been thrown upon it,
quite unexpectedly, through the discovery in the Chalk of Thanet of
a second specimen by my friend Dr. Arthur Rowe, M.S., M.R.C.S.,
F.G.S., of Margate. This gentleman’s admirable researches on the
zones of the English Chalk have greatly added to our knowledge of
its detailed stratigraphy, whilst, by the application of the dental
engine for the development of minute and delicate organisms
preserved in the Chalk, he has made geologists acquainted with
a host of beautiful and novel organisms, among which the present
addition to our knowledge of the form hitherto known as ‘ Pyrgoma
cretacea’ is not, as I hope to be able to show in the sequel, the least
interesting and instructive contribution.
Towards the close of last year, Dr. Rowe brought me the specimen
which is the subject of the present communication, and which is figured
(enlarged three times) on Pl. VIII, Fig. 4a. The original specimen
obtained from the Chalk of Norwich, and described by me in 1868
(see Pl. VIII, Fig. 3), consists of nearly half the circumference of
the conical walls of the shell, the opercular valves and the basis
being absent.
I attributed the absence in the Norwich specimen of the character-
istic cup-formed basis, usually seen in Pyrgoma anglicum and other
species of that genus, to the readiness with which the conical walls
of the shell separate from the basis, owing to a cleft covered by
a membrane which may be observed all round between the lower
edge of the shell and the basis in many of the species. In referring
this Cretaceous Balanid to Pyrgoma, I was influenced by the
following considerations, namely: (1) the steeply conical form of
the shell-wall (see Pl. VIII, Fig. 3); (2) the rounded approximate
1 A Monograph of the Subclass Cirripedia, etc.: The Balanide and Verrucide,
p. 355. Ray Society, 1854.
Dr. H. Woodward—A New Cirripede from the Chall. 47
radiating ribs which ornament the surface ; (3) the thickness of the
shell-wall ; (4) the absence of sutures.
On turning to Dr. Rowe’s specimen from the Margate Chalk, we
notice the close resemblance of the shell-walls (Pl. VIII, Fig. 4a,
e. and r.) with the Norwich example, the external surface in both
being marked by strong radiating vertical costa, crossed at regular
intervals by well-marked transverse rings, forming with the coste
a delicate reticulated ornamentation like basket-work on the surface.
In Dr. Rowe’s specimen the opposite curved portions (r. and ec.) appear
= icipes polymerus, G. B. Sowerby. Living: Upper California, Pacific,
Fig. 1.—Pollicipes polymerus, g
b os , et) =i . ¢ ‘ P . a0
ete. (After C. Darwin’s figure, op. cit., pl. vii, fig. 2.) ‘* Capitulum with
two, three, or more whorls of valves under the rostrum ; latera regularly
graduated in size from the uppermost to the lowest; scales of the peduncle
arranged in close whorls.’? The range of the genus extends from the Rheetie
2 = a} : 4 ayo ¥ fF > ‘.
beds ; the Great Oolite, Stonesfield and Eyeford ; the Oxiord Clay, the Gault,
T. n tore cla 4 . 7
Upper Greensand, Upper Chalk, the Eocene Tertiary, Isle of Wight ; the
Tertiary of Messina ; and living in the seas of Europe, ete., at the present day.
Fic. 2.—Catophragmus polymerus, Darwin. Living: Australian Coast. Cee
oe ery . 7 mY Joa d . . or >
C. Darwin’s figure, op. cit., pl. xx, figs. 4a—4e.) _“ Interior compartme nts
eight, with several exterior whorls of small supplemental compartments ;
basis membranous.” ‘‘ In large old specimens there are ten, or even more,
whorls of compartments, but it is scarcely possible to count them with any
aceuracy.’’ This genus does not occur in a fossil state.
Fic. 2a.—External view of one of the imbricated scales or valves, from the second
whorl, counting from the inside.
at first sight to have been forced apart, or else that two additional
lateral compartments of the shell-wall have fallen out and been lost ;
bnt this does not seem to have been the case. The important
difference lies in the fact that, whereas in the Norwich specimen
(Pl. VIII, Fig. 3) the shell-wall is exposed and bare to its basis, in
the Margate specimen the base is concealed by a quite undisturbed
semicircular quadruple row of shelly imbricated scales (PI. VIII,
Fig. 4a, t.s., i.s.), analogous to those at the base of the capitulum of
148 Dr. H. Woodward—A New Cirripede from the Chath.
Pedunculated Cirripedes (Lepadide), such as Pollicipes mitella
(Pl. VIII, Figs. 2a, 2b) and P. polymerus (Woodcut, Fig. 1), but
which are absent in ordinary sessile forms (Balanide). —
Thus, in Dr. Rowe’s specimen we have presented to us a Cirripede
of the greatest interest, offering a most important connecting link
between the more ancient PEpuNcULATA or Lepapipm and the more
modern OrERcULATA Or BALANID&.
Turning to the genus Catophragmus of Sowerby (Woodeut, Fig. 2),
we find a sessile Balanid which assists us in the interpretation of
Dr. Rowe’s most interesting Chalk Cirripede, and also that Charles
Darwin had, in 1854, already pointed out the significance of the
structure of the shell in Catophragmus as a means of bridging over
the interval between the sessile and pedunculated forms of Cirripedia
which Dr. Rowe’s specimen had suggested to my mind when he first
placed it in my hands at the end of last year. “This genus of
Catophragmus,” writes Darwin,’ “‘is very remarkable among sessile
Cirripedes, from the eight normal compartments of the shell being
surrounded by several whorls of supplemental compartments or
scales: these are arranged symmetrically, and decrease in size, but
increase in number towards the circumference and basal margin.
A well-preserved specimen has a very elegant appearance, like
certain compound flowers, which when half open are surrounded
by imbricated and graduated scales. The Chthamaline, in the
structure of the mouth and cirri, and to a certain extent in that
of the shell, fill up the interval between the Balanine and
Lepadide ; and Catophragmus forms, in a very remarkable manner,
the transitional link, for it is impossible not to be struck with the
resemblance of its shell with the capitulum of Pollicipes (see
Fig. 1). In Pollicipes, at least in certain species, the scuta and
terga are articulated together; the carina, rostrum, and three pairs
of latera, making altogether eight inner valves, are considerably
larger than those in the outer whorls; the arrangement of the latter,
their manner of growth, and union, all are as in Calophragmus. If
we in imagination unite some of the characters found in the
different species of Pollicipes, and then make the peduncle so
short (and it sometimes is very short in P. miéella) that the valves
of the capitulum should touch the surface of attachment, it would be
impossible to point out a single external character by which the two
genera in these two distinct families could be distinguished: but
the more important differences in the arrangement and nature of the
muscles, which are attached either to the opercular valves or surround
the inside of the peduncle, would yet remain.”
Although Dr. Rowe’s Cretaceous Cirripede lacks the opercular
valves, it enables us to conclude, from the presence of the three or
four rows of imbricated scales around the base of the capitulum, that
this form must at once be removed from the genus Pyrgoma, with
which, as one of the Balaninz, it has only a very remote affinity,
1 A Monograph of the Subclass Cirripedia: The Balanide, ete., pp. 485-7,
pl. xx, fig. 4. Ray Society, 1854.
-
Dr. H. Woodward—A New Cirripede from the Chalk. 149
Nor can we place it, as I at first conceived to be possible, in
Darwin’s subfamily Chthamaline, which embraces Chthamalus,
Chamesipho, Pachylasma, Octomeris, and Catophragmus, all of
which are very irregular and aberrant forms of Balanine, of
which the same author observes that they differ in many important
respects from the Balaninz proper and approach the Lepadide,
as, for instance, in the supplemental whorls of imbricated scales or
compartments in Catophragmus, etc.
We should, I think, rather regard this Cretaceous type as an
ancient pedunculated Cirripede, which, judging from the form and
thickness of its carina and rostrum, appears to be assuming a more
sessile condition of growth, and by a later and further modification
may have become completely so.
From the undisturbed triple or quadruple arrangement of imbri-
cated scales enclosing the base it is quite certain that the carina (c.)
and rostrum (7.) (Pl. VIII, Fig. 4a) could not have united to form
a conical shell-wall like that in Pyrgoma anglicum (Pl VIII, Fig. 5),
as I originally supposed, nor do I think it could have had other
lateral compartments between 7. and c. to complete the shell-wall
on the Balanus type of structure, the large size of the scales in the
centre suggesting rather that they were the sub-latera, as in the
capitulum of Pollicipes. It seems much more probable that the
scuta and terga and perhaps a small and narrow latus took part, as
in Pollicipes, in building up the capitulum, the basis of which was
protected by a series of imbricated shelly plates. In point of fact
we have here a Pollicipes which has abandoned its peduncle, and
whilst still retaining the rows of imbricated scales at the base of its
capitulum, has settled down into the preliminary stage of becoming
a permanently sessile form.
y. = rostrum. e. = carma.
i.s. = imbricated scales. i.s. = imbricated scales at
s.d. = sub-latera. base of capitulum.
Fic. 3.—Brachylepas cretacea, gen. nov. (capitulum restored). The original figure
of Dr. Rowe’s specimen is here reproduced and restored by the addition of
7. latus: s. scutum; ¢. tergum. ‘The rostrum (7.) and carina (c.) and the
imbricated scales (i.s., i.s.) are copied from the original figure.
As Lepas was the name originally given by Linnzus to embrace
both the pedunculated and sessile species, the designation Brachylepas
may serve to express the present type, which embraces characters
apparently common to both divisions of Cirripedia. The trivial
name ecretacea is of course retained.
The new form should, I think, be placed in a separate family,
intermediate between the Pedunculata and Operculata, as—
150 Dr. H. Woodward—A New Cirripede from the Chatk.
Family BRACHYLEPADIDA.
BRACHYLEPAS, gen. nov., 1901.
Non Pyrgoma (as applied by H. Woodw., 1865, Brit. Assoc. Rep., p. 321).
Valves about 100 in number; latera of lower whorl numerous;
lines of growth directed downwards ; peduncle absent.
BRACHYLEPAS CRETACEA, H. Woodw. (PI. VIII, Figs. 4a, 6.)
Capitulum with three or four whorls of valves under the rostrum ;
apparently only three rows under the carina; sub-latera larger than
the rest. The base on the side figured shows about fifty-four *
shelly imbricated plates or scales forming eighteen vertical rows,
arranged partly in three and partly in four rows; they are smaller,
narrower, and more pointed under the rostrum (r.), and largest and
broadest in the centre below the latus (see restoration, Fig. 3, .),
as we see is the case in Pollicipes polymerus (Woodcut, Fig. 1),
where the latera are regularly graduated in size from the uppermost
to the lowest of the series. The scales under the carina (c.) are
larger than those beneath the rostrum (r.); but they are narrower
and more pointed than those of the lateral series (which are
reproduced enlarged on Pl. VIII, Fig. 4b). The scales have
a strong median ridge with lateral divaricating lines, giving the
free-edges a delicately plicated border. The median ridge is narrower
and sharper in the scales beneath the rostrum, and broadest on the
lateral scales.
The carina (c.) is marked by strong vertical ridges, which are
crossed by numerous finer encircling bands, running parallel to the
base, giving to both the carina and rostrum a delicate reticulated
surface. The walls of both are thick, and so far as can be seen
quite smooth on the inner surface. On the opposite aspect of the
carina to that drawn, the base of the capitulum is seen to be nearly
wholly exposed and bare, save for the presence of three of the
shelly scales which remain in siti adhering to the carina, the
largest of which is 4mm. in length. The semicircular wall of
the carina measures about 17mm. near its base around its outer
face, and its height on the side not covered by the sheath of
imbricated scales is 8mm. The rostrum is considerably smaller
than the carina; it measures 15mm. around the outer surface near
the base, and is 6 mm. in height.
The sheath of imbricated scales covers the base of the rostrum, on
the side drawn in the Plate, 2mm. deep, and extends also 2 mm.
below the base of the rostrum, the whole series of scales being
a little over 4mm. deep.
Viewed from above, the body-cavity, enclosed in the convexities
of the carina and rostrum, is seen to be oval, being 8mm. long by
6mm. broad. The walls of the capitulum are very steep, the carina,
which is also much the highest, seeming almost to overhang at its
summit.
1 That is, 54 plates on the side figured ; if perfect, there would have been an equal
number on the other side, or about 108 in all.
Dr. H. Woodward—A. New Cirripede from the Chalk. 151
The imbricated scales or plates, which extend below the base of
the rostrum and carina, spread outwards at a considerably wider
angle than the capitulum. he attached valve of some small mollusc
is seen adhering to the imbricated scales below the rostrum.
From the disparity in the proportions of the rostrum and carina,
and the absence of alz, we arrive at the conclusion that the terga
and scuta were not mere opercular valves, but formed a part of the
capitulum ; that latera were also present is proved by the increase
in size of the sub-lateral scales, which are much larger than those of
the rostral or carinal series (see Pl. VIII, Figs. 4a, b).
There can, I think, be no reasonable doubt that Brachylepas forms
a distinct family, from which at a later period probably the modern
Operculata have arisen.
The place of Brachylepas in the phylogeny of the subclass may be
indicated as follows :—
CIRRIPEDIA.
PEDUNCULATA OPpERCULATA
(Lepadide) (Balanida, ete., etc.).
Lepas Scalpelinm — Pollicipes Catophragmus Balanus, ete., ete.
SO \ \ < ¥
Sealpelron (Gault) Bracuy epas (Chalk)
Pollicipes (Rhietic)
|
Turrilepas (Silurian)
EXPLANATION OF PLATE VIII, Fics. 1-5.
Fic. 1.—Balanus Hameri, Asc. Recent: British. (Ad nat.) }. (See also Darwin’s
«‘ Balanide,”’ p. 277, pl. vii, fig. 5.) 7. rostrum ; ¢. carina ; r./. rostro-lateral
compartment; /. lateral compartment ; /.c. cario - lateral compartment ;
b. basis; ov. opercular valves. :
Fic. 2a.—Pollicipes mitella, Linn. Recent: East Indies. (Ad nat.) 7. ¢. carina,
é. tergum ; s. scutum ; 7. rostrum ; /. latus; s.7.sub-rostrum ; .¢. sub-carina ;
between s.r. and s.c. the valves of the lower latera are seen; p.s. peduncular
scales.
Fic. 26.—Four of the lower latera, with some of the peduncular scales enlarged.
Three times natural size. us i
Fig. 3.—‘ Pyrgoma cretacea? = Brachylepas eretacea (the original specimen figured
Grou. Mac., Dec. I, Vol. V, 1868, p. 258, Pl. XIV, Figs. 1, 2). From the
Chalk of Norwich. Preserved in the British Museum (Natural History).
Enlarged twice naturai size.
152 Dr. H. Woodward—Carboniferous Trilobites.
Fic. 4a.—Brachylepas cretacea. Specimen obtained and developed by Dr. Arthur
Rowe, M.S., M.R.C.S., F.G.S., from the Chalk of Margate. Enlarged
three times natural size. Original preserved in Dr. Rowe’s cabinet. ¢. carina;
rv. rostrum; i.s., i.s. imbricated scales at base of capitulum.
Fic. 4b.—Sub-lateral scales, enlarged six times natural size. From the centre of
series just below the latus (see restoration in text, Fig. 3, /).
Fic. 5.—Pyrgoma anglicum, Leach (viewed from above). From the Coralline Crag,
Ramsholt, Suffolk. Enlarged four times natural size. Recent: Great Britain,
Europe, Cape de Verde. (Copied from Darwin’s ‘‘ Balanidie”’: Pal. Soe.
Mon., 1854, tab. ui, fig. 7a.)
II.—NorE on some CARBONIFEROUS T'RILOBITES.
By Henry Woopwarp, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S.
(PLATE VIII, Fics. 6-8.)
HE problems of life which the biologist is called upon to solve
present so many and such varied aspects that they are never
likely to become exhausted, or to weary by reason of their monotony.
Among these the appearances and disappearances of groups in time
(like the players on Shakespeare’s mimic stage) are certainly not the
least interesting questions awaiting solution.
In the case of the Trilobita, we are indebted to Walcott in
America, Hicks in Wales, Lapworth in England, Peach and Horne
in Scotland, Nathorst in Sweden, Mickwitz in Russia, and Holm in
Lapland for extending the Olenellus zone back in time to the Lower
Cambrian, thus giving to the Trilobites a vast increase in antiquity,
without by any means reaching the dawn of life of this group.
The existence of Trilobites in the Carboniferous Limestone was
made known as early as 1809, but no upward extension has occurred
during the lapse of nearly one hundred years, save their discovery
in the Culm of Waddon-Barton, Chudleigh, and Barnstaple, Devon-
shire,’ still within the Lower Carboniferous series. One is tempted
to ask, did they survive beyond the seas of the Lower Carboniferous
period, and, if not, what was the cause of their extermination? 'To
these inquiries our researches have at present yielded no reply.
It seems difficult to understand why the conditions which pre-
vailed in the seas during the slow building up of the vegetable
deposits of the Coal-period on the adjacent low-lying lands were
inimical to the life of the Trilobita, seeing that near those old lands
several species of small king-crabs (Zimuli) were living, larger
Eurypterus - like Crustaceans, small aquatic forms of Cyclus,
numerous Brachyurans (the first lobsters), Anthrapalemon, Pygo-
cephalus (a Stomapod), with Phyllopod and Ostracod Crustaceans
in great abundance: apparently offering an undoubted certificate as
to the salubrity of this marine resort. Yet the Trilobites disappeared.
Although limited in the number of genera and species, the
Carboniferous and Culm Trilobites form a most elegant and attrac-
tive group, but they do not display that great variety of form or
ornamentation which characterized their predecessors in Silurian
‘times.
a H. Woodward, “<'Trilobites from the Culm of Devon’”’: Pal. Soc. Mon., 1884,
‘Carboniferous Trilobites, pp. 59-70, pl. x. Also Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. li
(1895), pp. 646-9.
Dr. H. Woodward—Carboniferous Trilobites. 153
Since I published my monograph on Carboniferous Trilobites
(1883-1884, Pal. Soc. Mon., pp. 1-86, pls. i-x), I have given in this
Magazine for 1894 (Dec. IV, Vol. I, pp. 481-489, Pl. XIV)
descriptions of two new species, namely, Phillipsia Van-der-Grachtii
and P. Polleni, from the Carbonaceous shale, banks of the River
Hodder, Stonyhurst, Lancashire.
In November, 1895, I examined a number of specimens submitted
to me by Dr. G. J. Hinde and Mr. Howard Fox, from the Culm of
Devonshire and from a white siliceous rock at Hannaford Quarry,
near Barnstaple. These represented forms already described as
Phillipsia Leei, Ph. minor, Ph. Cliffordi, Phillipsia? (a larval form),
Griffithides acanthiceps, G. longispinus, Proetus sp. A, Proetus sp. B
(Q.J.G.8., vol. li, 1895, pp. 646-649, pl. xxviii, figs. 1-8).
Mr. J. G. Hamling, Miss Partridge, and Mr. A. K. Coomara-
Swamy, F'.G.8., have also sent me specimens from Barnstaple for
examination, some of which I hope to figure and notice shortly.
Last year, when visiting my friend Mr. E. Howarth, F.R.A.S.,
F.Z.8., the energetic Curator of the Public Museum, Weston Park,
Sheffield, I discovered that this museum possesses a most excellent
series of Trilobites from the Carboniferous Limestone of Derbyshire,
of the existence of which I was previously unaware.
The collection was derived from two sources:—(1) Purchased
with the geological collection of the Rev. Urban Smith, vicar of
Stoney Middleboro’ (near to Eyam), Derbyshire, an ardent geologist
who during many years’ residence in this district formed a large
collection chiefly obtained from the Carboniferous Limestone of his
own immediate neighbourhood. The specimen H. 88. 1108,
Griffithides longiceps, Portlock, figured on our Pl. VIII, Fig. 6,
enlarged three times nat. size, is from this collection. (2) The
second collection was purchased as a part of the museum of ‘Thomas
Bateman, Esq., of Middleton Hall, near Bakewell, Derbyshire.
Mr. Bateman wrote several books on the antiquities of Derbyshire
and Yorkshire, and his archeological and geological collections were
purchased for the Sheffield Museum (see Review of Mr. Howarth’s
Catalogue of Bateman Collection, Gron. Mac., 1901, p. 37). The
specimen H. 93. 118, of G. longiceps, figured on our Plate (PI. VIII,
Figs. 7, 8, enlarged three times nat. size), is from the Bateman
Collection. From the Carboniferous Limestone of Wettin Hill,
Derbyshire. r
It is most rare to meet with specimens from the Carboniferous
Limestone, such as the two here figured, in which the head, thorax,
and abdomen (or pygidium) are preserved united in the same
individual; the thoracic segments are very commonly absent, and
the head-shield and pygidium are usually found separately, so that
their description is often attended with considerable difficulty and
uncertainty.
I set out with the full conviction that the above examples, the
details of which are so remarkably well preserved, entitled them to
specific distinction ; but after more careful study I can only conclude
them to represent a more slender variety of G. longiceps, the axis of
154 Messrs. Barron & Hume—Eastern Desert of Egypt.
which is distinctly narrower than that figured by me in 1888 (Pal.
Soc. Mon., pl. vi, figs. 7 and 8).
The description given at pp. 33-384 closely agrees with our present
specimens, save in one particular, namely, the axis is there stated
to be equal to half the entire breadth of the thorax, whereas in
Fig. 6 of our Plate VIII it is shown to be exactly one-third the
entire breadth of the thorax. This form might therefore be
recognized as Griffithides longiceps, var. angusta, H. W.
The following is a list of the Trilobites from the Carboniferous.
Limestone in the Sheffield Museum, all from Derbyshire :—
Phillipsia Derbiensis, Martin, sp., 1809.
a gemmulifera, Phillips, sp., 1836.
ie Hichwaldi, Fisher, sp., 1825.
Griffithides globiceps, Phillips, sp., 1836.
33 Carringtonensis, Hiheridge MS. (H. W., 1884).
a longispinus, Portlock, 1843.
33 seminiferus (a very good specimen in ‘ Rotten stone’),
Phillips, sp., 1836.
3 longiceps, Portlock, 1848.
Ms var. angusta. (Pl. VIII, Figs. 6-8.)
Brachymetopus Ouralicus, De Verneuil, 1845 (a Tar ge series of very
good detached head-shields and pygidia).
Proetus, sp. ind. (some small detached pygidia).
Some large detached pygidia in this collection may be new.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE VIII, Fies. 6-8.
Fic. 6.—Gviffithides longiceps, Portlock, var. angusta, H. W. Carboniferous Lime-
stone: Stoney Middleboro’.
Figs. 7, 8.—G. longiceps, var. angusta. Carboniferous Limestone: Wettin Hill,
Derby shire.
Figures enlarged three times natural size. Original specimens preserved im
the Sheffield Museum.
JII.—Nores on tHe Grotocy or THE Hastern Desert or Heyer.
By T. Barron, A.R.C.S., F.G.S., ete., and W. F. Hume, D.Sec., A.R.S.M., ete
(By permission of the Under-Secretary of State for Public Works, and the
Director-General of the Survey Department.)
The paper is divided into two parts, viz. :—
1. Sedimentary Rocks.
2. Igneous and Metamorphic Rocks.
Parr I.—1. Pleistocene and Recent. (a) Igneous Gravel and Conglomerates.
(b) Newer and older Beach Deposits.
2. Pliocene. Nile Valley Limestones and Conglomerates.
3. Miocene Beds.
4. Eocene Limestones and Shales.
5. Cretaceous Limestones.
6. Nubian Shales and Sandstones.
1. (a) Igneous Gravels, etc.—These consist of granite, gneiss, and
many other igneous and metamorphic rocks similar to those met
with in the Red Sea Hills, and occur up Wadi Qena and spread
~
Messrs. Barron §& Hume—Eastern Desert of Egypt. 154
out in a fan-shaped delta at its mouth. Although abundant in
this wadi, they are unknown in the side-valleys, even where they
are now connected with the igneous hills. The explanation of this
is as follows :—Hast of Qena the Hocene plateau has been broken
up into a series of outliers, which until quite recently were connected
by a long ridge, the sole break being that where Wadi Qena passes
between the main plateau and the outlier of Abu Had. Previous
to the formation of the latter fracture, the southern end of Wadi
Qena was a bay, in which flint containing conglomerates and Pliocene
limestones were being deposited, but when the above-mentioned gap
was formed, the drainage from the Red Sea Hills passed through to
the Nile Valley. Similar gravels cover the Red Sea Coast-plain.
The age of these beds has now been shown to be Post-Pliocene,
as there is a marked unconformity between them and the latter,
and also because on the Coast-plain they are found underlying and
overlying limestones containing Pleistocene fossils.
This throws a strong light on the age of the Nile. Mr. Beadnell
found these gravels on the western side of the valley, and they are
apparently continuous under the Nile alluvium, thus showing that
the Nile as a river is later than these gravels, and could not have
begun to flow until late Pleistocene times. These gravels are also
suggested as the origin of the igneous pebbles reported by Professor
Judd in the Royal Society’s boring at Zaqaziq. All the rocks
mentioned can be matched from the gravels near Qena. (Since this
paper was read similar pebbles, but worn thin as by long rolling,
have been found in cuttings in the lake deposits to the north of
Heluan.) The theory of the derivation of the pebbles from the
northern part of the Red Sea Hills is untenable, as it is known that
Wadi Qena received all the drainage from that area in early
Pliocene times.
These gravels are believed to have been deposited in a fresh-water
lake, a series of which were formed as the sea retreated down the
Nile Valley.
1. (b) Raised Beaches and Coral Reefs.—Five series are recognized,
of which the youngest is below sea-level, their succession being as
follows :—
(1) The coral reefs at present forming in the Red Sea.
(2) The raised beaches and lower coral reefs which flank the coast,
varying in height from near sea-level to 25 metres above
the sea. .
(3) A higher coral reef series on an average four to seven kilo-
metres from the sea, and at various levels between 115 and
170 metres.
(4) A disturbed coral reef dipping 20 degrees eastward, closely
related to the previous one. _
(5) An old coral reef in which the affinities are as much
Mediterranean as Erythrian, regarded at present as Miocene.
Along the shore ‘storm-beaches’ are common ; in some places the
shells form well-marked zones; while the higher beaches and reefs
156 9 Messrs. Barron & Hume—Eastern Desert of Egypt.
are distinguished more or less from the lower by a different fauna.
The disturbed reef has been formed previous to the formation of the
parallel ranges of Jebel Hsh and Zeit, thus bringing up the fault-
movement to very recent times.
In this area there is an inversion of the stratigraphical arrangement,
the higher beds being the older, the reefs being formed during
a period of secular elevation. There is also apparently a long break
between the two reefs, the explanation suggested being as follows :—
The first great Tertiary earth-movement in the Red Sea region
was previous to the Upper Miocene and subsequent to the Hocene,
the latter being faulted, and beds of the former deposited in the
troughs produced. Later, as the result of further movements, coral
reefs were formed on the sides of the igneous hills, but as soon as
(owing to continued elevation and denudation) valleys had formed,
down which torrents carried masses of pebbles, etc., the conditions
became unfavourable for the formation of true reefs, and only gravels
were deposited. This view assumes the existence of marked pluvial
conditions, as maintained by previous writers, and it was only when
the present desert conditions set in that the reefs again began
to grow.
2. Pliocene.—Mayer-Eymar and Dawson have both regarded the
Nile Valley as an arm of the sea in recent times as far up as Assuan.
A foraminiferal limestone, found by Mr. Barron near Hrment and
which has been described by Mr. F. Chapman, contained two out of
five species described not older than Miocene, while one is not
known before Pliocene times, thus proving the above theory. Beds
of the same age are found in Wadi Qena. They form a plateau
consisting of flint conglomerates, white limestone, and at the base
marls and fissile sandstones which vary greatly, the limestones
being lenticular and thinning out to the east. The conglomerates
are formed by the denudation of the Eocene limestone. The
succession of these beds is as follows :—
(1) On the boundary-line with the Eocene rocks, breccias of flinty
and cherty limestone with lenticles of limestone interbedded.
(2) Conglomerates of well-rounded pebbles.
(9) Pure white limestones, perhaps partly siliceous.
(4) Marls and clays.
(0) Sandy clays.
These beds are regarded as Pliocene on three grounds—(1) They
have no resemblance to known Miocene beds in Hgypt; (2) they
are identical in all essential particulars with the foraminiferal series
of the Nile Valley ; and (8) the Pleistocene gravels are younger and
unconformable to them.
These beds owe their origin to the faulting which produced the
Nile Valley and Wadi Qena, and there must have been a subsidence
of at least 400 metres to allow of their deposition.
The Pliocene has been a period of great movement marked by the
formation of the great rifts such as the Red Sea, with the invasion
of the fauna of the southern seas, the Gulf of Suez, the great scarp
of the Red Sea Hills and its parallel ranges, and the main trend of
Messrs. Barron & Hume—Eastern Desert of Egypt. 157
the Nile Valley and Wadi Qena, the two latter being in part arms of
the sea extending far into the land.
3. Miocene Beds.—There are no new facts to be added to the
results obtained by Mitchell and Mayer-Eymar in this area.
4. HKocene Beds.—These can be divided into two main series—
(a) a thick group of limestones which are locally named Serrai
Limestones, and (b) a thick group of shales, marls, and marly
limestones termed by the Survey the ‘ sna Shales.’
(a) The summit of the plateau is a bed containing a small
nummulite, underlying which is a nodular limestone forming
a distinct, precipitous, undercut cliff 5 metres high. Beneath this
are limestones with flint-bands -having a thickness of 200 metres,
and having at their base a chalky limestone weathering pink. The
total thickness of this series is 225 metres.
(b) The Esna shales are composed of yellow limestones (Pecten
Marls) forming the base, succeeded by green shales, in the middle
of which is a limestone, the total thickness being 122 metres.
The Eocene here belongs to the ‘Libysche Stufe’ of Zittel or
Londinian stage.
By the discovery of the unconformity between the Hocene and
Cretaceous strata in Wadi Hammama, the presence of hitherto
unsuspected Eocene has been proved on the eastern side of the
Red Sea Hills, such as the faulted area of Jebel Duwi and Nakheil,
near Qosseir, and the limestone range of Jebel Mellaha, near Jebel
Zeit. The former is a bold white cliff facing south and dipping
away at angles of 15 to 20 degrees, and is the result of complicated
folding and strike- and dip-faulting, the flinty series being some-
times tilted at angles of 40 degrees. and lying in succession against
Nubian Sandstone, metamorphic rocks, and granite, as in Jebel
Hamrawein. Jebel Nakheil is an Eocene and Cretaceous syncline
in which the succession is the same as that near Qena. Other
outliers are noted in Wadi Hamrawein, the country north of
Wadi Saga, at the confluence of Wadi Safaja and Wadi Wasif, and
to the north-west of Wadi Um Tagher.
Jebel Mellaha.—Professor Zittel, in his map, following Schwein-
furth’s researches, refers the whole series to the Cretaceous, but the
latter seems to have become aware of the presence of Hocene later.
This range is composed of the same beds as Jebel Nakheil.
The Eocene beds have covered the whole of the Eastern Desert
north of lat. 26° N., but have been entirely removed except where
let down by faults. They are everywhere unconformable to the
Cretaceous rocks.
5. Cretaceous Limestones.—After pointing out some gross errors
recently published by Dr. M. Blanckenhorn, the most important
points to be noted are these :— mghee
(1) The occurrence of a Cretaceous plateau at Wadi Hammama
containing numerous Cephalopoda, Ptychoceras, etc., and a coprolite
bed about one metre thick, and extending over 20 kilometres to the
north, where it runs to ground at the foot of Abu Had. The coprolite
bed contains 50 per cent. phosphate of lime.
158 Messrs. Barron & Hume—Eastern Desert of Egypt.
(2) There is a distinct unconformity between the Hsna Shales
and the Cretaceous.
(3) Cretaceous Plateau at the foot of Jebel Duwi.—This was
hitherto scarcely known, and differs from the previously described
area in the absence of the Ptychoceras, etc., and by their replacement
by large Nautili, associated with Libycoceras Ismaeli and beds of
Trigonoarca multidentata, etc., below which comes a bed crowded
with Ostrea Ville. A strong unconformity is also here present
between these beds and the Eocene. At the north end of this
range, near Saga Plain, the coprolite beds are of unusual thickness.
(4) Confluence of Wadi Safuja and Wadi Wasif.—Here there are
two well-developed coprolite beds, and a very prominent layer of
Baculites. The conclusion arrived at is that the Cretaceous lime-
stones of the area described are of shallower-water origin than those
occurring to the north in Wadi Araba, and entirely Campanian in
age, being characterized by the abundance of their oysters, their
well-marked coprolite beds, and small thickness. This main type
is of great paleontological variability, the beds near Qena, Qosseir,
and Mellaha differing in essential particulars.
Gypseous Deposits near the Red Sea.—These occur only in the
‘Raised Beach’ area, and are almost always intimately connected
with the limestones of this series. They crop out from under these
beds, and, by their invariable unconformity and constant height
above sea-level, suggest a “plain of marine denudation.” They
are the Lower Eocene and Cretaceous Limestones which have
been altered, not from below as has been previously believed, but
from above, as will be shown in the Report on Western Sinai by
Mr. Barron.
6. The Nubian Shales and Sandstone.—These consist of soft green
and black carbonaceous shales and marls, and dark-brown and red
sandstone. ‘The former being easily weathered are accountable for
the formation of the large plains which are met with in the areas
occupied by this series. The sandstones show evidence of ripple-
marking, sun-cracks, rain-prints, and worm-tracks. In the softer
upper beds, the vertebrae of a (?) Mosasaurus and pieces of fossil
wood in excellent condition were found. It is everywhere
unconformable to the underlying igneous rocks.
The age of the deposit in this district is Santonian or Lower
Senonian, as shown by a bed of oysters found in the sandstone near
El Geita by Mr. Barron. No traces of Carboniferous fauna have
been discovered. It is later than the igneous range, and not earlier
as maintained by Floyer and Mitchell.
PAR ree lide
Iqnzous anp Meramorruic Rocks.—These rocks, forming a wide
band running parallel to the Gulf of Suez and the Red Sea,
practically constitute the mass of the Red Sea Hills. The latitude
of 27 degrees N. closely agrees with an important geological
boundary, the granites playing a considerable part among the
components of the mountain ranges north of this line, while south
Messrs. Barron & Hume—Eastern Desert of Egypt. 159
of it the metamorphic rocks become increasingly prevalent as
the Qena-Qosseir road is approached, the granite forming sharp
isolated ridges rising abruptly from among low hills of sheared
diabase or slates. Almost on the southern edge of the area, well-
marked gneisses and schists give rise to the range of Meeteg, whose
rugged peaks dominate the upper portion of Wadi Sodmein.
Meramorpuic Rocxs.—In the following pages only the most
important new facts can be touched upon, these being briefly as
follows :—
Gneiss, etc., near Qosseir.—The northern track from Qena_ to
Qosseir, after passing through a granite and dolerite region, suddenly
enters a district composed of a grey, slightly schistose rock, breaking
off into long splinters. Through it run numerous solution veins
of quartz, bands of calcite and carbonate of iron, all of which have
been extensively worked. ‘These slates, having a distinct satiny
lustre, and forming low ridges on the western edges of the two high
ranges of El] Rebshi and Meeteg, dip steeply south-west, but at the
base of the former mountain system are replaced by underlying
green phyllites, into which numerous dykes of dolerite have been
intruded, quartz veins being also common.
The main range of Meeteg itself is composed of a still older
series of quartz-mica schists, the younger members of which are
of a yellowish colour, splitting readily into blocks more or less
cubical in outline. Near the base of the mountain small veins
of granite penetrate into the schists, in some places being pinched
into these in a lenticular manner. The core of the range is com-
posed of a massive red and closely banded grey gneiss, which,
in a fine section displayed in the upper portion of Wadi Sodmein,
is seen to be successively overlaid by a gabbro, mica-schists, @ massive
dark dolerite, hornblende-schists, and reddish-white mottled slates.
From a little north of this point the valley wanders through a maze
of hills of grey and green colour, consisting of micaceous, chloritic,
and hornblendic ‘schists,’ capped by beds of dolerite and diabase,
erushed or uncrushed. A question of terminology makes a difficulty,
as the same term schist is here applied to these rocks in the foothills,
which are far less compact than the typical varieties occurring in
the main range.
Sheared Diabases and Dolerites.—The Wadi Sodmein section is
useful because it shows the relative age of the gneiss and the sheared
diabases, ashes, and other volcanic rocks, which occupy an enormous
area of the southern portion of the Red Sea Hills, viz. 2,500 square
kilometres approximately, being the main constituent of the region
to the north-west and west of Qosseir, except where sedimentary hills
have been faulted in. The sheared diabases and compacted ashes
chiefly occur in this district, but further west, as in Wadi Atolla,
are replaced by massive dolerites, which in many other localities
are found in close association with volcanic members of many
different types. This volcanic series is by no means limited to
the area above mentioned, but reappears throughout the whole of
the Red Sea region at most unexpected localities. Thus, in the
160 Messrs. Barron & Hume—Lastern Desert of Egypt.
central range, dolerites and other basic rocks are seen capping some
of the highest granite hills, still remaining as a thin coating, which
otherwise has been almost entirely removed by denudation. Again,
the base of the same range is fringed by a belt of the same character,
the presence of which is probably directly referable to faulting on
a large scale.
South-west of the central range, too, extends the Fatiri Hl Iswid
district, consisting of range after range,in which dolerites, serpentines,
compacted ashes, now practically slates, and agglomerates play an
important part. While on the south of lat. 27° N. these rocks
only give rise to iow hills of complex character, to the north
of that line they take part in the formation of scenic features of
the first magnitude, rising to 1,800 metres in Jebel Dokhan, and
composing some of the principal longitudinal ranges forming the
eastern boundary of the Red Sea Hills.
The members of this volcanic series are of somewhat different
character from those previously mentioned, dark andesites being as
conspicuous as the dolerite sheets associated with them, while the
sheared diabases have been replaced by tuffs and ashes far less
compact than those near Qosseir. The agglomerates, too, are very
striking in the El Urf chain, where blocks of ‘imperial porphyry ’
are included among the rock fragments. Indeed, the most interesting
member of this series is the imperial porphyry of Jebel Dokhan,
typical specimens of which are withamite, containing andesites,
though the same mineral is present in some of the tuffs.
Relative Age of the Volcanic Series.—It has already been
stated that the dolerites, diabases, etc., rest upon the Metamorphic
Schists and Gneisses, and are younger than the latter, but it
is equally possible to show that the gneissose granites and
diorites, which underlie them over wide areas, are of still later
date. Thus, to take a few typical cases, a mass of mica-diorite has
been intruded into the agglomerate, while in Wadi Hsh, near
Qosseir, the sides of the valley are formed of grey granite which is
overlaid by the compact dolerite, but the former has sent numerous
veins into the latter. Other examples will be mentioned in the
report, but one of the best is close to the pass leading from Wadi
Um Sidri to Um Messaid, where a dyke of red microgranite in the
andesite has for a time prevented another vein of grey granite from
penetrating into the lava, but finally, after running parallel for
a short distance, the latter has succeeded in bursting through, and
has sent long veins and branches into the porphyry.
Granites.—The rocks of granitic character in the Red Sea Hills
are sharply divided into two groups, giving rise to very different
types of scenery. The most prominent variety is a coarse red
granite, poor in mica, which forms some of the finest summits north
of and on the latitude of 27 degrees N., these being usually
characterized by steepness, the mountains being seamed by bouldery
ravines which cause the crests to have a highly serrated outline,
while nearly all the lower country consists of bouldery ridges of
a gneissose biotite, or hornblende granite, which has its south-eastern
Professor T. G. Bonney—Schists in Lepontine Alps. 161
boundary along a line joining Ras El Barud and Missikat El Qukh
ranges. This gneissose granite is especially conspicuous owing to
the abundance of the dykes of quartz-felsite and dolerite which vein
it, in a north-east and south-west direction, the differential weathering
of the two giving rise to a typical alternation of parallel ridges and
sandy valleys to which the name ‘dyke-country’ may be applied.
Where the above two varieties come in contact, it can be clearly
seen that the red granite is the younger of the two.
GENERAL RECAPITULATION.
We are now in a position to give the general succession for the
Arabian Desert between Jebel Gharib and the Qena-Qosseir line.
1. The metamorphic are older than the igneous rocks.
2. The gneiss of Meeteg is the oldest member of the metamorphic
series, the schists coming next in order, followed by slates, grauwacké
(altered ash), sheared diabases, and dolerites.
3. Volcanic action had already begun during the period of
formation of the grauwackés and slates, as the sheared diabases and
dolerites are in places closely associated with them, but the main
mass of the dolerite is younger than the slates. Thus the next in
succession is a volcantc series in the south, consisting mainly of
dolerites and sheared diabases, and in the north of dolerites,
andesites, tuffs, and agglomerates.
4. These are themselves underlain, and in most cases intruded
into, by a third series, a quartz-diorite or grey granite, in many
cases gneissose.
5. Through the volcanics and grey granite rise masses of red
granite, which may be almost contemporaneous with dykes of quartz-
felsite and dolerite, seaming the members of the preceding series.
IV.—Scuists anp Scurstose Rocks 1x tHE Lepontine ALps:
Rerty to Criticisms By Proressor A. Hem.
By Professor T. G. Bonney, D.Se., LL.D., F.R.S,
OME three years ago, on referring to the twenty-fifth volume
of the “ Beitriige zur Geologischen Karte der Schweiz,” I found
Professor Heim had devoted a few pages (pp. 316-819) of that
work to my criticisms of his attempts to prove that Jurassic rocks
had been metamorphosed into schists containing authigenous garnets,
staurolites, etc. Had he brought forward any new fact of importance
or pointed out any serious error in my work I should have replied
at once, but as he was unable to do this, and as the justice of one of
my criticisms was indirectly admitted in the petrographical appendix
by Dr. C. Schmidt, I allowed more pressing and interesting matters
to take precedence of one which had become chiefly personal.
On reading Professor Heim’s remarks I perceive that we labour
under a similar disadvantage, viz., that neither is a master of the
language in which the other writes. He complains of a difficulty
in understanding my meaning, though I think it was plain enough
to most of my English friends. I am in the same position, because
he appears to me to avoid the direct issues and to repeat assertions
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. IV. ll
162 Professor T. G. Bonney—Schists in Lepontine Alps.
which I have challenged. So, before going further, I will state the
dispute as clearly and concisely as I can. It arose out of a paper
read at the London Meeting of the International Geological Congress
in 1888.1 Then, or soon afterwards, Professor Heim made the
following assertions: (1) that at Guttannen stems of a plant of
Carboniferous age had been found in a gneiss; (2) that near
Andermatt a crystalline marble was associated with a Jurassic
limestone, so that they must be of the same geological age; (38)
that in the Lepontine Alps a transition could be traced between
fossiliferous Jurassic rocks and schists with authigenous garnets,
staurolites, etc.
I have disputed the accuracy of all these statements. As regards
(1) it is now admitted that the supposed stems are not organisms,
but merely imitative markings. Hence this assertion is invalidated,
but, as I have apparently made a mistake as to the nature of the
rock, neither side in this controversy can ‘score honours.’? About
(2) there is nothing fresh to be said. I have discussed Prof. Heim’s
evidence, which he has not been able to strengthen, and think
myself justified in claiming a verdict of ‘not proven,’ even if I have
not shown his interpretation to be improbable.* My remarks
accordingly will be confined to (3). Here sections are more
numerous; the issue is simpler, and the initial difference between
us largely concerns matters of fact. In the first place, Prof. Heim
maintains that I have misunderstood him, and that he never affirmed
those altered Mesozoic sedimentary rocks to be true crystalline
schists. The very lax use of the term ‘schist’ by Continental and
some English authors undoubtedly leads to confusion in expression
as well as in thought, and I am prepared to admit that it might some-
times be difficult to draw a hard and fast line between a schistose
rock (i.e. cleavage followed by a certain amount of secondary
mineral development) and some foliated schists. This, however,
does not really affect the present issue. Professor Heim asserted
that certain schists with authigenous garnets, staurolites, etc., were
proved to be of Jurassic age, not only by stratigraphical evidence,
but also, where the minerals were less well developed, by the
presence of fossils. I asserted that the schists with garnets, etc.,
were both truly crystalline and belonged to a group distinct from
the Jurassic rocks in question; that this group could be shown to
be much older than the Trias, and to differ in important respects
from the fossiliferous schistose Jurassic rocks, which never contain
authigenous garnets, etc., but only certain hydrous silicates, pre-
senting a merely superficial resemblance to garnets, staurolites, etc.
In other words, I gave reasons to show that Professor Heim’s
interpretation of the stratigraphical facts was untenable, and his
identification of the important minerals was incorrect.
1 Compte Rendu de la 4™° Session, p. 80. See also Natwre, Sept. 27 and Oct. 4,
1888, and Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xlvi (1890), p. 286.
2 Grou. Mae., 1900, p. 215.
3 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xlvi (1896), p. 67; vol. 1 (1894), p. 285; vol. litt
(1897), p. 16.
Professor T. G. Bonney—Schists in Lepontine Alps. 163
Passing now to the stratigraphy, I claim to have proved—
(a) That the schistose and fossiliferous Jurassic rocks in the
Scopi and Nufenen districts overlie the rauchwacke.!
(b) That this rauchwacke (commonly a friable yellowish lime-
stone, sometimes including layers of gypsum, but without any
marked indications of metamorphism) often contains fragments of
crystalline rocks corresponding with those which are elsewhere
associated with the black garnet-bearing schists. Also, that this
rauchwacke differs conspicuously from the crystalline limestone or
dolomite, which occurs both on the northern side of the Campolungo
Pass (south of the Val Bedretto) and in association with similar
dark schists above Binn in the Binnenthal.
(c) That the rauchwacke generally overlies the group of crystal-
line schists, and where it is apparently interstratified with them
a closer examination always suggests that it is a later rock ‘ nipped’
in by overfolding and thrust faulting.
(d) In the noted Val Canaria section, where, according to Professor
Hein, crystalline schists* are included ina fold of which an ordinary
rauchwacke forms the base, not only does this rauchwacke contain
fragments of more than one variety of the schists supposed to overlie
it, but also the band of black garnet-bearing schists occurs three
times, and the other beds are not in pairs. These facts prove
a simple fold to be impossible,’ and if faults be once admitted the
key of Professor Heim’s position is surrendered.
Tn addition to this I have shown, from stratigraphical, chemical, and
microscopic evidence, that the schistose Jurassic rocks and this group
of schists, locally garnet-bearing (a group which I have examined
in many places from the Viso to the Gross Glockner, and to which
I refer in my papers as the ‘Upper Schists’), are quite distinct one
from the other; the only possible confusion arising from specimens
either badly preserved or in which their distinctive characters have
been locally obliterated by extreme pressure. This, however,
is no ground for asserting contemporaneity. In such rocks the
metamorphism has been destructive, not constructive.
I pass, then, to the mineral differences. The group of schists, of
which the dark one containing garnets is a member, consists, as
I have shown elsewhere, of truly crystalline rocks, no less in the
Val Canaria section than in the rest of the Alps, and never affords
a trace of a fossil. Here and there in its dark schists are little
streaks of crystalline calcite. These to a lively imagination may seem
the ghosts of departed belemnites, but to a more prosaic mind they
appear only a vein product. The rocks are true crystalline schists,
no doubt of sedimentary origin, but greatly metamorphosed. They
1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xlvi (1890), p. 219, and vol. xlix (1893), p. 89.
2? T suppose trom what I have read that Professor Heim will refuse to call these
rocks crystalline schists. If so, there is no erystalline schist—either garnet-mica,
cale-mica, staurolite-mica, or quartz-mica schist—in any part of the Alps that
I know of.
3 The situation of the outcrops and their breadths make it impossible to escape
this difficulty by supposing one black garnet schist to have been the top bed and to be
doubled back on itself.
164 Professor T. G. Bonney—Schists in Lepontine Alps.
have been affected by pressure, but they were crystalline schists
before that acted, for the larger minerals are sometimes distorted
or even crushed, the garnets in one or two localities being distinctly
cleaved. Pressure, in fact, has injured more than it has originated
the crystalline condition. But the Jurassic rocks are only schistose ;
they have been affected by pressure, and it has produced the usual
mineral changes on a comparatively small scale. But besides this,
in some localities a number of ovoid and of rudely prismatic bodies
have formed (the knoten and prismen of Von Fritsch). These, which
occur along with fossils (belemnites, bits of crinoids, etc.), are not
either garnets or staurolites, but only very impure silicates, more or
less hydrous; some probably belong to the chloritoid, others perhaps
to the scapolite group, with possibly a third mineral of the same
general character.'| Professor Heim asks almost ina tone of triumph *
whether I have not seen ‘die Verquetschungen und die Veranderung
(Marmorisirung) in der Structur der Belemniten . . . . die
ganz mit der Umanderung des Muttergesteines parallel geht.”
Certainly I have: indeed have mentioned it (loc. cit., p. 219). But
by this question he shows that he can have given very little time to
the study of metamorphism. Otherwise he would have known that
this ‘marmorosis,’ notwithstanding its fine name, proves but little,
for calcite is one of those minerals which are always ready to
crystallize, and particularly so when it is ‘organic.’ We constantly
see this illustrated in rocks (especially Palaeozoic) from English
localities. There are no signs of pressure, yet fragments of
fossils may be often found under the microscope to become partially
or even wholly crystalline, to the obliteration of the original
structure. I have also seen tests or spines of echinids from the
Chalk break as if they were crystalline calcite, and a fractured
stalactite showing the cleavage surface of large crystals.° Professor
Heim, however, seeks to minimize my criticisms by intimating
that I am a prejudiced witness, and have from the first shown
signs of a distinct bias (tendenz). Of this I am convicted by
my own confession, because I stated that, when I saw the
specimens on which he rested his case, and which he exhibited at
ee House in 1888, “<Still, I was not quite satisfied
for it was very difficult to understand how such a fossil
as a belemnite could have retained its characteristic form while
1 Dr. Schmidt admits the presence of clintonite (which name is now applied by
Dana to the group including the species of chloritoid), and assigns the knoten and
prismen to zoisite. Both minerals are so full of impurities that it is very difficult to
come to any conclusion, but neither reminds me of zoisites, nor is any close relationship:
suggested by the analyses (quoted on p. 233 of my paper); and after reconsideration
of my specimens I see no reason to change what I wrote in 1890 (Quart. Journ. Geol.
Soc., vol. xlvi, pp. 282-284). Dr. Schmidt’s petrographical description will be
found in Beitrage, vol. xxy, Anhang, pp. 41-69.
2 Beitrage, ut supra, p. 317.
s Though I think that, as a rule, I can distinguish a marble belonging to a group
of erystalline schists from an ordinary Paleozoic or later limestone, even it
pressure modified, I put more reliance on any silicates which may be associated with
the calcite, and do not feel quite happy unless I can trace the rock into some schist
composed largely of these.
Professor T. G. Bonney—Schists in Lepontine Alps. 165
molecular changes of such importance were taking place in the
matrix of the rock.’ Er sieht hier eine Thatsache, an der er zweifelt,
weil sie ihm unerklirich vorkommt!” Well, then, I will tell
Professor Heim why I was not quite satisfied. In the first place,
if it be a sign of bias to reason inductively from careful and
numerous observations, and to rely on the conclusions thus obtained
so far as to view with some suspicion any new phenomenon which
distinctly contradicts them, I admit the charge, and that un-
blushingly, for I believe this to be the method of science. The
latter is said by a good authority to be organized common-sense.
If in every-day life a number of credible persons agreed in stating
that something had occurred—say a man had done an action which
they had witnessed—should we not be justified in cross-questioning
rather severely anyone who suddenly appeared to swear an alibi?
Now all my work, and it was considerable, undertaken with the
sole desire of discovering the truth—work which had obliged me to
discard almost everything I learnt when young—had led me to
conclusions different from what Professor Heim was asserting.
Inasmuch, then, as his “ Mechanismus,” while greatly impressing
me in some respects, had created suspicions of his trustworthiness as
a guide in petrology, I submit that I was justified in thinking it
possible he might have made a mistake. ‘The ‘Thatsache’ was in
reality little more than his assertion.
But he will say that 1 was shown the specimens. Yes ; and if
Professor Heim had seriously worked at petrology he would know
that conclusions founded on hand-specimens are much less trust-
worthy than those arrived at by examination of rocks in the field
or under the microscope. Speaking for myself, I refuse, when the
matter is difficult, to express an opinion on a hand-specimen, but
require to have a slice prepared for the microscope. Moreover, it
appeared to me, when looking at his specimens, that the matrix of
the two sets, those with belemnites and those with real garnets,
was somewhat different. Professor Heim would no doubt set down
this to ‘bias,’ but it is really the almost unconscious effect of that
experience which most persons acquire by long work at a particular
subject. It is very similar to the power which enables a specialist
to make a diagnosis of something which a physician, who has worked
along other lines, would not perceive.
But he quotes another phrase to convict me of bias. “It was
very difficult to understand how such a fossil as a belemnite could
have retained its characteristic form while molecular changes of such
importance were taking place in the matrix of the rock.” This
remark is evidently not intelligible to Professor Heim, so I will
endeavour to enlighten him. The results of contact-metamorphism,
to which I have paid considerable attention, most nearly resemble
the crystalline schists. In them, so far as my experience goes,
1 T may add that the general ¢endenz to minimize the effect of * dynamo-meta-
morphism,’ of which he accuses me (p. 316), has the same foundation. Phat i, ap
important factor in producing change, but its effect has been often ot eatly ov ere eigen :
After ten years’ work I adhere to the position adopted in 1890 (loc. cit., p. 223),
which since then I have so often expressed that I am weary of repeating 1t.
166 Professor T. G. Bonney—Schists in Lepontine Alps.
garnet, and still more staurolite, are not formed until the materials
of the rock have undergone such great molecular changes as to
obliterate all traces of a sedimentary origin and convert the rock
into a fairly coarse crystalline aggregate of quartz, brown and white
mica, andalusite, and other minerals.!. Under such circumstances,
I believe that any calcareous organism, if it did not disappear and
supply its lime to some silicate, would become unrecognizable.
Only in one case, that of the Bastogne rock, have I seen well-formed
garnets in a matrix apparently not very greatly altered. These,
however, are rather abnormal specimens, and, as it has been lately
demonstrated, occur under very abnormal circumstances.” My bias,
then, was due to experience, which showed me the antecedent
improbability of what Professor Heim was asking me to believe.
There was yet one other reason for my scepticism. In 1883
I crossed the Gries Pass to the Tosa Falls, wishing to see an Alpine
route of some historical interest, and with no definite geological aim,
for I] had but recently begun to make any special study of the
‘upper schists.’* Here are some extracts from my diary. Going
up the Eginenthal I observed occasionally loose blocks “of a dark
slaty or schistose rock, with rounded spots and irregular long
darkish crystals, which I took for a kind of ‘knoten schiefer’ and
got a specimen.”* Later on I write—“ At the head of this [upland
basin | there is evidently a great piece of well-bedded rock, not highly
metamorphosed, apparently folded in the more crystalline rock. ‘To
this apparently the ‘ knoten schiefer’ belongs, for it was all about
here, some of it being rather more schistose than what I had seen
below.” Again, on reaching the top of the pass, I record the presence
of dark mica schist with garnets, “looking more highly altered than
that below.” From the Tosa Falls I crossed to the Binnenthal and
studied the crystalline schists in that district.2 Thus I was aware
that in the Lepontine Alps two rocks existed in which some
superficial resemblances were associated with real and important
differences. In other words, I knew that Nature had been laying
traps, so that exceptional caution was needed.
I think, then, I may claim that my ‘bias’ was the result of
knowing certain facts in petrology and Alpine geology better
apparently than Professor Heim, and thus was more than justifiable.
May I ask, in conclusion, that if he thinks he can refute any of the
statements in this paper he will abstain from fighting under the
shelter of an official publication. There I cannot reply to him; so
the combat is one Ubi tu pulsas, ego vapulo tantum.
? Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xliv (1888), p. 11.
* See Miss C. A. Raisin: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. lvii (1901), p. 55.
A museum specimen labelled Pyreneite (from that mountain range) appears to be
another instance.
= See Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xlv (1889), pp. 96-99.
* This is a transcript of my field notes, in which I do not pick my phrases.
I probably should not now use the words ‘knoten schiefer.? What I meant to
express was that it seemed in about the same state of alteration as a chiastolite slate.
° A fortnight later I paid my first visit to the Val Piora.
H. W. Pearson— Oscillations of Sea-level. 167
V.—OscILLATIONS IN THE SEA-LEvEL, (Part J.)
By H. W. Prarson.
(PLATE IX.)
HEN man first began the study of the earth’s surface, he
encountered at the very beginning, along the borders of the
Sea-Coasts, on the lowland plains, and even on the hills, certain
puzzling phenomena, difficult of explanation. These perplexing
observations seemed to testify, by means of ancient raised beaches,
fossil oyster and mussel shells, dessicated salt marshes, fragments
of wrecks, and even by ancient anchors in the hills, that at some
unknown time in the past the sea had “formerly been where the
land now was.”
Straton of Lampsacus and Hratosthenes (between 200 and 300 B.c.)
explained these facts by supposing that the Mediterranean and the
Euxine had once been dammed by barriers at the Pillars of Hercules
and at Byzantium, and that by the breaking down of these barriers
“much that was formerly covered by water had been left dry.”
Strabo (54 B.c. to 24 a.p.), holding Straton and Hratosthenes to be
in error, insisted that explanations of these facts must be found
either in inundations caused by upheavals of the sea bottom, or in
actual subsidence of these lands beneath the level of the waters and
their subsequent upheaval, his preference being given to the first-
named cause, as he deemed that the humidity of the bottom would
render it more liable to shifting.
Here was raised, in the early morning of scientific investigation,
the greatest problem of geology, or of geography, and such little
progress has been made in the settlement of this question during the
two thousand years that have since passed over our heads, that
to-day if it is asked, are these evidences of former submergence and
upheaval due to changes in the sea-level itself, or are they due to
movements in the crust of the earth, no man can make certain reply.
That this uncertainty has real existence can be seen from the
examples of opposing opinions herein quoted.
Celsius in 1730, in explanation of the apparent upheaval of the
Baltic shores, affirmed a variable sea-level. Playfair in 1802 and
Von Buch in 1807, adopting the second hypothesis of Strabo,
affirmed movement in the earth’s crust.
Sir J. A. Picton contended that the level of the sea had not
changed, that it is the land alone which has altered its level
(Proc. Liverpool Geol. Soc., vol. vi, p- 38). Sir Charles Lyell
‘insisted “that the level of the ocean was invariable,” and that the
“ Qontinents are inconstant in their level, as has been demonstrated
by the most unequivocal proofs again and again, from the time of
Strabo to our own time” (‘ Principles,” 9th ed., Appleton, p. 518).
Le Conte says, “we may look upon the sea-level as fixed
«“ Hlements,” p. 158).
In ee ttion to ie statements of Picton, Lyell, and Le Conte,
James Geikie says, “the more recent raised beaches may be likely
enough due to oscillations of the sea-level itself, and not necessarily
to movements of the land” (‘ Pre-historie Europe,” p. 525).
168 H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level.
N. 8. Shaler also says, that some of the apparent upheavals and
depressions of the land may be due to absolute changes in the sea-level
(‘‘ Geological Record,” 1875, p. 178) ; and these men are supported
in their rejection of the old theory of Strabo, which had been adopted
by Playfair, Von Buch, and Lyell, by Edouard Suess, Dr. Schmick,
and Trautschold, the latter claiming that “‘ many of the phenomena
of sedimentation and deposition attributed by geologists to a sub-
sidence of the crust are, in fact, due to periodic oscillations or
upheavals of the oceanic surface ” (Science, vol. iii, p. 342).
These citations demonstrate that the matter of the permanency
of the sea-level is to-day one of the unsettled questions of geology,
and I believe it to be more fundamental in its nature than any other
unsolved geological problem. It should be of interest, then, to learn
why these conflicting opinions between our great geologists have
existence. Why have the teachings of Playfair, Von Buch, and
Lyell, adoptedzfor three-fourths of a century, been in the last quarter
of a century questioned from every direction ?
Investigation allows us to answer this question. The old beliefs,
in the absence of knowledge, were based on inference. The latest
beliefs, rejecting inference, are based on observation, on an enormous
accumulation of facts, that were entirely unknown to Playfair and the
other disciples of Strabo, and these facts it is impossible to explain
through the older theory.
For instance, Playfair’s argument, on which the theory of an
invariable sea-level rests, is as follows :—‘In order to depress or
elevate the absolute level of the sea by a given quantity, in any one
place, we must depress or elevate it by the same quantity over the
whole surface of the earth [my italics], whereas no such necessity
exists with respect to the local elevation or depression of the land”
(“ Principles,” 9th ed., p. 523).
Now the very foundation of this argument, a position unimpeach-
able in the time of Playfair and of Von Buch, is to-day absolutely
untenable. The hypothesis of Adhemar, the knowledge that great
masses of ice at one time existed in the Northern Hemisphere, and
that submergence of the Northern, coexistent with emergence of
the Southern Hemisphere, must have been the necessary consequence,
as demonstrated mathematically by Dr. Croll, by Lord Kelvin, by
Archdeacon Pratt, by Fisher, Heath, Woodward, and many others,—
these arguments, I say, teach us that the contention of Playfair, Von
Buch, and Lyell, valid perhaps in its day, is no longer to be accepted,
and if the theory of a variable sea-level is to be rejected, reasons
more solidly grounded must be accorded us.
It seems now impossible to reject the idea that upheaval of the
sea surface in the north, and subsidence in the south, may be going
on at one and the same time, and in addition to this the writer has
shown how a local upheaval of the oceanic surface in one hemisphere
may, nay must, be coexistent with a local depression of this surface
at some point in the same hemisphere, provided the slightest variation
of flow in the oceanic currents shall take place. (See The American
Geologist, Sept. 1899, p. 192.)
H, W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level. 169
_ To this point my discussion has been general, my object being
merely to show the present uncertainties as to our knowledge
relating to changes in the sea-level, and to call attention to the
fallacies on which the arguments of Playfair and Von Buch were
founded. I would now introduce a branch of the same subject not
alluded to in the previous argument. It is this :—
It is admitted by all, that most of the lowlands of the Northern
Hemisphere have at some time in the past been submerged to less
or greater depth beneath the sea. The evidences of great
submergences, such as those discussed by Chambers in his “ Ancient
Sea Margins,” or by Prestwich in his “ Traditions of the Flood,”
or as shown by McGee in his “ The Lafayette Formation,” will not
now be considered. ‘To these submergences we are as yet unable
to assign a date. J would study, then, those minor relative changes
in sea and land, both of depression and elevation, that have occurred
since historic times, changes upon which a date and the approximate
amount of movement can be fixed, with the object of determining
whether these upheavals and submergences show any evidence of
being periodic in their nature. We may attribute these changes
either to movement in the earth or to movement in the sea, it is
immaterial which; the only question is, have these oscillations
shown regular cycles in their occurrence.
If some period could be discovered which governed these minor
changes, it would seem that the law controlling this period might
be found, and the establishment of law, if such existed, and the
consequent elimination of chance, might enable us to determine with
more certainty than at present whether the actual responsibility for
these recent changes should be placed upon an unstable earth or
upon a shifting sea.
This question of recent periodic oscillations in the sea-level was
forced upon me by certain facts, impossible to explain otherwise,
derived from many years’ study of the raised beaches of the world ;
these facts, owing to the nature of this paper, I cannot now set
forth, but they assured me in the strongest manner that a regular
cycle had existed at the time these raised beaches were formed, and that
its present existence was almost a certainty. I therefore commenced
search for this periodical vibration of the oceanic surface In the
records of history and tradition, in the ancient cities of the old
world, in the registered changes in the coastlines of all countries,
including the American coasts since the time of Columbus.
The data thus collected are almost unanimous in their testimony ;
they point unerringly to a vibration period in the sea-level of about
640 years, an interval of about 320 years existing between periods
of high and of low water.
The data inform us as well that at periods of high-water the
submergence increased in amount going north ; they tell us that at
previous periods of low-water the sea stood lower than at preeenh
and finally, they assure us that, following the law of change whio
has guided these vibrations in the past, we must expect higher water
in the north in the immediate future. This raised sea-level in the
170 H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level.
north should culminate within 200 years, while the advance should
be visible within a few decades.
The points in the curve illustrating the variation in level of the
surface of the sea were sought for and found under a system of
reasoning adopted after consideration of the results obtained from
the investigation of the raised beaches before mentioned. This
investigation furnished me certain testimony strongly opposed to all
my prepossessions, yet, if I had interpreted the records correctly,
I felt compelled to adopt as logical conclusions the following
theories :—
1. Since the carving of these ancient terraces there had been no
movement of the earth’s crust, but these terraces lay in position
exactly as originally traced.
2. The date of these beaches is unknown, but they certainly
antedate the historical period. J must therefore conclude that since
the dawn of history no upheaval or subsidence of the earth’s crust
can have occurred, and explanation of the observed recent sub-
mergence and emergence of lands must be sought for in vertical
movements of the sea itself, rather than in upheavals or depressions
of the crust.
3. I had reason to strongly suspect, in fact I regarded it as almost
certain, that at the time of deposition of these terraces alternate
rising and falling of the sea-level had occurred, that the traces of
this movement were plainly discernible, that I had good cause to
suspect the present existence of these same cycles of alternate ascent
and descent in the sea-levei, and that if these oscillations existed they
should be uniform in direction of movement over one hemisphere.
Impressed, then, with the logic of the facts which had led up to
these conclusions, facts which are set forth in other papers, I started
on a new research, seeking for evidence of these suspected cycles,
of the approximate dates of their maxima and minima, and of the
amount in feet of their vertical vibration.
The apparent absurdity of entering upon such a labour as this is
manifest. On all sides we see evidences of alleged upheavals or
depressions of land: we know, for instance, that Scandinavia,
Scotland, all of Northern Asia, Alaska, and Texas are now rising
out of the sea; we are told that the coasts of New Jersey, Long
Island, Cape Breton, and Greenland are now sinking beneath the
sea. Here were undeniable facts directly opposed to each other and
to my assumption that these movements must be universal in kind
over either hemisphere.
These conflicting facts, which seemed to deny and refute these
other facts mentioned, as obtained from the raised beaches, and to
the accumulation of which I have devoted so many years’ labour,
seemed to assure me of failure from the first; but notwithstanding
the discouraging outlook, search was undertaken for evidence of
these periodic vibrations in the oceanic surface, no hope being
entertained at that time, however, of finding explanation of those
discordant motions, existing in the same hemisphere, to which
attention has been called. My only hope was that these fluctuations
might be found periodic in their nature.
H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level. 17}
At the beginning I had been led to suspect some physical
connection between the periodic swing in the magnetic needle and
these oscillations in the level of the sea; therefore, as the half-period
in the motion of the agonic line is about 320 years, 1 commenced
search for evidence of a period of universally higher water in the
north, culminating about 320 years distant in the past, or about the
year 1570.
As my investigations progressed I soon met an obstacle. I found
that the study of the Temple of Jupiter Serapis by Babbage, Forbes,
Lyell, and others, demonstrated that the high-water was receding
in Italy in the years 1503 to 1511 (see “ Physical Geography,” by
A. J. Jukes-Browne, p. 46), and consequently my culminating point
of 1570 must be moved backward to some period probably anterior
to 1500, and my assumption that the present low-water period was
now at its central position also needed adjustment ; we must have
passed the low-water minimum.
I next sought proofs that the emergence of the Temple of Serapis
was coewistent with a corresponding emergence of every part of the
Mediterranean shore-line, and these proofs are in incontestable
existence; many of them I submit herewith, hundreds of them for
lack of space I withhold. George Maw discovered “ evidence of
upheaval, in a uniform rise of about 25 feet in distant parts of the
Mediterranean, of an old coastline, exactly corresponding with the
amount of emergence of the shell-bored columns of the Temple of
Serapis,” and this testimony of Maw (see Rep. Brit. Assoc. for
Advancement of Science, 1870, p. 80) I have verified by a hundred
items of evidence perhaps unknown to him.
Satisfied at length that the elevated sea-level was certainly
uniform over the Mediterranean, I extended my investigations to
the shores of England, France, Holland, and the Baltic, to the
Americas, and to the shores of the Pacific, seeking as before for
evidences of a raised sea-level, central about the year 1500.
England supplies a wealth of evidence. I found that Queen
Elizabeth in 1562 was granting many descriptions of land in the bed
of a creek or waterway ‘swawed’ or dried up, “by reason of the
receding waters” (‘‘ History of Romney Marsh,” Holloway, p. 141),
at the same time, nearly, that Ferdinand and Isabella, for the same
reason, were conveying land in Italy, that had likewise “ dried up
(Brown, “ Physical Geog.,” p. 46).
Having thus collected much evidence that the sea-level was
falling in the period subsequent to 1500, I next sought data as to
its rise at some earlier date. Much evidence as to this movement
was found. For instance, in 1427 we find Henry VI perplexed and
disturbed ‘“ by the excessive rising of waters in divers parts of the
realm,” and urging that remedy should be “hastily provided
(History of Romney Marsh,” p. 130). :
Testimony such as this, as to the epoch of Henry VI, combined
with a great mass of similar evidence, like the progressive sub-
mergence during the same period of the Fens of England pad the
lowlands of Holland, led me to believe that the waters in 1427 were
172 H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level.
rising, and as I knew they were falling in England, Italy, and
France about 1500, my conclusion was that somewhere between
these dates, say from 1450 to 1475, I must expect to find the
culminating period of that particular epoch of northern submergence.
From this preliminary examination I was led to believe that
a high-water period must certainly have existed over the greater
portion of the European shores, culminating not far from the year
1450. I therefore entered upon a more extended search for data,
not only as to this particular epoch of an elevated sea, but for those
other and more ancient changes which I had been led to suspect
as stated.
For many years I pursued this search, carefully collecting and
indexing every notice as to change of sea-level encountered in my
readings, regardless of date or direction of movement. The data
thus accumulated seem to me conclusive ; periodic vibrations in the
ocean level are certain beyond question. The present cycle appears
to have a period of about 640 years, while the evidence points to
a period of about 500 years only at about the time of the Christian era.
A portion of the data which have been used in establishing this
curve (see Diagram, next page) is submitted herewith. Hundreds,
however, of the facts used as ordinates are omitted, that this paper
may not be swollen to unreadable size.
When this material had been mapped out, it was found that
300 points or more were aggregated in a compact body, central
about the year 1475, and that each of these points bore testimony
to a period of high-water at some part of the earth’s surface north
of the Equator; another aggregation of points, less numerous and
each one indicating a low-water period, was found bunched between
the years 1100 and 1200, central about 1150 to 1175. I thus laid
out all these accumulated facts each in its proper place and position,
and at the end found a dense haze of dots central about the years
825 and 825 a.p. and 250 3.c., these clouds representing high-water
periods, and similar swarms of dots, each representing proofs of low-
water, central about the years 600 and 100 a.p., with occasional and
conflicting points, scattered indiscriminately along the line.
At this point, then, to complete my curve it was but necessary
to draw a sinuous line through these preponderating masses of dots ;
this curve was drawn, and the result is shown in the accompanying
Diagram.
I now examined as to what weight these conflicting points might
have towards weakening my confidence in the general accuracy of the
curve. Much labour has been given to this subject ; many of these
dots were removed by investigation, others I attribute with good
reason to erosion of shore-lines or to accretion to shore-lines, as is now
going on all over the world, and finally I decided that not one of these
conflicting points could be depended upon as making serious objections
to the correctness of our curve. The information was too uncertain
in its nature; it lacked that element of the positive, the known,
which pervaded the great mass of evidence on which the curve had
been based.
‘Y'S' ‘vjosouuryy ‘yInING
‘uosdvag ‘A\*H Aq SuolzeAdasqo puv sp10d0J [VOTIOJSIY JO Solos SUO] B WO pooNpap ‘oobr ‘av pue
oot ‘od UdaMjzoq o1oydstwoZ] WOYWON OY} UT [oAdg|-vas Jo suONR|IOSO dIpotsod oy} oyessNI[t OF NVAOVIC,
' ! ' 1 ‘ 5
' ' 1 i 1 ' |
! | ' ! ‘ i }
\ \ ! ! ' '
i } \ \ '
hl aes ;
f Le ! i }
1 7,7
1 Cat
| 1S.
. t ' ! -
pba se
) ' ! | 1 |
! | ' ' 1 1 |
1 ! | I ! ] |
1 7 \ y ! ,
! , \ : t f |
: \ ' ; ' |
ae | O08} \ 000% '
00¢ Oo/ g oo¢s 00. 006 Oo// oor, 00g/ = aoky o0b/ Oo/z
I
RS
Pa) ty
!
>
“+1061 ‘OVIN "10d
174 Notices of Memoirs—Dr. D. H. Scott-— Fossil Plants.
For instance, Heligoland in the year 800 is shown in Myers’ map
to be of great size; this is in conflict with our curve, as the year
800 being near the high-water period, the island should have been
small in size. On investigation we find that we have testimony
equally strong that the island was small at that time. The description
of the island by Adam of Bremen shows that it was not much larger
than now in the time of Charlemagne (768 to 814), (‘ Principles,”
9th ed., p. 829). (For this map of Heligoland in 800, see Von Hoff’s
* Geschichte,” etc., vol. 1, p. 56.)
Another item tending to invalidate our curve is the legend as to the
submergence of lands now beneath the sea in Cardigan Bay, Wales.
Pennant states that these lands—the Cantre’r Gwaelod—were over-
whelmed by the sea about the year 500 (Pennant’s “ Tours in Wales,”
vol. ii, p. 274). In “The Gossiping Guide to Wales,” however, we
read, ‘“‘ We are not aware that any date is assigned ” to this disaster
(p. 37). It seems that what little is known of this inundation is
derived from a poem by one Prince Gwyddno, who flourished between
the years 460 and 520. There is no evidence that Gwyddno witnessed
the event he describes, and it can be readily surmised that he merely
reduced to verse the current traditions of an event that may have
occurred three or four generations before his time. If this was the
case, the Sarn Badrig and its attached legends would be evidence
confirmatory of our curve. In any case we are assured that the date
fixed by Pennant is uncertain and offers no reliable testimony
against us.
(To be continued in our next Number.)
IN(@ tere SS) Oia Vises VE @ra Se
On THE StrRuctuRE AND AFFINITIES OF F'ossIL PLANTS FROM
THE Panmozoric Rocks. IV. Tur Seep-Like FRUCTIFICATION
or Leprpocarroy, a GENUS OF LycopopIACEOUS CONES FROM
THE CARBONIFEROUS Formation. By D. H. Scorr, M.A.,
Ph.D., F.R.S., Hon. Keeper of the Jodrell Laboratory, Royal
Gardens, Kew.
SHORT account of the new genus Lepidocarpon has been given
in a note communicated to the Royal Society last August ;* the
present paper contains a full, illustrated description of the fossils in
question, together with a discussion of their morphology and affinities.
The strobilus of Lepidocarpon Lomazi, the Coal-measure species, is,
in its earlier condition, in all respects that of a Lepidostrobus, of the
type of L. Oldhamius.
In each megasporangium, however, a single megaspore or embryo-
sac alone came to perfection, filling almost the whole sporangial
cavity, but accompanied by the remains of its abortive sister-cells.
An integument ultimately grew up from the sporophyll, completely
enclosing the megasporangium, and leaving only a narrow slit-like
1 “¢ Note on the Occurrence of a Seed-like Fructification in certain Paleozoic
Lycopods’’: Roy. Soc. Proc., vol. lxvii, p. 306.
Reviews — Prof. Weinschenck—The Graphite Mines of Ceylon. 175
opening, or micropyle, along the top. As shown in specially favour-
able specimens, both of Lepidocarpon Lomazi and of L. Wildianum,
the more ancient Burntisland form, the functional megaspore became
filled by a large-celled prothallus, resembling that of the recent
Isoétes or Selaginella. The whole body, consisting of the sporophyll,
bearing the integumented megasporangium and its contents, became
detached from the strobilus, and in this isolated condition is identical
with the ‘seed’ described by Williamson under the name of Cardio-
arpon anomalum, which, however, proves to be totally distinct from
the Cordaitean seed so named by Carruthers.
The seed-like organs of Lepidocarpon are regarded by the author
as presenting close analogies with true seeds, but as differing too
widely from the seeds of any known Spermophyta to afford any
proof of affinity. The case appears rather to be one of parallel or
convergent development, and not to indicate any genetic connection
between the Lycopods and the Gymnosperms, or other Phanerogams.
ie, oS VP Es WV Se
—
B®. Weinscuenck. Zur KeEnnrnisS DER GRAPHITLAGERSTATTEN.
TIl. Dre GRAPHITLAGERSTATTEN DER INsEL Cryton. Abh.
k. bay. akad. Wiss., Cl. 11, Bd. xxi, Abth. 11; Miinchen, 1900.
ROFESSOR Weinschenck has examined a series of rock and
vein specimens from the graphite mines of Ragedara, Ampe,
Pushena, and Humbuluwa, in Ceylon, collected by Dr. Griinling.
He discusses the nature of the granulitic rocks and the mode of
occurrence and origin of the graphite.
A general petrographical description of the granulitic rocks is
given, illustrated by three plates of microphotographs. Massive
habit, granulitic structure, and variable chemical composition are
characteristic. Except in the more basic varieties, intergrowths of
two felspars are very noticeable. The granulitic rocks include
a continuous series ranging from aplites (weiss-steine) to pyroxene-
plagioclase rocks (trapp-granuliten) and even pyroxenites. A rather
oily lustre and greenish colour are very characteristic features. The
constituent minerals are in a remarkably fresh condition, except in
the immediate neighbourhood of the graphite veins. It is interesting
to note that Professor Weinschenck does not mention any pleochroic
monoclinic pyroxene.
There are certain other rocks in Ceylon which include coarse-
grained dolomites and ‘cipolins,’ containing blue apatite and contact
minerals such as forsterite, chondrodite, phlogopite, and spinel, and
also the peculiar andalusite, sillimanite, and corundum bearing rocks
described by Lacroix.
The granulitic rocks show no trace of the operation of dynamic
causes; they are regarded as an eruptive mass which may form
a single unit or be compound in character. Ihe occurrence of
coarse crystalline dolomites in the midst of the granulitic series
seems to show that different eruptive units are separated by contact
176 Reviews—Prof. Weinschenck— The Graphite Mines of Ceylon.
rocks. The existence of still younger eruptive masses of granite has
not yet been demonstrated, for the few rocks as yet described from
Ceylon as granite are rather varieties of the granulitic series.
Professor Weinschenck compares the Saxon and Ceylon granulites,
thinking with Naumann that the former are truly eruptive rocks.
Had the Ceylon rocks been studied before those of Saxony this view
would have been more widely held. They differ from the Saxon
rocks chiefly in their non-schistose character and coarser grain.
Lehmann regarded the peculiarities of the Saxon granulites as the
result of dynamo-metamorphism. He regarded the microperthitic
intergrowths of two felspars as the result of such a process, but as
these are characteristic of quite unaltered rocks in Ceylon they may
also be original in the Saxon rocks. The absence of sericite in
the latter presents a difficulty to those who favour the dynamo-
metamorphic view. Lehmann supposed that its place was taken by
biotite, but this mineral is not infrequently an original constituent
in Ceylon rocks. Garnets are characteristic of typical granulites,
and their presence is the result of chemical peculiarities in the
magma, or peculiar physical conditions obtaining at the time of its
consolidation. The chemical composition of Ceylon and Saxon
granulites resembles those of truly igneous rocks. Perhaps in
Saxony we are dealing only with the outer margin of an eruptive
mass intruded into surrounding schistose rocks, while in Ceylon
the heart of the eruptive mass is exposed. In both cases there has
been extensive magmatic differentiation, and this may be considered
characteristic of granulites in general.
It is only in immediate contact with the graphite veins that the
granulite matrix is chemically altered and finally impregnated with
graphite. Fragments of rocks included in the veins are also specially
affected. In the altered rocks the felspars are largely changed to
nontronite, a feature associated with the occurrence of graphite in
the Passau district also. The pyroxenes change to a fine scaly
material with aggregate polarization. Mica and garnet alter less
readily. Impregnation with rutile and titanite is characteristic, as
in the Bavario-Bohemian area. Beside the rock fragments, pieces
of various minerals occur in the veins—quartz, pyrite, orthoclase,
microperthite, apatite, biotite, augite—the formation of these being
previous to that of the graphite, while calcite, and sometimes biotite,
seem to have been deposited contemporaneously.
In the Passau district (Bavaria) the formation of nontronite and
impregnation with graphite affect the whole schistose complex,
while in Ceylon the graphite occurs in veins. This difference
depends chiefly on the harder and more massive character of the
Ceylon rocks. In Ceylon, Siberia, and Cumberland the graphite
occurs in veins; in Passau and Taconderoga (U.S.A.) in veins and
beds; in Bohemia in beds: these differences depend on the varied
character of the matrix and not on different modes of origin of the
graphite. Emanations of carbon monoxide, with or without
cyanogen-bearing compounds, may have given rise to the graphite
veins ; while the introduction of iron oxide and manganese peroxide
Reports and Proceedings— Geological Society of London. 177
in their neighbourhood may argue that metal carbonyls were also
present.
Finally, Professor Weinschenck would suppose the following to
have been the sequence of events in Ceylon:—A fluid magma
intruded into beds of unknown age consolidated as a_ peculiar
‘schlierig*® rock, while contact-metamorphic structures were
developed in surrounding beds. Contraction-joints developed on
cooling, allowed the formation of pegmatites, including pure quartz
veins to some extent. But, contemporaneously with the formation
of the pegmatite, there were emanations of carbon monoxide and
cyanogen-bearing compounds, which followed the same paths as
the pegmatites and then gave rise to the graphite veins. The
system of veins traversing the whole massif played in later
mountain movements the role of buffer, the soft yielding mineral
absorbing the mechanical effects, and thus the Ceylon granulites
remained unaltered by dynamic changes.
I have attempted in this review merely to give an abstract of
Professor Weinschenck’s views as expressed in his important paper.
A. K. Coomara-Swanmy.
a Oormieos AND PROCHEDINGS.
GeronogicaL Soctery or Lonpon.
J.— February 15th, 1901.—J. J. H. Teall, Esq., M.A., V.P.RS.,
President, in the Chair.
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING.
The reports of the Council and of the Library and Museum
Committee for the year 1900, proofs of which had been previously
distributed to the Fellows, were read. The Council stated that,
although there was a decrease in the number of Fellows, the financial
prosperity of the Society continued undiminished.
The report of the Library and Museum Committee enumerated
the increasingly extensive additions made to the Society’s Library.
The reports having been adopted, the President handed the
apes =
Wollaston Medal, awarded to Professor Charles Barrois, F.M.G.S.,
of Lille, to Sir Archibald Geikie, for transmission to the recipient,
addressing him as follows :—Sir Archibald Geikie,—
In these days of specialization few men are endowed with those faculties which
enable them to contribute with marked ability to all branches of our many-sided
science; but among those few Professor Barrois must unquestionably be ranked,
In the monograph on the Caleaire d’Erbray and many other papers he has
established his reputation as a paleontologist ; in numerous Memoirs on the Granitic
and Metamorphic Rocks of Brittany he figures as an accomplished petrologist ;
while in the many geological maps of the same district he has constructed a lasting
monument to his skill and energy as a geological surveyor.
His published work represents a vast accumulation ot tacts carefully observed,
clearly described, and lucidly arranged. More than this, it is often full of suggestive-
ness. He has had the satisfaction of initiating lines of research which have been
followed up with great success by others. ie ;
It was he who first taught us how to zone our English Chalk by the aid of the
fossils which it contains, and the friendships which he formed during the progress
9
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. Iv. 12
178 Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London.
of that work have been strengthened by the lapse of time. He might repeat with
truth the words of another visitor to these Islands from the other side of the Channel :
vent, vidi, vici.
In his recent publications on Brittany he has correlated the breadth and character
of the metamorphic zones surrounding the granitic masses with the thickness of the
cover under which the intrusions took place, and has suggested ideas that may prove
of great importance in connection with such questions as the origin of the crystalline
schists and igneous magmas.
But he has aided the progress of geology in other ways than as an original worker.
The illustrious pupil of an illustrious master, he has contributed to maintain the great
reputation of Lille as a centre of geological teaching; while his extensive knowledge
and exceptional organizing ability have ever been at the disposal of the International
Geological Congress and kindred associations.
Many years have elapsed since I had the privilege of making his acquaintance, and
it is therefore with the greatest pleasure that I now ask you to transmit to him
the Wollaston Medal, which has been awarded to him by the Council as a mark
of their appreciation of the great services that he has rendered to all branches of
Geological Science.
Sir Archibald Geikie replied in the following words :—Mr.
President,—
It has been to my friend Professor Barrois a matter of very keen regret that he is
prevented from being here to-day, to renew his personal relations with the Fellows
of the Geological Society, and to receive from them the highest distinction which it is
in their power to bestow. We must all deeply sympathize with him in the causes that
deprive us of his presence. Bowed down by one of the greatest afflictions that can
befall a father—the death of a son in the full bloom and promise of early manhood—
he has manfully struggled with his numerous duties, until at last his health has given
way under the strain. Let us hope that he may soon be restored to his former
vigour, and be able to resume the researches in Brittany and the detailed description
of them on which he has so long been engaged. He has asked me to receive this
Medal for him, and I count it a great privilege and honour to be the intermediary
between the Geological Society of London and one of the most distinguished and
widely esteemed geologists of Hurope. Professor Barrois has sent a letter of thanks,
which I will now read :—
‘Mr. PRESIDENT, —
“* Allow me to express my gratitude for the new honour which the Geological
Society has bestowed upon me, by the award of the Wollaston Medal, as I cannot
but recall that the Council has on a former occasion encouraged me in my scientific
work by the award of the Bigsby Medal.
“«T have since made long wanderings along the Channel cliffs on both sides, from
chalk to granite, for the sake of science, in the steps of Dela Beche, Fitton, Godwin-
Austen, and the founders of stratigraphical geology ; and itis for me a very unexpected
erent to see my name written to day, for ever, with theirs, in the Proceedings of the
ociety.
“‘No distinction can be more gratifying to a geologist than to receive its highest
award from the Council of the illustrious Society which for nearly a century has
extended our knowledge in every branch of geology, and promoted progress in every
part of the earth. I so greatly appreciate this great honour, that I feel as if the
work that I have been able to accomplish was too small to merit the Wollaston
Medal, granted as a reward, but rather as a friendly incitation to go on in my labour—
“upward and onward.’ ”’
CHARLES BaRROIs.
“Lille, February 9th, 1901.’’
The President then presented the Balance of the Proceeds of the
Wollaston Donation Fund to Mr. Arthur Walton Rowe, M.B., M.S.,
of Margate, addressing him as follows :—Dr. Rowe,—
It will, I am sure, be a source of gratification to you to be associated with
Professor Barrois on the present occasion, for you have done much to confirm and
extend the principles which he first applied to the elucidation of the structure of the
Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London. 179
English Chalk. We recognize, however, that, although your work has been of very
great stratigraphical importance, your main object is biological, and that the task
you have set yourself is that of working out the evolution of organic forms durine
the Upper Cretaceous period. ;
In your paper on Mieraster you have set an example which I trust will be followed.
You have shown how it is possible to deal with a vast mass of material, so as to
bring out the main facts of evolution, without burdening science with hosts of new
names and long lists of synonyms.
By the application of the dental engine to the preparation, and of micro-photography
to the illustration, of fossils, you have also rendered signal service to science. _ ,
The Council of the Geological Society, in making this award, have been desirous
of expressing their gratitude to you for the work that you have already accomplished,
and their lively sense of favours to come. ;
In handing the Murchison Medal, awarded to Mr. Alfred John
Jukes- Browne, B.A., of H.M. Geological Survey, to Mr. W. Whitaker,
for transmission to the recipient, the President addressed him as
follows :—Mr. Whitaker,—
Mr. Jukes-Browne, whose absence we all deeply regret, has aided the progress
of geology in many ways. His numerous writings on the Upper Cretaceous Rocks
are too well known to make it necessary for me to refer to them in detail. He has,
from the first, recognized the enormous importance of associating palwontological
with stratigraphical work, and by original research, as well as by a critical study
of the writings of others, has made himself master of the geology of that period
to which he has especially devoted himself.
But he possesses also a good all-round knowledge of geology. His Handbooks on
Physical and Historical Geology have been of great service to students, and his
suggestive work on the Building of the British Isles has been the means of directing
attention to many problems of considerable theoretical interest.
There is yet another way in which he has rendered great service to geology, and
that is as a stimulator of work in others. I am sure that no one will be more ready
to acknowledge this than Mr. William Hill, with whom Mr. Jukes-Browne has
been so long associated.
In recognition of these many services to our science, the Council have awarded to
him the Murchison Medal, which I, an old College friend and fellow-student, now
ask you to transmit to him with our heartiest good wishes.
Mr. Whitaker, having expressed his gratification at the privilege
of receiving the Medal on behalf of an old colleague and valued
friend, read the following extracts from a letter which he had
received from Mr. Jukes-Browne :—
“<I beg you to convey to the Council of the Geological Society my deep appreciation
of the honour conferred upon me by the award of the Murchison Medal, and my
great regret that the state of my health makes it impossible for me to be present in
person to express my acknowledgments. ’ ,
“‘ That such work as I have been able to accomplish should be thought worthy of
this high reward is not only a present gratification, but will be an incentive to show
myself more worthy of such recognition. I feel also that I have been specially
fortunate in my friends, and that without the assistance of two of them in particular
~—Mr. W. Hill and Professor J. B. Harrison—many of the investigations in which
I have been concerned would have been incomplete. hel
“T should like further to say that the pleasure of receiving the Murchison Medal
on the present occasion is much enhanced by the knowledge that the Wollaston
Medal is at the same time awarded to my old friend Professor Barrois, whose zonal
work among the Cretaceous rocks of England and France has added so much to our
knowledge of those rocks.”
The President then handed the Balance of the Proceeds of the
. . La al ae J.
Murchison Geological Fund, awarded to Mr. Thomas Sargeant
Hall, M.A., of Melbourne, to Professor J. W. Judd, for transmission
to the recipient, addressing him as follows :—Professor Judd,—
180 Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London.
In awarding the Balance of the Proceeds of the Murchison Fund to Mr. Hall;
the Council is desirous of recognizing the value of his many contributions to Australian
Geology, and especially of his detailed researches on the Zonal Distribution of the
Graptolites of Victoria. His work has thrown much light on the Lower Paleozoic
history of Australia; while his discovery of the coincidence of the Ordovician
auriferous belts with certain graptolitie zones is an illustration of the bearing of
paleontological research on economic questions.
His application of the zonal method of research to the Kainozoic deposits of
Victoria has done much to elucidate the later geological history of the colony, and
his bibliographic labours have, I am told, greatly facilitated the work of his scientific
colleagues in Victoria. We hope that this award will be of some assistance to him
in further researches.
In presenting the Lyell Medal to Dr. Ramsay Heatley Traquair,
F.R.S., of Edinburgh, the President addressed him in the following
words :—Dr. Traquair,—
The Council of the Geological Society, in presenting you with the Lyell Medal,
desires to express its sense of the great value of your many contributions to
Paleontology. More than thirty years have elapsed since the publication of your
first papers on Fossil Fishes, and during the whole of that period you have been
giving evidence of your keen insight into the structure of these interesting forms of
life. I can only refer to one or two of your more important works.
Your memoirs on the structure of the Palioniscide and Platysomide are, I believe,
masterpieces of descriptive paleontology, and must for ever remain most valuable
works of reference. Of great importance, from a geological point of view, have been
your researches bearing on the fish fauna of the Old Red Sandstone of Scotland.
You have not only shown the complete divergence between the fauna of the Orcadian
Series and that of the Lower Old Red Sandstone south of the Grampians, but you have
also pointed out that in certain areas the fishes in different divisions of that formation
are arranged in life-zones—a fact which has been ot service to the field-geologist.
Your last, and perhaps your greatest, work is your monograph on the remarkable
Fossil Fishes from the Silurian rocks of the South of Scotland. Your keen insight
and wide knowledge of fossil ichthyology enabled you to show, among other points,
that the group of the Heterostraci, which hitherto contained only the Pteraspide,
must be considerably enlarged, and that a transition could be seen from the shagreen-
covered Ccelolepidie to the plate-covered Pteraspidee. You have also arrived at the
conclusion that the Heterostraci, thouch not actual Selachians, had in all probability
a common origin with the primitive Elasmobranchs. These results must be of the
highest interest to biologists.
I have great pleasure in handing to you the Medal, together with our best wishes
that you may long be spared to carry on your most valuable researches.
Dr. Traquair replied as follows :—Mr. President,—
Permit me to thank the Council of the Geological Society for the honour which
they have this day conferred upon me, and you, sir, for the kind words which you
have spoken regarding my work.
IT am much gratified to hear that some of that work has been of use to the
stratigraphical geologist, as it is indeed impossible for the paleontologist who has
himself collected in the field to avoid taking an interest in his subject from the
geological standpoint also.
The impulse, however, which led me to take up Fossil Fishes as a speciality was
entirely biological. While still a boy at school I broke open an ironstone nodule
containing a piece of a Palewoniscid fish, and was thereupon seized by an intense
curiosity to know how the bones of its head were arranged. As I did not find the
information that I desired in the books, I resolved some day to try and work out
the problem myself. Need I remark that, when in due time I got fairly to work
on the subject, I found that fossil ichthyology presented a field sufficient to supply
not only myself, but many others, with original work for our lifetimes ?
If the work that I have accomplished in this field falls far short of the realization
of early dreams, it is still gratifying for me to find that I have been able to do enough
to merit this expression of the Society’s approbation.
i
Reports and Proceedings— Geological Society of Loudon. 181
In presenting one half of the Balance of the Proceeds of the Lyell
Geological Fund to John William Evans, D.Sc., LL.B., the President
addressed him as follows :—Dr. Evans,—
Half the Balance of the Proceeds of the Lyell Fund has been awarded to you, in
recognition of the importance of your geological work during the last ten years.
Your visit to an almost unknown part of Brazil, and several years’ residence in India,
have enabled you to make observations and to collect specimens of great value to
our science. ‘The papers which you have already published in our Journal on the
Matto Grosso district, and on the Calcareous Sandstones and Monchiquites of North-
Western India, are evidence of your capacity for original work.
We trust that this award may aid you in publishing the results of investigations
that you are known to have carried out while engaged in the Survey of the State
of Junagarh (Kathiawar), and will encourage you in turther work.
In handing the other half of the Balance of the Proceeds of the
Lyell Geological Fund, awarded to Mr. Alexander McHenry, of
the Geological Survey of Ireland, to Sir Archibald Geikie, for trans-
mission to the recipient, the President addressed him as follows :—
Sir Archibald Geikie,—
Mr. McHenry’s claims to recognition are well known to you, and the fact that
you receive the award of a moiety of the Balance of the Proceeds of the Lyell
Geological Fund on his behalf is a proof that you cordially endorse the action of
the Council. For forty years he has laboured to advance our knowledge of Irish
Geology as a member of the Geological Survey, first as a collector of tossils and
rock-specimens and afterwards as a member of the Surveying Staff. Most of his
work has been published in the Maps and Memoirs of the Geological Survey, to
which he has devoted himself, as you yourself have said, with admirable loyalty
and enthusiasm. One of his most useful labours has been the preparation, in
conjunction with his former colleague, Professor Watts, of a Guide to the Collection
of Rocks and Fossils belonging to the Geological Survey of Ireland. His extensive
and accurate knowledge largely contributed to make this work a most valuable
compendium of Irish Geology. We hope that this award will act as an encourage-
ment to him and be of some assistance in further work.
Sir Archibald Geikie, in reply, said :—Mr. President,—
On the part of my old colleague, I have to express to the Geological Society his
best thanks for the recognition of his work which is expressed in this award. Next
to myself he is the member of the Geological Survey who has been longest on
the staff. His whole life has been devoted to his official duties, and he has only
now and then ventured to make his appearance in non-official print. His labours
are thus chronicled in the Maps, Sections, and Memoirs of the Geological Survey
of Ireland, and are probably familiar to comparatively few geologists. He has
been content honestly and strenuously to do his duty with a loyalty that has never
flinched, and with an enthusiasm that seems to wax higher as the years go past.
To such a man you may well believe that recognition from the Geological Society is
as precious as it is unlooked for. It will nerve him with fresh energy tor the task
of revision of the Superficial Deposits of Ireland on which the Survey is about to
enter; for it will show him that his work is not only known to his colleagues, but
is appreciated by the leaders of Geological Science here.
In presenting the Bigsby Medal to Mr. George William Lamplugh,
of H.M. Geological Survey, the President addressed him as follows :—
Mr. Lamplugh,—
In 1891 the Council of the Geological Society recognized the value of your work
on the Glacial Deposits of Yorkshire and on the Speeton Clay by an award from
the Lyell Fund. Since that time you have still further extended our knowledge of
the Lower Cretaceous rocks of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, and have furnished
Professor Pavlov with material which has enabled him to throw considerable light
on the physical conditions and migrations of the Cephalopod fauna during the
period represented by these rocks.
182 Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London.
Your early work was done in the midst of an active and successful business career,
which you gave up, somewhat against the advice of your friends, to join the
Geological Survey and devote all your energy to the progress of science. Of late
years you have been working in the Isle of Man, and the map of that island which
you have produced is a striking proof of your skill as a geological surveyor. Its
publication leads us to look forward with great expectations to the forthcoming
memoir.
In awarding to you the Bigsby Medal, the Council feel that they are placing if in
safe hands. You have done much, and they confidently expect that you will do more.
Mr. Lamplugh replied in the following words :—Mr. President,—
It is not without a proper sense of responsibility that I receive this Medal. The
terms of the award leave no doubt that, while it is intended to some extent as
a recognition of work already done, it is essentially intended as an incentive to further
work, and implies a certain obligation in this respect, which you, sir, in your engaging
words have not attempted to lighten. The recipients of this Medal in the past have
always fulfilled the obligation, and it will indeed be a satisfaction to me if it be in
my power to prove my fitness for the trust reposed in me by this award.
You have made reference to my altered circumstances since the time, ten years
ago, when my earlier work received kindly recognition from the Council of this
Society ; and it may, therefore, be permitted me to confess that, in deciding to devote
my whole energies to geological research, I felt some misgiving lest the studies which
had proved so congenial as a recreation should take on another aspect when made
the main occupation of my life. But the misgiving has proved groundless; the
wider opportunity, so far from blunting my interest in these studies, has brought
fresh zest, and on every side has opened up vistas of promising work for the future.
The President read his Anniversary Address, in which he first
gave Obituary Notices of several Fellows and Foreign Members
deceased since the last Annual Meeting, including Professor O. M.
Torell (elected F.M. in 1888), Professor A. Milne-Edwards (F.M. in
1899) ; the Duke of Argyll (President in 1872-74) ; Mr. C. Tylden-
Wright (elected a Fellow in 1857), Mr. G. C. Greenwell (el. in 1858),
Mr. G. H. Morton (el. in 1858), General Pitt-Rivers (el. in 1867),
Professor G. H. F. Ulrich (el. in 1867), Mr. J. Thomson (el. in
1868), Mr. C. J. A. Meyer (el. in 1869), Mr. W. P. Sladen (el.
in 1872), Dr. John Young (el. in 1874), and Dr. W. Waagen
(el. in 1881).
He then dealt with the evolution of petrological ideas during the
nineteenth century, especially as regards the igneous rocks. The
discussions as to the origin of basalt and granite were referred to,
and it was shown that the controversy regarding the latter rock
had contributed largely to the clearing up of our ideas as to the
nature of plutonic phenomena.
The solution theory propounded by Bunsen was especially empha-
sized, and its modern developments were briefly sketched. It was
suggested that the next great advance will, in all probability, be the
result of experiment, controlled by the modern theory of solutions,
and carried out for the purpose of testing the consequences of that
theory and discovering the modifications which may be necessary to
adapt it to igneous magmas. The bearing which recent work on
alloys had on petrographical problems was also referred to.
The problem of the origin of petrographical species was next
considered, and the growth of ideas on the subject briefly sketched.
It was pointed out that although magmatic differentiation is accepted
by many as an important factor in producing different kinds of
j
Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London. 183
igneous rocks, it does not rest on any assured experimental basis.
Differentiation dependent on, or connected with, the crystallization
of definite minerals was reviewed more favourably; but it was
pointed out that all theories of differentiation which are based on
unaided molecular flow are subject to the criticism that the time
required to effect any important differentiation appears to be too
great.
Reference was also made to recent work on the modification of
igneous magmas by the inclusion and assimilation of rocks through
which they pass; and the conclusion was reached that the origin
of species, so far as igneous rocks are concerned, is a problem
the final solution of which has been handed on by the nineteenth
century to its successor.
The ballot for the Council and Officers was taken, and the following were declared
duly elected for the ensuing year:—Council: W. T. Blanford, GLE De MEsReSe
Sir John Evans, K.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S. ; Professor E. J. Garwood, M.A. ;
Professor T. T. Groom, M.A., D.Sc.; Alfred Harker, Bsq., M.A.; R. S. Herries,
Esq., M.A.; William Hill, Esq. ; W. H. Hudleston, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S. ;
Prof. J. W. Judd, C.B., LL.D., F.R.S.; Lieut.-Gen. C. A. McMahon, F.R.S. ;
J. E. Marr, Esq., M.A., F.R.S.; Professor H. A. Miers, M.A., F.R.S.; Right
Rev. John Mitchinson, D.D., D.C.L.; H. W. Monckton, Esq., F.L.S.; E. 1.
Newton, Esq., F.R.S.; G. T. Prior, Esq., M.A.; F. W. Rudler, Esq. ; Professor
H. G. Seeley, F.R.S., F.L.S.; Professor W. J. Sollas, M.A., D.Sc., LL. Dy BeReSss
J. J. H. Teall, Esq., M.A., F.R.S. ; Professor W. W. Watts, M.A. ; W. Whitaker,
PeqeebwAL. BAR. S: 5° Hi. B: Woodward, Esq., F.R.S.
Officers :—President: J. J. H. Teall, Esq., M.A., F.R.S. Vice-Presidents :
J. KE. Marr, Esq., M.A., F.R.S.; H. W. Monckton, Esq., F.L.S. ; Professor
H. G. Seeley, F.R.S., F.L.S.; W. Whitaker, Esq., B.A., F.R.S. Secretarzes :
R. S. Herries, Esq, M.A.; Professor W. W. Watts, M.A. Foreign Secretary :
Sir John Evans, K.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., F.L.S. Treasurer: Wk:
Blanford, LL.D., F.R.8.
Il. — February 20, 1901.—J. J. H. Teall, Esq., M.A., V-P.R.S.,
President, in the Chair.
The Address, which it is proposed to submit to His Majesty the
King, on behalf of the President, Council, and Fellows, was read as
follows, and the terms thereof were approved :—
“TO THE KING’S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.
“¢May IT PLEASE youR MAJESTY, .
“We, your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the President,
Council, and Fellows of the Geological Society of London, humbly beg leave to offer
to your Majesty our most profound and heartfelt sympathy in the great sorrow W hieh
has fallen on you in the death of our late beloved Sovereign Queen Victoria, and to
most respectfully express the deep griet that we, in common with all your Majesty's
subjects, feel at the great loss which has befallen the nation. ; i
‘‘ While thus expressing our grief, we most humbly beg leave to offer to your
Majesty our most sincere and unfeigned congratulations on your Majesty's accession
to the throne of your ancestors. Our knowledge of the great interest pene you
Majesty has always taken in all matters relating to the welfare of your su byects
makes us feel with confidence that science will continue to advance during your reign
as in that of Her late Majesty of beloved memory. We recall with pride that ae
Majesty’s father, the late Prmce Consort, was for many years a Fellow of this
Society. heibe .
‘And we shall ever pray that your Majesty may long be spared to re
a happy and contented people.”’
ign over
184 Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London.
Professor J. B. Harrison, alluding to a series of views of parts of
the interior of British Guiana, which he laid on the table, remarked
that the photographs had been taken by his colleague, Mr. H. I.
Perkins, F.G.S., Acting Commissioner of Mines in British Guiana,
during their recent geological investigations into the structure of
the goldfields of that colony. The views well illustrate the general
characteristics of the densely wooded country in which the gold-
bearing areas occur, and give some idea of the difficulties which
affect the work of the mining prospector and of the field-geologist
in that colony.
Several of the photographs illustrate rapids, cataracts, and falls
which so frequently occur along the courses of some of the vast
rivers of that part of South America, and show the differing forms
of weathering of various igneous rocks and of horizontally-bedded
sandstones and conglomerates in the tropics.
Among the photographs are several fine views of the Kaieteur
Falls on the Potaro River, a tributary of the Hssequibo. These
falls, which were discovered by a Fellow of the Geological Society,
Mr. C. Barrington Brown, in the course of his geological recon-
naissance of the colony about thirty years ago, occur near the
escarpment of the great sandstone formation which is so largely
developed in the Guianas and in Brazil. The falls are over a ledge
of very coarse siliceous conglomerate, some 18 or 20 feet thick,
which overlies a thickness of about 1000 feet of almost horizontally-
bedded sandstones. The river above the falls is about 400 feet
broad and from 18 to 20 feet deep, and falls vertically, as a great
curtain of water, for 740 feet, into a vast chasm at the extremity
of a deep valley which it has eroded for a distance of about 17 miles
from the escarpment of the sandstones. During the first 3 or
4 miles of its course from the falls through the valley, the river
descends for about 400 feet by a series of cataracts and rapids.
The valley, which is eroded in places through the sandstones into
the underlying igneous rocks, is of surpassing beauty, and offers
many features of marked geological interest. One of the views,
taken when the water was low after a long-continued drought,
shows very clearly the great cave which the spray of the falling
water has cut out from the softer sandstone strata.
Others of the views show the somewhat primitive methods
employed in prospecting and in working the placer-claims for gold.
Professor Edward Hull made a communication, illustrated by
lantern-slides, on the submerged valley opposite the mouth of
the River Congo. The position of this submerged valley has been
ascertained by Mr. Edward Stallybrass and Professor Hull, by
contouring the floor of the ocean with the aid of the soundings
recorded on the Admiralty Charts. The sides of the valley are
steep and precipitous and clearly defined, the width varying from
2 to 10 miles, and the length across the Continental platform being
about 122 miles. It is continuous with the Valley of the Congo,
and its slope is uninterruptedly downward in the direction of the
abyssal floor. The steepness of the sides indicates that they are
formed of very solid rocks.
Reports and Proceedings— Geological Society of London. 185
Several other submerged valleys off the coast of Western Europe
were described for comparison. In most cases the landward end
of the submerged river-channel is filled with silt, etc., for some
distance from the mouth of the actual river; but, farther out, its
course becomes quite distinct towards its embouchure at the edge
of the Continental platform. Among the valleys specified were
those off the mouth of the Tagus and the Lima, the Adour, and the
Loire, and those in the English and Irish Channels.
The following communication was read :—
“The Geological Succession of the Beds below the Millstone Grit
Series of Pendle Hill and their equivalents in certain other parts
of England.” By Wheelton Hind, M.D., B.S., F.R.C.S., F.G.S.,
and J. Allen Howe, Esq., B.Sc., F.G.S.
Part i of this paper consists of a detailed account of the ground.
Many detailed sections are given, showing in each case the exact
fossiliferous horizons. The geological succession between the massif
of limestone and the Millstone Grit Series on Pendle Hill is shown,
by various sections, to contain a characteristic limestone series,
easily distinguished by paleontological and lithological characters
from the White or Clitheroe Limestone. This calcareous series is
found to be very constant over a certain definite area, and to contain
a zonal fauna.
By various sections the extent of the deposit is shown, and it is
demonstrated that the deposit occupies a basin, of which the Pendle
district covers the maximum area of deposit, for the sequence thins
out rapidly north-wes and south. But although the beds thin out,
a calcareous series with a typical zonal fauna is always present.
Beds containing this fauna are traced from County Dublin, the Isle
of Man, Bolland, Craven, the Calder and Mersey valleys, to Derby-
shire and North Staffordshire. It is shown that this series, for
which the term Pendleside Series is proposed, occupies a basin
about the size of the area indicated above, and that the beds are
lithologically distinct from the Yoredale Beds of Wensleydale, and
contain a different fauna. :
Part ii discusses the question in detail, from a paleontological
point of view. Several goniatites and Posidonomya Becheri are
shown to be characteristic of the lower part of the series, while
Aviculopecten papyraceus, Posidoniella levis, and certain goniatites
have a wider distribution in the series.
The faunas of the Yoredale Beds of Wensleydale and the Pendle-
side Series, generally mapped as Yoredales, are shown to be entirely
distinct; and the Yoredale Series of Wensleydale is shown, on
paleontological and stratigraphical grounds, to be the equivalent of
the upper part of the massif of limestone. _
The migration of certain families of fossils from the north to the
south, brought about by a slow change of environment, 1s shown by
tables, and lines called ‘isodiectic lines’ are drawn to represent this
distribution. It is shown that the Nuculide are found in the lowest
Carboniferous beds in Scotland, but come in at successively higher
horizons as the beds range southward.
186 : Correspondence—Rev. O. Fisher.
These facts and comparative thicknesses are the basis of an
argument as to the local distribution of land and water in
Carboniferous times; and it is shown that the peculiar change in
type which Carboniferous rocks undergo in passing from north to
south is due entirely to physiographical conditions, and not to any
theoretical assumption of contemporaneous faulting. It is shown,
moreover, that the Craven Faults per se have had nothing. to do
with this change of type. The correlation of the limestone knolls
of Craven with the Pendleside Limestone is demonstrated to be no
longer tenable.
CORRESPONDENCE.
ies
MR. A. R. HUNT ON THE AGE OF THE EARTH AND THE
SODIUM OF THE SEA.
Str,—In the volume of this Magazine for 1900 I reviewed
Professor Joly’s theory, that the age of the earth can be calculated
by comparing the amount of sodium now in the sea with the time
rate at which rivers are at present conveying sodium down. Among
other matters I suggested that the salinity of rivers might be partly
due to sodium derived from sedimentary rocks, which had formerly
come from the sea. This would of course lengthen the computed
age of the earth.
Mr. Hunt now suggests that “sea-water reached the heated rocks.”
and he appears to consider that much of the sodium, which the
Dartmoor granites (at any rate) contain, was derived from the sea.
This is turning Professor Joly’s theory round about. Professor
Joly derives the salts of the sea from the igneous rocks. Mr. Hunt
derives the salts of the igneous rocks from the sea.
My object in this letter is to direct attention to the difficulty of
explaining the undoubted abundance of water, which is extravasated
by volcanoes, to absorption from the ocean or from any other
external source. I have gone into my objections to this view
(whatever they may be worth) in my ‘Physics of the Harth’s
Crust” (2nd ed., p. 144), where I have, in a note, given an account
of Daubrée’s experiment, to which Mr. Hunt refers.
Since, alas! my two friends have passed away, it may be
permissible to say, that I was on a visit to my dear friend Pro-
fessor Prestwich shortly after he had published his paper on “The
Agency of Water in Volcanic Eruptions,” and Professor John Morris
was my fellow-guest. We two were talking about Prestwich’s
theory that the volcanic water was derived ab extra, and that
water could enter into combination with molten rock. Morris said,
“Water would not be so foolish!” This was not a very scientific
reason, but it was putting his own idea pretty strongly. He also
told me that he had tried to dissuade Prestwich from publishing his
views of volcanic energy, but without success.
My own opinion is that water has been a constituent of the liquid
Correspondence—Professor T. G. Bonney. 187
interior of the earth from the very first, and that it simply makes
its escape at a tremendous pressure whenever a way is opened for it
through the solid crust. O. Fisuer.
Harurton.
March 5, 1901.
NAMES FOR BRITISH ICE-SHEETS.
Srr,—May I suggest to Mr. Lamplugh that to propose names for
British Ice-sheets before proving that they have existed is rather
like counting chickens before they are hatched. At present we
know neither the ancient extent of land-ice in our Island, nor in all
cases what are indisputable traces of it. Where faith is strong this,
no doubt, seems a detail, but to sceptics it appears important.
If, however, we admit that there was an Hast British Ice-sheet,
“‘maintained and augmented principally by the snowfall upon its
own surface,” how are we to explain the presence of Scandinavian
rocks at Cromer and other places on our East Coast? Of that ice-
sheet the Dogger Bank would be centre and highest part. This
tract is crossed (a little north of its centre) by a line drawn from
Flamborough Head to the Naze of Norway. Overan area measuring
about 70 miles from east to west, and 12 miles in the opposite
direction, it rises above the ten-fathom contour-line (the minimum
depth being 7 fathoms). The twenty-fathom line is very near to
the other one at the south-west end, but then recedes from it so as:
to enclose a long bank which stretches in a north-easterly direction,
almost half-way across the North Sea, and the thirty-fathom line on
the northern side extends from the Yorkshire coast to Jutland.
North and north-west of this limit are soundings down to 49 fathoms,
and those over 40 fathoms are rather common. In the great channel
off the south-west of Norway they are often over 200 fathoms (for
particulars see this Magazine, 1899, p. 282). Thus the ice of the
Dogger-fjeld (would not that have been a better name ?) must have
descended from its central plateau down slopes about 250 feet in
vertical height on the north and north-west, and about half that
amount down those from the south-west to the south-east. This mass
of ice flowing outwards towards nearly all points of the compass,
and buttressed on the western side by the Caledonian ice, which it
would try to ‘shoulder’ in that direction, would surely defend our
shores from the inroads of the Scandinavian ice-sheet, however
nimbly it might climb the steep slope of the above-mentioned
channel. Is it, then, a mistake to identify Scandinavian rocks in
East Anglia; for if the Dogger-fjeld existed they could not have
travelled on floating ice? T. G. Bonney.
CONCRETIONS OF CALCITE IN MAGNESIAN LIMESTONE.
Sir,—The well-known globular concretions from the Magnesian
Limestone of Durham occur in many collections under the name
of ‘dolomite’ or ‘ magnesian limestone.’ Professor Garwood, how-
ever, effectually showed (Gro. Maa., 1891, p. 436) that these
concretions are due to the crystallization of calcite in a ground of
188 Correspondence—Prof. G. A. J. Cole—A. Strahan.
magnesian limestone, and that the 5 to 15 per cent. of magnesium
carbonate contained in them is a mere impurity, when compared
with the 30 per cent. in the matrix from which they have arisen.
It is interesting to come across a similar statement made in
1817, though we waited long for Professor Garwood’s numerical
proofs, and for a complete account of the mode of origin of the
concretions. Mr. N. J. Winch (Transactions of the Geological
Society of London, vol. iv, p. 9) remarks that “ botryoidal masses of
fetid limestone devoid of magnesia, in balls varying from the size
of a pea to two feet in diameter, imbedded in a soft, marly,
magnesian limestone, are found at Hartlepool, etc.” Winch had
given a specimen some twelve years before to James Sowerby
(‘‘ British Mineralogy,” table 58), and the passage above quoted
was incorporated by Conybeare & Phillips in their “‘ Geology of
England and Wales,” 1822, p. 306. GrenvitLe A. J. Coun.
Dusuin, March 1, 1901.
SUCCESSION OF STRATA IN THE YOREDALE ROCKS.
Str,—Mr. Dakyns is right in his criticism on the succession
I quoted for the Yoredale strata of the Yore Valley. It is true that
the sequence, though there are many exceptions, is usually—
Shale.
Limestone.
Sandstone.
But this may be put in another way. The series as a whole is
made up of repetitions of this threefold cycle, and may with equal
correctness be regarded as consisting of repetitions of the eycle—
Sandstone.
Shale.
Limestone.
We have, therefore, the same evidence of intermittent and more or
less rhythmic sedimentation which I claimed for the Coal-measures.
But there is this difference, that whereas in the Yoredales the cycle
commences with inactivity (limestone) and proceeds to rapid
sedimentation (sandstone), in the Coal-measures it commences with
activity (sandstones and conglomerates) and proceeds to stagnation
(coal-seams), the order being—
Coal.
Shale.
Sandstone and conglomerate.
Both formations result from rapid sedimentation over a subsiding
area, but whereas the Coal-measures are essentially estuarine, the
Yoredale rocks of the type developed in the Yore Valley bear every
sign of having been laid down in open sea; the one was a product
of the shallowest water, the other of comparatively deep water.
Herein probably lies the explanation of the reversal of order of
events.
I am obliged to Mr. Dakyns for the correction.
A. STRABAN.
March 6, 1901.
Correspondence—J. FE, Marr—R. Bullen Newton. 189
EVAPORATION AND SUBLIMATION.
Str,—As long ago as September, 1900, I observe that the writer
who reviewed my book on “The Scientific Study of Scenery” in
this Magazine criticizes my use of the term sublimation.
He says: “In alluding to the evaporation of snow and camphor
the process is referred to as ‘sublimation.’ In Watt’s Dictionary
of Chemistry sublimate is defined as ‘a body obtained in the solid
state by the cooling of its vapour.’ ”
Nevertheless, I believe that I use the term correctly, and in
support of this assertion let me further quote Watt’s Dictionary
(1894 edition, vol. iv, p. 524). Sublimation is there defined as
«The passage of a solid body, when heated, to the state of vapour
without melting.”
I take this opportunity of thanking the writer for the appreciative
notice, which contains many suggestions which I should gladly
utilize, if a second edition of my book should be called for.
J. E. Marr.
CAMBRIDGE.
MALAY PENINSULA LIMESTONE.
Str,—Since the publication of my paper in last month’s
Grotocican Magazine, where I compiled some notes on the
geology of the Malay Peninsula, and took occasion to remark that
in the absence of fossils it was impossible to correlate the limestones
of that country with any definite horizon, some further samples of
the same rock have been submitted to my notice by Dr. Henry
Woodward, F.R.S.
This new material was collected a few years back by the late
Mr. H. M. Becher, at Gua Sai, Penjom, Pahang, and is of precisely
similar appearance to the paler-coloured limestones obtained by
Mr. R. M. W. Swan from the River Tui District, which he found
associated with those of a dark variety referred to in my paper.
The ‘Becher’ specimens are important from the fact that they
exhibit organic structures, a feature pointed out by Dr. G. J. Hinde,
F.R.S., on a manuscript label dated January 7th, 1899, who thus
describes them :—‘“ Very fine-grained bluish limestones. The only
organisms recognizable are Crinoidal stem-joints. There are traces
of other organisms with which the rock seems to have been filled
originally, “but they are now nearly obliterated and are not
determinable.”
This report, however, leaves us still without a clue as to the age
of the limestone, and we shall require more accurate paleontological
evidence before that desirable point can be permanently settled. In
the meantime mention may be made of the presence of an obscure
Crinoidal fragment on one of the weathered surfaces of this rock,
1 “‘Notes on Literature bearing upon the Geology ot the Malay Peninsula ; with
an account of a Neolithic Implement from that country Grou, MaG., 1901,
pp. 128-154.
190 Obituary—Dr. G. M. Dawson.
exhibiting a portion of the stem with fragmentary brachial
extensions, the whole organism covering a space of nearly three
inches in length. My colleague, Dr. F. A. Bather, has kindly
examined the specimen, but without any satisfactory result, on
account of its poor preservation; he is, however, inclined to regard it
as of Paleozoic age. Further efforts should now be made to obtain
more suitable fossils from these interesting limestones of the Malay
Peninsula, so that their geological age may be finally determined.
R. Burien Newton.
British Museum (Naturat History).
March 19, 1901.
OBITUARY .~
DR. GEORGE MERCER DAWSON,
C.M.G., LL.D., Assoc. R.S.M., F.R.S., F.G.S., F.R.S. Canapa,
DIREcTOR OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA.
Born Avcust 2, 1849. Disp Marcu 2, 1901.
Tuis eminent geologist, whose portrait and life we published in
the GronocicaL Macazine for May, 1897, pp. 198-195, died at
Ottawa, after an illness of only two days, at the early age of
51 years, sincerely regretted by a large circle of friends.
Dr. Dawson was the son of Sir William Dawson, F.R.S., for many
years Principal of McGill College, Montreal; and was, since 1875,
one of the staff of the Geological Survey of Canada, of which he
speedily became Assistant-Director, and in 1894 Director. He was
educated at McGill College, Montreal, and at the Royal School of
Mines, London. Here he obtained the Duke of Cornwall’s Scholar-
ship, and the Edward Forbes medal and prize. He was, in 1878,
on the North American Boundary Commission. On the Geological
Survey he did much personal work in British Columbia and the
North-West Territory, covering in his mapping many thousand miles
of area. Dr. Dawson was one of the Commissioners for the Behring
Sea Arbitration, spending the Summer of 1892 inquiring into the
conditions and facts of seal-life, and his services were of the greatest
value. He received the thanks of the Governor-General-in-Council,
and was made a C.M.G. He received the Bigsby Gold Medal from
the Geological Society in 1891, and in 1890 the degree of LL.D.
from Queen’s University and from McGill University in 1891. In
i897 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical
Society for his work as a whole.
Canada may well be proud of Dr. G. M. Dawson as one of her
most brilliant men of science, whose loss she will long deplore, nor
will he fail to be remembered in this country also as a son of that
great Motherland whose name can never die.
Obituary—C. F. Liitken—R. Craig. 191
CHRISTIAN FREDERIK LUTKEN.
Born at Sord, Ocropsr 4, 1827. Diep ar Corpennacen, Ferrvanry 6, 1901.
Prorrssor Lurkrn, whose death, some two years after his
resignation of the Directorship of the Zoological Museum at
Copenhagen, removes another veteran from the ranks of the admirably
trained and hard-working Scandinavian naturalists, was best known
as a describer and classifier of living animals. But while, in
common with the leaders of paleontology, he insisted that ‘“ only
from the organization of the living form can we learn to understand
that of the extinct,” so also he was at one with the more eminent
-zoologists in recognizing that only by a study of extinct forms can
we perceive the true relationships of the living. And it is because
he put his creed into practice for over half a century that the close
of his labours calls for the affectionate regret of geologists. That
a notice should appear in this Magazine is moreover specially
appropriate, since it was to it that he turned on the few occasions
when he desired to address English readers in their own language.
We allude to his notice of Lovén’s memoir on Leskia mirabilis
(Gror. Mae., 1868, p. 179), his notes on the Ophiuride (1870, p. 79),
and his criticism of Professor Kner’s writings on the Ganoids and
on Xenacunthus (1868, pp. 3876 and 429). His own great memoir
on the classification of the Ganoids appeared in Palgontographica
(1873-75). From his many allusions to fossil Echinoderms we
may select as early evidence of his penetration the constant
opposition that he raised to the idea that the anus of the stalked
echinoderms was a proboscis or mouth, and his severe criticism
(oddly overlooked by later writers) of the division of the Crinoids
into a Paleozoic and a Neozoic group. As a systematist the
characteristics of his work were thoroughness, accuracy, and caution :
qualities less showy than lasting. He was not a brilliant speculator
on the phylogeny of unknown forms, but an advocate of, and an
adept in, the synthetic method: “I mean that method which, giving
up all preconceived ideas, patiently puts genus to genus, until
families are formed. and family to family after their natural affinities,
until the whole systematic building stands before us.” It is work
of this nature that will stand, that will vindicate the claims of
paleontology to be heard, that will justify systematic zoology as
a serious attempt to solve the problems of life, and that will keep
science itself from the ridicule of the unlearned. We can ill spare
such workers; but Liitken was a leader and a teacher as well as
a student, and his monument is to be found not only in the books
that he has left, nor even in the rich and well-arranged museum of
Copenhagen, but also in the school of active and earnest zoologists
that will long do honour to Denmark. hx. 5.
ROBERT CRAIG.
We regret to record the death at Glengarnock, on the 14th
January, of Robert Craig, in the 80th year of his age. Mr. Craig
took an active interest in geology, and from his occupation as
192 Miscellaneous.
a quarrymaster and burner of lime he had exceptional opportunities
for the pursuit of the science. During the past forty years he
contributed many papers to the Transactions of the Glasgow
Geological Society, more especially on the Drift deposits and
Carboniferous rocks. In his own neighbourhood, from his literary
and scientific tastes, he was known as “‘ The Sage of Beith.”
MISCHIUGANHOUS.
GrotocicaL SurvEY oF THE UnirepD Kineapom.—We have
already notified the appointment of Mr. J. J. H. Teall as Director
in place of Sir Archibald Geikie, Director-General. The further
appointments are two Assistant-Directors: Mr. H. B. Woodward
(for England and Wales) and Mr. John Horne (for Scotland).
District Geologists: Mr. C. Fox Strangways, Mr. Clement Reid, and
Mr. Aubrey Strahan (for England and Wales); Mr. B. N. Peach
and Mr. W. Gunn (for Scotland); and Mr. G. W. Lamplugh (for
Treland).
‘Broop Ran’ 1n Srcrty.—A telegram despatched from Palermo
yesterday stated that since the previous night a dense lurid cloud
had hung over the town. The sky was of a sinister blood-red hue
and a strong south wind was blowing, and the drops of rain which
fell were like blood. The phenomenon, which is known locally by
the name of ‘ blood rain,’ is attributed to dust from the Sahara
Desert having been carried there by the wind. Similar atmospheric
conditions are reported from Rome. The sky had a yellow tint
yesterday, and a violent sirocco swept over the city. At Naples.
showers of sand fell, and the phenomenon of the ‘ fata Morgana ’
was observed.—Morning Post, March 11, 1901.
Vienna, Marcu 12.—Red and yellow snow has fallen in many
parts of Austria, including districts so far north as Prague. The
coloured snow lies several inches deep, and makes a weird and
unearthly effect. Scientists state that southern winds of extra-
ordinary force have carried the red and yellow sand of the Sahara
across the Mediterranean to Southern Europe in such an enormous
quantity that even here in Austria the colour of the snow has
thereby been changed.—Morning Leader, March 13, 1901. -
Reprinian Remains From Pataconra—At the meeting of the
Zoological Society on March 5th, Dr. A. Smith Woodward, F.L.S.,
¥.Z.8., F.G.S., read a detailed description of the remains of Miolania
from Patagonia, which were briefly noticed by Dr. Moreno in the
Grotocican Magazine for September, 1899. He regarded them
as indicating a Chelonian only specifically distinct from the typical
Miolania of the Australian region. In the same formation in
Patagonia were found the skeleton of a new extinct snake and the
jaws of a large carnivorous Dinosaur, which were also described.
The discovery of Miolania in South America seemed to favour the
theory of a former Antarctic continent ; but it should be remembered
that in late Secondary and early Tertiary times the Pleurodiran .
Chelonia were almost cosmopolitan.
‘A10YS SY} JO Jsvjq-puvs Aq pdpoirs ‘dsAvjs yeo-yyIds pue pivo0q surg
er) iy
CONT
*X ‘Id “TIIA ‘198A “AI 99°C ‘1061 ‘DVN “10a
—
GHOLOGICAL MAGAZINE.
. NEW SERIES. DECADE IV. VOL. VIL..
No. V.—MAY, 1901.
OLSEN AT. ARTicLlias.
| bit y
I.—Sanp-piast OF THE SHORE AND Its Erostve Errect on Woop.
By T. Metrarp Reape, C.E., F.G.S., F.R.I.B.A.
; (PLATE X.)
HE effect of the natural sand-blast of the desert in eroding soft
and hard rock has long been known, and attracted much
attention, but I cannot call to mind any account of the effect of
blowing sand impinging upon wood.
From seven to eight years ago a boat-house was built by the
Blundellsands Sailing Club on the sandhills at the Altmouth, about
8 or 9 feet above high-water mark of spring tides. Afterwards, for
better access therete, a sloped road was built up of timbers from the
shore level, leading to a level gangway about 10 feet above the shore,
also made of timbers. This gangway was 6 feet wide and 12 feet
long, with close-boarded sides about 2 feet high formed of roughly
sawn pine boards and split-oak staves. This formed a trough having
a direction about.west-north- west, and really became a wind-gap.
The effect of the sand-blast on the southern face of the northern
side has been most striking and curious. The boat-house has just
been taken down and re-erected at a lower level, and my sons,
members of the club, have brought me a sample of the pine boarding
and of the split-oak staves from the north side of the old gangway.
These are reproduced in the Plate from photographs by Hartley Bros.,
Waterloo. The general effect of the sand-blast has been to remove
from one-eighth to three-sixteenths of an inch of wood over a large
part of the surface of the pine board (Pl. X, Fig. 1), and to develop
the structure of the wood in a remarkable manner. ‘The grain being
very irregular, the differential effect of the impinging sand-grains
on the harder and softer portions is most instructive.
It will be observed that the large hard knot stands out above the
general surface of the wood, and that the grain around the knot is
picked out in a surprising manner. The knot itself is carved and
polished. Perhaps the most instructive feature is the~effect-ofthe
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. V. (i 13
A Y : Of}1 /
a >
194 T. Mellard Reade—Erosive Action of Sand-blasts.
three nails in preserving the wood in the rear or lee of the nails, the
course of the sand-blast having been from left to right. These are
wire nails that fastened the board horizontally to the upright posts.
The heads of these nails mark the original sawn surface of the board,
and indicate well the amount of the general denudation the board
has undergone. In the year 1875 I contributed a short article to
this Magazine on “‘ Wind Denudation,” describing little ridges of
sand on the shore left on the leeside of fragments of shells, or
sometimes whole shells, which have protected the sand from the
general denudation which always takes place in the upper moist
part of the shore during a strong breeze. These little ridges
I ventured to call ‘eolites.’ The wood ridges left in the rear of
the nail heads are the counterparts of these eolites, but they are
actually carved out of the board by the mechanical battering of the
sand-grains, whereas the eolites are due to the wind first drying
the surface of the sand and then blowing the grains away, except
where protected by the shell fragments.
Another interesting feature is the rope-like appearance caused by
the truncation of bundles of fibres, shown by the minute transverse
markings on the photograph. This happens only where the grain is
not parallel to the surface of the wood.
The effect on the oak staves is equally characteristic. Here, in
consequence of the regularity and parallelism of the grain, grooves
have been cut by the sand with the precision of a planing machine
(Fig. 2).
Since the preceding was written another pine board has been
brought to me. It measures 2ft. 6in. x 62in. The timber is
rather harder than in the one already described, and the grain more
regular. The sand has cut grooves of segmental section from three-
sixteenths to half an inch wide, deeply undercut on one side, the
ridges between the grooves being like a knife edge. There are
hardly any of the transverse markings to be seen, the grain being
parallel to the surface, and the whole has a smooth polished surface
to the touch.
It is interesting to find that the continual attrition of these
quartzose sand-grains, many of them much rounded, in time cuts
deeply into the wood and develops the structure by differential
action on the harder and softer parts it operates upon, and also
polishes the surface. The time the wood has been exposed to the
blast is about seven years. What the velocity of the grains was in
a high wind I have no means of judging, but no doubt the air
currents were intensified in this wind-gap, and it must not be taken
as representative of the whole shore.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE X.
Fig. 1.—Portion of a pine board, 1ft. lin. x 5in., eroded by sand-blast of the shore.
Fic. 2.—Portion of a split-oak stave, 4in. x 2kin., ,, an 96
E. T. Newton—Graptolites from Peru. 195
II.— Notre on GRaAprorites FROM PERv.
By E. T. Newton, F-R.S:,, F.G.S., ete.
\ R. HERBERT J. JESSOP, who has recently returned from
a journey in Eastern Peru, kindly placed in my hands, for
examination, some specimens of graptolites which he had obtained
on the River Macho, one of the tributaries of the Inambari, near the
celebrated mountain Capac Orco, or Monte Bello, in the province of
Carabaya, Peru (lat. 13° 40’ S.; long. 70° 10’ W.). The locality is
situated on the north-east of the main watershed, and the rivers flow
eventually into the Amazon. ‘The difficulties of travelling make it
likely that a long time will elapse before other specimens are
forthcoming from this locality; it seems desirable, therefore, that
some account of these should be published.
Brgt) ilt
Fic. 1.—Fragment of black shale with Diplograptus ; natural size; Cavabaya, Peru.
From a photograph kindly taken by Mr. A. Strahan.
Fig. 2.—Specimen marked on Fig. 1; enlarged 14 times. The virgula has been
added from another example.
Mr. Jessop tells me that the pieces of black shale containing the
graptolites were portions of a mass of rock about two feet square
and one foot thick, which was not found in place, but loose upon
the ground ; its unrolled and unweathered condition convincing him
that it could not have travelled far from the parent bed. Similar
shaly rocks are in place near by, but he was prevented from making
a careful exploration. The specimens obtained seemed to him
sufficiently interesting to be brought home, notwithstanding that
everything had to be carried by the men for many miles, the place
being inaccessible for horses or mules.
196 E. T. Newton—Graptoltes trom Peru.
The whole mass of shale seems to be full of these graptolites, for,
wherever split open, many white examples are displayed upon the
surface of the black shale (Fig. 1), all of which are referable to the
genus Diplograptus, and although differing somewhat in width they
are so similar in other respects that they can hardly represent more
than one species. The longest and most perfect specimen (Fig. 2)
does not exceed 25mm. in length and 3 mm. in width at the widest
part; but this example has no projecting virgula, such as is seen on
other specimens extending perhaps 4 or 5 mm. beyond the thecz.
Some examples are a little narrower, while one is as much as 5 mm.
wide. The polypary has a small radicle and two cornua at its
proximal end, and thence increases somewhat rapidly in width for
about a third of its length and then decreases slightly and very
gradually to the distal extremity, from which, in several specimens,
a virgula extends. In one instance the virgula may be traced
throughout the length of the polypary. The thece diverge from
each side of the axis at an angle of rather less than 45°; the
apertural margin is nearly at right angles with the axis, and the
outer free margin is in most cases slightly convex; but there is some
variation in all these particulars, even in the same polypary. There
are 11-13 thece in 10mm. These Peruvian Diplograptids very
closely resemble the D. truncatus of Lapworth,’ and Professor
Lapworth, who saw the specimens for a few minutes, was good
enough to point out this near resemblance. The small differences
which may be noticed, namely, the distinct virgula, the somewhat
smaller thece, and the less oblique apertural margin, as well
apparently as the shorter polypary, probably indicate that specific
difference which one is led to expect from the widely separated
habitats of the two forms; at the same time one hesitates to give
them a new name, and would prefer to record them as Diplograptus,
cf. truncatus, Lapw., and as probably of Bala age.
Little is known of the geology of the immediate area from which
Mr. Jessop obtained his graptolites; but David Forbes, in his paper on
“The Geology of Bolivia and Southern Peru,’’* not only gives a large
area of Silurian rocks extending from the south-east to the north-west
border of his map, which is perhaps within a hundred miles of Monte
Bello, but says that these Silurian strata extend as far as Cuzco, and
this would be as far north and well to the west of the district now
in question. David Forbes does not appear to have visited this area
himself, and the fossils collected further south, which were described
by J. W. Salter, were said to indicate beds of Upper Silurian age, and
probably Lower Silurian also. The fossils doubtfully referred to
the Lower Silurian certainly left much to be desired. No graptolites
were found, and consequently a most important guide to the age of
these old rocks was wanting.
D’Orbigny, during his travels in Bolivia,’ found certain graptolites
at Tacopaya, near the Rio Grand (lat. 19° §.; long. 68° 40’ W.),
1 Proc. Belfast Nat. Field Club, ser. 11, vol. i, pt. 4, Appendix, p. 1388, 1876-7.
2 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xvii (1861), p. 53. ;
* « Voyage dans l’ Amérique Méridionale’’: Paleont., vol. iv (1842), p. 28.
.
KH. T. Newton—Graptolites from Peru. 197
which he named Graptolites dentatus ; but finding that they had
two branches, united them with Graptolites (now Didymograptus)
Murchisoni; Grap. foliaceus was likewise included, and as this is
a Diplograptid there must be much doubt as to the specific identity
of his Bolivian forms, although the published figures leave little
doubt as to their belonging to the genus Didymograptus, and
consequently point to beds of Llandeilo or Arenig age; that is, if
we are right in using the zonal distribution of Old World Graptolites
as an index for those of Central South America.
Both Cambrian and Silurian fossils have been described from
Northern Argentina (lat. 284° and 25° 8.) by Professor Kayser,’ and
from Portezuelo many examples of a Didymograptus are noticed
which he thinks may be the same form as that brought from
Bolivia by D’Orbigny, thus again pointing to Llandeilo or Arenig
rocks a long way to the south-east, and confirming the occurrence
of strata of that age in the central part of South America.
M. J. Balta, in his note on “ Fosiles de Carabaya,”* mentions the
occurrence of graptolites and annelid burrows at Huayna Tacuma,
Santo Domingo, in the province of Carabaya. Iam unable to find
this locality on any map I have consulted, but Mr. Jessop tells me
there is a Santo Domingo a few miles from where his graptolites
were found, and this is probably the place indicated. M. Balta refers
his graptolites to Diplograptus palmeus, Barrande, and D. pristis, His.,
and he remarks that only Lower Silurian rocks have at present been
observed in South America. The genus Diplograptus, however, is not
confined to Lower Silurian (Ordovician) deposits, and if the reference
of specimens to D. palmeus and D. pristis be correct, then, while the
latter points to beds of Bala age or the uppermost part of the
Lower Silurian, the former, D. palmeus, indicates Upper Silurian
rocks, that is, strata of Llandovery or Tarannon age; moreover,
Salter had already in 1861 recognized Upper Silurian fossils among
those brought over by David Forbes.
The Diplograptus obtained by Mr. Herbert J. Jessop, whether
referable to D. truncatus, Lapw., or to a new but closely allied
species, may be taken as indicative of beds near the uppermost
part of the Lower Silurian.
So far as we can judge from the evidence of the graptolites now
known to occur in Central South America, there are in that country
deposits of Arenig or Llandeilo age with the characteristic Didymo-
graptus Murchisoni ; beds approximately of Bala age, with Diplo-
graptus pristis and Diplograptus near to truncatus; and possibly strata
of Llandovery age, as indicated by D. palmeus. It is to be hoped
that before long definite graptolitic evidence of Upper Silurian
rocks will be obtained by the discovery of some characteristic
Monograptids.
1 Zeitsch. deutsch. Geol. Gesell., vol. xlix (1897), p. 274.
-
2 Rev. Cienc, Lima, vol. i (1898), p. 7.
198 Dr. W. F. Hume—Rift Valleys of Eastern Sinai.
Il1.—Tur Rirr VALLEYS or Hastern Srvat.!
By W. F. Hume, D.Se., A.R.S.M., F.G.S., etc.
N this paper the author deals with some of the results obtained
in the course of a survey of Hastern Sinai during the season
of 1898-99, his remarks being based on a map carefully prepared
by his colleague, Mr. H. G. Skill, F.R.G.S., and on his own
topographical and geological observations.
The region specially under consideration is bounded on the west
by the central range of Sinai, which is familiar to every Indian
traveller, forming as it does a prominent rock-wall to the east of
the Gulf of Suez. This mountain mass in reality consists of a series
of narrow crests separated by few but high mountain passes, and
capable of being traversed only by heavily loaded camels at two
points, viz. at the head of Wadi Tarfah and Wadi Hebran. If this
range be crossed, and Mount Sinai (Jebel Musa) itself ascended,
the view to the east is decidedly disappointing. ‘To the north-east
the long white limestone wall of Jebel Gunnah runs more or less
east and west, far to the east breaking into isolated masses, and
ending in the fine truncated cone of Jebel El Ain. South of, and
parallel to it, extend sandy plains and precipitous plateaux of
sandstone, these being succeeded by an apparently flat or undulating
granite plateau (the rift-valleys in it being hidden), out of which
sharp-peaked mountain masses rise as isolated projections or long
ridges. To the south-west is a mountain-wall, which hides all the
southern land from view, and constitutes the most important scenic
feature in Hastern Sinai, extending across the country from the
Central Range to the Gulf of Akaba. This Transverse Divide claims
special attention, not only from the fact that it separates two different
types of country, but also because at many points these two regions
are at markedly different levels, there being an abrupt fall to the
south. The divide is also crossed by five passes, which all have this
remarkable feature in common, viz. : that the valleys they connect form
jiwe roughly straight lines, all parallel to one another and to the Gulf of
Akaba, that is, running in a direction somewhat west of south. ‘Two
of these are then specially considered with a view to showing that
they belong to the category of Rift Valleys, of which the Gulf of
Akaba is itself a striking example, it being premised that these are
not necessarily single depressions, but rather a series of basins or
grooves separated by barriers, which, though higher than the main
valley, are of no great altitude compared with the bordering hills.
Thus, the Shelala Um Raiyig rift is shown to have a length of over
72 kilometres, being almost perfectly straight and bounded by very
steep slopes throughout the greater part of its course.
The geological features are still more striking, the hills on the
1 Abstract of a paper read by permission of Sir William Garstin, Under-Secretary
of State for Public Works, and Captain H. G. Lyons, R.E., Director-General of
the Egyptian Survey Department, before the International Geological Congress
at Paris, August, 1900.
Dr. W. F. Hume—Rift Valleys of Eastern Sinai. 199
two sides being frequently of different geological structure, this
contrast having often a very marked effect upon the scenery, as,
for instance, where the rift separates the granite range of Ashara
from the felsitic hills of Ferani, the former rising in sharply peaked
red-coloured crests scored by wild gorges, while the latter are of
dark-green colour, and possess less rugged outlines.
Still more noteworthy is the presence of sandstones in the valley
itself, having all the typical characters of the Nubian Sandstone,
yet situated 25 kilometres south of the main mass of that formation ;
similarly, at the head of Um Raiyig, a ridge of Cenomanian lime-
stone, with sandstone at its base, block the valley, being enclosed
between two walls composed of Nubian Sandstone resting on granite.
Still further to the north the reverse is met with, a granite ridge
running north and south, rising steeply through the surrounding
sedimentaries. The examination of the relations of the beds over
the area shows that the actual displacement of strata in the
production of the rift varies from 200 to 600 metres (2,000 feet).
The Raib Melhadge rift is in some respects even more striking,
the granite range extending far further to the north on its eastern
than on its western border, which for some distance is formed by
lower country, geologically a complex of granite, sandstone, and
Cenomanian limestone. As a result, in the upper part of Wadi
Raib, Cretaceous limestone forms low ridges dipping steeply eastward
at the foot of a granite range, which rises immediately above them
to a height of over 300 metres. Descending Wadi Raib the
conditions become simpler, the Nubian Sandstone on the west giving
way to granite cliffs, and the valley becoming a broad highway
bounded on both sides by precipitous height. Yet scattered all
along its course are low hills of white Nubian Sandstone, and in one
place Cenomanian limestone, so that the surprising result is realized,
that Cretaceous fossils were collected from a limestone on both sides of
which tower granite clif's to a height of over 500 metres (themselves
in places capped by Nubian Sandstone), the eatent of dislocation being
here at least 700 metres. Further to the south, the same rift gives
rise to a Coastal Watershed Range of some importance.
The other valleys are considered to be rifts on account of their
parallelism to those already described, while they also must have
been produced by the same series of movements which gave rise to
the Gulf of Akaba.
Correlation of Eastern Sinai Rifts with those of neighbouring
districts—In returning from Hastern Sinai the writer was struck
by the resemblance of the western valleys to those already
described, the clefts, viz. Nagb Hawa and El Watiyeh, which
break through the granite hills, barring the Sinai convent region
to the north, being the continuations of remarkable lines of depression
which can be traced far to the north-west. One of these, which
includes the Convent Valley and runs to Wadi Suwig, is especially
straight and well defined, but, in common with the other western
valleys, is parallel, not to the Gulf of Akaba, but to the Gulf
of Suez.
200 Dr. W. F. Hume—Geology of Eastern Sinai.
The conclusion arrived at is as follows :—To the west of a north-
south line (practically longitude 54° HE.) extend a series of N.W.—
S.E. rifts, the Suez type, which include not only the Western Sinai
valleys and the Gulf of Suez, but also Wadi Qena, and in all
likelihood part of the Nile Valley itself; while to the east of
this line is an Akaba rift-series, not only giving rise to the Gulf
of Akaba, but to all the important longitudinal valleys of Hastern
Sinai, and probably producing effects on the opposite coast of
Midian comparable for extent and interest to those of Egypt itself.
A third, or transverse, type of dislocation is also considered, special
attention being called to the regularity and parallelism of the valley
directions. Thus, in a space north of the transverse divide, the
valleys run mainly east-of-north, west-of-south, or north-east, while
in other parts of the eastern side of the peninsula the dominant trend
is slightly east-of-north, west-of-south, or south-east. On the western
side, on the contrary, they run north-west and south-east, or south-
west. Many of these transverse valleys are in places deep clefts,
bounded by precipitous rock-walls, but the geological evidence of
rifting is wanting. The general conclusion is thus stated, after
a summary of the leading results:—The principal features of
Southern Sinai have been produced by dislocation rather than
erosion, fracture in three directions, either directly proved or in
the highest degree probable, having determined the general struc-
ture of the country. It is, in fact, the meeting-point of two great
longitudinal rift-systems, parallel to the Gulf of Suez and Gulf of
Akaba respectively, traversed by a third or transverse type, the
result being the apparently intricate maze of sharp crest and deep
valley characteristic of this region.
Notr.—It should be observed that the Akaba system of rifts does
not extend far south of lat. 28° N., the ranges to the east of the Red
Sea being apparently also of the Suez type.
IV.—Grotocy oF Hasrern Srnat.!
By W. F. Hume, D.Sc., A.R.S.M., F.G.S., ete.
ge paper under consideration deals briefly with the geological
features of Eastern Sinai, and more especially with the
characters of the sedimentary rocks developed in that region,
a short note on the igneous rocks being also appended. The subject
is treated under the following headings :—
I. Pebble Gravels, Travertine, etc.
II. Coral Reefs.
III. Cretaceous Limestones of Cenomanian age.
IV. Nubian Sandstone.
V. Igneous Rocks, ete.
I. Pessre Gravers.— Attention is here again called to the
remarkable development of high gravel terraces in the principal
" Read by permission of the Egyptian Government before the International
Geological Congress, August, 1900.
Dr. W. F. Hume—Geology of Eastern Sinai. 201
valleys, these being often over twenty metres high, the gravels being
characterized by the fact that they contain fragments of all shapes
and sizes derived from the surrounding hills, largely embedded in
a sandy matrix consisting of materials of the same derivation, their
source being thus strictly local. While found in almost all the
principal valleys and many of the side tributaries, they are often
particularly well developed at points where longitudinal and transverse
depressions cross one another. Their probable age can be but
determined on the coast of the Gulf of Akaba, where they are found
to overlie raised coral-reefs containing such typical Pleistocene or
recent forms as Laganum depressum and Heterocentrotus mammillatus.
The gravels are therefore not earlier than the Pleistocene, thus
agreeing with the conclusion arrived at by Mr. Barron for those
on the west coast of the Red Sea.
One of the most striking features connected with these gravel
plateaux is the perfectly flat nature of their upper surfaces, even
in the upland wadis, a character which appears inconsistent with
their having been produced by rushing torrents, but in accordance
with the hypothesis of their formation in lakes or marine fjords.
Unfortunately, no shells having been obtained in these beds, their
mode of origin still remains doubtful.
Attention is also called to several special varieties of these
gravels, the most notable being :—
(a) The Manganiferous Pebble Gravels of Sherm, in which the
cementing material of the conglomerate consists of the hydrous
black oxide of manganese, psilomelane, the beds being in places
as much as four metres thick, while underneath are strata coloured
red by ferruginous ochre. These gravels are closely connected with
a core of red granite, ending abruptly where the latter is no longer
exposed at the surface, and only overlying it along the edge where
it faces the sea. It is of interest to note that the 8.8. “ Pola”
expedition found manganiferous deposits forming on the floor of
the Gulf of Akaba, a fact which also suggests the marine origin
of the Sherm Gravels.
(b) Oolitic Valley Deposits.—An oolitic rock is described from the
neighbourhood of Ras Muhammed, whose components closely agree
in their characters with oolitic grains found by Professor Walther
at the mouth of Wadi Dehése, near Suez, and which he believed to
be a marine deposit in statu nascendi, mineral fragments being
enclosed by successive calcareous layers.
In Wadi Hashubi, where these beds are best developed, they are
composed of grains of quartz and orthoclase, cemented by carbonate
of lime, which frequently surrounds them in a series of concentric
coats, while the strata themselves also show traces of ripple-marking
and very fine sun-cracks. In the lower part of the valley they are
often strongly current-bedded, and contain lenticular masses of
pebbles, while in its upper part they give rise to striking ravines,
bounded on both sides by vertical walls of the light-coloured sand-
rock. An interesting feature, too, is the height at which these beds
are met with, a typical example being still present at 696 metres
202 Dr. W. EF. Hume—Geology of Eastern Sinai.
above sea-level, so that, if its marine origin be admitted, a differential
movement of at least 2,000 feet has taken place in the southern end
of the peninsula during comparatively recent times.
(c) Gravels cemented by Calcite—At the mouth of Wadi Nasb,
near Dahab, the gravels composed of igneous rocks are cemented
together by crystalline calcite developed in scalenohedra (dog-tooth
spar), while in the hills themselves the igneous fragments are
enclosed in well-marked travertine, especially in the smaller water-
courses.
The theoretical deductions which may help to explain the presence
of the various types of gravels are thus summarized :—
1. In South-Hastern Sinai earth-movements have produced three
high watershed lines, only one of which is now broken through.
If these were formed at the same period all the water draining into
the basin enclosed by them would collect to form narrow lakes.
This would account for—
(a) The flat character of the plateaux.
(b) The absence of marine organisms.
2. A marine depression, resulting in the invasion of the sea, and
amounting to at least 700 metres, is also suggested, and might
account for—
(c) The oolitic beds of Wadi Hashubi.
(d) The manganiferous gravels of Sherm.
(e) The travertines of the higher valleys.
(f) The calcite-cemented gravels of Nasb.
This hypothesis would also account for their flat character, and only
the absence of marine organisms prevents the absolute acceptance of
the view that many of these gravels were laid down beneath the
surface of the sea. Indeed, it is of interest to note that Mr. Beadnell
has obtained these calcite-cemented gravels and travertines in his
Nile Valley lacustrine series, thus affording an additional reason for
not arriving at hasty conclusions regarding the marine origin of those
in Sinai.
3. A subsequent elevation, accompanied by earth - movements
resulting in the uptilting of the older coral-reefs, brought the
formation of these special features to a close, the gravels subsequently
formed being now distributed irregularly over the surface, in places.
overlying the oolite beds, and being interbedded with the younger
Pleistocene coral-reefs.
II. Conran Reers anp Ratsep Beacuzs.—This portion of the
paper opens with a correction of Professor Walther’s statement that
the Gulf of Akaba is poor in coral-reefs, it being pointed out by the
author that his colleague, Mr. Skill, had now practically mapped
continuous reefs from Dahab to Ras Muhammed. This Fringing Reef
and the isolated coral terraces, up to 25 metres high, standing only
a little way back from the sea-shore (viz. the Lower Coral Series),
are first considered, and shown to be typically Pleistocene, the
raised beaches which in many places line the shore being closely
associated with them. The Upper Coral Limestone or Older Fossil
Reef of Walther, though apparently overlying the lower one, is-
Dr. W. F. Hume—Geology of Eastern Sinai. 203
evidently of older date, the coral having undergone much alteration
and being now of a dirty brown colour, though still in large measure
possessing the cavernous character of a modern reef. The fauna of
these beds has not yet been fully studied, but there is sufficient
evidence to show that we have here a remarkable combination of
Pectens of older aspect and Mediterranean character, associated with
modern Hrythrean species similar to that revealed by a study of
Mr. Barron’s collection of shells from the older reef on the west
side of the Red Sea (see R. Bullen Newton, Grou. Maa., Dec. IV,
Vol. VII, pp. 500-514 and 544-560, Nov.—Dec., 1900). Thus, in
one bed of this series, Pecten Vasseli, Fuchs, and Chlamys latissima,
Brocchi, are associated in the same bed as Kchinus verruculatus,
previously only recorded from Mauritius (identified by Dr. Gregory).
South of Sherm there is a tilted series of coral-reefs, rising nearly
200 metres above sea-level, whose fauna, although very obscure, is
probably very early Pleistocene, judging from similar beds occurring
on the west side of the Gulf of Suez. It is of special interest to
note that these older reefs are only present at the southern end of
the Gulf of Akaba.
After maintaining the general proposition that the coral-reefs
here are formed in a region of elevation, the question is raised (on
the ground of the observation made by Walther that an apparently
dead coral-reef was present 6 metres below the present one),
whether this elevation is being continued, and it is pointed out
that the formation of bays at the mouths of several of the principal
valleys suggests that a small local depression is at present taking
place in the Gulf of Akaba, which thus differs from neighbouring
regions. The writer then considers the series of questions which
Professor Walther set himself to answer in his “ Die Korallenriffe
der Sinai-halbinsel,” and agrees with him—(1) that a coral-reef
(sensu stricto) does not attain any great thickness; (2) as to the
role which detrital materials play in filling up a coral-reef; and
(8) the passage of coral limestone to dolomite by the increase of
magnesia. On the other hand, he has been unable to accept
Walther’s view as to the basis of a coral-reef, the latter laying
stress on the importance of compact sedimentary rocks as a base
compared with igneous rocks, while in the paper under discussion,
after pointing out that the fringing reef of the Gulf of Akaba is
largely founded on igneous or metamorphic rock, the writer main-
tains that the deposition of a coral-reef is practically independent of
-the nature of the rock forming its base, red granite, diabase, sand-
rock, and marls (probably also gneiss and hornblende - granite)
having been noted as its basal members.
III. Cenomanran Limesrones; IV. Nusran Sanpsrone.—This is
a description of the relations and characters of the strata at the
northern end of the area examined, limestones forming the main
escarpment of Jebel Gunnah overlying a highly characteristic striped
series of green marls containing such typical Cenomanian fossils
as Hemiaster cubicus, Pseudodiadema variolare, and Heterodiadema
libycum. These marls are themselves only the surface capping of
204 Dr. W. F. Hume—Geology of Eastern Sinai.
a thick series of white sands, which are now cut deeply into by
ravines, giving rise to battlements and castellated ridges, sometimes
over 100 metres high, forming one of the most striking features on
the road from Sinai to Akaba. These are based on a series of
variously coloured ferruginous sandstones, forming broad, low,
smooth plateaux, themselves resting on a planed-down surface
of granite. Unfortunately these sands and sandstones are all
unfossiliferous.
The thicknesses in Jebel Gunnah are as follows :—
metres.
Compact limestones, with few fossils ... 100
Striped Cenomanian marls ade sib 20
Sands and sandstones... sis 500 207
Total thickness Ba 327 (over 1,000 feet).
The most important points noted are:—(1) The Nubian sandstones
resting on a planed-down surface of granite; (2) the Cenomanian
beds belong to Professor Zittel’s ‘ Africano - Syrian’ series, which
since Mr. Beadnell’s discovery of these beds in Baharia Oasis are
shown to have an enormous extension north of latitude 28° N.,
while Dr. Schweinfurth has shown them to be of great thickness to
the north of the Red Sea Hills; (3) the dip and present position
of the beds show that these strata once extended over the whole of
the present igneous mountain region; (4) the Carboniferous sand-
stones of Western Sinai are apparently absent.
V. Tse Ieneovus Rocks or Hastern Sr1nar. — After a brief
general description this portion of the paper lays stress on the
importance of dykes of every petrographical variety, which, though
the youngest members of the igneous series, never pass into the
Nubian Sandstone, so that they are at least Pre-Cretaceous. While
generally trending N.N.E. and $.8.W., there is frequently a second
system, running practically at right angles to this direction. Though
in general aspect resembling the mountains on the opposite side of
the Red Sea, the fundamental rocks of the central axis of the
peninsula are granitoid gneiss and hornblende-granite, not the red
granite which forms many of the main summits in the Red Sea
Hills. The latter is, however, also widely distributed in the
peninsula itself.
Of special interest are beds of andesite, tuff, and agglomerate,
which form some of the principal summits, capping the granite and
gneiss, while in the Ferani range, etc., this Volcanic series is closely
associated with a metamorphic type, varying from spotted slates and
slightly foliated mica-schists to dark-green chlorite and hornblende-
schists pierced by innumerable dykes of dolerite. Some special
points are dealt with in closing, such as the development of gneisses
on a magnificent scale in Wadi Um Gerat, the importance of
tourmaline-granite in some of the southern summits, the presence
of spherulitic felsites forming dykes in many parts of the district,
and the probable absence of the basalt recorded near Sherm by
Burckhardt.
—
Dr. Holst—The Glacial Period and Oscillation of Land. 205
V.—TuHeE Connection OF THE GLACIAL PERIOD WITH OSCILLATION
OF THE LAND, ESPECIALLY IN SCANDINAVIA.
By Dr. Nits Oror Housr. ‘Translated by F. A. Barner, D.Sc.
[In a recently published paper! Dr. N. O. Holst, of the Geological
Survey of Sweden, has given a detailed description of the Post-
Glacial deposits of the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia. The
paper is accompanied by a map showing the chief points of observation.
The determination of the different horizons depends on (1) the
stratigraphy ; (2) the sub-fossil diatomaceous flora; (5) the sub-
fossil higher flora. The stratigraphical evidence is in the form
of numerous sections, taken all along the coast. The diatoms are
used chiefly, but not solely, to distinguish the marine from the
fresh-water deposits; their determinations, nearly 5,000 in number,
are due to Professor P. T. Cleve and his daughter, Dr. Astrid Cleve.
The remains of the higher plants have been determined by
Dr. Gunnar Andersson.
The fresh-water (Ancylus) epoch and the salt-water (Zitorina)
epoch are divided by the author as follows :—
1. The oldest Ancylus epoch, the deposits of which age in
southern Sweden partly are barren, partly contain Arctic plants.
2. The middle Ancylus epoch, of which the deposits contain
the remains of fir and birch. During this epoch the land-ice melted
away from the lower parts of central Sweden, and the sea came
into the Baltic, making the water temporarily salt.
3d. The youngest Ancylus epoch, or the older half of the oak
epoch.
4. The Litorina epoch, or the younger half of the oak epoch,
when the present communication with the sea was opened, and the
water of the inland sea, which during the Ancylus epochs had been
fresh as a rule, now became salt.
The fact that the climate became temporarily colder in the middle
of the Zitorina epoch is established by finds of boreal diatoms:
Navicula semen, N. amphibola, Pinnularia streptoraphe, ete.
Wider interest attaches to the concluding pages (115 et sqq.), in
which the author deals with the question of oscillation of the land
in Scandinavia and with the explanation of the Glacial Period, on
which matters he expresses some new views. We therefore offer
a full translation of this part of Dr. Holst’s memoir. |
HAVE elsewhere * shown that the events immediately connected
with the melting of the Scandinavian land-ice occurred in rapid
succession. The same was the case with the oldest Post-Glacial
events. Thus it has been demonstrated in the present paper that
the Glacial marine clay and sand, deposited along the present coast
1 <*Bidrag till kinnedomen om Ostersjons och Bottniska Vikens postglaciala
eologi’’: Sveriges Geologiska Undersékning, Afhandl., ser. C, No. 180. 8vo;
28 pp., 1 map; 1899 (published March, 1901). ;
2 N. O. Holst, ‘‘ Har det funnits mer in en istid i Sverige?’’: Sver. Geol.
Unders., 1895, ser. C, No. 151, see pp. 36-39. German translation by W. Wolff,
“¢ Hat es in Schweden mehr als eine Kiszeit gegeben*’’ pp. 38-42; Berlin, 1899.
$
u
206 Dr. N. O. Holst—The Glacial Period and
of Blekinge and of the Kalmar district, were exposed by elevation
of the land and were weathered before the deposition of Post-Glacial
beds upon them had begun. It was this elevation of the land that
connected Scania with Denmark and permitted the immigration of
the larger land animals.’ It appears as though not only this
elevation, but also the succeeding depression, during which the
oldest Ancylus beds were deposited in the government districts of
Blekinge and Kalmar, took place in the former district before the
Arctic plants had found time to immigrate thither. But when this
depression reached the neighbourhood of Kalmar, the Arctic plants
were already there. In Blekinge and the Kalmar district there
followed an elevation, probably of less importance, and it was not
until the succeeding depression, which marks the beginning of the
middle Ancylus epoch, that southern Sweden saw the deposition of
beds that can be paralleled with the oldest Post-Glacial beds of
central Sweden. But these latter lie without break conformably on
the Glacial beds. This implies that southern Sweden incurred two
elevations and their succeeding depressions, in which central Sweden
had no share. No explanation of these facts is more natural than
that southern Sweden, relieved of its ice-load, rose” and began to
oscillate, while the land-ice continued to keep central Sweden depressed.
In other words, this means that there was a clear and definite con-
nection on the one hand between the weight of the land-ice and the
depression of the land, on the other hand between the removal of
the weight and the elevation of the land. But this is a result
pregnant with the most important consequences for the whole of
glacial geology.
It is clear that the depression, if dependent on the weight of the
land-ice, should yield evidence of having been greater the nearer
one comes to the centre of the ice; in other words, the nearer one
comes to those regions where the ice-load was greatest. A glance
at a map indicating the extent of the depression shows at once that
such was the case. While in the south the curve of depression
1 That the aurochs already existed in the province of Kalmar at the beginning of
the fir period, i.e. at the beginning of the middle Ancylws epoch, has been proved
on a preceding page. But the only Post-Glacial elevation of importance that
occurred in southern Sweden before that period was the very one that immediately
followed the deposition of the Glacial marine beds.
2 It is quite probable that this elevation during the oldest Post-Glacial Period also
reached northern Germany. If such was the case, may it not in part have been the
reason why the Vistula and Oder during that period did not flow into the Baltic but
had their outlet through the Elbe? Of. F. Wahnschaffe, ‘‘ Die Ursachen der
Oberflachengestaltung des norddeutschen Flachlandes”’ ; Stuttgart, 1891.
It is also very probable that the same upward pressure of the land outside the
periphery of the land-ice took place in North America, and that this affords the
correct explanation of many phenomena which otherwise appear inexplicable.
3 See Gerard De Geer, ‘‘ Om Skandinaviens geografiska utveckling,”’ 2. Kartor,
pls. 2, 8, 4; Stockholm, 1896. ‘The criticism must, however, be passed on these
plates that they do not, as they profess, give the depression-curves for different
epochs of the melting of the ice, but that all three show only the same thing, namely,
the extent of the depression at the time of the final melting of the ice. According to
the plates, the depression during the melting of the ice remained the same for a long
period, while, on the contrary, all the facts tend to prove that throughout that time
the extent of the depression altered very rapidly.
Oscillations of Land in Scandinavia. 207
that crosses the southern Baltic, and in the east that which passes
by the southern end of Lake Ladoga, both mark zero, as one proceeds
from south to north or from east to west the curves mark higher
and higher numbers, until the greatest depression known, so far as
established by tracing the highest Glacial marine coastline, attains
in northern Sweden no less than 280 metres.’ Lately, indeed, it
has been said that in Norrland the Glacial marine coastline is at
a lower level in the interior than near the present coast. But if
that is the case, we may recall the fact that the highest Glacial
coastline was formed at different times in different places. It is
therefore quite possible that the apparently abnormal conditions in
Norrland spring from nothing else than the formation of the Glacial
coastline, first at the coast and afterwards at the interior, for the
simple reason that “the ice did not melt from the interior of
Norrland until the elevation had been in progress for some time.” *
The conditions in Norrland are therefore in no way opposed to
the rule that increased depression and increased ice-load point in
the same direction.
Scandinavia under its load of land-ice may be compared to
a depressed spring. When the load is removed the land tends to
’ resume its original position. This explains the great rapidity with
which the land rose at the close of the Ice Age, a rapidity for which
in my above-quoted paper of 1895 I gave conclusive evidence,
although I then did not fully understand what caused the rapid rise
of the land. But although this demands a certain elasticity in the
crust of the earth, yet it cannot be supposed that this elasticity was
so great as to permit the land, pressed down as it was during a large
part of the Ice Age, to regain the state of equilibrium in which it was
at the beginning of the Ice Age; some of the upward tension must
in the meantime have been neutralized. The highest Glacial marine
coastline therefore marks only the final result of the depression at
the moment when the ice melted. Now the position of this line
no less than 280 metres above sea-level is alone enough to show
that the depression was considerable. But for the reason just
mentioned this height indicates only a part of the Glacial depression.
This line of argument has already led us to the conclusion that at
the beginning of the Ice Age Scandinavia lay much higher than now.
But that this elevation was in itself enough to afford a simple and
natural explanation of the Glacial Period will be proved in the sequel
by more conclusive evidence.
From what has been said it is clear that the Glacial and Post-
Glacial changes of level in Scandinavia (and the same applies to
North America) are due to a special cause, and therefore cannot be
compared with volcanic or continent-building oscillations. All
attempts to generalize from such comparisons are foredoomed to
failure.
1 A.G. Hoégbom, ‘ Till fragan om den senglaciala hafsgriinsen i Norrland’’: Geol.
Foren. Stockholm Foérhandl., 1899, xxi, p. 595.
* A. G. Hégbom, ‘Om hégsta marina gransen i norra Syerige’’: Geol. Foren.
Stockholm Férhandl., 1896, xviii, p. 488.
208 Dr. N. O. Holst—The Glacial Period and
No better success has attended the attempts to discover the cause
of the Glacial Period in directions other than that here indicated.
Especially is this true of the struggles after some far-fetched
astronomical explanation of this terrestrial phenomenon. The
geologist who perambulates the universe in search of such
explanations may be likened to an erudite bookworm who turns
his study upside down in search of his pencil, which all the time
is behind his ear.
To the view here stated as to the cause of changes of level in
Glacial and Post-Glacial times, I have been led by my own researches,
and my ideas already tended in this direction before I realized that
T. F. Jamieson, and other geologists after him, had expressed views
almost identical with my own. Subsequently I have perused
Jamieson’s writings on this subject more closely, and, with sincere
admiration for his acumen, have found that so early as 1868,'
supported by comparatively few observations, he put forward the
leading idea which in 1882 * he developed in more detail, and which,
confirmed as it now is by more numerous observations, can without
hesitation be accepted as the only correct one.
From the papers by Jamieson I think it right to make the
following instructive extracts :—
“Tt has occurred to me [Jamieson] that the enormous weight of
ice thrown upon the land may have had something to do with this
depression [the great glacial depression]. . - \« |) We idonit
know what is the state of the matter on which ‘the solid crust of
the earth reposes. If it is in astate of fusion, a depression might take
place from a cause of this kind, and then the melting of the ice
would account for the rising of the land, which seems to have
followed upon the decrease of the glaciers.” (Q.J.G.S., loc. cit.)
“Assuming the specific gravity of the ice to have been 875,
compared with water as 1,000, or in other words to have been
seven-eighths of the weight of water, then the weight of a mass
of ice 1,000 feet thick would be 378 pounds to the square inch, or
equal to fully 25 atmospheres, and would amount to 678,675,690
tons on every square mile. If the ice was 3,000 feet thick, it
would at this rate amount to over 2,000 million tons on the square
mile.” (Grou. Mac., 1882, p. 403; Jamieson here quotes some
geologists who have supposed that the thickness of the ice has been
much greater, and then he continues as follows :—) “It is evident
that a thickness of even 3,000 feet of ice will give us a weight by
no means despicable, a weight which would require a marvellous
rigidity indeed in the earth beneath it to sustain such a load with-
out yielding in some degree” (p. 404).
“That the crust of the earth is flexible and elastic the phenomena
of earthquakes sufficiently demonstrate. The surface heaves like
the billows of the sea, sometimes causing trees to bend so as to
1 T. F. Jamieson, ‘“‘ On the History of the last Geological Changes in Scotland’? :
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1865, xxi, p. 178.
2 <<On the Cause of the Depression and Re-elevation of the Land during the
Glacial Period’’: Grou. Mac., 1882, Dec. II, Vol. IX, pp. 400 and 457.
Oscillations of Land in Scandinavia. 209
touch the ground with their tops, or tossing up flagstones into the
air so as to make them come down bottom upwards,” etc. (p. 404.)
“Tf upheavals and depressions of the land have not been caused
by changes of pressure, it may be asked, what is it they have been
caused by?” (p. 405.)
“Tf beneath that part of the surface which was affected by the
heavy pressure of the ice, there happened to be a quantity of lava
in a fluid state, the result might be to cause an outburst of the lava
to take place at some more distant point. This would relieve the
tension and lead to a permanent depression of the ice-covered area.
For example, in North America the great fields of ice that lay on
certain portions of that continent by their downward pressure may
have occasioned some of those extensive eruptions which seem to
have taken place in the region of California after the commencement
of the Glacial period. The volcanic phenomena of Iceland in like
manner may have been affected by similar causes. That there has
been a considerable permanent depression of some of the most
heavily glaciated regions since the commencement of the Glacial
period, I think there is much reason to believe. The features of the
fjord districts of Norway and the West Highlands of Scotland, and
of British Columbia, for example, seem to show this; for these
coasts have all the appearance of depressed mountain lands, which
have been cut and carved by streams and glaciers far beneath the
present level of the sea.” (p. 405.)
“‘Tt seems likely that there might be a tendency to bulge up in
the region which lay immediately beyond this area of depression ;
just as we sometimes see in the advance of a railway embankment,
which not only depresses the soil beneath it, but also causes the
ground to swell up further off.’ (p. 461.)
So far Jamieson. His ideas have, before me, been shared by
Whittlesey, N. S. Shaler,! and Warren Upham,” the last-mentioned
having developed them further. Upham calls our special attention
to the indisputable glacial formations that date from the Carboniferous
or Permian periods, as that in South Africa at 30° S. lat.,° in India
at only 20° N.,‘ as well as in Australia,° and he correlates these
phenomena with the mountain-building that took place during that
time. Of the glaciated areas here mentioned I have myself visited
that in Australia, in the neighbourhood of Bacchus Marsh, just west
of Melbourne (37°-38° S.), and can confirm the correctness of the
descriptions given. Here occurs a typical boulder-clay, of blue
' “« Fluviatile Swamps of New England’’: Amer. Journ. Sci., 1887, ser. 11,
vol. xxxiii. See pp. 220, 221.
2 «Probable Causes of Glaciation,’’ Appendix A to G. F. Wright’s ‘“‘ The Ice
Age in North America’’ ; New York, 1891. See also Amer. Geol., 1890, pp. 327
et sqq.; and Amer. Journ. Sci., 1891, vol. xli, p. 33.
3 A. Schenck, ‘* Ueber Glacialerscheinungen in Siidafrika’’: Verhandl. des VIII
deutschen Geographentages in Berlin, 1889.
4 R. D. Oldham, ‘‘ A Manual of the Geology of India,’’ Calcutta, 1893. See
pp- 157 and 198.
5 T. W. E. David, ‘Evidences of Glacial Action in Australia in Permo-
Carboniferous Time’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1896, lii, p. 289.
DECADE IV¥.—VOL. VIII.—NO. Y. 14
210 Dr. N. O. Holst—The Glacial Period and
colour, containing glacially striated stones of many kinds of foreign
rocks. This boulder-clay is overlain by sandstone with Gangamopteris,
belonging to the Carboniferous or the Permian system. What cast
suspicion on the glacial deposits of Australia was the great thickness
ascribed to them, namely, as much as 5,000 feet. But this estimate,
which sounds so fantastic, is really founded on a mistake that arose
in the following way :—In the valley where this thickness was
calculated the morainic beds are obliquely inclined one above the
other. By measuring each of these beds and adding the apparent
thicknesses together a total was obtained which naturally was not
the true vertical thickness. That this in reality is not so extra-
ordinarily great is clear from the fact that the solid Silurian rock
crops out both at the bottom and on the side of the valley in question.
For a 5,000 foot thick moraine to find room between these outcrops,
it must lie in a very deep hollow of most unusual and inexplicable
shape.
For my part I think Upham must be accounted right in his
contention that the glacial phenomena of South Africa, India, and
Australia can be explained only on the supposition that these districts
formerly lay much higher than now. Especially does this apply
to the Indian glacial district, situate only 20° from the equator.
There is no place here for the interglacialist hypothesis, and if
a former elevation be not admitted for this district we may justly
ask what else can have produced glacial phenomena so near the
equator. On the other hand, we may adduce the fact that Kilima
Ndjaro in East Africa, said to be about 6,000 metres high, exhibits
glaciation although only 3° from the equator.
But if an elevation of the land in equatorial regions can produce
glaciers, what glacial results may we not expect from an elevation
in the latitude of Scandinavia, Greenland, and North America?
The question is reduced to this : Can we show that during Quaternary
times such an elevation really did take place in the three great
glacial districts? It is as a rule difficult to prove former elevation
of the land if the region once raised now lies sunk below sea-level ;
but in proportion as the oceans that bound North America and
Scandinavia have been more closely investigated this proof has been
forthcoming, and a considerable elevation of Quaternary age is now
fully established both for North America and Scandinavia.
As regards North America, many geologists, of whom I shall
cite only J. W. Spencer,! have demonstrated that the larger rivers
on the eastern side of the continent, from the Mississippi up to the
St. Lawrence, have channels clearly excavated beyond the coast to
a depth below the sea of “3,000 feet or more”; and this naturally
indicates that formerly the land was elevated to a corresponding
height. Similar observations have been made on the Pacific coast
of North America. That this elevation took place at a relatively
recent period follows from the fact that the submarine channels are
not filled up as they would otherwise have been.
1 «The High Continental Elevation preceding the Pleistocene Period’’: Bull.
Geol. Soc. Amer., 1890, i, p. 65.
Oscillations of Land in Scandinavia. 211
Like observations have been made on the coast of Norway, where
the deep fjords continue as submarine valleys beyond the present
coast to a great depth. For these to have been carved out by the
rivers of a past age, the land must of course have lain much higher
than now. The so-called ‘ Norwegian Channel,’ if, as is probable,
it represents an ancient river-bed, proves the same thing.
The Scandinavian Pre-Glacial elevation, however, was not confined
to the coast of Scandinavia, but evidently affected a large part of the
bottom of the present North Atlantic, both westwards to the east!
coast of Greenland and southwards to the south part of England.
So far as Great Britain is concerned this elevation is undeniable.
The mere existence in this country of a Pre-Glacial mammalian fauna,
obviously exterminated by the Ice Age* and partly reminiscent of
more southern regions (elephants of various species, mammoth,
mastodon, lion, hyzna, etc.), is enough to presuppose a land-con-
nection between the continent and England and Ireland, so that the
animals could cross to these islands.* But these mammals did not
merely wander across the English Channel and the southern parts
of the North Sea; they also inhabited the districts now sunk beneath
the waters, as may be inferred from the ‘almost incredible”
“quantity of teeth and bones belonging to the mammoth, woolly
rhinoceros, horse, reindeer, and spotted hyena, and other animals,
dredged up by the fishermen in the German Ocean ” (op. cit., p. 365).
That the animals lived here at no distant date follows from the fact
that their bones are found on the very surface of the sea-floor, as
well as from the mixture of remains of Pre-Glacial animals with
those of the reindeer, as to whose contemporaneity with the Ice Age
there can be no doubt. Finds of this boreal species on the floor
of the North Sea show further that the elevation still existed when
the Glacial Period was setting in.
Furthermore, submarine peat-bogs along the coast of England,
as well as the discovery of the fresh-water bivalve, Unio pictorum,
and shore shells at a greater depth than 200 feet in the English
Channel (op. cit., p. 364), bear clear witness to an elevation of the
land in Quaternary times.
But the depth of the English Channel and of the southern part
of the North Sea is not very great—at the southern end of the
Dogger Bank not more than 153-16 metres—and a raising of the
sea-bottom from 30 to 50 metres would be enough to bring a large
1 “ Vastra’ (west) in original; correction by the author.
2 H. H. Howorth, ‘‘ Did the Mammoth live before, during, or after the Deposition
of the Drift ?”?: Gro. Mac., 1892, Dec. III, Vol. IX, pp. 250 and 395.
In England the so-called interglacial occurrences of the larger mammals seem to
rest only on mistakes or on the estimation of secondary occurrences as primary. Of
course they disappear at the same time as the so-called ‘ interglacial’ deposits cease
to be interpreted as interglacial, and this is already the case with the majority.
Thus the ‘ middle sand,’ formerly the most important of the interglacial formations,
is now very generally regarded as glacial. And, so far as I could discover trom
conversation with English geologists, the idea of a true ‘ interglacial’ period is now
almost abandoned by them.
3 W. Boyd Dawkins: ‘‘ Cave Hunting, ete. ’’; London, 1874. See p. 362.
212 Dr. N. O. Holst—The Glacial Period and
part of it above the surface. It may therefore be objected that,
even though the land-connection in question may really have existed,
still it is in itself no proof of any considerable elevation, certainly
not of one great enough to explain the severe climate of the Glacial
Period. And this, no doubt, is perfectly true.
But there are other evidences for a much greater elevation in the
north-west of Europe. That the agreement between the floras of
Scandinavia, Scotland, the Faeroes, Iceland, and Greenland necessarily
presupposes a land-connection in Quaternary times, has been long
understood. Such a connection involves an elevation of the sea-floor
between Scotland and Greenland of about 3,000 feet (891 metres)."
But did such an elevation really take place during the Quaternary
Period? Conclusive proof of it was given by A. S. Jensen,” when
he demonstrated the logical consequences of the discoveries made
by the Ingolf expedition in 1896 during the investigation of the
sea-floor between Jan Mayen and Iceland. Here the expedition
found at a great depth, reaching as much as 1,309 Danish fathoms,’
such shallow-water bivalves as Astarte Banksii, A. borealis, A. com-
pressa, Cardium ciliatum, C. groenlandicum, Cyrtodaria siliqua,
Macoma calcaria, Saxicava arctica, and Yoldia arctica. These
marine molluscs, which can live only at small depths, according
to Jensen in not more than 100 fathoms of water, occur in great
numbers, and it is quite clear that they have lived where their
shells now are met with. These discoveries therefore prove that
the sea-bottom between Scandinavia and Greenland once lay more
than 1,200 fathoms (2,138 metres) higher than now. As for the
date of the elevation, Jensen justly observes that the occurrence
of Yoldia arctica is enough to show that it took place during the
Glacial Period. During which part of that period the elevation
existed is not discussed by Jensen, but it is most reasonable to refer
it to the beginning of the period, when an elevation is established
both for England and Scandinavia.‘ If this elevation started from
the Archean district of Scandinavia and of Greenland, as there is
good reason for supposing, then the elevation of Scandinavia must
have been greater than that demonstrated by Jensen for the sea-floor
between Scandinavia and Greenland. But if the elevation was only
of the same, or even approximately the same magnitude, it was still
quite enough to afford an explanation of the Glacial Period itself.
But this elevation of the sea-floor between Scandinavia and
Greenland carried with it another important consequence, in that
it changed this part of the ocean into an inland sea, comparable
with the Mediterranean, and united with the body of the Atlantic
only by the deep channel between the Shetlands and Faeroes.’
1 See the map to W. H. Hudleston’s paper “On the Eastern Margin of the North
Atlantic Basin’? : Gon. Maa., 1899, Dec. IV, Vol. VI, p. 97.
2 «Om Leyninger af Grundtvandsdyr paa store Havdyb mellem Jan Mayen og
Island’? : Vidensk. Meddel. Naturhist. Foren. Kébenhayn, 1900, p. 229.
3 8,087 English feet; 2,465 metres.—Translator.
‘ The same elevation also reached Iceland. See Th. Thoroddsen in Geol. Foren.
Stockholm Forhandl., 1900, xxii, p. 546.
5 Cf. Hudleston’s map cited above.
Oscillations of Land in Scandinavia. 218
From this in turn it followed that the Gulf Stream was completely
shut off from the Arctic Ocean and forced to turn south and west
of the British Isles, and thus to concentrate its heat-giving energy on
central Europe. This explains the mild climate found in a portion
of Europe during a stage of Pre-Glacial time.
As shown above, it may be considered as a fact confirmed by
known phenomena, that at the beginning of the Quaternary Period
portions of the North American continent lay at least 1,000 metres,
and Scandinavia still more, perhaps 2,000 metres, higher than now.
As for the intervening Greenland, it seems probable that it could
not be unaffected by these changes of level, but that it took part
in them.'
We meet here the legitimate question: What is it that produced
such a great elevation in these particular parts of our earth? The
answer is that North America, Greenland, and Scandinavia, not
merely taken together, but each separately, are the largest areas
of Archean rocks in the world.2 The remarkable coincidence of
the great glaciated districts with the Archzan districts has long
since been commented on as peculiar. No explanation, however,
has been given of this fact. What it really means I shall here show.
During the Silurian Period Scandinavia was partly covered by
the sea, as clearly proved by the numerous patches of Silurian rock.
Possibly the same was the case during a part of the Devonian
Period. But before the close of that period Scandinavia rose above
the water, and probably went on rising right up to the Quaternary
Period. At all events the Archean area of Scandinavia never again
sank beneath the sea, as clearly demonstrated by the absence of
younger marine formations from within its boundaries. Examination
of a geological map of Europe shows that the shore of the later
Paleeozoic, and still more that of the Mesozoic, sea moved eastwards
further and further away from Scandinavia, which seems to imply
that, during the long ages that elapsed after the Silurian (or Devonian)
Period, Scandinavia continually rose, and involved in its rise a part
of the surrounding area.
The course of events on the North American continent was
precisely the same. Here the shore of the later Paleozoic and
Mesozoic sea moved southwards ever further and further from the
rising Archean area of the north.
On what can this harmony of events have depended ?
If so late as the Quaternary Period the crust of the earth was
found to yield to the pressure of the land-ice, still more must it
have yielded to burdens during the earlier stages of the earth’s
development. That this was actually the case is shown in Scandinavia
itself by numerous instances from Cambro-Silurian times. For
some years it has been well known that faults, often accompanied
1 During my journey to Greenland in 1880 I saw from the sea south ot Ivigtut
supposed beaches in a situation exposed to the sea at a great height on the mountain
slopes. Time, however, did not permit me to examine them. Numerous similar
observations are mentioned in ‘* Meddelelser om Grénland.”’
7 See Berghaus’ ‘‘ Physikalischer Atlas,’? Maps 7/8, 9, and 13; Gotha, 1892.
214 Dr. N. O. Holst—The Glacial Period and
by breccia-formation, may be observed in Scandinavia at many points
on the boundary-line between the Archzan and Cambro-Silurian
deposits, as on Bornholm, in Scania, on Lake Vetter, in Ostrogothia,
Nerike, Dalecarlia, Gestrikland, Jemtland, on the Christiania fjord,
on the Kola peninsula, and other places.1_ Hven the quite insignificant
occurrence of Silurian at Humleniis in the province of Kalmar can
show a similar fault with accompanying breccia-formation. For
my part I do not think that any explanation of these phenomena
will ever be found more satisfactory than that the earth’s crust,
which during the Cambro-Silurian periods was much thinner than
now, yielded beneath the weight of the Cambro-Silurian sediments.
If such were the conditions, we can also understand the immense
thickness which the Paleozoic rocks occasionally attain, and which
may have arisen by the gradual sinking of the sea-floor in proportion
as the formation of sediment proceeded.’
But if sedimentation tends to depress the earth’s crust, and
actually has depressed it in certain places, then to such a sinking
there must have corresponded elevation in another place*; and it
is precisely this elevation above all that has affected the Archean
areas, and particularly the greater ones — those that could, so to
speak, move independently—because these areas have not merely
formed the thinnest parts of the crust, but have lacked the
strengthening influence of the stratified deposits.
This, then, seems to have been the way in which elevation of the
Scandinavian and North American Archsean areas was brought
about and carried on, until at the beginning of the Glacial Period
they had reached such a height that each formed the centre for an
ice-sheet.
If the conception put forward in the preceding pages is the right
one, it follows that the phenomena which accompany the appearance
of an ice-sheet involve such radical and manifold changes within
the glaciated area that an Ice Age cannot, so to say, come and go
unmarked, but must leave the most obvious traces behind it.
Therefore it is that the idea here propounded is utterly opposed to
the interglacialist view, and therefore it has been attacked by
champions of the latter. The chief objection raised by them to the
present explanation of the Ice Age is the following.
Granted, they say, that this might be quite a satisfactory
explanation of the Scandinavian,:-Greenland, and North American
ice-sheets, still it is not enough to explain the former small glaciated
areas in the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Caucasus, and so forth. To
1 See ‘‘Generalregister’’ to vols. vi-x of Geol. Féren. Stockholm Foérhandl., p. 34.
A fault in Jemtland is described by A. Hégbom in his paper, ‘‘ Om forkastnings-
breccior vid den Jemtlandska silurformationens éstra grains’? : Geol. Foren, Stock-
holm Férhandl., 1886, viii, p. 352.
The Paleozoic faults on the Kola peninsula have been described by W. Ramsay,
Fennia xvi, No. 1, pp. 2 and xv; No. 4, pp- 7 and 11.
? The same views were expressed by James Hall in the ‘‘ Palzontology of New
York,”’ ii, pp. 69 et sqq.; Albany, 1859.
3 Cf. J. Hall, op. cit., p. 95. —
* J. Geikie: “The Great Ice Age,’’ 3rd ed., p. 792; London, 1894.
Oscillations of Land in Scandinavia. 215
this, however, it may be replied that these smaller peripheral glacial
areas were perhaps directly due to the general sinking of temperature
produced by the North Huropean ice-sheet during its maximum
extension.
That such a fall in temperature really took place may be considered
as proved by the fact that so boreal an animal as the reindeer,
during a part of the Glacial Period, had a wide distribution in
southern Europe. And, as regards the cause of the smaller peripheral
glaciated districts, it may once more be recalled that if a mountain
chain be sufficiently raised, no matter by what cause, a glaciated
area may be produced when and where you please.
But there is another objection, which, at first glance, seems more
weighty. Besides the oscillations of Glacial age, there have in
Sweden also been some of Post-Glacial age, partly during the Ancylus
period, partly during that of Zitorina. Now, if the pressure of the
land-ice and the removal of that pressure afford a valid explanation
of the former—aind it can hardly be denied that such is the case—
still it seems quite impossible that they can explain the latter.
Surely the ice-sheet cannot produce oscillations of level some ten
thousands of years after its disappearance. So no doubt it seems ;
and yet this is exactly what the ice has done.
Nowadays it is well known that the Glacial and Post-Glacial areas
of depression almost entirely coincide. Not only do the zero curves
on the periphery of these areas follow the same course, but the
maxima or centres themselves are on the whole the same.’ It is
only the amount of the depression that was different, the Glacial
sinking reaching 280 metres, the Ancylus sinking exceeding 200
metres (?), and that of the Litorina period being about 100 metres.”
The conformity now demonstrated between the Glacial and
Post-Glacial changes of level points to a common cause. This has
long since been perceived, and A. G. Hégbom, who remarked the
fact, expressed it as follows: “The same factors have governed the
oscillations of the land continuously from the Ice Age to the present
day.”* But what can the common cause or common factor have
been? To this I reply: Nothing else than the removal of the
ice-pressure. When this ceased the Scandinavian area of depression
was set in a swinging motion, like a pendulum set free. This area,
depressed somewhat lower than the highest Glacial coastline, rises
for the first time as the land-ice disappears. This is the late Glacial
elevation. It sinks afresh in the Ancylus period, and during this
depression the highest Ancylus beach is formed.‘ But again the
area rises, and finally sinks for the third time to the level marked
1 Gerard De Geer: ‘‘Om Skandinaviens geografiska utveckling,’’ 2. Kartor,
pls. 4, 5, and 6; Stockholm, 1896.
2 The arithmetical progression from 100 to 200 and 280 is not regular. May not
this indicate that the last figure is too low, and that the Glacial depression was
greater than is shown by the highest Glacial marine coastline ?
3 «Om hoégsta marina grinsen i norra Syerige’’: Geol. Féren. Stockholm
Forhandl., 1896, xviii. See p. 487.
4 There is no reference here to the undulatory motion of the land-oscillations, but
only to their final result,
216 E. D. Wellburn—Fish Fauna of Millstone Grit.
by the highest Zitorina beach. The elevation consequent on that
is still going on.1 And it is not too rash to predict that these
oscillations will continue until the ever-weakening effect of the
impulse given by the land-ice is neutralized by the other terrestrial
factors that produce land-oscillations.”
From the foregoing pages it appears that “‘ the Post-Glacial geology
of the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia” stand in the closest
relation to their Glacial geology. Therefore I have been unable to
make the former clear without at the same time throwing some
light on the latter.
VI.—On tHe Fish Fauna or tae Muinistone GRITS OF
Great BRITAIN.
By Epear D. Wetisurn, L.R.C.P., F.G.8., F.R.1.P.H., etc.
Introduction.
N June 10th, 1898, whilst on an excursion with the Yorkshire
Geological and Polytechnic Society, I found three specimens of
fish remains in the Millstone Grits at Summit in Lancashire.
Subsequently, on several occasions, I again visited the district
and succeeded in collecting a large number of fish remains, and on
these, together with a few other specimens which had been found
in these rocks at rare intervals, I have based the following paper.
GENERAL REMARKS.
Brief Description of the Millstone Grit Rocks.
The Millstone Grit rocks may be naturally grouped into three
divisions, viz.: (1) the Rough Rock at the top; (2) the Kinder or
Pebble Grits at the base; with (3) between them the Middle Grits,
which are composed of thick beds of shales alternating with bands
of grit rock. The Middle Grits may again be subdivided into four
groups, viz., A, B, C, and D beds, A being the uppermost.
The great Pennine Anticline, between Lancashire and Yorkshire,
is mostly composed of these rocks, and on the Lancashire side,
south-west of Walsden, at the head of the Calder Valley, there are
on the south side several splendid exposures of these rocks; in
one quarry near Summit, Lancashire, there is a very good section of
the D beds of the Middle Grits, and in the shales near the base there
are a number of nodular masses composed of impure limestone ;
it is from these nodules that I have collected the majority of the fish
remains.
The nodules are of peculiar conformation, and vary in size,
many being 24 inches in length, 18 in width, and 9 or 10 inches
1 Each successive swing was naturally not only less extensive but shorter than the
preceding. From this it may be inferred that the Litorina depression prevailed
a shorter time than the Ancylus depression.
* Here, of course, it is only Scandinavia that is alluded to. But the same remarks
are largely applicable also to North America, although it is not unlikely that the
North American ice-sheet, being much larger than that of Scandinavia, melted later
than it. In that case the Post-Glacial epoch must have been shorter in North
America than in Europe. Herein may lie the reason why many North American
geologists, in their estimates of Post-Glacial time, have arrived in harmony at such
low figures as 7,000 to 10,000 years—a far shorter time than that in which the
Post-Glacial deposits of Scandinavia were formed.
BE. D. Wellburn—Fish Fauna of Millstone Grit. 217
in depth. At the base of the nodules there is a layer of cone-in-
cone, two to three inches in thickness, at the top three to four
inches of hard dense limestone, which breaks with a conchoidal
fracture, whilst between these the stone is more impure, there being
a certain admixture of arenaceous matter, and here the rock will
split into lamine of from a third to half an inch in thickness. The
majority of the fish remains were found on these slabs, but others, in
amore fragmentary condition, occur in the upper layers of the nodules.
That the nodules were formed under marine conditions is proved
by the fact that mixed among the fish remains are shells of
Goniatites, Orthoceras, Aviculopecten, Posidonomya, etc. In some rare
instances plants are found, but only in a very fragmentary and
eroded condition, and in the upper portions of the nodules
I have in rare instances found corals and crinoids. These taken
together point to the fact that the fish-bearing nodules were formed
under estuarine conditions.
I have found similar nodules at Wadsworth Moor, Yorkshire,
where the late Captain Aitken! collected his fish remains, and feel
certain that his specimens were obtained from the same horizon as
the one at Summit.
Fish remains have also been found in the D Shales of the Middle
Grits at the following localities in Yorkshire, viz., Eccup, near
Leeds; Boulder Clough, Sowerby, and Kilne House Wood,
Luddenden, both near Halifax; and the late Mr. James Spencer,
of Halifax, mentions? Zlonichthys Aitkeni, Traq., as occurring in
the Rough Rock and the B and C beds of the Middle Grits, but
unfortunately he gives no localities.
The collection is of great interest, both from a geological and
a zoological point of view—both as largely increasing our knowledge
of a fish fauna in a group of rocks whose yield of fossil fish has
hitherto been extremely limited, and zoologically in the fact that
one genus and several species are new to science, whilst others are
placed on record as obtained from these rocks for the first time.
Concerning the appended list of genera and species the following
facts stand out as worthy of special mention (in addition to those
mentioned above), viz.: (1) the occurrence of the genus Climatius,
a fish that has hitherto occurred only in the Lower Old Red
Sandstones of Forfarshire; (2) the appearance in the Millstone
Grits of the genera Orodus, Psephodus, Pristodus, etc., for the
first time; and (3) the occurrence of the peculiarly interesting
Ichthyodorulites, for which I have felt compelled to institute the
new genus Huctenodopsis.
RemarkkKs ON THE Fish REMAINS.
Family CLADODONTID.
Genus CLADODUS, Agassiz, 1848.
Cladodus mirabilis, Agassiz, 1840.
The late Mr. Aitken,’ of Bacup, found teeth of this genus in the
1 Trans. Manchester Geol. Soc., vol. xiii, p. 36.
2 Proc. Yorks. Geol. and Polyt. Soc., vol. xiii, pt. 4.
3 Aitken, op. cit.
218 E. D. Wellburn—Fish Fauna of Millstone Grit.
D Shales of the Middle Grits at Wadsworth Moor, Yorkshire, and
there is also a tooth in the Woodwardian Museum, Cambridge,’
which shows the characters of the above species. It is from the
same locality and horizon.
Family PRISTODONTIDA.
Genus PRISTODUS, Davis (ex Agassiz MS.), 1883.
Pristodus faleatus, Davis, 18838.
I have found one tooth of this species.
Form. and loc.: D Shales, Middle Grits, Summit.
Family COCHLIODONTIDA.
Genus PSEPHODUS, Agassiz, 1862.
Psephodus, sp. nov.
Among the fish remains from Summit there is a series of three
lower (?) dental plates of Psephodus, having the following characters,
viz.:—The plates increase in size from before backwards, and
have the following measurements: anterior plate, anterior posterior
measurement 0:0008m., transverse 0:0015m.; median plate, anterior
posterior 0-001 m., transverse 0:002m.; posterior plate, anterior
posterior 0-001m., transverse 0:0025m. The margins, where
the teeth are in juxtaposition, are nearly straight, the anterior
one being very slightly convex, whilst the posterior one is very
slightly concave; the posterior margin is greater in transverse
measurement than the anterior; the outer margin is straight, the
inner one gently curved throughout its length. The crown is gently
arched from side to side, and the anterior external angle being
somewhat inrolled gives a slight obliquity to the coronal ridge.
The crown is covered with a dense layer of ganoine. The base
is thick and strong, and conforms with the surface of the crown.
Remarks.—Although the plates are so small, their characters are
so well displayed that I am not inclined to consider them as plates.
of a young fish, but rather, from the fact that they do not appear
to agree with the specific diagnosis of any of the known species of
Psephodus, I am inclined to treat them as dental plates of a new
species, for which, on account of their small size, 1 propose the
specific designation minuta.
Form. and loc.: D Shales, Middle Grits, at Summit.
Genus POXCILODUS, McCoy (ex Agassiz), 1855, amend. A. S. W., 1889.
Pecilodus Jonesii, McCoy, 1855.
Anterior half of a dental plate.
Form. and loc.: D Shales, Middle Grits, Summit.
Family CESTRACIONTIDA.
Genus ORODUS, Agassiz, 18388.
Orodus elongatus, Davis, 1883.
I have found two well-marked teeth of this species, one being
almost identical with O. elongatus, the other with O. angustus, as
figured by the late Mr. J. W. Davis, F.G.S8.?
Form. and loc.: D Shales, Middle Grits, Summit.
1 Wellburn, op. cit. 2 Trans. Roy. Dublin Soc., yol. i, sect. 2, pl. li, figs. 1, 4.
EE. D. Wellburn—Fish Fauna of Millstone Grit. 219
Insertz sedis.
I here place certain small Helodont teeth, one of which shows
the characters of H. triangularis, Davis, the latter, from its
unsymmetrical form, being in all probability a medio-lateral, and
others, which are smaller and more symmetrical, being symphyseal
teeth of Psephodus or some other Cochliodont fish.
Form. and loc.: D Shales, Middle Grits, Summit.
Family ACANTHODIDA.
Genus ACANTHODES, Agassiz, 1833.
Acanthodes Wardi, Egerton, 1866.
The best specimen of this fish I found at Summit; it shows the
fish from a point a short distance in front of the pectoral fin spine,
the basal portions of which are preserved, to a point some little
distance behind the dorsal fin spine, which is also present. The
body is clothed with small quadrate scales, which I am unable to
distinguish from those of 4. Wardi, Egert., of the Coal-measures.
Besides the above, fragments of the fish and many fin spines have
been found.
Form. and loc.: D Shales, Middle Grits, Summit; Boulder Clough,
Sowerby ; and Kilne House Wood, Luddenden, near Halifax.
Acanthodes, sp. nov.
One fragment of Acanthodes shows characters which appear to
entitle it to specific distinction, viz., the scales are very minute and
are ornamented with fine diagonal strix. The only species of
Acanthodes that I know of with this scale sculpture is -4. concinnus,
Whiteaves,' but in this species the fin spines are ornamented with
“ about four longitudinal grooves,” whereas the present species shows
no evidence of these grooves, the fin spines being broad and elongated,
having a single groove and ridge running parallel with the anterior
border. On account of the scale sculpture I propose the specific
designation striatus for this species.
Form. and loc. : D Shales, Middle Grits, Summit.
Genus CLIMATIUS, Agassiz, 1845.
Climatius, sp. ?
Among the fish remains there is the crushed body of a small
Acanthodian fish of about 50mm. in length. The body, which
appears to have been of a somewhat slender form, is covered with
smooth quadrate scales, and there are severai fin spines present,
some being detached from the body but lying in close proximity to
it; the majority of the spines are broad and robust, the others being
straight, narrower, and more elongated, and all are ornamented
with coarse longitudinal ridges, and in general characters agree very
closely with those of the Old Red Sandstone fish Climatius as
figured and described by Sir P. Egerton* and Mr. J. Powrie, F.G.S.°
I have also carefully examined the specimens of Climatius in the
Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, vol. vi, sect. 4.
Mem, Geol. Survey, Fig. and descrip. organic remains, dec. x.
Trans. Edin. Geol. Soc., vol. i.
1
2
a
3
220 EH. D. Wellburn—Fish Fauna of Millstone Grit.
British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, and consider
that the above fish should be placed in this genus, but the crushed
condition of the specimen renders the determination of its species one
of some difficulty, and it appears best to leave this question for later
consideration. Besides the above I have found several detached
spines of this fish.
Form. and loc.: D Shales, Middle Grits, Summit.
ICHTHYODORULITES.
Genus ACONDYLACANTHUS, St. John & Worthen, 1875.
Acondylacanthus, sp. ?
One spine shows the characters of this genus, but it has suffered
so much from erosion that the determination of its species is im-
possible.
Form. and loc.: D Shales, Middle Grits, Summit.
Genus EUCTENODOPSIS, gen. nov.
Euctenodopsis, sp. nov.
This Ichthyodorulite is most interesting, and at first sight might
easily be mistaken for a specimen of the nearly allied genus Huctenius,
Traquair. However, on a more careful examination it is at once
apparent that it does not agree with the generic diagnosis of that
genus, as given by Dr. Traquair,’ in the important fact that, instead
of having one end (the proximal) “rounded or blunt,” this portion
is drawn out and forms a more or less spatulate extension, which
appears to differ somewhat in texture from that of the other portions
of the spine. I say spine, as I consider the Ichthyolite was a dermal
defence of some Selachian fish, and that the spatulate extension was
its point of insertion. Although the spine is narrower and more
elongated than any of the known species of Huctenius, still, in many
of its characters it agrees with that genus, being more or less
elliptical in form, laterally compressed, one side concave, the other
convex, one extremity produced into a long narrow extension, and
the convex margin is divided in a comb-like manner into a number
of closely arranged blunt-pointed denticles.
On account of the above-mentioned peculiarity—the spatulate
extension at its proximal end—I venture to place the spine in
a new genus, for which I propose the name EHuctenodopsis, and,
on account of its narrow and elongated form, with the specific
designation tenuis.
Form. and loc.: D Shales, Middle Grits, Summit.
Family RHIZODONTIDA.
Genus STREPSODUS, Young, 1866.
Strepsodus sulcidens, Hancock & Atthey, 1870-1871.
Mr. Aitken? in his paper refers to a tooth of Strepsodus. Mr. John
Ward, F.G.S., of Longton, who has seen the specimen, informs me
that it was a tooth of Strepsodus sulcidens.
Form. and loc.: D Shales, Middle Grits, Wadsworth Moor.
* Grou. Mac., Dec. II, Vol. VIII (1881), pp. 36-334.
> Aitken, op. cit.
E. D. Wellburn—Fish Fauna of Millstone Grit. 221
Family CAALACANTHIDA.
Genus COALACANTHUS, Agassiz, 1836, 1843.
Celacanthus, sp. nov. ?
I have found several slabs showing the remains of this genus, but
am as yet not satisfied as to the species, although I am inclined to
regard it as new on account of the proportion and ornamentation of
the head bones and the sculpture of the scales.
Form. and loc.: D Shales, Middle Grits, Summit.
Family PALAONISCID.
Genus RHADINICHTHYS, Traquair, 1877.
Rhadinichthys, sp. nov.
Form. and loc.: D Shales, Middle Grits, Summit.
Rhadinichthys, sp. nov. ?
Form. and loc. : D Shales, Middle Grits, Summit.
Genus ELONICHTHYS, Giebel, 1848.
Elonichthys Aitkeni, Traq., 1886.
Several fragments of this fish have been found.
Form. and loc. : D Shales, Middle Grits at Summit and Wadsworth
Moor ' (also B and C Shales, Middle Grits and the Rough Rock,
localities not given’).
Elonichthys, sp. nov.
Form. and loc. : D Shales, Middle Grits, Summit.
Elonichthys, sp. nov.
Form. and loc.: D Shales, Middle Grits, Summit.
Genus ACROLEPIS, Agassiz, 1833, 1844.
Acrolepis Hopkinsi, McCoy, 1855.
Several fine fragmentary specimens of this fish have been found,
notably those from Wadsworth Moor which are in the Woodwardian
Museum, Cambridge.*
Form. and loc.: D Shales, Middle Grits at Summit and
Wadsworth Moor.
Norr.—I intend to fully describe the new species later. Mr. John
Ward, F.G.S., who has seen the specimens, quite agrees with me
that they are undoubtedly new. The fish remains, with two or three
exceptions, are in the author’s cabinets.
Before concluding, I must acknowledge, with warmest thanks,
the great obligation I am under to Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S.,
etc., and Dr. A. Smith Woodward, F.L.S., for allowing me to
examine and compare my fish remains with those in the Natural
History Museum, Cromwell Road. I am also indebted to Mr. John
Ward, F.G.S., for giving me his opinion on the new Palaoniscide.
1 Wellburn, op. cit.
2 Spencer, op. cit.
3 Wellburn, op. cit.
f Millstone Grit.
©
E. D. Wellburn—Fish Fauna o
yO)
c
yD)
‘(410 *do) xeyrpepy Jo ‘raonedg somep ‘xy oye] OY} Jo APIIOYINE O43 VO OATS suOZIIOY 90.149 OST, ;
“AqrpRooy SITY} ULOTZ poqiiosep Teeq OALT SULeTMOL YS] 4VYY OUT, 49XY OT} St STI, ;
“BOOK FIT) OUOFSTITIA OF} 07 MONT x
Jono ‘simydoy sidajouy
“Aout “ds ‘shygyaruopy
“sou “ds ‘shypyaruopsy
uenbery, “imay27 shyzyaruop yr
“gaou “ds ‘shiygzyouupnyy
“aout “ds ‘shyzyouupnyar
| “IINKUALAONILOW JOpAy
KOK OK
*
KOK
«
00 g°Aout *ds ‘snypumamany
| P Sop | AoyyyV 2® yooourvyy ‘seaprajns snposdasgs)
| | | | “IIOKUMLAOSSOALY eps,
| ‘TM0ISORTAT, ssvfoqng
| | ms OK “sou ds go Wad ‘sesdopouazongy
| | 0° 900 “ards ‘snygumanphpuos pr
| | | | | | “SHLITAMOGOXHLHOT
*
g ds ‘snagnuyy
“aot “ds ‘sapoyzimaR
WOWOS PAL sapoypuvay
‘IGOHLNVOYW IapIQ
g ds ‘snpojazy
sav ‘sngvhuoja snpo.w)
2h ae AON, “e2savop snpoprowmy
us sis " “sou “ds ‘snpoydasq
oo aU “stan ‘sngvoywf snpogsriy
| | | | | ‘ITHOVTEY IOpig
x OK
XK
*
2c
= ~
bd
*
*
KOK OK
| | # | d sae oe. ZISSB.8 YW ‘signa snpopniy
| | ‘INOLOAHLHOT A9pig
| | ‘IIYOUBIGOUISB[ | ssvpoqng
|
i!
|
2 ¢ {qyeoorT
“ooy Fonoy
9)
a
“OTLYSY.IO
‘{qramog ‘ysnoyH
y oltyseoue’y
“aATYSYIO ‘LOOP |
Y}IOMSpe A ‘SJILD
Jeptnog ‘sq1145
PPI ‘s7eIS C
a 6 AV[B00'T ce
STPPHAL “SeTeUS
“aITYSY10 A ae
qeou ‘dnooy ‘s}t1y
APPL “SeTeqS
*sy10 JX ‘XVpI[e yp vou
‘TUBYWOppN'y ‘poo AA
asnNoF] oUpLy ‘S}IIO
PPA “SPS CG
aPPIN ‘SVS
“qu ‘STD
STPPIL “SeTVUS
2d AyeooT ue
FPP “SAPUS
“NOILNATALSTIG TVOIHGVUOILVULS GNV ALITVOOT AO ATAVI
H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level. 223
VII.—Oscinnations IN THE SEA-LEVEL. (Parr II.)
By H. W. Pearson.
(Continued from the April Number, p. 174.)
N the “Gallery of Nature,” Milner, p. 388, it is stated that Brighton
(then a mere village) in the time of Elizabeth (1558-1603)
‘stood upon a site where the sea now rolls, and where the chain
pier stands.” We might infer from this statement that at Brighton
the sea, since the date mentioned, had been elevated over the land.
We cannot draw this conclusion, however, with certainty, for the
reasons following :—
During the last century the eastern coast of England has been
constantly eaten into by the sea; churches, farms, and towers have
been repeatedly devoured by the waves. In this district, however,
we know that these results have not been caused by a rise in surface-
level of the waters; we know that erosion by waves and currents
has been the sole cause for these changes. It is absurd, therefore,
to assume that Brighton during the last few centuries has alone
suffered submergence, while all Britain has elsewhere undergone
continual upheaval. Erosion, then, is the more probable explanation
of this item, and it should not be held as evidence conflicting with
our curve.
A conflicting point of great weight was found in Rear-Admiral
Smyth’s statement, that the city of Spina in the time of Scylax ‘‘was
about 24 miles from the sea, but in less than 600 years afterwards
Strabo describes it as being 90 stadia, or more than eleven miles
inland” ( ‘‘'The Mediterranean,” p. 47). This remark of Smyth’s
as to the 600 years disturbed me. Our period of vibration in the
sea-level at the time mentioned being perhaps a little short of
600 years, there should have been little change in Spina’s distance
from the sea at these two epochs. On investigation, however,
I found that there were two or three writers of thisname. I believe,
therefore, that Smyth, like others before him, has confounded Scylax
of Caryanda, author of the “ Periplus ” of the Mediterranean, who
wrote about 335 B.c. (Miiller) or 852 B.c. (Niebuhr), with the Scylax
of Caryanda who explored the Indus for Darius perhaps 515 B.c.
or a little later. (See Encyc. Brit., article Scylaz.)
It seems much more probable to me that information as to the
shores of the Adriatic should be found in the writings of the later
Scylax. I therefore, with some reason, assume that in this case
I am more liable to find two points confirmatory of my curve, one for
the low-water period of the epoch of Strabo, the other fer the high-
water period of the later Scylax, rather than a conflicting point as it
first appeared on my diagram.
Strabo (Bk. xvi, chap. 4) describes the harbour of Charmothas,
Arabia, as, at the time of his writing, apparently in actual existence.
Under the same chapter, however, in a footnote from Gossellin, we
learn that to-day, from the accumulation of soil, this harbour “is
more than a day’s journey into the interior of the country.” This
recession should not be; no retreat of the sea, if our curve is to
224 H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level.
be depended on, can have occurred since Strabo’s epoch; this
observation is therefore strongly antagonistic to our conclusions.
On investigation, however, we learn that Strabo’s statement was
borrowed from Artemidorus, who in his turn had borrowed his
description from Agatharchides, 146 3.c. or thereabouts. We find,
when we thus trace the observation to its true date, that all
antagonism disappears. Agatharchides flourished during a high-
water period, consequently the observed recession could have been
foretold from inspection of our curve. (For discussion of true date
see Hamilton & Falconer’s Translation, vol. iii, p. 192.)
On theoretical grounds, the high sea-level culminating about
250 B.c. may, it seems to me, need moving back perhaps 50 years
or thereabouts. This idea is derived from the following
considerations :—
Our curve was drawn centrally through the preponderating
masses of dots. Now it is well known that information such as
used in this work becomes more and more scanty as we go
backwards in time. While much evidence exists between the era
of Augustus and the fall of the Western Roman Empire, 476 a.p., it
rapidly decreases as we pass to the period before Cesar; therefore
we must anticipate that our observed points will be relatively
greater in number for the same high sea-level as we approach from
250 B.c. to the time of Christ. The greater accumulation of points at
the later dates consequently has probably brought the apex of our
curve somewhat too near the time of the Christian era. How
much distortion there may be found properly due to this cause
further research may determine.
If later investigation shall allow this shifting of the curve at the
epoch 250 3.c. as suggested, it would result in removing one more
of our conflicting points, viz., that Reclus tells us at the time of the
Battle of Thermopyle (480 3.c.) the sea extended much farther into
the land than now. The curve as now drawn would show the sea-
level at the date of battle but slightly above the present level; this
shifting would increase considerably its altitude at that time, and
would better satisfy the requirements of Reclus’ remark.
A few points I am at present unable to explain: for instance,
Rear-Admiral Smyth calls attention to certain ruins near the town
of Nettuno, Italy, “among which is Astura, so long the residence
of Cicero . . . . now submerged in the sea.” During
the later years of Cicero (106-43 3.c.) our curve calls for a sea-
level differing but little from the present; a sea-level, in fact,
.slightly above that of to-day. No building, therefore, then above
the sea should be now submerged. I feel confident that some
mistake will eventually be found in this statement. It may be that
the residence of Cicero has not been identified with certainty, or it
may be that near Nettuno, as in the Bay of Baie, foundations of
buildings were erected in the sea. At present however, this item
remains a conflicting point, antagonistic to our curve. I have no
item more unyielding than this.
The above analysis illustrates the character of the examination
bestowed on the testimony found conflicting with our curve. Lack
H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level. 225
of space now forbids a more complete discussion of this matter.
I will say, however, that a recent canvass of over 500 manuscript
pages of these changes demonstrates that the conflicting points,
accumulated during many years of continuous search, aggregate
less than 4 per cent. of the total items collected. Over 96
per cent. of the testimony thus indiscriminately gathered falls into
harmony with our curve.
It seems impossible that the extraordinary method appearing in
this matter should be the result of chance. I believe firmly,
therefore, that law prevails in these oscillations, and while this
preliminary examination has as yet not been carried far enough to
establish this position, it renders our conclusions most extremely
probable. When this work was first entered upon, some years
since, I had little knowledge of what had been done before me
in this field, but I soon found much had been done; I am far from
being the first to announce “ Oscillations in the Sea-level.”
- Aristotle (884-322 B.c.) had suspected them ; he stated ‘there is
reason for thinking that these changes (replacement of land by sea,
and vice versd) take place according to a certain system and within
a certain period ” (“ Principles,” 9th ed., p. 18).
Ovid (43 B.c. to 17 a.p.) makes Pythagoras say in regard to these
oscillations—
*« The tace of places and their forms decay,
And that is solid earth which once was sea :
Seas in their turn retreating from the shore,
Make solid land what Ocean was before ;
Antissa, Pharos, Tyre, in seas were pent,
Once isles, but now increase the continent ;
While the Leucadian coast, mainland before,
By rushing seas is severed from the shore,
And men once walked where ships at anchor ride,
Till Neptune overlooked the narrow way,
And in disdain poured in the conquering sea.”’
Metamorphoses, Bk. xy, Addison’s translation.
Ovid has introduced here events that occurred both before and after
the time of Pythagoras (580 to 500 B.c.). They all bear testimony,
however, to the ever recurring nature of these changes, even if the
dates and order of sequence be somewhat confused. (See “ Popular
History of Science,” Routledge, p. 17.)
Sir Charles Lyell (“ Principles,” 9th ed., p. 526) had reason to
suspect that the upheaval of Scandinavia, in progress at the time of
his visit, had not always proceeded at the same rate, and that the
motion had not been invariably in one direction. He says: “Some
phenomena in the neighbourhood of Stockholm appear to me only
explicable on the supposition of the alternate rising and sinking of
the ground since the country was inhabited by man.”
Mr. R. C. M. Brown has many times denied the doctrine of
upheaval of coastline, and has urged change in absolute level of the
sea from astronomical causes in its stead.'
1 See Report Brit. Assoc. Ad. of Science, 1890, p. $24; Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,
vol. xlvi, p. 122.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. V. 15
226 H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level.
Elisée Reclus, in ‘‘The Earth,” discusses at length the subject of
upheaval and depression of shore-lines; he shows the inability of
sedimentary processes to account for the shoaling of the many ports
of the Mediterranean or for the advance of the coastlines into the
sea; he says, in these matters, ‘we are witnessing the phenomena
of a vertical impulse” (p. 539); on p. 542 he shows us that. this
“vertical impulse” has affected the entire area of the Mediterranean.
The study of these and similar upheavals and depressions over the
earth’s surface leads him to say: ‘As will be understood, these
regular oscillations must take place in obedience to some general
law still unknown, although none the less certain” (p. 566). We
should note here, that while Reclus attributes these oscillations to
movements of the earth, it is impossible to distinguish such move-
ments from oscillations in the sea; the effect is precisely the same in
either case.
Rear-Admiral Smyth seems to have noted these oscillations; he
says: “It is decided, upon what appears to be sound geological
evidence, that a great part of the Italian coast has been raised and
lowered several times within the historical era, while the sea must
have ever maintained the same level ” (“‘ The Mediterranean,” p. 26).
Again, on p. 28 he remarks: “It may be safely concluded that the
land has risen and fallen twice since the Christian era, and that each
movement of elevation and subsidence has exceeded twenty feet.”
Mr. P. Thompson, in ‘‘The History and Antiquities of Boston,”
has shown that these same oscillations have occurred in the Fens
of England. On p. 660 he demonstrates these changes to have been
four in number since the time of the Romans, two periods of
inundation and two periods of desiccation, but these periods can
also be determined from the data attached to this argument. Oscil-
lations of the sea-level have also been shown at Rye and Winchelsea
and in the English Channel, the latter by Peacock.
We note, however, that the above quoted authorities, although
they may have suspected these oscillations, or may have actually
observed them, have in no case attempted to control these phenomena
by law or to determine the period of vibration. Law has been
invoked, however, by Professor Edouard Suess and by Trautschold,
a quotation from this latter having been previously given, notwith-
standing the “resolve to abandon the doctrine of secular oscillations
of continents” (Suess), and the adoption of periodic fluctuations
in the sea-level in its stead. JI am unable to learn that either of
these gentlemen has attempted determination of the period of these
fluctuations ; it may therefore be possible that this is the first attempt
in that direction.
I show no curve beyond the 400 8.c. At this period the evidence
which I have been able to collect becomes uncertain, scanty, and
the dates are very unreliable. The Deucalion Deluge, the Ogygian
Deluge, and the Deluge of Samothrace furnish data at remote and
uncertain periods. The books of Homer, of Herodotus, of Strabo,
of Ptolemy, and other ancient writers supply much information as
to the position of the sea-level at periods from 600 to 200 B.c.; but
H. W. Pearson— Oscillations of Sea-level. 22
owing to the habit those ancient writers had of describing a city,
an island, a peninsula, or a coastline, in terms borrowed from some
still earlier and more ancient writer, it is at times difficult to decide
as to the particular date at which the description fitted the object.
The testimony so gathered is therefore very conflicting in its nature.
I believe, however, that we find the amplitude of vertical vibration
in the waters very much greater at that time than now, and the
period of change reduced to approximately 500 years.
It is evident from what has gone before, that these oscillations
have had a continuous existence for the last 2,400 years. In this
paper we show strong evidence that these phenomena are periodic
in their nature, and that the periods of these cycles are capable of
determination. It is also equally evident, if any weight be attached
to the facts herein contained, that the whole Northern Hemisphere,
during the last three hundred years or more, has been subject to
a general protrusion above the level of the sea.
Let us now consider, then, those evidences as to present opposing
movement of shore-lines, to which attention has already been called ;
movements which, at the first glance, seem to deny so positively the
conclusions arrived at in the above discussion.
To open the argument, I believe we maintain with great reason,
that if there has been a bodily transference during the last few
centuries, of a considerable mass of water from the Northern
Hemisphere to the Southern, there must, coexistent with this
transfer, have been considerable decrease in flow of currents running
to the north and corresponding increase in currents flowing to
the south.
Now then, acting on this assumption, the writer has shown in the
American Geologist for September, 1899, perfect explanation of
these apparently irregular motions; it is there shown that every
observed case of apparent upheaval on one coastline, coincident
with subsidence on another, can be foretold by law, and that instead
of these motions being opposed to our conclusions, they are directly
confirmatory thereof, it being demonstrated that no transference
of water to the south can occur, no upheaval of northern shore-
lines can take place, without a corresponding subsidence on
the coasts of the Eastern United States, and also on the borders of
such other lands as may be similarly situated with regard to ocean
currents.
I will not repeat all the arguments used in the paper mentioned,
but will state that our case hinges on the law of deformation of
ocean levels by ocean currents, as announced by William Ferrell
in Science, vol. vii. He says: “In the North Atlantie the
tendency to flow eastward in the middle and higher latitudes causes
a slight heaping up of the water and a rise of surface-level adjacent
to the coast of Europe, and a drawing away of the water and
a depression of sea-level along the north-east coast of the United
States” (p. 76).
I have shown in the periodical mentioned that the waters
around the British Islands and on the Scandinavian shores are
228 H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level.
now piled, certainly 5 feet (probably much more on the coast of
Norway) above the normal sea-level, and that the waters on the
eastern borders of the United States are correspondingly depressed.
It follows, therefore, that if the Gulf Stream—that force which
now restrains these waters in their abnormal position—should
decrease but slightly in its velocity of flow, the oceanic surface
would at once return in part towards that normal level from which
it has so long been displaced; in other words, Scandinavia and the
British Islands would enter upon an epoch of upheaval, the Carolinas
upon an epoch of subsidence. As we have seen, the recent
protrusions of the north renders certain the fact that a great mass of
water has recently disappeared from this hemisphere. The transfer
of this water to the south makes an equal certainty that coexistent
with this removal all northward-flowing currents should have
decreased in their velocity of flow. It is clear, therefore, that these
opposing motions in our coastlines can be reduced to law and fore-
told in advance of observation.
We have reason to believe, however, that apparent upheavals or
subsidences due to this cause will not at any time exceed 2 or
3 feet in vertical movement, and they consequently are of little
importance as compared with the periodic vibrations of 15 or
20 feet over an entire hemisphere, as developed herein. It never-
theless is important to detect and eliminate these minor deviations,
when we attempt the general investigation of coastal phenomena.
For a more extended, although still very incomplete discussion of
Ferrell’s law, see the American Geologist, as before mentioned.
To those who may wish to extend these investigations—and there
is great opportunity for such extension—caution should be given
against relying on evidence as to changes in the sea-level gathered
near the mouths of great rivers or in deltas like those of the
Nile, Po, Rhone, Rhine, Mississippi, etc. These delta deposits,
independent of their surroundings, are all sinking bodily and
spreading laterally, probably under some process of disgorgement
of their water contents. Much evidence of this exists. For instance,
E. L. Corthell says the delta lands of the Mississippi are unstable
both in vertical and lateral direction. A base-line 700 feet long,
measured accurately, had in five years increased to 712 feet. He
also quotes from the Report of the Mississippi River Commission :
“Discrepancies in beach marks, level heights, and gauges couid
only be satisfactorily accounted for by the most plausible explanation
of the subsidence of the whole delta” (The National Geographic
Magazine, December, 1897).
M. Staring is of the opinion that the gradual depression of Holland
“is caused only by the subsidence of the alluvial ground, the weight
of the dikes, and the incessant passage of men and cattle” (Reclus,
“The Earth,” p. 547). Regions like the northern and western
shores of the Adriatic, the deltas of the Rhine and Mississippi, should
thus be avoided ; the settlement of these delta deposits may obliterate
the vertical movements in the aqueous envelope; observations made
along rock-bound coasts only are trustworthy.
H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level. 229
From the argument preceding it seems necessary to conclude that
in future study of changes in the sea-level, discrimination must be
made between each of the following causes which may affect the
oceanic borders :—
1. Seek the effects produced by the bodily transference of water
to and from the north. These effects would be universal over one
hemisphere.
2. Detect and eliminate those movements of upheaval or depression
due to variation in flow of ocean currents under the operation of
Ferrell’s law. These effects are local in their nature.
3. In deltas always suspect that any observed depression may be
due to a local settlement of the ground itself, and such data there
gathered may offer no argument whatever in favour of a rise in
sea-level.
4, Hliminate and avoid such coastal changes as may be due to
erosion of or accretion to shore-lines. In changes of this: century
it is generally possible to do this. In changes that have occurred
in the distant past we shall find much difficulty in separating results
of erosion or accretion from the results of real changes in the
sea-level; therefore, in past ages much testimony will be found
accumulated against us which our analysis will be unable to
remove; we must expect, therefore, many of these apparently con-
flicting observations.
All the evidence discussed hereto has been gathered on the oceanic
coastlines ; these data, as we have seen, testify to a recent protrusion
of the entire north, and that this apparent vertical uplift increased
in amount as we approach the Pole. There is, however, evidence in
existence, obtained from our great lakes, showing the same law of
greater elevation to the north.
Mr. G. K. Gilbert, in the 18th Ann. Rep. U.S. Geol. Survey, has
shown that this excess of upheaval at the north has been of recent
occurrence in the interior of our continent. A careful study of the
changes in level, during the present century, of the great lakes
enables Gilbert to announce this law with certainty.
With his inferential conclusions, however, in the light of our own
investigation, we are compelled to differ. He assumes that this
motion may continue indefinitely, and if so, he shows that in time
the Niagara Falls will cease their flow, and a new outlet to the great
lakes be placed in operation near Chicago. This result he reaches
in a logical manner from the data examined, but we see that
observations reaching back only one hundred years allow us to form
no certain opinion as to whether this motion will continue indefinitely
in one direction or otherwise. Then, again, the area of investigation
was of too limited a character. We have seen that to obtain the law
governing these risings and sinkings, it is not only necessary to
study at one field of view the entire Northern Hemisphere, but to
carry our investigation back in time as far as history or tradition
will allow. When this has been done we see that Gilbert’s observed
changes in level fall into line as part and parcel of one complete
system, universal over the entire North.
230 H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level.
The cause of this vibration in the oceanic waters it is perhaps
too early to discuss; the oscillations should be first established
beyond a doubt. The most plausible explanation of the last change,
however, would seem to rest in a possible continued increase in
growth of the South Polar glaciers during the last few centuries,
contemporaneous with that general decrease in nearly all Northern
glaciers which, during the period mentioned, we know has been
in progress. If we could invoke this cause, the recent oscillation
mentioned would then be a physical necessity.
The question raised in this paper, and the results that have been
reached, seem to warrant certain inferences or speculations, some of
which are liable to be of considerable importance. For instance,
we know that the landing-place of Columbus in 1492 has not yet
been positively identified ; our curve, however, calls for a sea-level
at that latitude and date some 12 to 15 feet higher than at present.
The question is, would the change in topography produced by
assuming the sea at its old position aid us in reaching final con-
clusion in this matter.
As our curve for time past indicates a series of regular cycles
with a period of about 640 years, must we not suppose our oceanic
surface will again rise in the north, reaching its maximum shortly
after the year 2100. If we prolong this curve, as suggested, we
must conclude that disaster, as repeatedly in the past, will soon
again overwhelm our northern coastlines. Are such cities as London,
Liverpool, and New York ready for this advancing sea, and has
such a region as Holland any too much time for preparation ?
If our curve has been correctly mapped out, we must suppose that
the northerly movement of the waters has already commenced, or
that it will very shortly appear. This movement should be first
shown in cessation of the so-called upheaval of Scandinavia, and
that region should soon appear to be undergoing subsidence, while,
at the same time, the coasts of New Jersey will enter an epoch of
upheaval. We might, with great propriety, be on the look out for
these changes.
Lord Kelvin has shown us how one inch of water taken from the
surface of the sea, and piled up as ice at the Pole, would appreciably
affect the rotation of the earth; we can reasonably expect, therefore,
that these oscillations to and fro from the Poles to the Hquator
of 15 or 20 feet, as our arguments and facts seem to require,
should have considerable effect in altering the length of our day.
In fact, in this discussion we may, and probably will, find
confirmation of Newcomb’s surmise, that the hitherto unexplainable
irregularities in the moon’s motions may be due to slight changes in
the earth’s axial rotation, which rotation perhaps ‘‘ varies from time
to time in an irregular manner” (‘ Popular Astronomy,” p. 101).
We thus see that there are reasons, many and weighty, inducing us
to pursue this investigation to greater extent. Notwithstanding the
considerable attention given to the subject by this writer, a research
involving the labour of many years, we are as yet merely on the
threshold of the inquiry. Years could be devoted to the comparison
Reviews—Prof. V. Amalitzky—The Permian of Russia. 231
of ancient and modern maps and charts. A lifetime could be
expended on the emerged and submerged ruins of Ostia, Carthage,
Utica, the Piraus, Alexandria, the Bay of Baie, Tyre, Miletus, and
other places too numerous to mention on the ancient elevated or
depressed coastlines of the Mediterranean. This task is far beyond
the capacity of an individual. Law, if once established in this
matter, is of universal value and importance. The obscurity
shrouding these emerged and submerged cities already seems less
dark than before.
I earnestly hope, therefore, that some scientific body will under-
take to assist in extending this investigation, thus enabling us to
shed still additional light on these perplexing oscillations of the sea
which we have been considering.
(To be concluded in our next Number.)
154 dal] WA JE DSH wwA Se
Sur utes Fourttes pe 1899 pe piBRis DE VERTEBRES DANS
Les Déprors Permiens DE LA Russe pu Norp. Par V.
AMALITZKY. pp. 25, with 5 plates. Exposé fait 4 l’Assemblée
générale de la Soc. Imp. des naturalistes a St.-Pétersbourg, le
28 Décembre, 1899. (Varsovie, 1900.)
ROFESSOR AMALITZKY has for several years past been
engaged in working out the structure and history of the fresh-
water deposits of Paleozoic age in the northern governments of
Russia, and in the present paper he treats of some general questions
in connection with his investigations, and further gives a detailed
account of some explorations in Upper Permian strata on the banks
of the Little Dwina, which resulted in the discovery of numerous
plant and animal remains of considerable interest from their close
relationship to the flora and fauna of the Gondwana beds in India,
the Karoo formation of South Africa, and deposits of corresponding
age in Brazil and Australia. Some of the reptilian remains, more-
over, present a close resemblance to the genera Hlginia and Gordonia
described by E. 'T. Newton from the Elgin sandstones.
The lowest fresh-water deposits recognized by Amalitzky in the
north of Russia are red sandstones situated at Mount Andoma, on
the east side of Lake Onega, and, more to the east, at Oust-Pinéga
on the Northern Dwina. They contain lamellibranch shells be-
longing to the genera Carbonicola, Anthracosia, Archanodonta, etc.,
allied to the Anthracoside of the Russian Carboniferous. The beds
are of Upper Devonian age, and may be ranked with the Old Red
Sandstones of Scotland, the Kiltorkan beds of Ireland, and the
Catskill formation of North America. The only fresh-water for-
mations of Carboniferous age observed by the author are the sands
of the Lower Carboniferous at Mount Patrova, in the Vytégra
district, which have been shown by Inostrantsev to be a direct
continuation of the Devonian sandstones of Andoma. Higher up
in the geological series, exclusively marine deposits persist from
the Lower Carboniferous sandstones with Productus giganteus in the
232 Reviews—Prof. V. Amaliteky—The Permian of Russia.
Vytégra district, and more eastward at Oust-Pinéga, from the Upper
Carboniferous sandstones with Spirifer mosquensis, quite up to the
Lower Permian. The Upper Permian deposits, on the other hand,
shown on the banks of the lower part of the River Suchona and near
the sources of the Little Dwina of the North, exhibit fresh-water
characters very distinctly. They consist of nearly horizontal beds
of marl with intercalated lenticular beds of sand and sandstone.
For a long period these strata were considered to be destitute of
fossils; none were found in them by Murchison, Keyserling, or
Blasius, and they were neglected by the Russian geologists by reason
of this reputed barrenness.
Professor Amalitzky has, however, demonstrated by his dis-
coveries during the last four years that they contain a rich flora
and fauna. Amongst the plant remains the most important are
Glossopteris indica, Gl. angustifolia, (Vertebraria), Gangamopteris
major, Teniopteris, Sphenopteris, Callipteris cf. conferta, besides
Equisetum, Noeggerathiopsis, and forms like Schizoneuree. The fauna
includes a number of fresh-water lamellibranchs, such as Pal@omutela
Inostranzewi, P. Keyserlingi, P. Verneuili, Oligodon, Paleanodonta,
Carbonicola, Anthracosia, and Anthracomya; the Crustacean genera
Estheria and Cypris, together with the plates and impressions of
Ganoid fishes. Land animals are represented by amphibians
approaching Melanerpeton and Pachygonia, and a great number of
bones of theromorphian reptiles belonging to the Pareiasauria and
Dicynodontia, amongst which Pareiasaurus and Dicynodon have been
definitely determined, and also forms much resembling Elginia and
Gordonia.
These discoveries have confirmed the opinion of the author as
to the great resemblance from a paleontological point of view
between the Continental fresh-water deposits of the Upper Permian
and those of the Lower Karoo in Africa and of the Gondwana in
India; and he is led to conclude that the compact continent which
during the Permian epoch occupied Central and Southern Africa,
India, Australia, Argentina, and part of Brazil extended as far as
European Russia, and that the bond which united these countries
was on one side the Continental deposits of Gondwana in India and
on the other the similar deposits of Kouzniets in Siberia.
The explorations carried out by Professor Amalitzky during the
Summer of 1899, which form the main subject of the present paper,
were made at a spot on the steep right bank of the Upper Dwina of
the North, near the village of Kotlas. For a distance of about ten
kilometres the river bank is composed of Permian rocks overlain by
beds of clay, with pebbles and large stones of crystalline rocks, of
Post-Pliocene age. The Permian beds have a slight dip towards
the N.N.E.; they consist of a series of marls of very uniform
characters; the upper beds are of a reddish-brown tint, with
a persistent layer of white siliceo-dolomitic limestone, in some
places becoming dolomitic, in others a siliceous rock. These upper
marls rest with a slight discordance on lower marls, also reddish-
brown, and not dissimilar to the upper beds; a thickness of about
Reviews—Prof. V. Amalitsky—The Permian of Russia, 233
24 metres is exposed of the lower marls. At the line where these
marls come together there is a series of remarkable lenticular beds
of sand resting in trenches eroded in the lower marls and uncon-
formably overlaid by the upper beds. Five of these lenticular sand
beds are shown in section in the steep river banks in the course
of the ten kilometres referred to. The particular bed excavated,
situated at Sokolki, was 12 metres thick in its central portion,
with a breadth of about 80 metres. The bed contained numerous
irregular, hard concretions of sand cemented with carbonate of lime,
and in some of these the reptilian bones were enclosed. As the
bank at this place was vertical, and the higher portions were even
overhanging, the only practicable means of reaching the fossiliferous
lenticular deposit was by digging down to it from above, which
entailed much labour, and a further difficulty was caused by the fact
that at a depth of 15m. from the surface the soil, at the end of
June, was frozen hard, and the small fissures and cavities were lined
with ice.
Many impressions of large fronds of Glossopteris were met with
in some of the sandy beds, but they broke up on exposure to the
air. The position of the fossiliferous concretions was discovered only
after several fruitless trials. Some of the concretions contained only
single detached bones, whilst in others all the bones of a complete
skeleton were embedded together. Three skeletons were found side
by side, evidently of predatory animals allied to Rhopalodon; under
these were three, more or less imperfect, skeletons of Pareiasauria.
The sand surrounding the concretions was carefully removed and
the surface of each layer exposed so that the positions of the
skeletons could be distinguished. They appeared to be all extended
in the same direction as if they had been carried down and deposited
in the bed of astream heavily charged with sediment. The skeletons
in the central portions of the lenticular deposit were heaped together
as if they had been buried up with silt before the flesh had
decomposed, whilst those nearer the margins seem to have been
exposed long enough for decay to have set in, so that the bones
became detached.
No fewer than thirty-nine groups of concretions were discovered ;
about twenty of these contained complete or imperfect skeletons,
whilst in the others the bones were detached and commingled
together. These concretions have not as yet been properly
examined, and their contents are but partially known. Of the
remains of Amphibians, there are skulls and other bones of forms
allied to Melanerpeton and Metopias.
Both in numbers and importance the reptilian remains form the
chief part of the collection. They nearly all belong to the
Theromorpha, and the three suborders, Anomodontia, Pareiasauria,
and Deuterosauria, are represented. The Pareiasauria are the most
abundant ; amongst them are some small forms with skulls not more
than 380 centimetres in length, whilst others are 4-5 metres long
with skulls 1 m. in length and 0:66 m. in width. Some have their
heads and part of their backs covered with shield-shaped plates, like
234 Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London.
the Pareiasauria from the Karoo beds; others possess horn-like
projections on their heads like the Elginia from the Triassic deposits:
of Scotland. All are characterized by the good preservation of their
notched, spatula-shaped teeth. The Deuterosauria, though some--
times 8 metres in length, do not attain the proportions of the
Pareiasauria. Their dental apparatus is very powerful and of
a distinctly rapacious type. They belong to Rhopalodon, Fischer.
The Anomodontia are represented by small forms of Dicynodon
about the size of a bear, with two powerful tusks on the sides of the
head. Some of the skulls and skeletons discovered probably belong
to altogether new species of reptiles.
The only invertebrates mentioned from this lenticular deposit are
lamellibranch shells belonging to the Anthracoside, whilst the plant
remains, though numerous, are limited to forms of Glossopteris.
The plates accompanying the paper show the position of the
lenticular sandy beds in the cliffs of Permian marls, and the manner
in which the concretions with the bones embedded in them occurred
in the sands. G. J. H.
Isai OiSwaus! VNISMD) ISssJOp=apzaDsoaNie Ss .
GEOLOGICAL Soctrry or Lonpon.
I.—March 6th, 1901.—J. J. H. Teall, Esq., M.A., V.P.RB.S.,
President, in the Chair.
The following communications were read :—
1. “Recent Geological Changes in Northern and Central Asia.”
By Professor George Frederick Wright, F.G.S.A.
The present paper is the outcome of a journey made by the author
in company with Mr. Frederick B. Wright in 1900-1901.
In North America an area of about 4,000,000 square miles was
brought under the direct influence of Glacial ice during the Glacial
Epoch. The result of six weeks spent in Japan was to show that
there are no signs of general glaciation in Nippon or Yesso. Neither
is there any sign of glaciation along the border of the Mongolian
Plateau, where the general elevation is 5,000 feet, but the whole
region is covered with loess. This has usually accumulated like
immense snow-drifts on the south-eastern or lee-side of the
mountains, and in it houses and villages are excavated. In the
mountainous region, strata of gravel and pebbles are so frequent
in the loess, that it is necessary to invoke both wind and water in
order to explain fully the origin of the deposit. At the present time
the loess in the interior is being washed away by streams much
faster than it is being deposited by the wind. The journey across.
Manchuria from Port Arthur along the Lao-Ho and Sungari rivers
was through valleys choked with alluvium, and there was no evidence
that the drainage of the Amur had ever been reversed by ice, like
that of the St. Lawrence; nor was there any other evidence of
glaciation. The lower course of the Amur indicates subsidence.
Again, there are no signs of glaciation on the Vitim Plateau.
Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London. 235
Lake Baikal appears to be of recent origin; it is 4,500 feet deep,
and has not been filled by the great quantities of sediment brought
down by the Selenga and other rivers. Although glaciers could
frequently be seen on the mountains which border the Central
Asiatic Plateau to the north-west, there was no evidence that the
glaciers had ever deployed on the plain. ‘The loess-region of
Turkestan, and indeed the whole area from the Sea of Aral to the
Black Sea, appears to have been recently elevated, in some places as
much as 3,000 feet. Desiccation took place at the same time, so that
the larger lakes are only brackish or still fresh. Direct evidence of
this in the form of deposits is given. The author thinks it likely
that the absence of glaciation in Northern Asia may have been due
to the rainlessness of the region, and that while America was
elevated, Asia was depressed during the Glacial Epoch.
2. “The Hollow Spherulites of the Yellowstone and Great
Britain.” By John Parkinson, Esq., F.G.S.
A recent journey to the National Park of the United States,
resulting in a study of the obsidians and rhyolites in the field and at
home, suggested a direct comparison between the hollow spherulites
characteristic of these rocks and those of the rhyolites of Shropshire,
Jersey, and elsewhere.
The first part of the paper is concerned with the spherulites of
the Yellowstone region. A brief description is given (i) of the
small bluish-grey solid spherulites common in the obsidian of
Obsidian Cliff, and (ii) of a hollow variety in which radial structure
is barely discernible. In the latter, the spherulitic part is repre-
sented by a whitish, rather crumbly material consisting of felspar,
tridymite, and quartz.
The hollow spherulites proper are divided into two groups—
(i) those containing cavities without definite form, and (ii) those in
which the cavities are related to the shape and structure of the
spherulite. The latter include the well-known lithophyse. The
manner in which these occur, and the relation of the cavities to
the enclosing spherulite, are described. Attention is drawn (a) to the
porous character of the latter, and (b) to the network of felspathic
fibres, studded with crystals of tridymite, which usually distinguish
the spherulite near a cavity.
Hypotheses framed to account for these varying structures would
take one of two directions :—(i) Hollow spherulites are the result
of some property of the fas magma, or (il) are due to the
decomposition of an originally solid spherulite by heated waters.
Taking the second alternative first, a description is given of the
effect of solfataric action on the rhyolites of the Yellowstone Cafion.
The conclusion reached is ‘that the action of hot waters charged
with silica may be to remove portions of the rock, or to permeate it
without destroying its characteristic structure; that we obtain,
however, no evidence to show that the spherulites are most easily
attacked, but rather the reverse.” Explanation, therefore, is most
naturally sought in some property of the original magma, and that
propounded by Professor lddings appears the nearest in accord with
236 Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London.
facts. Exception is taken to certain physical processes postulated
by Professor Iddings in a recent memoir, but with his earlier work
the present writer is substantially in agreement.
In the second part of the paper direct comparison is drawn between
the structures exhibited by the hollow spherulites from Obsidian
Cliff and those of examples from Shropshire, Jersey, and other
localities. Attention is called to the presence in the latter of
quartzose amygdaloids, crescentic in shape, and having a relation to
the edge of the nodule. Sometimes a series of such are found
parallel one to the other, not infrequently (at Wrockwardine)
becoming more or less completely circular. Projecting into such an
amygdaloid, or occupying an end, we find in many instances a
network of felspathic fibres comparable with the fibrous structure
which characterizes the American examples.
A description is given of a series of rocks from Boulay Bay, once
very vesicular, and containing the remains of crystals—probably
felspars—analogous to the crystals found encrusting the cavities of
lithophysze from Obsidian Cliff. Traces of a mineral which resembles
the tridymite from the latter locality are described from Wrock-
wardine.
Taking into consideration the resemblances between the hollow
spherulites of the Yellowstone region and those of Great Britain,
the conclusion is drawn that the hypothesis of corrosion is as
inapplicable to the latter as to the former. On the contrary, the
author believes that the cavities of the spherulites are the result of
the hydrous state of the magma.
II.—March 20, 1901.—J. J. H. Teall, Hsq., M.A., V.P.R.S., President,
in the Chair.
Mr. H. B. Woodward called attention to a polished slab of
Landscape Marble, or Cotham Stone, from the Rhetic Beds near
Bristol, which had kindly been lent for exhibition by Mr. Frederick
James, Curator of the Maidstone Museum. The specimen showed
that after the arborescent markings had been produced in the soft
mud, some irregular and partial solidification took place in the
upper layers of the deposit; and then during contraction a kind of
subsidence occurred of the upper and harder portions into the
lower and softer materials. This subsidence was accompanied by
a breaking up of the harder portions, suggesting a comparison (in
miniature) with ‘broken beds’ and even crush-conglomerates. The
specimen was of considerable interest as illustrating the mechanical
changes produced during solidification.
The following communications were read :-—
1. “On a Remarkable Volcanic Vent of Tertiary Age in the Island
of Arran, enclosing Mesozoic Fossiliferous Rocks.”
(Communicated by permission of the Director-General of H.M. Geological Survey.)
Part I.—“On the Geological Structure.” By Benjamin Neeve Peach,
Esq., F.R.S., L. & E., F.G.S., & William Gunn, Hsq., F.G.S.
The rocks which form the subject of this paper cover an area of
about 7 or 8 square miles, and culminate in Ard Bheinn A’Chruach
Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London. 237
and Beinn Bhreac. They are in contact with formations ranging
from the Lower Old Red Sandstone to the Trias, and are later in
date even than the important faults of the area. They are made up
partly of fragmental volcanic materials, and partly of various
intrusive masses, confined within an almost unbroken ring of
intrusive rocks. In addition to igneous fragments, the clastic
volcanic rocks contain fragments derived from the surrounding
formations ; and also masses of shale, marl, limestone, and sandstone
belonging to formations not now found in siti in the island. One of
these is several acres in extent, contains fossils, and is in part of
Rhetic age; a second is a fragment of Lias; and a third is of
limestone and chert resembling the Antrim Cretaceous rocks, and
yielding fossils. The absence of Oolitic and older Cretaceous seems-
to indicate a resemblance between a former succession in Arran and
that now seen in Antrim. If these fragments fell into the vent from
above, the igneous rocks must be of Post-Cretaceous age, and they
give an impressive picture of the amount of denudation which has
occurred since the period of vulcanicity.
Part I].—* Paleontological Notes.” By EH. 'T. Newton, Esq., F.RB.S.,
F.L.S., F.G.S.
The masses of Rhetic strata yield Avicula contorta, Pecten
valoniensis, Schizodus (Axinus) cloacinus, etc.; those of Lower Lias,
Gryphea arcuata, Ammonites angulatus, and new species of Nuculana
and Tancredia, which are figured and described. Thin slices of the
Cretaceous limestones prove to be very like those of the Antrim
Chalk, and the rocks yield determinable Foraminifera, Inocerami,
Sponges, and Hchinoderms.
2. “On the character of the Upper Coal- measures of North
Staffordshire, Denbighshire, South Staffordshire, and Nottingham-
shire; and their Relation to the Productive Series.” By Walcot
Gibson, Esq., F.G.S.
(Communicated by permission of the Director of H.M. Geological Survey.)
The Upper Coal- measures of North Staffordshire are capable of
a fourfold subdivision, the groups representing a definite sequence
of red and grey strata :—
4. The Keele Series. Red and purple sandstones and marl with occasional seams of
coal, and bands of entomostracan limestone.
3. The Newcastle-under-Lyme Series. Grey sandstones and shales, with four thin
seams of coal, and at the base an entomostracan limestone.
2. The Etruria Marl Series. Mottled red-and-purple marls and clays, with thin
green grits ; a thin coal occurs 150 yards above the base.
1. Black Band Series. Grey sandstones, marls, and clays ; numerous thin seams of
coal and Blackband ironstone; one of many thin bands of limestone is
constant, 36 to 40 feet above the base.
Spirorbis- and entomostracan limestones attain a maximum in the
Upper Coal- measures, but are not unknown in the productive
measures below. Indeed, the two sets of measures are closely allied
lithologically, paleeontologically, and stratigraphically in this region.
The chief movements are pre-T'riassic and post-Carboniferous.
No attempt has been made to recognize the Black Band Series in
238 Obituary—J. Hopwood Blake, F.G.S.
the Denbighshire, South Staffordshire, and Nottinghamshire coal-
fields, as they are indistinguishable from the productive measures in
the absence of Blackband ironstones. In each of these areas there
are divisions in the Upper Coal-measures which correspond with the
three highest divisions in North Staffordshire, and in all cases,
except near the margin of the basin, where overlap occurs, they are
underlain by ordinary Coal-measures with coal-seams. It is there-
fore concluded that these higher Cval-measures were deposited in one
basin which included all the four areas dealt with, and that whatever
movements occurred were of a local, and not of a regional character.
Judging by published descriptions, the higher series of measures
appear to be present in other Midland and North-Western coalfields,
and in most of them the Keele Series corresponds to the Salopian
Permian of Professor Hull.
@ FS raw PASE INS
JOHN HOPWOOD BLAKE,
Assoc. M. Inst. OC. E., F.G.S., of THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF
ENGLAND AND WALES.
Born Juny 22, 18458. Diep Marcu 5, 1901.
Mr. J. H. Buaxe was a son of Mr. George John Blake, of the
firm of Messrs. Allen & Blake, Wine Merchants, and was born
in Great Tower Street in the city of London. After completing his
education at King’s College, London, he was apprenticed to Mr. R. P.
Brereton, M. Inst. C. E., under whose directions he was engaged for
several years with Mr. 8. H. Yockney in railway work in Cornwall
and South Wales. Having been attracted to the science of geology
while at King’s College, he became further interested in the subject
during his engineering experiences, and was thereby tempted to
join the Geological Survey in April, 1868, at a time when the staff
under Murchison was considerably augmented. During the first
few years of his official career he was engaged in the re-survey of
portions of Somerset, along the Mendip and Polden Hills, at Shepton
Mallet, Street, Chewton Mendip, and Axbridge, and subsequently
at Watchet and Minehead. He was also occupied for a time in the
first detailed Drift Survey of the area north-west of London. Later
on he was transferred to Suffolk, to survey the country around
Stowmarket, and that bordering the sea north and south of Lowestoft,
whence he proceeded to Yarmouth and continued his investigations
inland and along the coast as far north as Palling in Norfolk. Much
time was then devoted to a careful study of the Forest Bed Series,
and his published section of the cliffs at Kessingland, Pakefield,
and Corton (1884) bears evidence of the painstaking character of
his work. East Dereham then became his home, and much field-
work was done in that part of Norfolk until 1884, when the primary
one-inch Geological Survey of England was completed. Mr. Blake
then removed to Reading, and was for many years occupied in
the re-survey on the six-inch scale of that neighbourhood, giving
ee oe
Obituary—J. Hopwood Blake, F.G.S. 239
especial attention to the Drifts, which before had only been
partially mapped. A few years ago he proceeded to Oxford, from
which important and interesting centre he laboured with much quiet
enthusiasm, until on March 5 he suddenly and quite unexpectedly
succumbed to angina pectoris at the age of 57.
The record of his geological work is chiefly embodied in the
geological maps of the districts be surveyed, and in sundry Survey
memoirs. He contributed notes to the Geology of Hast Somerset
(1876), to the Geology of Stowmarket (1881), the Geology of
Norwich (1881), and the Geology of London (1889); and he
personally wrote “The Geology of the Country around East
Dereham” (1888) and ‘‘ The Geology of the Country near Yarmouth
and Lowestoft” (1890). He had also prepared, in conjunction with
Mr. Whitaker, a Memoir on the Water Supply of Berkshire, which
is in the press, and had made some progress with a Memoir on the
Geology of Reading.
Mr. Blake’s extra-official contributions to geological literature
were by no means large considering his long experience. In 1872
he contributed (with H. B. Woodward) ‘‘ Notes on the Relations
of the Rheetic Beds to the Lower Lias and Keuper Formations in
Somersetshire ” (GrotoaicaL Magazine, Vol. IX, pp. 196-202).
In 1877 he published in the same Magazine (Deo. II, Vol. IV,
pp. 298-300) an article “On the Age of the Mammalian Rootlet-bed
at Kessingland ” ; and in 1881 he contributed to the Proceedings of
the Norwich Geological Society (vol. i, pp. 126-128) a paper on
a ‘“ Well-boring at East Dereham Waterworks.” To these may
be added his addresses to the Norwich Geological Society (of which
he was elected President in 1880-81), dealing with the Age and
Relation of the so-called ‘ Forest-Bed,’ and with the Conservancy
of Rivers, Prevention of Floods, Drainage, and Water Supply; and
also his Presidential Address to the Reading Literary and Philosophical
Society in 1885, when he discoursed on the Coalfields of the United
Kingdom with special reference to the Royal Commission on Coal.
From 1885 until near the close of his life he conducted a number
of excursions of the Geologists’ Association, on three occasions to
Reading, and on other occasions to Henley-on-Thames and Nettlebed,
Taplow and Bowsey Hill, Lowestoft and Kessingland, Goring, and
Silchester, reports of which were contributed to the Proceedings
of the Association.
Mr. Blake’s early training as an engineer had made him an
excellent draughtsman, so that his maps and the sections he con-
structed were models of neatness and precision. This training in
the exact methods of topographic surveys to some extent hampered
his field-work, as his constant aim to secure positive evidence for
geological boundaries led often to prolonged and inexpedient
investigation. Thus he would return again and again to obscure
tracts in the hopes of gaining exact information, a process theoretically
laudable, but practically detrimental to the progress of work. This
timidity in forming conclusions, perhaps to a certain extent con-
stitutional, had proved such a serious bar to official advancement,
240 Miscellaneous.
that it caused him grave anxiety. Imbued, however, with a true
love of science he laboured on with infinite patience to the end,
and it is distressing to think that he did not live to partake of
the benefits which quite recently accrue to the Survey through
a reorganization of the staff. Personally his colleagues and many
others will long lament the loss of a genial and tender-hearted
friend. EE BS We
IMEES Ciba AINE OUS-
——_—
INTERNATIONAL GeoLocicaL ConcRress, Paris, 1900.—The pupils,
friends, and admirers of Professor Albert Gaudry, who in 1852
started his scientific career with his “These de Géologie: Sur
Vorigine et la formation des Silex de la Oraie,” intend to present
him with a commemorative medal. Whilst heartily associating
ourselves with this proposal, we venture to suggest that something
more might be done. In one of his books Professor Gaudry
terminates the description of his new paleontological gallery with
the following words :—“ J’aimerais que, pour terminer notre galerie,
on placat une statue représentant une figure humaine, figure
douce et bonne, figure d’artiste et de poete, admirant dans le passé
la grande ceuvre de la Création et réfléchissant & ce qui pourrait
rendre le monde encore meilleur.”’ Apart from his eminent
scientific attainments, Professor Gaudry has revealed himself as an
artist and a poet as well, especially in his “ Essai de Paléontologie
philosophique ” ; and whoever has approached him can testify that
the ‘douce’ and ‘bonne’ expression of his face truly reflects his
character. We therefore think that his own bust would be the most
suitable couronnement d’édifice of the paleontological gallery, which
in the main is his own work.
Prorrssor ALBERT GaupRyY, President of the International
Geological Congress for 1900, announces that the Committee
appointed by the International Congress of Geologists to award
the International Spendiaroff Prize of 456 roubles (£48) has pro-
posed as subject for 1908, “Critical Review of the Methods of
Rock-classification.” ‘Two copies at least of any work competing
for the prize should be sent before August, 1902, to Dr. Charles
Barrois, Secretary of the Congress, 62, Boulevard Saint-Michel, Paris.
Erratum.—Brachylepas (Pyrgoma) cretacea, H. Woodw.: GEOL.
Mac., April, 1901, pp. 145-152, Pl. VIII.—Dr. Arthur Rowe,
F.G.S., calls attention to an error in Dr. Woodward’s paper as to
the locality of his new specimen of this Cirripede, which, like the
original specimen described in 1868, was also obtained from the
zone of Belemnitella mucronata in the Norwich Chalk, and all
references to Margate and Thanet should be deleted and the word
Norwich substituted.—Eprr. Grou. Mac.
1 A.Gaudry: ‘‘ Tes ancétres de nos animaux dans les temps géologiques,”’ p. 296 ;
Paris, 1888.
THE
GHOLOGICAL MAGAZINE.
NEW “SERIES. DECADE IV: . VOLE. VIII:
No. VI—JUNE, 1901.
@lRE GIN ASEy, (ASE EC ae ees:
1.—On tHe EvIpENCcE OF THE TRANSFERENCE OF SECONDARY SEXUAL
CHARACTERS OF Mammats From Mates To FEMALES.
By C. I. Forsyrn Mayor, M.D., F.Z.S.
HEN Darwin stated in the first edition of the ‘Descent of
Man,” “as probable that horns of all kinds, even when they
are equally developed in the two sexes, were primarily acquired by
the male in order to conquer other males, and have been transferred
more or less completely to the female,’! the “ various facts ” from
which he drew this inference did not include any paleontological
evidence. At the present day we are familiar with the notion that,
as regards the deer family, the oldest members known, from the
Oligocene, were absolutely devoid of antlers, and that the subsequent
phylogenetic evolution of the latter has a close parallel in their
ontogenetic development.
Except in the case of the reindeer, fossil Cervidz cannot be expected
to throw any direct light on our special subject of inquiry, since
up to the present day the females of the great majority of Cervidz
are, as a rule, devoid of antlers. The generally received view is that
amongst recent Cervide the females of the reindeer always have
antlers, and the females of other deer never have.
According to a statement by Eversmann, quoted by A. Brandt,?
the female wild reindeer in the Orenburg district are devoid of
antlers. With regard to the Cervide generally, there is abundant
testimony, to be found amongst older writers especially, of antlers
occurring in females of Capreolus and Cervus elaphus.® Riitimeyer
states that traces of pedicles are never absent in the doe;* and
Nitsche confirms that this is in fact the rule in old individuals.’
1 Charles Darwin: ‘‘ The Descent of Man and Selection in relation to Sex,’’
1871, vol. ui, p. 248.
2 Eversmann: ‘‘ Naturgesch. v. Orenburg,’’ ii, p. 261. Cf. A. Brandt in
** Festschrift f. Rudolf Leuckart,’’ 1892, p. 412.
5 See the numerous bibliography, together with original observations, in A. W.
Otto, ‘‘Lehrb. d. pathol. Anatomie d. Menschen und der Thiere,” 1830, i, p. 167
and note 18.
4 L. Riitimeyer: ‘‘Beitriige zu einer natiirl. Geschichte der Hirsche,”’ i:
Abh. schweiz. palaeont. Ges., 1881, viii, p. 42.
° H. Nitsche: ‘‘ Studien iiber Hirsche, 1898, i, pp. 23, 49, 50,
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. VI. 16
242 Dr. C. I. Forsyth Major—Characters of Mammals.
The phenomenon, however, is by no means restricted to senility.
Otto himself dissected an antlered doe pregnant with two foetuses,’
and Nitsche shows that the presence of antlers in the female Capreolus
is independent of senile sterility.”
Instances of the occurrence of antlers in the female Virginia and
Columbia deer are adduced by Caton.’
If we survey the cases recorded in the literature, no doubt remains
that the capacity of developing antlers is latent in the female
Cervide, and only an impulse is required.
In a case recorded by W. Blasius, of a doe, the abnormal antler on
the right side could be traced to a mechanical lesion produced by
the presence of a piece of glass, and Blasius is probably right in
supposing that the exostosis occasioned by the lesion assumed the
shape of an antler, owing to its occurring in the region where the
antlers are developed in the male.*
The remarkable case communicated to the Linnean Society by
James Hoy on December 16th, 1791, is a curious parallel to the male
plumage exhibited in female game-birds as a consequence of a lesion
of the ovaries. ‘A hind, the female of Cervus elaphus, was shot by
the Duke of Gordon, which had one horn perfectly similar to that of
a stag three years old. It had never had a horn on the other side of
its head, for there the corresponding place was covered over by the
skin, and quite smooth. It did not seem to have ever produced
a fawn, and upon dissection the ovarium on the same side with the
horn was found to be schirrous.” *
Next in order comes the constant presence of rudimentary pedicles
in old does, viz. at a time when the sexual functions have ceased.
Moreover, it appears, especially from Nitsche’s observations
alluded to above, that the females of Capreolus, at any rate, are
beginning to develop antlers before senile sterility sets in; so that
this new character of the doe has every chance of being transferred
to her offspring, independent of the sex, and to become general in
the does also, as it has become already almost general in female
reindeers.
Girafide.—For reasons formerly given,’ I agree with Lydekker,
by including in the family Giraffide the Sivatheritum group
of Ruminants from the Sivaliks (Sivatherium—Brahmatherium—
Hydaspitherium— Vishnutherium).
The two recent species of Giraffa develop horns in both sexes.
Gaudry made known a hornless form, Helladotherium Duvernoyt,
from the Upper Miocene of Pikermi; the skull described by him
1 A.W. Otto: ‘Seltene Beobachtungen zur Anatomie, Physiologie, und Pathologie
gehorig,’’ 1816, i, p. 71 (xxx).
2 Op. cit., p. 50, where is quoted also a former paper by the same author in
Tharander forstliches Jahrbuch, 1883, xxii, p. 118.
3 J. D. Caton: ‘ The Antelope and Deer of America,’’ 1881, 2nd ed., pp. 282, 233.
; : fase d. Vereins f. Naturw. zu Braunschweig, ix, Sitzungsber., pp. 11-13
1894-95).
° Trans. Linn. Soc., vol. ii, p. 356.
® Forsyth Major, ‘‘ On the Fossil Remains of Species of the Family Giraffide ”*:
Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1891, p. 316.
Dr. C. I. Forsyth Major—Characters of Mammals. 243
is the only one known of this genus, although various large-sized
Giraffoid hornless skulls have in turn been called Helladotherium,
and even united with the Pikermian species. For the present it
cannot be decided whether the Helladotherium was hornless in both
sexes or in the female only. The Giraffoid genus from the
contemporary deposit of Samos—which occurs also at Maragha in
Persia—has been founded by me ona form provided with supraorbital
horns and on a hornless form, which otherwise agrees perfectly
with the former; I therefore have considered them to be male andl
female forms respectively of one species, Samotherium Boissiert, Maj.
A smaller, closely allied form, Palgotragus Rouenii, Gaudr. (Pikermi,
Samos, Maragha), originally believed to be an antelope, is also
represented by a form provided with, and one devoid of, horns.
“In the skull of an aged specimen of Samotherium, just above
the orbits, where the large horns are placed in the horned specimens,
there occur very small processes separated by a suture from the
underlying part of the frontal.”! The explanation I then submitted
was, that in aged individuals of the female Samotherium male
characters occasionally make their appearance. Another specimen,’
of which but a portion of the frontal is preserved, exhibits above
the right orbit only a similar epiphysis as the one just mentioned ;
its height is no more than 9mm., with a longitudinal extension
of about 32mm. To judge from the size of the fragment and the
texture of the bone, it belonged to an adult, although not an aged
individual. It cannot therefore be considered to be a young
specimen of the horned form ; in the latter the horn attains a size
of upwards of 210mm.° Several other adult hornless skulls of
Samotherium, one of which is in the British Museum, show no
trace of an incipient horn.
From the foregoing we may conclude that in this Tertiary member
of the Giraffide the females are beginning to develop horns, which
primarily were male sexual characters of the Samotherium, whether
used as weapons or purely ornamental.
Boving.—With regard to all their salient characters the Bovine
are the most terminal group of Ruminants. No instance of the
occurrence of hornless females in recent wild bovine animals is known.
When working in the Paleontological Museum at Florence I came
upon the hornless skull of a Ruminant from the Pliocene of the
Val d’Arno, which had been discovered a few years previously and
variously interpreted ; the statement published somewhere that in
the Val d’Arno fauna occurred a Ruminant closely allied to the
camel, refers to the skull in question. On close examination I found
that the fossil presented all the cranial and dental characters of
Falconer’s Bos etruscus from the same deposits, with the essential
difference that no traces of horn-cores were present. My conclusion
was that the skull was that of a female ‘ Bos etruscus.’ I published
! Forsyth Major, op. cit., p. 319.
2 Nos. 712, 712a of my first collection from Samos, which is the property of
Mr. William Barbey in Geneva.
3 No. 17 of the Swiss Collection.
244 Dr. C. I. Forsyth Major—Characters of Mammals.
the fact at the time,! and also ventured to transmit the information
to Charles Darwin, who embodied it in the second edition of his
“ Descent of Man.”’”
Unaware of my previous statement, Riitimeyer announced in
1878 as a novel fact the discovery of a hornless fossil member of
the Bovine. The skull in question, B.M. No. 48,037, from the
older Pliocene of the Sivalik Hills, he described and figured as
Leptobos Falconeri, Rit. From the absence of horn-cores, from the
great extension of the parietal zone, and from its general slender
and elegant build, the skull is considered to be that of a female.
But at the same time it is conjectured that part of the horned
skulls attributed to the same species might equally be of the female
sex; this on account of their weaker horns.‘
The skull from the Val d’Arno is described and figured in the
same memoir, together with the cast of a second equally hornless
skull from the same locality, the original of which is preserved
in the private collection of the Marchese Strozzi. Riitimeyer’s
conclusion is very different from mine; the hornless skulls from
the Val d’Arno are named Leptobos Strozzii, and thus placed in
a different genus and group from Falconer’s Bos etruscus, which
becomes the Bibos etruscus.2 As Riitimeyer was indisputably the
highest authority in this particular branch of paleontology, my
previous most positive statement must have been considered in the
light of a rather rash proceeding.
Years afterwards my excavations at Olivola (Upper Pliocene)
brought to light several hornless bovine skulls, and made it in-
cumbent on me to reinvestigate the whole matter, the more so
as some additional horned skulls from the Val d’Arno had in the
meantime enriched the Florence Museum. The result arrived at®
was a confirmation of my former view, that the hornless and horned
bovine skulls from the Upper Pliocene of Italy are one and the
same species. This species is nearly related to the Sivalik Leptobos,
as Riitimeyer had already shown with respect to the hornless form
of the Val d’Arno. The obvious conclusion was to collocate the
bovines from the Italian Pliocene in the genus Leptobos: Lepiobos
elatus (Croiz.).’
Stehlin, another pupil of Riitimeyer, has quite recently studied
the Florentine collections; with regard to the above question, he
declares that after repeated examination of the materials he agrees
with my view that Riitimeyer’s ‘ Leptobos Strozzii’ is nothing else
than the female form of his ‘ Bibos etruscus.’ °
I do not think it necessary to enter into the particulars of the
case, which are published. For the present purpose it is sufficient
1 Paleontographica, 1873, 11, 2 (xxii), p. 128. 2 1874, p. 505.
3 L. Riitimeyer, ‘‘Die Rinder der Tertiaer-Epoche,” etce.: Abh. schweiz.
palaeont. Ges., 1878, p. 162.
4 Op. cit., p. 164. 5 Op. cit., pp. 167-175.
§ Forsyth Major, ‘‘L’Ossario di Olivola in Val di Magra’’: Proc. Verb. Soc.
Tosc. Sc. Nat., March 3, 1890, pp. 71-75.
7 Forsyth Major, op. cit., p. 75.
8 Abh. schweiz. palaeont. Ges., 1900, xxvii, p. 466, note.
Dr. OC. I. Forsyth Major—Characters of Mammals. — 246
to point out that in the earliest known—Pliocene—representatives
of bovine animals, part, at any rate, of the females were devoid of
horns, whereas, as stated before, the females of all the wild recent
species, without exception, have acquired them. The occurrence of
hornless forms in domestic races has been explained by Riitimeyer
as a reversion.'
Suide.—The male weapons of Suid are the tusks. Stehlin has
recently shown that the male Potamocherus provincialis (Gerv.) from
the Lower Pliocene of Montpellier was already provided with equally
strong developed canines as the recent species. In the female fossil
form they are about equally developed as in Sus scrofa.* Some
years ago I figured on two plates male and female skulls of
recent species of Potamocherus,? from which it can be seen that in
the Malagasy and Hast African Potamocheri the canines of the
females are almost equal in size and shape to those of the males.
The same occurs in the case of the Bornean Sus barbatus,* and, to
judge from a skull described and figured by Rolleston,® may occur
also in the female of Sus andamanensis.
In the West African Potamocherus, according to Stehlin’s
observation, the canines of the female are weaker than in the eastern
species.®
Stehlin has strongly insisted upon the importance of this instance
of transmission of male sexual characters to the female, in Potamo-
cherus. ‘Dieselbe ist in doppelter Hinsicht von allergrostem
Interesse. Einmal darum weil durch sie im allerletzten Abschnitt
der Erdgeschichte nochmals ein evidenter Fortschritt gegentiber dem
Pliocaen erzielt wird, sodann aber auch in rein morphologischer
Hinsicht, insofern als mit ihrem Hintreten ein vollig neuer, bis
dahin unbetretener Weg in der Umformung und Weiterbildung der
ganzen Species betreten wird.”’ (‘It is of the greatest interest,
firstly, because by means of this transmission there is again an
evident progress in the last chapter of the earth’s history, as compared
with the Pliocene; secondly, from a purely morphological point of
view, because by it a hitherto completely new and untrodden road
in the transformation and progression of the whole species is now
opened.’’)
In our own species the modern aspirations of women are, to all
appearances, the incipient signs cf the same natural law. Physical
and mental characters of man, originally acquired in the struggles of
the males, are apparently being slowly transferred to women. They
only require time for their full evolution.
PaO pecite ps Lio ye.
2 H. G. Stehlin, ‘“‘ Uber die Geschichte d. Suiden-Gebisses’?: Abh. schweiz.
palaeont. Ges., 1899, xxvi, pp. 256, 257.
3 Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1897, pls. xxv, xxvi.
Stehlin : op. cit., xxvii, p. 466.
Trans. Linn. Soc. London, 1876, p. 286, pl. xli, fig. 3.
l.c., xxvi, pp. 255, 256. ;
Abh. schweiz. palaecont. Ges., 1900, xxvii, p. 466.
4
5
6
7
246 =F. R. Cowper Reed—Salter’s Undescribed Species.
TI. — Woopwarpian Museum Notes: Satrer’s UNDESCRIBED
Species. IV.
By F. R. Cowrrer Regp, M.A., F.G.S.
(PLATE XI.)
GASTEROPODA (continued).
Horiostoma Discors (Sowerby), var. Marim (Salter MS.). (PI. XI,
Figs. 5 and 6.)
1873. Euomphalus Marie, Salter: Cat. Camb. Sil. Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 156
(a 859, « 860).
1891. Huomphalus Marie, Woods: Cat. Type Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 103.
There are four specimens of this form in the Woodwardian
Museum, labelled a 859 and a 860 by Salter, and all come from the
Wenlock Limestone of Dudley. Saiter (loc. cit. supra) says of it:
“Related to H. discors, but with most regular ridges of growth.
A beautiful shell, dedicated to a most worthy lady—the patient
preparer of this collection [Mrs. Fletcher].” All four specimens
belong to the Fletcher Collection.
Dracenosis.—Shell nearly discoidal ; spire short, usually low and
depressed; whorls rounded, five or six in number, ornamented on
their apical surface by four or five weak and inconspicuous
longitudinal keels, which are crossed nearly at right angles by
prominent transverse, equidistant, and regular sharp lamelle, not
very closely set together, and only very slightly undulated where
they cross the weak keels. As they pass round to the umbilical
surface of the whorls they bend back gently, but again curve
forward to the line of contact of the whorls. The umbilical surface
of the whorls is devoid of longitudinal keels, except in young
individuals. Umbilicus deep, wide, open, exposing all the whorls.
Aperture not preserved.
MEASUREMENTS.
mm.
Breadth of one specimen (a 859) ... sh 609 200 50°0
Approximate height of the same... a 000 500 20°0
Average distance of varices on upper surface 000 be 1°5
Breadth of specimen (4 860) showing the under surface of
shell ie se 500 S00 ae 200 ee 64:0
Depth of umbilicus of same... .. 12:0
Remarks. — The distinguishing feature of this form is the
regularity and prominence of the transverse lamelle and their
slight undulation in crossing the keels. Otherwise it closely
resembles H. discors and its varieties, including H. rugosum,
Sowerby.’ It does not seem possible to retain it as an independent
species, as it nearly approximates many specimens of this very
variable species H. discors, and transitional forms with intermediate
characters are not uncommon.
Horrostoma piscors (Sowerby).
1873. Reema pacificatus, Salter: Cat. Camb. Sil. Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 156
a °
1891. ipso pacificatus, Woods: Cat. Type Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 103.
1 Lindstrém: Silur. Gastrop. Pterop. Kongl. Sv. Vet. Akad. Handl., Bd. 19, No. 6
(1884), pp. 157-159, pl. xvi, figs. 20-26 ; pl. xvii, figs. 1-10.
F. R. Cowper Reed—Sailter’s Undescribed Species. 247
There is only one specimen of this form in the Museum thus
labelled by Salter (a 861), and it comes from the Wenlock Limestone
of Dudley.
Draeyosts.—Shell discoid ; spire short; whorls six? (only three
are preserved), angulated slightly by longitudinal keel near margin
of flattened apical surface ; sides of whorls ornamented by two weaker,
equidistant, longitudinal keels. No keels on umbilical surface.
Surface of whorls crossed by small, closely-set, transverse growth-
lamelle, slightly undulated and irregular, and curving backwards
from the mouth outside the inner longitudinal keel of apical surface.
Umbilicus not seen. Aperture apparently oblique. Breadth 36 mm.
Remarks.—There is no feature by which this form can be separated
from the variable H. discors, and the species therefore must be
dropped. The indentation on the outer whorl of the specimen is
manifestly due to an injury to the shell, and cannot be considered
as a character of any specific importance. It is not even desirable
to separate this form as a definite variety of H. discors, a conclusion
I have reached after examining a large series of the latter species.
Pievrotromaria F'Lercuert, Salter. (PI. XI, Fig. 4.)
1873. Pleurotomaria Fletcheri, Salter: Cat. Camb. Sil. Foss. Woodw. Mus.,
p- 154 (@ 851).
1891. Plewrotomaria Fletcheri, Woods: Cat. Type Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 112.
There is only the one original specimen (a 851) in the Wood-
wardian Museum from the Wenlock Limestone of Dudley and
belonging to the Fletcher Collection. It is not quite perfect and
is slightly compressed laterally, but the shell is preserved on the five
whorls. The figure of a Pleurotomaria given by Salter (op. cit. supra,
p. 154) in the margin closely resembles this species.
DracGnosts.—Shell broadly conical; apical angle 50°-60°; whorls six
in number (only five are preserved), convex, with slit-band grooving
middle of body-whorl, but situated below middle line of other whorls
though above suture-line. Two weak longitudinal keels, of which
the lower is the stronger, are present on apical surface of body-whorl
above slit-band at equal distances between it and suture-line. On
the upper whorls the keel nearer the slit-band is more prominent
and slightly angulates the apical surface of the whorl, but the other
keel nearer the suture-line is almost obsolete. Slit-band concave
and sunken as a groove between sharp, prominent, narrow borders ;
crescents fine, closely packed, sharply curved. Ornamentation of
apical surface consists of obliquely transverse, slightly sigmoidal
stri#, and wrinkles bending back sharply near the slit-band to meet
it as an acute angle. The ornamentation below the slit-band is
similar, the strize being sharply curved back to meet it. Aperture
not preserved. Height of specimen ca. 45 mm.
Remarxs.—The broadly conical shape of the shell and the position
of the slit-band on the whorls, as well as its groove-like nature,
are features found also in Pl. biformis (Lindstrom),’ but the orna-
mentation of the surface is quite distinct, and only one keel is figured
in that species above the slit-band.
1 Lindstrom: op. cit., p. 98, pl. vii, figs. 39-42.
248 F. BR. Cowper Reed—Salter’s Undescribed Species.
PLEUROTOMARIA CYCLONEMA (Salter). (Pl. XI, Figs, 1-3.)
1873. Murchisonia cyclonema, Salter: Cat. Camb. Sil. Foss. Woodw. Mus.,
p. 155 (a 848, a 849, a $50).
1891. Murchisonia eyclonema, Woods: Cat. Type Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 107.
There are in all fourteen specimens labelled Wurchisonia cyclonema
by Salter, varying in size from 10mm. to 36mm. in length.
Several are in an excellent state of preservation, and all come from the
Wenlock Limestone of Dudley and belong to the Fletcher Collection.
Draenosts. — Shell conical, turbinate; whorls five, ventricose.
Apical angle 50°-60°, being smaller in the older and larger
individuals. Body-whorl large, equal to half the length of shell or
even more. Slit-band a little above middle line of body-whorl, but
in other whorls half-way between the suture-lines. Apical surface
with distinct swollen band immediately below upper suture-line of
each whorl, and with one rounded, prominent, longitudinal keel
between this band and the slit-band. Six or seven longitudinal
keels below slit-band on body-whorl, of which the uppermost three
or four are prominent rounded ridges, usually nearly equal in size,
and nearly equidistant. The other three or four longitudinal keels
on the body-whorl are on the umbilical surface, and grow
successively much narrower, fainter, and less prominent. On the
upper whorls the uppermost three longitudinal keels are alone
developed in the adult, the number varying from one to three
according to age. Slit-band prominent, of moderate width,
bordered on each side by narrow ridge. Surface concave, but
marked along centre by longitudinal keel, varying in degree of
development, but making profile of slit-band very characteristic.
Crescents not very numerous, gently arched backwards, but strongly
marked, and in some of the smaller individuals sub-lamellar. Apical
surface of whorls crossed obliquely by fine sigmoidal thread-like
raised lines, at regular distances apart in young individuals but more
closely and less regularly packed in adults. Below slit-band the
whorls are ornamented by similar transverse lines, but crossing the
keels nearly at right angles instead of obliquely. On both sides of
the slit-band the lines are sharply bent back.
Mouth large, subcircular or oval, slightly oblique to axis of shell.
MEASUREMENTS.
I II III
mm. mm. mm.
Length ... Be ee ae HID vaag “BO ooo UO
Breadth (across body-whorl) ... ATO eas | HERO cag ere
Apical angle te 6 OO grat st) 00 ance an OOM
Remarxs.—This species bears much resemblance to Plewrotomaria
laqueata (Lindstrém),! from the corresponding beds of Gotland, in
its general shape, in the distribution and number of the keels, and
in the position of the slit-band, but differs in the minute characters
of the latter, which is an important point.
It has the general aspect of Pl. Zloydi, Sow., but differs in having
only one keel above the slit- band and fewer and larger keels
1 Lindstrém : op. cit., p. 102, pl. ix, figs. 4-6.
Decade IVVolMIL PL XI.
Ceol Mag 1901.
Newmanimp,
West
ith.
GMWo odward del. et
Limestone, Dadley .
Gaster opoda, Wenlock
J. P. Johnson—COretaceous Rocks of Glynde. 249
below, and in the lower position of the slit-band and its minute
characters. The slit-band, in fact, resembles more closely that of
Pl. bicincta (Hall)* than that of any other species in the presence
of the keel along the middle of the band and its sharp borders.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE XI.
Fic. 1.—Pleurotomaria cyclonema, Salter, sp. Nat. size.
Fic. 2.—Ditto, showing mouth. Nat. size.
Fic. 3.—Ditto, slit-band. x 5.
Fic. 4.—Plewrotomaria Fletcheri, Salter. Nat. size.
Fie. 5.—Horiostoma discors, var. Marie, Salter, sp. Nat. size.
Fic. 6.—Ditto, umbilical surface. Nat. size.
III.—Some Sxcrions 1n tHE Cretaceous Rocks arouND GLYNDE,
AND THEIR Fosstn CoNnrTENTS.
By J. P. Jonnson.
N the memoir recently published by the Geological Survey” on
the Selbornian strata of England, no mention is made of an
interesting section in the Gault near Glynde, which was certainly
in existence up to 1898, when I last visited the district. The object
of the present note is to put this section on record, together with
some observations on two chalk quarries, from which I have at
various times collected fossils.
The pit in the Gault is situated on private land about a quarter of
a mile from the railway station, with which it is connected by
a railroad. As far as I can remember, it showed some 15 feet of
slate-blue clay, containing an abundance of pyrites, and consequently
a quantity of selenite, though in small crystals. The only organic
remains that were at all plentiful were the ammonites, Schlenbachia
varicosus, Hoplites denarius, and -Ancyloceras spinigerum. The
finding of a big tooth of Protosphyrena ferox is noteworthy.
The large quarry in the Chalk at the railway station exhibits
a fine section of the well-known limestone, which here contains
a very small proportion of clayey matter and occasional nodules of
marcasite. It is of Cenomanian age, as shown by the occurrence of
Schlenbachia varians. The commonest fossils are the Selachian
remains, amongst which I may especially mention a nice series of
the teeth of Scaphanorhynchus subulatus and forty-seven associated
teeth of Ptychodus decurrens. It was from here that I obtained the
fine mandibular ramus of Pachyrhizodus Gardneri which is in the
British Museum.
Just outside the village, on the right-hand side of the road to
Lewes, and joined to the above-mentioned quarry by a railroad,
is another large excavation in the Chalk. This is at a higher level,
and is in the face of the escarpment. The Chalk differs from that
already described in being free from argillaceous matter; it also
yields nodules of marcasite and, in the topmost beds, a few flints.
It is mostly of Turonian age, as shown by the abundance of
Rhynchonella Cuvieri, Inoceramus mytiloides, I. Cuviert, and Lima
1 Lindstrém: op. cit., p. 106, pl. viii, figs. 21 and 23.
2 «<The Cretaceous Rocks of Britain,’’ vol. i (1900) ; by A. J. Jukes-Browne.
250 J. P. Johnson—Cretaceous Rocks of Glynde.
spinosa, but a little is probably Senonian, for the hard sub-crystalline
band known as the Chalk Rock, which in this country strati-
graphically separates the two periods, is certainly present, though
I have not been able to determine its exact position, as the section
has always been obscured during my visits by the talus resulting
from blasting operations. I have a series of thirty-nine associated
teeth of Piychodus mammilaris from here in Chalk Rock matrix.
LIST OF FOSSILS.
TR
a
re
PISCEs. a Te al
Pachyrhizodus Gardneri, Mason ...
Cimolichthys Levesiensis, Leidy het Seine
‘Protosphynena jenor, Weidy 2s <2.) =) see x
(Scaphanorhynchus ?) subulatus, Ag.
Lamna appendiculata, Ag. a iace
‘ Oxyrhina angustidens, Reuss’
Oxyrhina Mantelli, Ag. ...
Corax faleatus, Ag. 50
Notidanus microdon, Ag. SMe nye ceeeon ies
Piychodus mammilaris, Ag. ... 10. 0 1. vee wee *
Piychodus decurrens, Ag.
*
* KK KK KK KX X
* *
*
CEPHALOPODA.
Nautilus (sublevigatus, D’Orb.?)... 0. we ee *
Ancyloceras spinigerum, J. Sby. ... ... .0. oe
Scaphites Hugardianus, J. Sby. ... 0... 0. oe *
Acanthoceras navicularis, Mant. ... ... ...
-Hoplites denarius, J. SDY.) see, ses cee soe) <a x
Schlenbachia varians, J. Sby.
Schlenbachia varicosus, J. Sby.
Desmoceras Beudanti, Brong.
*
%
*
* *
GASTROPODA.
Aporrhais Parkinsoni, Mant. SACRE SE EE et lense *
Pleurotomaria perspectiva, Mant. ...
*
PELECYPODA.
IN MUUD IQTARIOTIH, Vo So 366 068d dod 08 ¥
Pholadomya decussata, Mant. Bsa cd Goa Os ae ae ¥
(COMA) SDHDORE, Ue TINjo cos daa G60. 60d 400 x
Plagiostoma globosa, J. Sby.... sae see cee ee %*
Inoceramus Cunreri, J. Sby. ... 22. +. eee *
Inoceramus mytiloides, Mant.
*
BRACHIOPODA.
NOTA ODEO Vo io con ann soo) ce x
Rhynchonella Cuvieri, D’ Orb.
CRUSTACEA.
* %
Enoploclytia Sussexiensis
*
EcHINOIDEA.
Peltastes clathratus, Ag. dap Nias! EBsou mado: "Seo ¥*
Skirting the Chalk escarpment westwards, one at length arrives at
the classical Lewes quarries. They do not need to be dealt with
G. C. Crick—On Ammonites Ramsayanus. 251
here, as they have already been described, but I think it desirable to
mention three quartz pebbles which I obtained from one of the
workmen. They were all in pieces of chalk, and one is encrusted
with a species of Bryozoa. From the finder’s description I gathered
that they had either come from the highest of the 'Turonian beds or
from the oldest of the Senonian.
Annexed is a list of the organic remains which I have collected
from the above-described sections. The nomenclature of the
Selachians is that emploved by Dr. A. 8. Woodward in his “ Notes
on the Shark’s Teeth from British Cretaceous Formations.”* With
regard to the teeth termed ‘ Oxyrhina angustidens,’ they are of two
kinds—those in which the back portion is smooth and those in
which it is striated. I venture to think that these should be referred
respectively to Scaphanorhynchus subulatus and S. rhaphiodon. Like
the Selachians, Protosphyrena ferox is represented by teeth only,
while Cimolichthys Levesiensis is indicated by a single example of its
peculiarly barbed pterygoid teeth.
IV.—Nore on a CHALK AMMONITE, PROBABLY REFERABLE TO
AMMONITES RAMSAYANUS, SHARPE.
By G. C. Crick, F.G.S., of the British Museum (Natural History).
[ 1856 Sharpe” founded the species Ammonites Ramsayanus upon
a single deformed specimen (in the collection of J. Wiest, Esq.)
that was obtained from the ‘Chalk with silicious grains, at Chard-
stock, Somersetshire.”
His description is as follows :—
“ A testa discoided, costati, tuberculata ; anfractibus paucis, sub-
compressis : costis continuis, bi-tuberculatis, ad dorsum bifurcatibus :
dorso lato, rotundato, costato, utrinque tuberculato : umbilico parvo :
apertura oblonga.
“Shell discoidal, with few, slightly flattened whorls, and a broad
rounded back: the whorls are ornamented on the sides by twenty
ribs, each of which rise from a small tubercle at the edge of the
umbilicus, and has another larger tubercle near the back; at the
latter tubercle each rib divides into two smaller ribs, which continue
across the back, and unite again at the corresponding tubercle on the
other side of the back: umbilicus small, allowing nearly half of
the inner whorls to be seen: aperture oblong: the septa have not
been seen.”
Respecting the type-specimen Sharpe wrote :—“ The only specimen
which has been seen of this species is deformed, owing, without
doubt, to an accident met with when very young. In consequence
of this malformation, the two sides have very little resemblance to
each other; and the specific character given above may prove in-
correct when more perfect specimens are met with.”
Mr. Jukes-Browne has recently called my attention to an Ammonite®
1 Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xiii (1894).
: dee Sharpe: Foss. Moll. Chalk (Mon. Pal. Soc.), pt. iii, 1856, p. 51, pl. xxiii,
- 4a-C.
5 For the loan of this fossil my best thanks are due to the Rey. H. H. Winwood,
M.A., F.G.S.
252 G. OC. Crick—On Ammonites Ramsayanus.
belonging to the Bath Museum that I think is referable to Sharpe’s
‘species.’ The specimen is labelled ‘Chalk marl: Evershot.” The
dimensions of the type-specimen as given by Sharpe are :—Diameter,
13 inch [or about 38mm.]; height of the last whorl, 3 inch [or
about 16mm.]; width of the aperture, } inch [or about 12-75 mm. |}.
On account of the malformation of the specimen the width of the
umbilicus is not quite the same on the two sides, but according to
Sharpe’s figures, which from their other measurements appear to be
drawn of the natural size, the width of the umbilicus on the side
represented in his fig. 4a is 11mm. These dimensions expressed
in terms of the diameter, when this is taken as 100, are :—Diameter,
100; height of last whorl, 41-66; width of the aperture (or thickness
of the last whorl), 33°33; width of umbilicus, 30.
The dimensions of the present specimen, of which rather more
than half the outer whorl belonged to the body-chamber, are :—
Diameter, 35:5 mm. (100); height of the outer whorl, 14mm.
(39°43); thickness of the outer whorl (or width of the aperture),
135mm. (88:0); width of umbilicus, 11mm. (32:27). The
specimen is well preserved and very nearly symmetrical, each side
closely resembling the lateral view depicted by Sharpe in his fig. 4a,
and the transverse section of the whorl agreeing very closely with
his fig. 4e.
Compared with Sharpe’s type-specimen, however, the present
example exhibits some differences. It has a slightly wider umbilicus ;
the ribs on the lateral area are more distinct and regular even up to
the anterior end of the specimen, but less numerous, being only
sixteen in number on the outer whorl, and, in passing from the
umbilicus towards the periphery, are more forwardly inclined, whilst
the lateral tubercle is nearer the middle of the lateral area. The
greatest difference, however, is in the character of the periphery.
The whole of the periphery of Sharpe’s type-specimen is broadly
rounded from side to side. This is not quite the case in the present
specimen. ‘The periphery of the earliest portion of the outer whorl
is on the whole broadly rounded but not regularly convex; one side
is convex, but the other is somewhat flattened and in part depressed,
so that the periphery of this portion of the outer whorl bears a feeble
groove which is not quite in the median line. At a subsequent
stage, Le. at a short distance from the commencement of the outer
whorl, two broad shallow grooves, about 3:°5mm. apart, appear
(one a little earlier than the other) one on each side of the median
line, and almost close to the margin, of the periphery; these
gradually deepen as the whorl increases in size, and at the anterior
end of the specimen are about 5 mm. apart.
The ribs on the two sides are not opposite but alternate; each
bears a rather small compressed transversely-elongated tubercle at
the umbilical margin, and a similar but more prominent tubercle
at about the middle, or rather outside the middle, of the lateral area.
On about the first half of the outer whorl each rib bifurcates,
though not very distinctly, at the lateral tubercle, and the broad
feeble branches cross the periphery, sometimes a little irregularly,
H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level, 253
and join the branches from the opposite side, each branch being
slightly thickened into an obtuse tubercle at the margin of the
periphery. On the rest of the outer whorl each rib, instead of
actually bifurcating, bends slightly backward at the lateral tubercle
and passes straight to the peripheral margin, where it is slightly
thickened into a blunt obtuse tubercle; whilst in the space between
each pair of lateral tubercles, but somewhat nearer the periphery
than the tubercles themselves, an obscure rib arises and also passes
to the peripheral margin, where it is also similarly thickened ; the
tubercles on the intermediate ribs are frequently stronger than those
at the extremities of the principal ribs. In a few instances the ribs
are raised into a very obtuse tubercle on the median line of the
periphery. On the peripheral area of the earliest portion of the
outer whorl, i.e. the portion bearing the single feeble groove, the ribs
on one side of the median line are slightly inclined backwards, whilst
on the other side they are nearly direct. Although portions of the
septa can be seen, a complete suture-line cannot be made out, but
from the parts that are visible the septa appear to be fairly
symmetrical.
On the whole I think there cannot be much doubt about the
present example being referable to Sharpe’s Ammonites Ramsayanus.
Notwithstanding the apparent symmetry of the specimen, its peri-
phery presents certain appearances which suggest that the fossil is
deformed.
One side of Sharpe’s specimen, viz. that represented in his fig. 46,
looks something like a deformed Ammonites Salteri,' which Sharpe
also described from the ‘‘ Chalk with silicious grains, at Chardstock,
Somersetshire,” but the opposite side appears to be quite different.
Sharpe’s type-specimen certainly was deformed, and I think the
Bath specimen is also, but being unable to refer them to any other
species which has hitherto been described from the Chalk, it seems
desirable to retain, at least provisionally, Sharpe’s name Ammonites
Ramsayanus.
V.—OSscILLATIONS IN THE Sea-LEvEL. (Part III.)
By H. W. Pearson.
(Continued from the May Number, p. 231.)
Data used in showing a Period of High Sea-level in the North,
culminating about the years 1475 to 1500.
ORWICH, England, is represented as situated on the banks of
an arm of the sea even in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
(Lyell’s “ Principles,” 11th ed., vol. i, p. 521; 8. Woodward *).
Early in the fourteenth century Pagham Harbour was formed by
a sudden inroad of the sea (Encye. Brit., vol. xxii, p. 723).
1 D. Sharpe: Foss. Moll. Chalk (Mon. Pal. Soc.), pt. iii, 1856, p. 50, pl. xxiii,
ff. 3a, b, c, and 5a, b.
* «History and Antiquities of Norwich Castle,’’ 1836. Plates showing the
‘Yarmouth Hutch Map,’ a.p. 1000, and at various other periods, earlier and later :
drawn from local records and geological observations.
204 H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level.
Town of Rye “situated upon a rocky eminence which two or
three centuries ago was wasbed on all sides by the influx of the
tides, but now, in consequence of the gradual recession of the
sea, lies two miles inland” (Hncye. Brit., vol. xxi, p. 117). In
Charles II’s time (1660-1685) a 64-gun frigate could ride in the
harbour of Rye; now a ship of balf that size could not obtain an
entrance (Clark’s ‘“‘ Guide and History of Rye,” p. 63). Between
1292 and 1340 upwards of 5,500 acres were submerged by the sea
in Sussex (Encyc. Brit., vol. xxii, p. 728). ‘It is said that old
Winchelsea contained 50 inns and taverns and 700 householders:
here 400 sail of the tallest ships, it is said, anchored in the Camber
near Rye, where sheep and cattle now feed.” Three hundred
houses destroyed by rising of the sea in the year 1250, and the
destruction made total by the great inundation of 1287 (Clark’s
“‘ Guide and History of Rye,” pp. 64, 65).
Great portions of the English Fens were drowned in the years
1248, 1250, 1257, 1286, 1292, 1822, 13857, 13858 ; Marshland drowned
in 1287, 1289, 1292, 1294, 1295, 1297, 1334, 1839, 1878, 1422,
1520, and 1569 (“The Fenland Past and Present,” p. 146). “In
the year 1862 the unfortunate Marshlanders show that the Lynn
River, which formerly was only 12 perches broad, was then
a full mile in breadth; but in the years 1378, 1565, and 1608
we find notices showing that the river was growing wider”
(p. 212). Raveneserodd destroyed by the sea, thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. ‘1377 and 1395 appear to have been
critical years in the waste of this coast” (“Lincolnshire and
the Danes,” pp. 239, 240). Hugh of Levens, in a petition to the
Archbishop of York shortly after 1359, says, “‘ Whereas our manors
and lands of Saltagh, Tharlesthorp, Frysmerske, Wythfleet, Dymelton,
and Raveneserodd were so destroyed every day and night byincreasing
inundations of the waters,” etc. (p. 46). Towns of Holton, Northrup,
and Newton destroyed at the same time (p. 49). ‘‘ When Henry IV
landed at Ravenspurn, June, 1399, the towns of Ravenser and
Raveneserodd had long been engulfed by the waters” (p. 57). “In
that time (1249 to 1269) the sea inundated and passed over its
coasts almost throughout the whole eastern part of England, and
the Humber, exceeding its limits, covered the land even to our
fishing and wood of Cotyngham” (p. 67, quoting “Chronicles of
Meaux”’; Boyle, “‘ The Lost Towns of the Humber ’”’).
“Tn the thirteenth century the river [Fleet River in London]
was of such breadth and depth that ten or twelve ships at once with
merchandise were wont to come to the bridge of Fleet and some of
them to Holborn bridge” (Whealey, “London Past and Present,”
p- 52). After the great fire (1666) “the citizens had it deepened
between Holborn and the Thames so that barges might ascend with
the tide as far as Holborn as before” (p. 53). See copy of drawing
on stairway of St. Martin’s Free Library, London, by Anty’ van den
Wyngaerde (original in Bodleian Library, Oxford). Date of picture,
1548. This shows Moats of Tower on a level with the Thames and
full of water. Shows also Fleet River with bridges at Fleet and
H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level. 255
Holborn streets. There is no possible method of explaining the
peculiarities of this drawing, except by the assumption that the
Thames at that time stood 12 to 15 feet higher than at present.
In the History of the City of Chester, by Joseph Hemmingway,
we read, “The New Water Tower was erected in the year 1322”
(p. 133). “At the outside of this Tower are fixed great iron rings,
being of use heretofore for mooring the ships” (p. 356). ‘It is
certain that long before the period at which this was written [about
1706] vessels had ceased to approach this tower” (p. 856). Quoting
Fuller from his ‘‘ Worthies of the City” (pub. 1662), ‘and now
being about to take our leave of this ancient and honorable city,
the worst that I wish it is that the distance between the Dee and the
New Tower may be made up—that the rings on the New Tower
(now only for sight) may be restored to the service for which they
were first intended,” etc.
Castle Huntley (in the Carse of Gowrie, Scotland) was erected in
1452 (Encye. Brit., vol. xviii, p. 667). ‘This castle once had rings
fixed to it for mooring the boats formerly sailing on the surrounding
waters” (Chambers, “ Ancient Sea Margins,” p. 20). This castle
is now some miles from the sea, and the ordnance map of that
region shows that it would be necessary to elevate the sea-level
20 to 24 feet to again allow these rings to be put to their
original use. ‘‘ Yet we have internal evidence from the marginal
observations in one of the set of books (Records of Tide Gauges,
Leith, Scotland) that in the year 1810 mean tides rose to a point
2 ft. 10 ins. higher than they do at present” (Mr. Thomas Smyth,
Grou. Maa., 1866, Vol. III, p. 427). Mr. Smyth, in conclusion,
stated that “The upheaval which is at present taking place on the
shores of the Firth of Forth and in Berwickshire has its counter-
part in Caithness, which is rising at nearly the same rate” (p. 427).
The low-water level in Glasgow Harbour has fallen 8 feet since
1758: alleged cause, improvements in bed of Clyde; real cause,
the so-called upheaval as shown above by Smyth (Geological
Record, 1876, p. 10). ‘*The encroachments of the land upon the
sea are strikingly exhibited in the sandbanks and deltas of the
principal bays and estuaries of the island [Arran], and there can be
little doubt that a few centuries ago the ships of the islanders found
a secure harbourage within the creeks and bays, where the heath
and brushwood now luxuriate” (McArthur, “The Antiquities of
Arran,” p. 105).
The Gulf Stream Islands were discovered in 1871. “In the spot
where these now are, the Dutch in 1594 found and measured
a sandbank in soundings of 18 fathoms, showing an upheaval here
of 100 feet in 500 years” (Journ. Roy. Geog. Soc., 1873, p. 253).
We note as to this that we have no evidence that the Dutch found
the shoalest water, therefore this estimated upheaval is probably con-
siderably too large. Diomed Island (on Siberian coast), described
by Chalavrof in 1760, no longer exists; it now forms a part of
the main (p. 256). ‘From 1730 to 1839 the upheaval of
Loeffgrund amounted to 2 ft. 11 ins. only” (Reclus ; Harpers, ‘The
256 H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level.
Earth,” p. 531). “ Borre, a village (in Denmark) now lost amidst
the Fens, stood on the beach in 1510” (‘The Harth and its
Inhabitants,” Europe, vol. v, p. 54). “These mountains [of
Spitzbergen] increase in bulk every year, so as to be plainly
discoverable. Leonin was surprised to find on the hill, about
a league from the seaside, a small mast of a ship with one of its
pulleys still fastened to it” (written in 1646; see Journ. Roy.
Geog. Soc., 1873, p. 252). ‘The waters over which the French
expedition measured an are of the Meridian (Tornea, Sweden,
1736-1737) are now replaced by meadows” (Phillips, “ Manual
of Geology,” p. 326). The general and recent so-called upheaval
of Scandinavia, having been demonstrated so thoroughly through
modern textbooks, I will make no further reference thereto.
Caligula erected a.p. 51 a huge tower a mile from the coast near
Boulogne, France; in 1544 this tower was only 200 yards from the
coast (“ Antiquities of Hastings,” p. 13). Aigues Mortes, a seaport
in the thirteenth century, is now five miles inland (Smyth, “‘ The
Mediterranean,” p. 13). ‘Some of the present vineyards of Agde
were covered by the sea only a century ago” (written about 1850 ;
ibid., p. 18). “The Tower of Pignaux (Lyell, Tignaux) erected
on the shore in 1737 ; now a French mile from it” (Milner, “ Gallery
of Nature,” p. 898). ‘The old port of Talmont, where Henry IV
embarked his artillery (1411), has become dry land” (“The Harth
and its Inhabitants,” Europe, vol. ii, p. 210). The tower built by
Michael Angelo in 1567 on the very edge of the coast (at mouth of
Tiber) is now 2,250 yards inland (Lanciani, ‘“‘ Ancient Rome,”
p: 235). On the west side of the Gulf of Taranto a tower erected
by the Angevine kings (fourteenth and fifteenth centuries) on the
coast is now above a mile distant from shore (Smyth, “The Medi-
terranean,” p. 36). Poingdestre, writing in 1685, says, “A portion
of the Jersey Isles became submerged in 1856.” ‘The Ecrehous
and Dirouilles, on the north-east of Jersey, are known to have
been much more extensive than at present; they also sunk probably
in 1856” (R. A. Peacock in Rep. Brit. Assoc., 1865, p. 70).
The city of Foah at the commencement of the fifteenth century
was on the Canopic, mouth of the Nile, now more than a mile inland
(Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. iv, p. 346).
J. E. Davis says that embankments built near Tremadoc, Wales,
since the sixteenth century now rendered useless by the recession of
the sea (ibid., vol. ii, p. 74). Captain Marcus Jones, of Portmadoc,
Wales, informed me April 12th, 1898, that his father, he thinks
about the close of last century or the first of this, went with a boat
to a place under Tynyberllan, a short distance to the south-east of
Wern, Tremadoe, to fetch a load of American timber. To allow this
to be done the sea must necessarily have stood several feet higher
than at present, Wern being now at least three miles from the sea.
Mr. F. L. Edwards, Harlech, Wales, in April, 1898, informed me
that he saw, twenty years before, an old lady who, when she was
a little girl, visited an aunt in a cottage (Cafinrhyn) about 24 miles
north of Harlech. During the night the tide came up and she
H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level. 257
jumped out of bed into water up to her knees. Now the tide
does not come within three miles of this place. At Castle Hotel,
Harlech, a picture of Harlech Castle (printed by Alex. Bogg,
16, Paternoster Row) is exhibited, showing the sea reaching to
the base of the castle. Sea is now one mile distant. It would be
interesting to learn the date of this picture.
The Zuyder Zee was opened at the expense of the land in the
first years of the thirteenth century, ‘“‘and never ceased to enlarge
itself during 200 years” (Reclus, ‘The Ocean,” p. 154). In 12380
occurred the terrible inundation of Friesland, costing the lives of
100,000 people; in 1281 the lakes of Haarlem overflowed, and
gradually increasing united with each other toward 1650. In
1277 the Gulf of Dollart began to be hollowed out. It was only
in 1557 that the invasion of the sea, which had devoured the town
of T'orum and fifty villages, could be arrested; in 1287 the Zuyder
Zee drowned 60,000 persons; in 1421 seventy-two villages were
submerged at once (“The Ocean,” p. 154). The island of Wieringer,
part of the mainland in 1205, was detached by floods in 1219, 1220,
1221, 1246, 1251. The Biesbosch, Holland, formed in 1421, twenty-
two villages drowned. Inundations of the Gulf of Dollart, 1277,
1278, 1280, and 1287. The western coast of Schleswig swallowed
up in 1240. Fourteen villages in Isle of Cadsand, Zealand, sub-
merged in 13387. Kortgene Island engulfed in 1580 (‘‘The Gallery
of Nature,” p. 389).
The record above given of the devastation wrought by the sea in
Holland between the years 1200 and 1500 is but partial; it might
be extended tenfold, but it is sufficient to show exactly -what
occurred on these shores during the period named. The history is
plain to read; about the year 1200 the rising sea-level began to
overtop the barriers erected by the people of the lowlands for the
protection of their homes. Those barriers which yesterday were
found ample will to-morrow be found deficient in height. The
progressive rising of the sea exceeding the ability of man to elevate
the embankments. The result is that during the 250 years or more
which elapsed before these waters reached their highest level, the
history of Holland forms one long chapter of horrors. We can see
also that during the period when Holland was sinking beneath
the waves the English coast was undergoing the same ordeal, as
illustrated in the history of Rye, Norwich, Winchelsea, Ravenser,
and the Fens, only, more fortunate than Holland, she had little
low-lying lands along her borders liable to submergence; her
losses, therefore, during the epoch of the advancing sea were less
extensive.
The haven in which the Chinese Admiral anchored his fleet
(in Formosa, 1661) ‘“‘is now a dry, arid plain, over which there
is a road and several canals cut to communicate with the old port
of Tai-wau-fu” (Journ. Roy. Geog. Soc., vol. xliii, p. 99). “The
Dutch fort of 1624, originally built on an islet at some distance from
the shore, now forms part of Formosa, and under its ruins the water
is so shallow that passengers land with much difficulty where was
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. VI. 17
208 H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level.
formerly deep water” (Science, vol. v, p. 262). Newchang (China),
once a seaport, abandoned for Taitze, on account of recession of the
sea. Taitze in its turn abandoned during the present century, and
Yingtze established owing to the shoaling of the water (Journ.
Roy. Geog. Soc., vol. xliii, p. 258).
Indian Survey shows “‘it is almost certain that the mean sea-level
at Madras is a foot lower than it was sixty years ago” (Science,
vol. iv, p. 212). Gaur, or Gour, India, subject to inundation in
1590; not so now (Encye. Brit., vol. x, p. 113). ‘“ Very curious
evidence of the gradual elevation of the land, or rather of the
constant retrocession of the sea, is afforded by the traditions of
the community of Verawow” (India). “It is several generations
since any sea-borne ships have been near this ancient port” (Journ.
Roy. Geog. Soc., 1870, pp. 194-5). Adam’s Bridge, connecting
Ceylon and India, breached by high water in year 1480 (Encye.
Brit., vol. xx, p. 266).
Investigation near the site of the Temple of Jupiter Serapis
(Bay of Baie) informs us that about 1503 and 1511 the level of
the Mediterranean Sea at that point stood 20 to 22 feet higher
than at present (A. J. Jukes-Browne, “ Physical Geography,” p. 46).
“The period of deep submergence was certainly antecedent to
the close of the fifteenth century” (Temple of Jupiter Serapis),
(Lyell’s “ Principles,” 11th ed., p. 173).
Henry Hudson in 1610 wintered in an arm of Hudson Bay, now
impassable except for small boats. In 1674 sloop sailed through
between island and the main west shore of James Bay. In 1886 it
was difficult to get through this passage with canoes (Journ. Science,
ser. Iv, vol. i, p. 224).
This part of the island [Isle of Pines, off south-west coast of
Cuba] seems to have been upheaved in relatively recent times,
for even within the historical period (i.e. since 1492) various
islets on the coast have been merged in continuous land (‘‘ The
Earth and its Inhabitants,” North America, vol. i, p. 364).
“‘ Interesting examples of recent elevation are believed to occur
in the neighbourhood of Washington, D.C. In colonial times
Bladensburg and Dumfries could be reached by sea-going ships,
but now they are decidedly above tide-level. The change is
generally supposed to be due to silting up of the creek, but this
appears not to be the case, for there is little alluvium resting upon
the bed-rock of the channels” (W. B. Scott, “Introduction to
Geology,” p. 67).
In the second volume of the Maryland Geological Survey,
Mr. Edward B. Mathews discusses at length the difference existing
between the ancient maps of Chesapeake Bay and the modern
maps. He examines Captain John Smith’s map of 1608, Herriman’s
map of 1670, etc. As to these differences Mathews remarks as
follows: —‘‘He [Smith] clearly mistook the deeply indented
peninsulas of Dorchester and Talbot Counties for islands” (p. 354).
“The rest of the shore-line indicates either a loose generalization of
marshy lowlands, or that some of the smaller points and islands are
H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level. 259
of recent development” (p. 355). ‘It may be suggested that part
of the present land was then marshland” (p. 356). ‘A study
of the shore of Somerset County (Herriman’s map) seems to indicate
that considerable filling in has taken place since the date of the
map” (p. 381). ‘Portions of the coast, such as James Island Marsh,
Hazard Point, and Deals Island, and possibly Nauticoke Point, are
represented by Herriman as islands clearly separated from the
mainland” (p. 381). ‘Seavorn River is too broad” (p. 382). South
and west rivers ‘“‘ show the constant error of being too broad. This,
however, is a feature which is common to the rivers of this and
many other maps of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ”
(p. 381).
Now these data so clearly shown by Mr. Mathews lead to but
one conclusion. We cannot believe that these ancient geographers
made mistakes of observation always in one direction ; they mapped
out the present peninsulas as islands, because the sea stood higher
at that time, and they were islands; they mapped out the rivers
broader than now, because at that time they were broader, owing to
the higher sea-level. The filling in has taken place; the “recent
development” of islands and points and marshes has occurred,
simply because the sea has fallen in the last two hundred years, and
the observed change in the topography of these shores is the necessary
consequence.
Zagoskin says “that the spot where the fort now stands [Fort
Yukon, Alaska] has been covered by the sea within the memory
of the Indians living at the date of his visit in 1842 and 1843”
(Howorth in Journ. Roy. Geog. Soc., vol. xliii, p. 246). Mr. H. W.
Elliot, in “The Seal and Salmon Fisheries of Alaska,” vol. iii,
states that when the natives first came to the Pribilof Islands,
Novastoshnah was an island by itself; it now forms a portion of
St. Paul’s Island. (The natives came to these islands immediately
on their discovery in 1766.) ‘The lagoon (near village of St. Paul)
was then an open harbour, in which the ships of the old Russian
Company rocked safe at anchor. To-day, no vessel drawing ten
feet of water can get nearer than a mile from the lagoon” (p. 21).
Further to the north, at Colon and at Santa Marta and several
other points of the coast of New Granada, the ground has visibly
risen since Europeans first landed on the Continent (Reclus, ‘‘The
Earth,” p. 552). The marshes [of the Vendée, France] raised above
the sea-level within historic times four centuries ago (Encye. Brit.,
vol. xxiv, p. 137). “In the reign of Edward III (1827-13877) it
was unlawful to bathe in the Fosse or in the Thames near the
Tower, the penalty being death ” (‘ Authorized Guide to the Tower
of London,” p. 11). This would show a full moat at that period.
The ditch was dry in 1140. Longchamp spent a large sum of
money in 1190, “ but he failed to fill the ditch with water ” (p. 149).
The easiest explanation of the presence of water in the moat at the
above date lies in the high-water period then in existence. The
moat to-day contains no water whatever.
260 H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level.
Data indicating a Period of Low Sea-level about the year 1175 a.p.
Omar, who wrote about 1050 a.p., had satisfied himself that “ the
extension of the sea had been greater at some former periods.” He
was the author of a work, ‘‘ The Retreat of the Sea.” We can infer,
then, that he had observed indications of a recent recession of the
sea—in other words, he must have lived during a low-water period,
or at such time as the sea had already made great recession from the
high-water position of 875. Bede says the Channel between the
Isle of Thanet and balance of Kent was three furlongs wide in the
eighth century, and it is supposed it began to grow shallow about
1066 (“ Principles,” vol. i, p. 529). Dantzic at the same level now
as in the year 1000 (‘ Principles,” vol. ii, p. 182). Heligoland in
1072 extended over a space of 900 square kilometres (“The Ocean,”
p. 153). Island at the mouth of the Bay of St. Malo formed
a portion of the mainland in the twelfth century (“The Harth
and its Inhabitants,” Europe, vol. ii, p. 251).
Henry of Huntingdon says about 1184, “This fennie countrie
[the Fens, England] is passing rich and plenteous, finely adorned
with woods and islands.” William of Malmsbury, who wrote about
the year 1140, says, ‘The Fens were a very paradise, the very
marshes bearing goodly trees which for tallness strived to reach up
to the stars’ (“‘ History and Antiquities of Boston,” p. 660). ‘It
seems to show that Lincolnshire was then [time of William the
Conqueror, 1068] a fertile corn-bearing district” (“The Fenland
Past and Present,” p. 98). We have already shown how this
paradise, this fertile corn-bearing district—these terms describing
the condition of this region during the low-water period—was later,
during the advance of the sea between the years 1250 and 1500,
submerged and devastated ; this devastation being contemporaneous
with the inundation of Holland. Dirk II received in 988 a broad
district that is now covered by the Zuyder Zee (Hncyc. Brit.,
vol. xii, p. 71). “There was [in the strait between the Isle of
Thanet and coast of Kent] a considerable passage for ships till
about the time of the Norman Conquest, very soon after which the
inhabitants began to reclaim the land that had been formerly under
water ” (Wilson, “The Isle of Thanet Guide,” p. 7).
Data showing the High-Water Epoch of about 875 a.v.
“In the time of Charlemagne the island [| Heligoland] was not
much larger than now” (“ Principles,” vol. i, p. 559). In the year
800 the sea carried off large quantities of soil from Heligoland
(“Gallery of Nature,” p. 388). In the years 800 to 900 ‘‘ Tempests
change the coasts of Brittany; valleys and villages are swallowed
up” (loc. cit.). Channel between the Isle of Thanet and main-
land was three furlongs wide in the eighth century (“ Principles,”
vol. i, p. 529). In 660 the Rhine inundated the country (“The
Ocean,” p. 153). ‘Some antiquarians maintain that the submarine
trees that occur along the coast between St. Malo and Cape La
Hogue are the relics of a broad belt of forest land, which was
H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level. 261
overwhelmed by the sea in the year 709, although the submergence
was not completed until 860” (Jas. Geikie, “ Prehistoric Europe,”
p- 481). ‘Migulon and Psalmody were islands in the year 815, and
in 1820 they were two leagues from the sea” (‘The Mediterranean,”
p- 13). Ferd. de Lesseps shows that eleven centuries ago (about
800) the mean level of the Red Sea was about three metres higher
than now (Geological Record, 1874, p. 146).
Certain ancient documents now existing in the Town Hall of
Rye (Charter of King Richard I, 1194, etc.) plainly show that prior
to that date the sea had surrounded the town of Rye (Rep. Brit.
Assoc., 1890, p. 825). ‘A deplorable state of the Fens (England)
is depicted by some who wrote of that period (early part of eighth
century). Dugdale shows that the fresh waters were of wide extent
and deep” (“The Fenland Past and Present,” p. 71). Again, “The
Isle of Ely was, even at that early period (870 a.p.), a place of
refuge ; parties detached from the fleet (Danes) passed up the river
in quest of booty, for such was the depth of the water, which
extended to the sea, that they had an easy access into it by
shipping” (p. 82). (Now Ely is 30 miles from the sea.) “The
tide then, 1,000 years ago, flowed up the river Witham to Lincoln ”
(“Lincolnshire and the Danes,” p. 195).
In the years 800 to 950 the isles of Ammiuno and Costanziaco,
near Venice, disappear (‘Gallery of Nature,” p. 888). Notre Dame
des Ports “was also a harbour in 898, but is now a league from
the shore” (p. 393). Saugus Island, at mouth of River Ganges,
at one time contained the largest city in India; this city was
entirely destroyed by the sea 1,000 years ago (from card on exhibit
in Memorial Hall, Philadelphia; authority quoted, Sir Wm. Jones).
“This seems to place Lydd on the shore (year 774), though it is
now nearly three miles from the shore” (Greenwood, “Rain
and Rivers,” p. 63). ‘The present position of several edifices
situated in the island of Munkholm, near Trondbjiem, proves that
during a thousand years the elevation of the ground has been less
than 20 feet” (‘‘The Earth,” p. 532). Verawow, India, was settled
more than 800 years ago. ‘At that time sea-going ships came with
ease to the vicinity of the present town, and they still show the
stone posts to which the ships were moored” (Journ. Roy. Geog.
Soc., 1870, p. 195). “About the year 850 there occurred a fearful
inundation of the Tigris” (‘The Remains of Lost Empires,” p. 260).
Data as to Low-Water Period of about 600 a.v.
The Archipelago of Chausey is stated in the “Lives of the
Saints” to have formed part of the mainland in the beginning of
the eighth century, the area now covered by the sea being then
occupied by a vast forest (Reclus, “ Europe,” vol. ii, p. 251). It is
well known that previous to a.p. 709 the whole Bay (Bay of
Mont St. Michel) as far as Chausey rocks, and for a considerable
breadth northwards as far as Cape La Hague and the country
southwards as far as Dol, was the forest of Scisey (Rep. Brit.
Assoc, 1865, p. 70). “It is certain that Mont St. Michel, which
262 H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level.
contains now only about 20 acres, was immediately previous to
A.D. 709 six miles long by four broad and covered by forests”
(loc. cit.). Abbey of Whitby, erected in 658, is reported to have
been a mile from the sea. The distance in 1816 was little more than
200 yards (“Gallery of Nature,” p. 594). The passage between
the Isle of Thanet and the coast of Kent, which remained in “ perfect
state’ so long as the Romans remained in Britain, “‘in Bede’s time
(cire. 675 to 7385), and perhaps an age before that, began to decline
by diminishing its breadth, etc.” (S. R. Wilson, “ The Isle of Thanet
Guide,” p. 6).
Data as to High-Water Period of about 350 a.p.
Norwich, ‘‘in the time of the Saxons, was situated on the banks
of an arm of the sea, an estuary which has since become a region of
cultivated fields” (“Gallery of Nature,” p. 396). ‘The former
Roman port of Alaterva (Cramond, Scotland), the quays of which
are still visible, is now situated at some distance from the sea, and
the ground on which it stands has risen at least 244 feet.” In other
places the débris scattered on the bank show that the coast has risen
about 264 feet. Now by a remarkable coincidence the ancient wall
of Antoninus, which at the time of the Romans served as a barrier
against the Picts, comes to an end at a point 26 feet above the level
of high tides” (‘The Harth,” p. 537). The Isle of Thanet was
separated from the rest of Kent in the time of the Romans by
a navigable channel, through which fleets sailed (‘ Principles,”
p- 529). During the course of the third century tradition tells us
that the island of Walcheren was separated from the Continent
(Reclus, “The Ocean,” p. 153). “The Hythe coast must have
risen quite 30 feet since Roman times” (Grnon. Mac., April, 1885,
p- 145). Valerius Maximus states that a bank was erected in
230 a.p. to keep out sea and storm from the Temple of Serapis
(Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1847, p. 213). Note this is evidence that
the sea was rising at that time, and had reached an elevation about
equivalent to its present level.
Sir Charles Lyell and Sir Archibald Geikie believe with many
others, including Smyth, that there had been a considerable upheaval
of the shores of the Firth of Forth since the period of the Roman
occupation (Grou. MaG., 1866, p. 426). Mr. Smyth shows on the
same page that the upheaval must have been at least 24} feet.
Mr. G. A. Lebour argues from the standpoint of geology, tradition,
and history that the city of Is in Lower Brittany was submerged
in the reign of King Gradlou, in the fourth or fifth century (G«oL.
Mae., 1871, p. 300). Sir J. A. Picton describes a Roman wharf
in the Rood-eye (Chester), now the racecourse, but formerly a haven
for ships, with a considerable depth of water (Proc. Liverpool
Geol. Soc., vol. vi, p. 39). Note ordnance map (6 in.), No. 88-11-16 ;
seems to show that a rise of the sea-level equivalent to 24 or 25
feet would be necessary to allow this ancient dock or this old haven
to be again put to their original uses.
Hengist and Horsa, the Saxons, landed at Ebb’s Fleet, Thanet,
H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level. 263
in 449 ; as this point is now 14 to 2 miles back from the present
coastline, it would seem that the sea must have stood at least 15 feet
higher on those coasts at that date than it does to-day. Mr. J. E. H.
Thomson draws attention to a passage in the “ Acta Petri et Pauli,”
which passage leads him to suggest that the submergence of the
Temple of Serapis probably occurred between the “‘ middle of the
third century and the middle of the fourth”’ (Bonney, “The Story
of our Planet,” p. 203).
Data as to Low- Water Period of 80 a.v., showing also that the sea-level
was then lower than at present.
Septimus Severus between 194 and 211 a.p. decorated the Temple
of Jupiter Serapis. Alexander Severus did the same between the
years 222 and 235 a.p. These facts indicate a low-water period
at that time (“ Principles,” 11th ed., vol. ii, pp. 171, 172). Pliny
(before 79 a.p.) visited the Straits of Gibraltar, and speaks of a low-
lying island upon which were the remains of the Temple of
Hercules. Pomponius Mela about the same time describes the
straits as broken by a number of small islands; all these islands
are now submerged. In 1728, during an extraordinary low tide
the remains of this temple were clearly seen, and souvenirs obtained
from the ruins (Science Record, 1876, p. 5485). St. Paul embarked
from Assus over a mole now visible under the clear water (Encyc.
Brit., vol. xxiii, p. 580). At date of 9 B.c. St. Michael’s Mount,
Cornwall, seems to have been at the same level with regard to
the sea as now (“ Principles,” vol. i, p. 544). In the island of
Capri one of the palaces of Tiberius (14 to 387 a.p.) is now covered
with water (vol. ii, p. 176). He (Strabo, about 54 3B.c. to 20 a.p.)
has brought together a large amount of material to throw light
upon the changes which have passed over the face of the earth
owing to the retirement of the sea (Tozer, ‘‘ History of Ancient
Geography,” p. 251). The island of Batavia, inhabited in the days
of Tacitus, is drowned (Journ. Science, ser. 111, vol. xliv, p. 179).
Mr. R. A. Peacock, in Rep. Brit. Assoc., 1865, shows that in the
time of Ptolemy (say 100 to 175 a.p.) the coast of Normandy
probably extended seventeen miles west of its present position, that
Mont St. Michel at one time was ten leagues from the sea, and
states his belief that ‘‘ Jersey was not an island until after Ptolemy’s
time.” The entrance to the Gulf of Corinth, which in the time of
the Peloponnesian War (1st, 2nd, and 3rd, between years 431 and
404 3.c.) had a width of seven stadia, had become reduced in
Strabo’s time to a breadth of five stadia (‘The Earth and its
Inhabitants,” Europe, vol. i, p. 50). ‘From which account it
sufficiently appears that the most considerable part of the great
level (in Fens of England) was anciently sound dry land by nature,
well furnished by timber, trees and woods. That this was the state
of the great level when the Romans entered the island, is highly
probable” (“The Fenland Past and Present,” p. 29, quoting from
Estobb; Romans invaded England 43 a.p.). Caligula’s tower,
previously mentioned as showing the high-water period of 1500,
264 H. W. Pearson—Oscillations of Sea-level.
and which was undermined by the sea in 1644, can also be used to
show the low-water stage at its time of erection (51 a.p.), as it was
then a mile from the sea. Pliny counted twenty-three islands
between the Texel and the Hider. Now only sixteen, and those
greatly diminished in size (‘‘ Principles,” 9th ed., p. 329). ‘“ Pliny
states that the city of Apologos (at the head of Persian Gulf) was
originally only ten miles from the sea, but that in his time the
existing place was so much as 120 miles from it” (McCrindle,
“The Com. and Nav. of the Erythreean Sea,” p. 104). Jersey
was probably part of the Continent in Ceesar’s time and still later
(Peacock, “ Vast Sinkings of Land,” p. 13).
Data as to High-Water Period of about 250 B.c.
The two piers of the port of Phalasarna, a city of late Hellenic
date, are now 22 feet above their original level (Prestwich, “Tra-
dition of the Flood,” p. 57). The Gulf of Poitou (France) 2,000
years ago was 18 to 20 miles wide, now but a small bay known
as the creeks of Aiguillon (Reclus, “The Earth,” p. 541). Bay of
Tunis, once a deep and open harbour, now has only 6 or 7 feet of
water. Shaw identifies at a point now inland, but which must
anciently have been on the seashore, the ‘Port’ (now village of
El Mersa) as the ancient harbour of Carthage (Smith’s Dict.
Greek and Roman Geog., pp. 531-2). It is certain beyond
question that the high-water stage shown above for the Bay of
Tunis and harbour of Carthage was in existence during the period
of the three Punic wars, or from 264 to 146 .c. Aleria or Alalia
{a city of Corsica), a seaport in Roman times, captured by the
Roman fleet 259 3.c., is now above half a mile from the coast
(ibid., p. 94). At the time of Herodotus (died 425 3.c.) the
mountain of Lade was an island; at the present time it forms part
of the mainland (“The Earth,” p. 542).
Admiral Smyth shows in “The Mediterranean,” p. 73, that this
island of Lade sheltered the Athenian fleet a.c. 412 or 341 B.c.,,
and alleges as the cause of junction between the islands and the
mainland the silting action of the Meander River. On the other
hand, Reclus (‘The Earth,” p. 542) denies the competence of
silting to explain the changed topography of the shores of Asia
Minor, and says, “It must therefore be in consequence of a slow
upheaval of the earth’s crust that the ruins of Troy, Smyrna,
Ephesus, and Miletus have gradually become more distant from
the coast and appear to be receding still further inland.” Tyre
was an island up to the time of Alexander’s siege (822 B.c.). The
present harbour is not so large as it once was. ‘The other ancient
harbour has disappeared (Encye. Brit., vol. xxiii, p. 711).
The town of Putai (China), said to have been on the coast twenty-
one centuries ago, is now over forty miles away (‘The Harth and
its Inhabitants,” Asia, vol. ii, p- 104). In twenty-two centuries the
Rhone delta has run out 26 kilometres into the sea (Geological
Record, 1875, p. 82). The coastline of Tunis has increased outwards
nearly 100 square miles in area since the third century z.c. This
Notices of Memoirs. 265
has led Th. Fischer to include Tunis in the lists of rising coasts,
with Sicily, Sardinia, and South-Eastern France. Dr. J. Partsch, of
Breslau, questions this conclusion, and alleges the cause to be delta
growth in combination with wind action, by which sand has been
blown inland from the shore (Science, vol. ii, p. 142). The
position of Dr. Partsch seems refuted by the same arguments used
by Reclus, in the case of Sicily and coasts of Italy, Greece, Malta,
Rhodes, Cyprus, Crete, Asia Minor, Lisbon, Issa, Antissa, etc. In
all these cases the silt carried by the rivers is entirely inadequate to
explain the facts ; it is necessary, therefore, to invoke either upheaval
of the ground or recession of the sea (see ‘“‘ The Earth,” p. 542).
“The Cimbrian Deluge (submergence of Jutland) is supposed
to have happened about three centuries before the Christian era”
(“ Principles,” 9th ed., p. 331). A portion of the walls of the
city of Utica washed by the sea at siege by Scipio Africanus about
205 B.c. (Livy, Book xxix, chap. 34). Sea now many miles distant.
«Scipio was obliged to transfer his camp to an adjoining tongue of
land (Ghella), then washed by the sea, but now far inland, which
was known for centuries afterwards as the Castra Cornelia. So
ended the year B.c. 204” («Carthage and the Carthaginians,” p. 296).
Lake Mareotis in the time of Alexander the Great a large body of water
navigable for the largest vessels, but now little more than a swamp
(Professor Wheeler in Century Mag., May, 1899, p. 28). In the
time of Alexander great inundations in Arem (Arabia) compelled
eight tribes to fly their dwellings in Yemen and migrate to other
lands (“The Cottage Cyclopedia,” p. 61). Helice and Bura in
Greece were swallowed up by the sea during an earthquake in
373 3.c. (“The International Atlas,” p. 11). At the capture of
Tarentum by Hannibal, about 213 B.c., the sea washed the greater
part of the citadel (Livy, Book xxv, chap. 11).
io aes) Oil! IME EVEO mE S-2
———
].—Petroteum iN Catirornia. Professor HE. W. CiLaypoLe:
The American Geologist, vol. xxvii, pp. 150-159, March, 1901.
HE Californian oil-wells supplied the amount of 12,000 barrels
in 1870; but a progressively larger quantity has been
obtained, until in 1899 it was 2,665,709 barrels. It is remarkable
that the wells are relatively shallow, and that none of the oil-
bearing strata are older than the Cretaceous age: thus, at Stockton
they are Quaternary ; at Puente, Los Angelos, and Kern Co. they are
Pliocene; at Ventura, Los Angelos, Kern Co., and Newhall they
are Miocene; at Ventura, Fresno, and Kern Co., Eocene; at Colusa
Yo. and Sacramento Valley they are of Cretaceous age. The strata
of California have been greatly disturbed in comparatively recent
times. The final elevation of the Sierra Nevada and the Coast-range
is apparently of not earlier date than the Pliocene period. The
oil-bearing beds usually consist of sandstone interlaminated with
266 Notices of Memoirs.
shale; and is chiefly stored in the former. Professor Claypole
states that the anticlinal theory explained by Professor I. C. White
in Pennsylvania holds good for California. —T. R. J.
II. — Maryztanp Geonocica, Survey: ALLEGHANY County.
(Baltimore, 1900, pp. 323.) — William Bullock Clarke and _ his
staff have produced one of those interesting volumes we are so
accustomed to see from the United States, and which are so well
printed in comparison with those published by our own Government.
The Physiography, by Cleveland Abbe, is illustrated by a photograph
of a model of the county, from which the student can see at a glance
the general features of the land, and thus clearly follow the descrip-
tions of the author. Next comes the Geology, by C. C. O’Harra.
This includes Silurian to Permian beds overlain by alluvial and
other late deposits. The Minerals, Soils, Climate, Hydrography,
Magnetics, Forests, Flora, and Fauna are all treated of in detail.
The whole is illustrated in the usual manner by excellent repro-
ductions from photographs, and a bibliography of 175 items is
furnished. Among the maps provided are, one showing the wooded
areas, another showing the magnetic declination, and a third showing
structural sections. These latter are geological sections across the
county at regular intervals, and give the reader a better idea of the
features than pages of descriptive writing. A good index completes
the volume.
IJ. — Tur Carzoyirerous System in Eastern Canapa.—
Dr. H. M. Ami writes in the Trans. Nova Scotia Inst. Sci., vol. x,
on the subdivisions of the Carboniferous system in Eastern Canada,
with special reference to the position of the Union and Riversdale
formations of Nova Scotia, referred to the Devonian system by
some Canadian geologists. He discusses the evidence afforded
from a study of plant and animal life, and of the marine sediments.
He has come to the conclusion that the two formations mentioned
above belong properly to the earliest times of the Carboniferous,
and proposes to include them in that system under the name of
Ko-Carboniferous. Dr. Ami seems to have taken a good deal of trouble
in arriving at his conclusions, and has submitted collections of the
fauna and flora to certain specialists so as to get independent opinion
as to their several ages.
IV. — Epinsurcu Gexorogican Soctrery. (Transactions, 1901,
vol. viii, pt. 1.)—Petrology is to the fore in this part. Kynaston
has a paper on contact metamorphism round the Cheviot Granite,
and writes on Tufts associated with the Andesite Lavas of Lorne.
Mackie gives seventy analyses of rocks chiefly from the Moray area,
and has a paper on differences in chemical composition between the
central and marginal zones of granite veins, with further evidences
of exchanges between such veins and the contact rocks. Hinxman
describes spherulitic felsite from Glen Feshie. Stratigraphy is
handled by Goodchild, who deals with recent exposures of rock in
Edinburgh, one section being under the site of the new offices of
Notices of Memoirs. 267
the Scotsman; by Wallace, who writes on the geology of
Strathdearn ; Kirkby, on Lower Carboniferous of Randerstone in
Fife ; and Cadell, on the geology of the oil shales of the Lothians.
Jessen, of the Geological Survey of Denmark, has an interesting
paper on the Pleistocene shell-bearing clays in Kintyre, clays which
were investigated by a committee of the British Association in
1895-6. Paleontology is poorly represented: Kirkby deals with
Ostracoda from the Scotsman section mentioned above, but
nothing new is recorded; Simpson and Hepburn write on
mammalian bones found during excavations at Hailes Quarry,
near Edinburgh. These consist of fragments referable to red
deer, horse, ox, goat, and field-vole. Mr. James Simpson, who died
before the publication of his paper, receives a sympathetic notice
from his colleague. Some notes on the distribution of erratics
over Eastern Moray, by Mackie, concludes the contents of this part.
V.—JoOURNAL oF THE GeroLoGicaL Society oF Toxyo: vol. vill,
No. 89, Feb. 20th, 2561.—Things move fast in Japan; here we
are still in the twentieth century. The publications of the Japanese
Survey are too well known to require mention to the readers of the
Gxotocican Magazines, but we may certainly call attention to the
opening of the twelfth volume of the Journal of the Geological
Society of Tokyo. The Journal, which, with the exception of the
“Table of Contents” upon page 1 of the cover, is all printed in
the usual Japanese characters, opens with “ A Geological Disturbance
near Handayama,” by K. Inoue, but from the text we are uncertain
whether or not it was of Old Red Sandstone age. Mr. Iki has
a paper on the geology of the Middle Kiushiu, and Hirabayashi
writes on the province Kian Si. The Shidara Tertiary Basin in
Mikawa is continued from the last part by Ishikawa, and Yoshida
contains his report on the southern part of Higo. Those suffering
from Ammonititis will find a fascinating paper on the Genealogy of
the Genera Puzosia and Desmoceras by H. Yabe. In this paper full
justice is done to previous authors, the various species are discussed
and grouped, and their development carefully considered. Perhaps
to a Western eye the relationships of the various characters seem
a little mixed, but they are very clearly printed.
VL—Geronocy or Hawairr.—As might be expected, the newly
annexed Hawaiian Islands have been descended upon by United
States geologists, and we have for notice a report by C. H. Hitchcock
on the geology of Oahu. This was read before the Geological
Society of America, August 22nd, 1899, and issued in the Bulletin
February, 1901. The author can scarcely complain of hasty
publication. Naturally the bulk of the geology is volcanic, but
there is an interesting chapter on certain calcareous and tufaceous
beds near Diamond Head, by W. H. Dall. Dr. Dall considers the
conditions to be incompatible with the reference of these fossiliferous
beds to a period as late as the Pleistocene, but the fossils have every
characteristic of those generally assigned to the Pliocene or Upper
Miocene in their general aspect and state of fossilization. There is
268 Notices of Memoirs.
a breccia in the same locality, 25 feet thick, which is full of fossil
land-shells, all such as have their representatives in the valleys
of Oahu, though some of the species may be extinct. Professor
Lyons, who first noticed these shells, concludes that “the fossils
belong to a period previous to that of the receding of the ocean to
its present level. That event may have been coetaneous with the
change of level in the circumpolar area which marked the close of
the great Glacial period, and the evidences that our climate was,
previously to that time, more humid than at present, are confirmatory
of that view.” Towards the north there is a ledge of coral 79 feet
above the sea, at Kahe, and 730 feet distant from the water, south of
Puu o Hulu, he mentions another ledge 56 feet above the sea and
a quarter of a mile inland. At the south end of the ridge, called
Mailiilii, the limestone reaches the height of 81 feet; and at other
localities on the coast, limited areas of the same substance more or
less elevated have been observed. The volcanic areas are fully
described and illustrated.
VII.—Guactation in Sourn Arrica.—The Orange River Ground
Moraine forms the subject of a communication to the Transactions
of the Philosophical Society of South Africa (vol. xi, pt. 2, Sept.,
1900), from the pen of A. W. Rogers and H. H. L. Schwarz. They
give four excellent photographs. The deposit covers a wide area in
the Prieska and Hope Town divisions of the Colony, and consists of
a peculiar conglomerate, first noticed by Wyley in 1859. The
authors arrive at the following conclusions :—‘‘ The appearances seen
in the three localities, Jackal’s Water, Klein Modder Fontein, and
Vilet’s Kuil, at considerable distances apart, can be satisfactorily
explained only on the supposition that the country was traversed
by land-ice; and the presence of the till-like variety of the con-
giomerate in the same district, probably about the same localities,
confirms that explanation. Unfortunately the exact nature of the
conglomerate at the three localities is unknown, that is, whether it
is a true till or whether it is a stratified rock with glaciated pebbles.
We only know that the rock contains numerous scratched pebbles
and boulders; but this is a small point and does not affect the
confirmation. It is evident that the country was depressed under
water after the formation of the till of Prieska, and it is quite
possible that sedimentary rocks were deposited on a floor consisting
partly of till and partly of the floor from which the soft till had
been removed, or on which no accumulation had taken place.”
VIII.—Gerotocy or Inp1a.—From the “General Report on the
work carried on by the Geological Survey of India for the period
from the 1st of April, 1899, to the 31st of March, 1900,” we gather
a favourable impression of progress. In the Museum the minerals
have been rearranged and the rock collections put in stratigraphical
order in accordance with the new edition of the “Manual of Indian
Geology.” A large amount of time was occupied by the preparation
of the specimens for the Exposition at Paris, which were placed in
the charge of Mr. T. R. Blyth. The paleontological work of the
Notices of Memoirs. 269
year is as follows:—Dr. Noetling has finished the Miocene fossils of
Burmah, a work which has proved that an intimate connection must
have existed between the Eocene fauna of Europe and the Miocene
of Burmah, a connection which can only be explained by the theory
of a migration of species from west to east, which commenced with
the Hocene period and lasted probably up to quite recent times.
Dr. Noetling also made a magnificent collection of Permian and
Triassic fossils from the Salt Range and from the Tertiary of Sind.
Dr. Krafft made an examination of the Triassic fossils of the
Himalayas. These consist for the greater part of Cephalopods, and
include representatives of the whole series of the Trias. The chief
stratigraphical result to which these paleontological researches have
led is, that the Otoceras beds of the Himalayas do not, as was
hitherto believed, correspond to the beds at the base of the lower
Ceratite marls and the lower Ceratite sandstones, and very probably
include also the lower Ceratite limestone; while, on the other hand,
the upper division of the Lower Trias of the Himalayas (‘ subrobustus
beds,’ Diener) does not correspond to the whole of the Ceratite
sandstones, but merely to the two upper divisions of the same, viz.
the Stachella beds and the Flemingites flemingarius beds. Large
collections were made by La Touche, Smith, and Walker from the
Kumaon Himalayas, and a quantity of Silurian or Devonian fossils
were obtained from the Shan Hills, Burmah, by La Touche, Middle-
miss, and Dutta. The economics consist of enquiries into the gold
of Burmah and of Southern India, and for this purpose Dr. Hatch
was specially appointed for one year on March 31st, 1900. Nothing
important as regards coal was done last year, but it is noted that
sufficient coal is in sight for the requirements of the Jodhpur-
Bikanir Railway for a space of 15 years. Mr. Holland has suggested
measures to prevent the occurrence of landslips in Darjeeling in the
future, and a good deal of attention has been given to the important
subject of irrigation. Reports of the progress made with the surveys
of Burmah, the Madras Presidency, Central Provinces, Punjab, Hima-
layas, Sind, and Baluchistan are included; and special reports on
the auriferous reefs of Wainad, by Hayden; the auriferous tract of
Wuntho, by Stonier; the Rampur Coalfield, by Reader; Sohagpur
Coalfield, by Reader; Geology of the Northern Shan States, by
La Touche; Geology of the Mandalay-Kunlon Ferry Railway, by
Datta ; Southern Shan States, by Middlemiss; Ganjam District,
by Smith; Jeypore Zemidari, Vizagapatam, by Walker; Spiti, by
Hayden; Mesozoic Rocks of Spiti, by Krafft; and the relationship
between the Productus Limestone and the Ceratite Formation of the
Salt Range, by Noetling, complete this very interesting report.
IX.—Former Extension oF Ro#TIC STRATA OVER ARRAN. (Trans-
actions of the Edinburgh Geological Society, vol. vill, pp. 1 and 2.)—
Mr. Goodchild contributed a paper dealing with the hematite which
occurs in the joints of the basalt on the summit and other elevated
parts of Arthur’s Seat, and gave reasons for regarding it as due to
some cause which, in other parts of the Lothians and Fife, has
locally stained the Carboniferous rocks various shades of Indian-red,
270 Notices of Memoirs.
and has converted the limestones into dolomites. Such effects, he
explained, could elsewhere be traced with certainty to ferruginous
and magnesian infiltrations, which had soaked down from the New
Red rocks into the strata upon which they might happen to lie. He
was therefore disposed to refer the hematite in question to deposition
from such a source, and to regard the summit of Arthur’s Seat as
the modified descendant of the surface over which, in pet times, the
New Red rocks had extended.
X.—AnciEent VoLcanos1n ARRAN.—On the Upland between Brodick
and Drumadoor Bays, in the island of Arran, Messrs. B. N. Peach
and W. Grinn, of the Geological Survey, have discovered the site and
ruins of a very large volcano, covering an area of seven or eight
square miles. It is represented by an accumulation of old scoria,
broken rocks, and intrusive lavas, such as are usually found in
similar basal wrecks of volcanos, whether of Jurassic, Cretaceous,
or Tertiary age, in the Hebrides and Western Scotland. In this case,
however, Mr. H. T. Newton has detected Rheetic fossils in some of
the fragments embedded on the ruined volcano, and constituting the
only record of strata once extending from Mull to Antrim. Thus
they supply one proof of the enormous denudation which has taken
place on the west coast of Scotland during the later part of the
Tertiary era.
XI.—Grotocy or Inp1a. (Memoirs of the Geological Survey of
India, vol. xxx, pt. 2, 1900; vol. xxxiii, pt. 1, 1901.)—The first
of these memoirs contains Thomas H. Holland’s Geology of the
neighbourhood of Salem, Madras Presidency, with special reference
to Leschenault de la Tour’s observations. Leschenault collected
petrological specimens from the district early in the last century
(1816-1821), and it seemed desirable to obtain information con-
cerning the geological relations and exact localities of his specimens.
Lacroix described the rocks, which are preserved in Paris. They
may be divided into (1) fundamental biotite-gneisses, (2) schists,
(3) pyroxene-granulites (charnockites), (4) younger igneous in-
trusions. The exact localities have been traced and the specimens
identified. A map accompanies the paper. The second memoir
is by F. H. Hatch, and deals with the Kolar Goldfield, with
a description of quartz mining and gold recovery as practised in
India. The field bears a striking resemblance to the gold districts
of Rhodesia. It consists of a belt of schists containing quartz-veins,
and is part of the Transition Rocks, separated by Bruce-Foote and
given the name of ‘Dharwar System.’ There is an appendix on the
petrology by T. H. Holland.
XII.—Fossin ForaminiFera or Servis. (Pavlovic, P. 8. “ Fora-
miniferi iz drugho-mediteranskikh slojeva u Srbiji paleontologhka
studija.” Spomenika (being the Trans. Acad. Sci. Belgrade),
vol. xxxv, 1900, pp. 61-91.)—Professor Pavlovic is already known
to us by a previous publication on the above subject, which appeared
in Ghlasa, vol. lvi, 1898. This appears to be a report on the
TI Mediterranean beds, so far as relates to Servia, and will be of
Notices of Memoirs. 271
value for comparison with the fauna of those beds in Austria.
Professor Pavlovic has carefully consulted previous authors, and
thereby avoided the wholesale founding of new names; _ but
unfortunately he does not figure his new species, and we are not
sufficiently acquainted with his language to rightly comprehend his
descriptions. We hope that in future he will be able to furnish
a German, French, or English translation of the diagnosis of new
forms, as otherwise his labours will be a closed book to most. The
publications of the Servian Academy contain much important matter
on the little-known geology and zoology of the country.
XIII.—Geronocy or Eaypr. (Geological Survey Report, 1899,
pt. ii. Survey Department, Public Works Ministry. Cairo, 1900.1
“Kharga Oasis: its Topography and Geology.” By John Ball.
116 pp., 19 maps and plates.) — This is the second of a series of
reports on districts in Egypt, the first of which has not yet reached
us. The district dealt with lies between the parallels of 26° and 24°
north latitude, to the west of the Nile. The geological formations
met with are the Cretaceous, represented by Nubian Sandstone and
clays, Exogyra Overwegi series, ‘ Ash-grey Clays,’ White Chalk with
Ananchytes ovata; Eocene, represented by Esna shales, Zucina
thebaica and Operculina libyca limestones, Upper Limestone; Pleisto-
cene and Recent, calcareous tufa and sand dunes. The topography
of the Oasis is described in chapters under the general headings of
“The Limiting Escarpments,” ‘The Hills within the Oasis,” “The
Floor of the Oasis, with its Villages and Wells,” ‘ Antiquities.”
Some twenty pages are devoted to the descriptive geology; the
Cretaceous beds are correlated with the Senonian (?) and the Upper
and Lower Danian; the Eocene beds seem to belong to the lowest
fossiliferous beds of the system. Mr. Ball gives an interesting
observation on the denuding power of the sand in windy weather :
a piece of tin plate exposed for two days had all its tin coating
removed, and a bottle was rendered quite dull in the same time
by the scratching. Where objects are protected from the sand,
as at Dush, where are inscriptions in red ochre on hard white chalk,
painted some 1,400 years ago, they remain in perfectly fresh state;
rain being unknown, and frost practically so. The maps and
sections appear to be excellent, and the whole report is of much
value to the geologist and Egyptologist. We trust that the whole
of Egypt will be described in a like manner.
XIV.—Snorter Gerontocican Nores.— Mr. James MaAnsercu
delivered an interesting Presidential Address to the Institution
of Civil Engineers on November 6th, 1900. His subject was
Water and Water Supply. After a capital sketch of the works
of the ancients in this direction, especially those of the Romans,
he dealt with the law of underground water, dowsing, typical city
waterworks, etc. Mr. Mansergh approved of the Duke of Richmond’s
Commission for buying out the London Water Companies, which
reported in 1869, and also considered the finding of Lord Llandaff’s
Commission of 1899 a workable scheme.
1 This Report, though dated 1900, was not zssued until April, 1901.
272 Jotices of Memoirs.
Sir Joun Evans, at the opening meeting of the 147th session of
the Society of Arts, November 21, 1900, read an address on “The
Origin, Development, and Aims of our Scientific Societies.” Among
other matters of interest, he mentioned that in England the Society
of Antiquaries seems to be the oldest body which met for definite
purposes of enquiry. About the year 1572 “divers gentlemen of
London, studious in antiquities, formed themselves into a College
or Society of Antiquaries.” The address gave an excellent general
account of the various London Societies.
Dr. Grecory’s “ Plan of the Harth and its Causes” is appearing
in the monthly numbers of the American Geologist. To the March
number of this journal J. B. Hatcher contributes an exceedingly useful
account of the Lake Systems of Southern Patagonia, with a map.
Amone the recent publications of the Royal Dublin Society (Sci.
Proc., ix) will be found two papers of special interest to geologists
by Professor Joly. One is on the inner mechanism of sedimentation,
and deals with the fact that the presence of dissolved salts
accelerates the precipitation of finely divided matter, such as clay,
etc., suspended in water; the other concerns the theory of the order
of formation of silicates in igneous rocks.
Wirtx the view of throwing further light on the strength and
durability of slate as a roofing material, Messrs. Mellard Reade
and Holland have compared the Phyllades of the Ardennes with the
slates of North Wales in the Proc. Liverpool Geol. Soc., 1899-1900.
The object of the authors has been, ‘“‘amongst other things, to
discover, if possible, upon what composition or causes the perfection
of slaty-cleavage depends, and furthermore, to find out to what
qualities and composition the characteristics and enduring properties
of roofing slates can be attributed.”
MM. Loursr and Fortr, in their study of the relative age of the
rocks composing the Cambrian massif of Stavelot, have arrived at
the conclusion that the massif is formed of a succession of sharp and
reversed folds, becoming stronger towards the north, and consisting
of Devillian, Revinian, ‘and Salmian deposits, mainly quartzites and
phyllades. The paper appeared in the Bull. Sci. Assoc. Hléves Ecoles
Special Liege, 1900.
Captain Hurron read before the Otago Institute a general but
up-to-date account of the geology of New Zealand. The paper was
published in the Trans. New Zealand Inst. for 1899. There are
a few footnotes of critical value.
Mrs. Gorpon’s paper on “The Crust-Basins of Southern Europe”
has appeared in English in the Verh. VII Internat. Geogr.-Kongress.
Berlin, 1899 (1900). In general terms Mrs. Gordon states that
‘‘Cross movements in the Harth’s crust have as resultants a spiral
movement in one sense, accompanied in a neighbouring region by
a spiral movement in the opposite sense.” The paper must be read
to be understood ; an abstract would be of little use to the student.
Dr. Henry M. Amz has published in the Canadian Record of
Science, vol. viii, under the title of ‘Progress of Geological Work in
Notices of Memoirs. 273
Canada during 1899,” a list of papers, arranged alphabetically under
authors, published in 1899.
Tue Bulletin of the Natural History Society of New Brunswick,
No. 19, 1901, contains papers on Cambrian Fossils from Cape
Breton, by G. F. Matthew; on a new genus (Acrothyra) of Etche-
minian Brachiopods, from the Eo-Paleozoic of Cape Breton, by the
same—it is near Acrotreta; and on the physiographic origin of our
Portage Routes, being a note on the physiography of New Bruns-
wick, by W. F. Ganong.
Str ArcuisaLp Gerxie has recently issued a third edition of his
well-known work on ‘‘Scenery in Scotland,” viewed in connection
with its Physical Geology.
Accorpine to the Annual Report of the Yorkshire Philosophical
Society, the York Museum has acquired a collection of rocks and
minerals which belonged to the late Professor Piazzi Smyth. No
new fossils were purchased during 1900.
From the Report of the Rugby School Natural History Society, we
learn that Mr. Beeby Thompson has assisted in the arrangement of
the collection of local fossils, and has presented a series found during
the cutting of the Great Central Railway in that neighbourhood.
Tue geology of the Isthmus of Panama forms the subject of a paper
by O. H. Hershey in the Bull. Dept. Geol. Univ. California, vol. ii,
No. 8, 1901. The author inclines to the belief that the earliest
stratified rocks areof Jurassic age; the next, the Montijo conglomerate,
seems to be of early Cretaceous age; while between this and the
Tertiary basal conglomerate come the Santiago sandstone and shale.
The fossils apparently are too poor to allow of exact determination
at present. The Tertiaries and the Pleistocene seem well developed,
and there has been a recent depression of the coastal land, especially
on the Pacific side. A curious fact mentioned by the author is
that about a third of the paving blocks in the town of Santiago,
whose population is about 6,000, are silicified wood of pre-Pleistocene
age. This paper is really a supplement to that published by
R. 'T. Hill, in 1895, in Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard, vol. xxviii.
Tue Report of the Bristol Museum for 1890 notes the acquisition
of a large number of fossils from the Great Oolite of Minchinhampton,
and a cast of the Archgopteryx.
Mr. R. A. Buppicom reprints from the Border Counties Advertizer
for last December, a short article which states that the collections
at the Shrewsbury Museum have been entirely remounted and
rearranged by himself and Dr. Callaway. We are glad to hear it,
and hope that Owen’s type-specimen of Rhynchosaurus is now better
cared for than it was a few years ago.
In the Proc. Cotteswold Nat. Field Club, vol. xiii, pt. 3, S. 8.
Buckman reports the excursions for 1899 from the point of view
of the features of rivers and their valleys; in part 4 (1901) the
same author writes on Homceomorphy among Jurassic Brachiopoda,
a paper we hope to notice in due course.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. VI. 18
274 Reviews—Seward’s Mesozoic Plants.
B53) 921) avg JE a=3) WAG SS
T.—Catatocur oF THE Magsozorc Puiants In THE DEPARTMENT OF
Grotocy, British Musrum (Narurat History). Tue Jurassio
Frora: I. Tue Yornsuire Coast. By A. C. Srwarp, M.A.,
R.S., F.G.S. With 21 plates, and 53 figures in the text.
F
| . SEWARD’S Catalogue of the Fossil Plants of the Wealden,
N published for the Trustees of the British Museum in 1894 and
1895, is already well known to paleontologists, who will welcome the
present further instalment of his valuable investigation of the British
Mesozoic Flora. The Inferior Oolite of the Yorkshire coast district
from Filey to the north of Whitby is peculiarly rich in vegetable
remains, which have been well known since the days of William
Bean and the elder Williamson. Indeed, Mr. Seward tells us that
nearly the whole of the material at present available was obtained
by these early investigators, and that very little serious collecting
has been undertaken during the last half-century. Consequently,
the author’s work has consisted in the revision of material already
rendered classical by the investigations of a series of palzeontologists,
chief among whom was Adolphe Brongniart, to whom a number of
the specimens were submitted in the early days of his long scientific
career. Owing to the energy of the Yorkshire naturalists during the
first half of the past century, specimens are abundant, and to be
found in nearly every museum in this country as well as in several
of the Continental collections. Under these circumstances many
novelties are not to be expected, and, as a matter of fact, only two
out of the fifty-five species described are new. The value of the
Catalogue consists in accurate discrimination and judicious estimation
of affinities, and in its affording a connected view of the whole flora,
so far as at present known. Such a revision was urgently needed.
The fine illustrations form a striking feature of the volume. The
21 plates have been beautifully drawn by Miss G. M. Woodward,
while some of the numerous figures in the text are the work of
Mrs. Seward. The figures afford ample proof of the fine preservation
of many of the specimens. The only matter for regret is that none
have been found in a petrified condition, so that the study of internal
structure has been impossible. Hence, many questions of affinity
have had to be left open which might have been cleared up if
anatomical evidence had been available. In certain other localities
the student of Mesozoic Botany is more fortunate in this respect,
and indirect evidence derived from such petrified specimens has
proved all-important, especially in the interpretation of the Cycadean
remalns.
After a short historical sketch, and a rapid survey of plant-bearing
deposits of similar horizon in other parts of the world, the author
proceeds to the systematic description of the fossils. No Alge
remains worth consideration have been discovered, and the record
begins with the Hepatic, to which one thalloid species—Marchantites
erectus—is referred. The great mass of the specimens, however, is
Reviews—Seward’s Mesozoic Plants. 275
divided between the Pteridophytes and the Gymnosperms, Angio-
sperms being so far entirely unrepresented, as is still the case even
in the more recent Wealden beds.
Under the Equisetaceze two species of Equisetites are described,
plants wonderfully similar in aspect to the recent Horsetails, but
often of enormous dimensions, #. Beani attaining a circumference
of 30-40 cm. (not millimetres as erroneously printed on p. 64).
The author finds reason to believe that these large stems, like their
still larger Paleozoic allies, probably grew in thickness by the
development of secondary vascular tissue.
One species—Lycopodites falcatus—is referred to the Club-Mosses,
and regarded as more nearly allied to the genus Selaginella than to
Lycopodium. The apparently heterophyllous character, on which this
conclusion is based, is not, however, a decisive argument, hetero-
phyllous species also occurring in the genus Lycopodium.
The Ferns are, of course, abundantly represented ; the author
describes twenty species, and less cautious taxonomists would add
largely to their number. The Matoninex, a family of which the
author has treated at length elsewhere, are illustrated by some
splendid specimens of Matonidium and Laccopteris. The evidence
appears fully to justify the author in his opinion that this group,
now so restricted, played an important part in the earlier Mesozoic
vegetation.
Todites Williamsoni is referred on good grounds to the Osmundacea,
while species of the genus Coniopteris approach wonderfully closely,
in the characters both of the sterile and fertile pinne, to the recent
Cyatheaceous genus Thyrsopteris, of which a single species survives
in the island of Juan Fernandez.
The genus Dictyophyllum is placed, with Protorhipis, in the
Dipteridine, which the author regards as distinct from the typical
Polypodiacese, while Klukia and Ruffordia represent the Schizeacez.
The presence of true Polypodiaceze is more doubtful, though several
genera, including Sagenopteris, often regarded as a Marsiliaceous
plant, are provisionally referred to this family.
Among the numerous remains showing Cycadean affinities, two
genera, Williamsonia and Anomozamites, are placed in the family
Bennettites, a remarkable group, with flowers far more complex
than those of the true Cycads, the characters of which have been
revealed to us by the investigations of Carruthers, Solms-Laubach,
Lignier, and others, on petrified specimens. Mr. Seward showed, in
his Wealden Catalogue, how close is the affinity between Williamsonia
and Bennettites, and, indeed, treated the former as a subgenus of
the latter; in the present volume, however, the generic rank of
Williamsonia is again recognized. Mr. Seward has also previously
shown that the leaves of the old ‘ Zamia gigas’ really belonged to
the same plant as the Williamsonia flowers, and has thus completely
confirmed Williamson’s original restoration of the plant.
The genus Anomozamites, characterized by the almost entire or
imperfectly segmented leaves, is referred to Bennettitex on the
evidence of specimens described by Nathorst from the Rhetic of
276 Reviews—Dr. Kitchin’s Jurassic Fauna of Cutch.
Sweden, in which the characteristic foliage is borne on the same
stem with Williamsonia-like fructifications. The habit, however,
as shown in Nathorst’s restoration, with a slender, repeatedly forked
stem, is totally different from anything known among the Bennettitez
or other Cycadales.
The genus Ctenis is one of those which has oscillated, in palzeo-
botanical works, between the Ferns and the Cycads. The author
has succeeded in observing the microscopic structure of the epidermis,
and has proved that the supposed sori, held to indicate Filicinean
affinities, are not really of a reproductive nature, but represent mere
elevations of the epidermal cell-walls.
The account of the Ginkgoales, now solely represented by the
Maidenhair-tree, itself almost extinct in a wild state, is particularly
interesting. The evidence for the great antiquity of this group,
once more critically examined by the author, appears to be quite
conclusive. The remarkable seed-bearing fructification, named
Beania gracilis by Carruthers, and usually regarded as a Cycadean
strobilus, is considered by Mr. Seward to belong more probably to
the Ginkgoacez. In the course of his argument on this question, the
author makes the striking statement that ‘‘ we have no satisfactory
instance of a female Cycadean flower of Mesozoic age which can be
reasonably connected with a plant bearing Cycadean foliage” (p. 274).
In other words he considers that all the evidence indicates the
Bennettitess, and not the true Cycadacezx, as the family to which
Mesozoic Cycadales belonged, while other authorities have always
admitted the co-existence of the two groups in Mesozoic ages.
Several Conifers: are described, the most striking, perhaps, being
Pagiophyllum Williamsoni, with fairly well preserved cones in szti.
With the exception of some Araucarian cone-scales, none of the
Coniferous remains can be referred with any certainty to a special
family.
In his concluding remarks the author lays stress on the close
agreement between the European Jurassic flora and the Gondwana
flora of India and Australia. ‘‘In Jurassic times there was no
doubt a much greater uniformity in the vegetation of the world
than exists at the present day” (p. 306). Attention is also called
to the great similarity between the Lower Oolitic and the much later
Wealden flora, a similarity which in a few cases even appears to
amount to specific identity.
Mr. Seward’s new volume will be recognized as one of the most
sound and valuable contributions to Paleobotanical Taxonomy.
DENS:
I].—Jurasstc Fauna or Ourcn: Tue Bracuroropa. By F. L.
Krrcntn, M.A., Ph.D. (Memoirs of the Geological Survey of
India, 1900, ser. rx, vol. iii, pt. 1, pls. i-xv, pp. 1-87.)
We is a painstaking and very critical work, which deserves
every commendation. The author has fully realized the
responsibility of the task, and he strikes the right note in his
Reviews—Dr. Kitchin’s Jurassic Fauna of Cutch. 277
introduction (p. 4). He says in regard to cases of resemblance to
Kuropean forms: ‘It has been considered more expedient to apply
a new ‘specific’ name than to ascribe the doubtful form as a ‘ variety’
to the respective European ‘species.’ This has been done in the
belief that the application of the term ‘ variety’ is not admissible in
cases where the direct relationship to the ‘species’ either cannot be
definitely proved or at least does not appear very highly probable,
for it surely commits us to the opinion that such relationship exists,
whereas the use of a ‘specific’ name, while fulfilling the requirements
of convenience, leaves the question of relationship open.”
This is evidently the correct course. For it must be confessed
that among our English Jurassic Brachiopoda, as well as among
other fossils, too few names have been far more hindrance to our
knowledge than too many. Especially regrettable has been the
placing by study geologists as ‘ varieties’ of well-known ‘species’
forms which lived long before those species, a course taken against
the express wishes of the field geologists, but taken to satisfy the
lumping tendency so prevalent in the middle of last century.
Anyone can lump, but to lump correctly is the difficulty—that is
a paraphrase of the words of a German paleontologist. And now
it may be said in dealing with similar forms—where there is any
marked difference of horizon or locality what has to be proved is
the combination, not the separation. The former is the rash course,
and it must be justified by very clear evidence; the latter is the
course which experience has so frequently proved to be correct,
and therefore its adoption is justified by analogy.
It is the latter course that Dr. Kitchin has rightly followed. He
has found among these Jurassic Brachiopods of Cutch many forms
with striking resemblances to European species; but the chrono-
logical difference is great, and so is the difference of locality.
Remarking on the fauna as a whole the author says, “it would thus
appear that the Middle Jurassic Brachiopoda are less adapted to serve
as indices to the detailed stratigraphical comparison of remotely
separated areas than the Cephalopoda” (p. 79). This is, of course,
what would be expected, though remoteness is not always a necessary
factor. There is the remarkable case in our English Jurassic
Brachiopoda fauna, the notable discrepancy for a portion of Inferior
Oolite time of the Cotteswold species from those of Somerset—Dorset,
and even from those of Dundry, only a few miles away ; whereas
both before and after this time the same species of Brachiopoda are
found in all these districts, and even from Gloucestershire to
Wiirtemberg the Brachiopods are good indices for detailed strati-
graphical comparison.
The resemblance, which the author notices, of later Cutch species
to European forms earlier in date need not destroy the value of the
Brachiopods for stratigraphical work, though it may make direct
comparison difficult. But the same thing is known in Europe.
Many examples might be cited, but sufficient will be Zeilleria
Marie of the Middle Lias, Zeilleria bullata of the Fuller’s Earth,
Zeilleria perobovata of the Cornbrash ; or Terebratula submazillata
278 Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London.
of the Inferior Oolite and T. mazillata of the Great Oolite. Such
cases, though unsatisfactory from the stratigraphical standpoint, are
of great biological interest; they indicate the independent develop-
ment of similar forms at successive dates. So the similarity which
the author has noticed in the Indian species to earlier Huropean
forms probably illustrates the same law.
This, however, suggests a query. The author remarks that his
Terebratula euryptycha persists throughout the series of strata he
describes. But has he not put into one ‘species’ too many varied
forms? Are not these forms independent uniplicate developments—
the intermediates between non-plicate and biplicate forms? Such is
the case with the European fauna; non-plicate, uniplicate, biplicate
mark three stages in serial development, and such development is
repeated at different dates.
In drawing to a close this notice of a most interesting work it is
advisable to call the author’s attention to one unfortunate oversight :
the references in the explanations of the plates do not correspond
with the pages of the text. S. 8. B.
sod @ rev ae Sy ZAIN =e © Ciena sEINee Se
—
GEOLOGICAL SocrEty oF Lonpon.
I.—A special general meeting was held on Wednesday, March 27,
1901, at 8 p.m., the President in the chair, on the requisition of the
following five or more Fellows, namely: The Rev. J. F. Blake,
Dr. Henry Woodward, Dr. A. Smith Woodward, Sir Henry H.
Howorth, Dr. F. A. Bather, Mr. R. Bullen Newton, Mr. H. A.
Allen, Mr. C. Davies Sherborn, Dr. F. L. Kitchin, Mr. Upfield
Green, and Mr. G. H. Dibley; for the purpose of considering the
following matters :—
1. The present state of the Society’s Museum.
2. The steps necessary to be taken for putting the collections therein contained
into a satisfactory condition, if retained in the Museum; or otherwise the desirability
and conditions of their disposal elsewhere, as may be decided on.
3. The arrangements necessary to be made, in order to keep the collections con-
stantly in a satisfactory condition, if their retention is decided on.
4. The amount necessary to be expended (a) in the first instance, and (0) annually,
to carry out the decisions of the Meeting. Also to authorize the Council to incur
this expenditure ; and finally, to make such order concerning the estates or revenues
of the Society as to the Fellows assembled in such General Meeting shall appear
useful for the purpose of carrying out their decisions.
The Rev. J. F. Blake proposed and Mr. R. Bullen Newton
seconded the following resolutions :—
1. That the general collection in the Society’s Museum be limited to such specimens
as have been or may hereafter be definitely referred to, by name, description,
or figure, in the Society’s publications, or in such other works as may be
agreed upon by the Council.
2. That the specimens retained be thoroughly cleaned, provided with fresh labels
additional to the old ones, placed in drawers or boxes designed to exclude
dust, and arranged with reference to the papers or works wherein they are
referred to, and that a catalogue of such retained specimens be printed.
Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London. 279
3. me the remaining specimens be disposed of in such a way as the Council may
irect..
4. That the Council be authorized to expend, either out of capital or income, so
much as may be necessary to carry these resolutions into effect.
The following amendment was moved by Sir Henry Howorth,
F.R.S., and seconded by Professor W. Boyd Dawkins, F.R.S. :—
That in the opinion of this Meeting the time has now come when this Society
shall transfer its collections to some other museum.
The amendment was put, and there voted for it 22, against 19.
The amendment was therefore carried, and on being again put
as a substantive resolution there voted for it 26, against 19.
The amendment was therefore declared carried as the resolution
of the meeting.
II.—April 3rd, 1901.—Horace W. Monckton, Esq., F.L.S.,
Vice-President, in the Chair.
The following communication was read :—
“The Igneous Rocks and Associated Sedimentary Beds of the
Tortworth Inlier.” By Professor Conwy Lloyd Morgan, F.R.S.,
F.G.S., and Sidney Hugh Reynolds, Hsq., M.A., F.G.S.
It has long been known that igneous rocks occur in the district
under consideration, but opinions are divided as to their intrusive
or contemporaneous character. Evidence is here brought forward
to show that the igneous rocks form two bands, the lower inter-
bedded with Upper Llandovery strata and the upper overlain by
Wenlock, and that both bands are probably contemporaneous lavas.
The igneous rocks appear at two horizons, both in the Charfield
Green district and also in the district which includes Avening
Green, Damery, Micklewood, Daniel’s Wood, etc. At Charfield
their general run is north-north-west and south-south-east, and the
upper band is associated with a bed of calcareous ash. The ash
contains lapilli, felspar-crystals, quartz-grains, small shaly patches,
and fossils, cemented by calcareous matter. The fossils, determined
by Mr. Cowper Reed, probably indicate the Wenlock age of the rock.
The associated trap would thus seem to be interbedded—a con-
clusion strengthened by its uneven surface and highly amygdaloidal
character.
At Daniel’s Wood the higher bed of trap is overlain by limestones
which contain Wenlock fossils, and underlain by rocks with Upper
Llandovery fossils. The dip of the rocks appears to indicate the
existence of an anticline. The rocks underlying the trap-band of
Damery Quarry are not seen, but above the trap are rocks bearing
Upper Llandovery fossils. This trap occupies a large area near
Woodford Farm. The same band of trap at Middle Hill underlies
an ash-bed in which fossils of Upper Llandovery age have been
found. The rocks, as a whole, follow the north-eastern and northern
boundaries of the Bristol Coalfield.
280 Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London.
The microscopic examination of the lower igneous rock shows
that it is a basaltic andesite containing plagioclase (acid andesine or
oligoclase), pseudomorphs after enstatite, with chloritic and iron-
oxide patches. The higher bed sometimes contains fresh augite, and
both bands frequently contain rounded grains of quartz. In other
examples the felspars appear in three forms, with augite and
enstatite, and the rock ranges from an andesite to a porphyritic
basalt. The quartz-grains present appear to be xenoliths. The
silica-percentage of the rocks on a moisture-free basis varies from
61 to 67, while the specific gravities are from 2°74 to 2°99.
III. — April 24th, 1901.—J. J. H. Teall, Esq., M.A., V.P.B.S.,
President, in the Chair.
The Secretary read the following letter, which had been received
from H.M. Secretary of State for the Home Department :—
Home Office, Whitehall, 3rd April, 1901.
Sir,—
I am commanded,by the King to convey to you hereby His Majesty’s
thanks for the Loyal and Dutiful Address of the President, Council, and Fellows of
the Geological Society of London expressing sympathy on the occasion of the
lamented death of Her late Majesty Queen Victoria, and congratulation on His
Majesty’s Accession to the Throne.
Iam, Sir,
J.J. H. Tear, Esq., Your obedient Servant,
Geological Society of London, Cuas. T. Rircuts.
Burlington House, W.
The Presipent drew attention to a framed and glazed copy of the
Table of the British Strata by Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., F.G.S.,
and Horace B. Woodward, Esq., F.R.S., F.G.S., which the authors
had kindly presented to the Society.
In exhibiting a specimen of Crioceras occultus from the Snettisham
Clay of Heacham, near Hunstanton, Professor H. G. Seeley said that
he had no doubt that the Trigonia hunstantonensis and Crioceras
occultus, originally described as from the Hunstanton Limestone,
were from the clay at Heacham. The example of Crioceras now
shown was found by Mr.F. Deighton, of Cambridge. It differs only
as a variety from the type figured in 1865.
The following communications were read :—
1. “Notes on two Well-Sections.” By the Rev. R. Ashington
Bullen, B.A., F.L.S., F.G.S8.
The well-section at Southwark passes through sand and gravel,
etc., 34 feet, London Clay 75 feet, Woolwich and Reading Beds
56 ft. 9ins., and Thanet Sand 86 ft. 6ins., into Chalk which was
bored to a depth of 148 feet.
The well-section at Dallinghoo Post-Office, near Wickham Market
(Suffolk), penetrated 53 feet of blue Chalky Boulder-clay, into
20 feet of sand and gravel, water being found at a depth of 79 feet.
Liassic and Oxford Clay fossils were found in the Boulder-clay and
Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London. 281
stones, one of which is considered by Professor T. Rupert Jones
to have probably come from the Carboniferous rocks and one from
the Bunter. The Sands contain no Crag fossils. Mr. F. Chapman,
A.L.S., determined fossils from some of the boulders, from fragments
of stone found in the Sands, and from the Sands themselves. The
last consist of Cretaceous Foraminifera.
2. “On the Geological and Physical Development of Antigua.”
By Professor J. W. Spencer, Ph.D., M.A., F.G.S.
Antigua and Barbuda rise from the bank which occupies the
north-eastern portion of the chain of the Lesser Antilles. The part
of the bank on which these two islands are founded is submerged to
the very uniform depth of about 100 feet, but from other island-
groups it is separated by depressions of 1,800 to 2,500 feet. The
margins of the bank are abrupt and precipitous, and are indented
by deep valleys extending to the more profound depressions. The
igneous basement-rocks of the island form the south-western
mountain-belt. They are porphyritic andesites or porphyrites, with
breccias and ashes which dip north-eastward. Associated with
these rocks, and probably overlying them, are limestones which have
not yet yielded fossils. The second and median belt of the island
consists of stratified tuffs, which included marine and fresh-water
cherts. From the evidence of fossils these rocks may be Upper
Eocene or Lower Miocene, and they manifestly are closely related
to the rocks which follow them. The succeeding formation consists of
earthy marls associated with beds of white limestone, and is apparently
conformable to the underlying tuffs. A list of fossils is given, from
which it is concluded that the beds are of Upper Oligocene age.
Next follows a creamy-white, calcareous sandstone, and then the
Friar’s Hill Series of conglomerates and marls, resting unconformably
on the white limestones, and considered to be of late Pliocene or
early Pleistocene age. These are succeeded by the Cassada Garden
Gravels, recent marls containing land-shells some of which are
extinct, and coral reefs, none of which are raised.
An account of the erosion features of the region is given, and
from this the following conclusions are drawn :—The region was
an extensive land-surface, probably at least 2,000 feet higher than
now, during the Mio-Pliocene period, and was reduced by denudation
to a comparatively low elevation before the close of that time. This
was followed by a submergence (the Friar’s Hill) to a depth of
200 feet below the present altitude. At the close of the Pliocene
period there was another elevation to an extent probably exceeding
3,000 feet, as shown by the channels on the submarine plateau
between Antigua and Guadeloupe. This did not continue sufficiently
long to complete the dissection of the tablelands, and consequently
the Antigua-Barbuda mass remains intact. Then followed a sub-
sidence culminating in a 75-foot submergence, a re-elevation to
100 feet above the present level, when the shallow channels in the
submarine bank were formed, and possibly one or two other small
movements.
282 Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London.
3. “On the Geological and Physical Development of Guadeloupe.”
By Professor J. W. Spencer, Ph.D., M.A., F.G.8.
The Guadeloupe group is separated from the Antigua and
Dominica groups by depressions 2,000 feet deep. Much of Guade-
loupe itself consists of eruptive rocks, evidently as old as the
igneous base of Antigua. The lowest beds of Grande Terre are
yellow tufa, surmounted by 75 or 80 feet of volcanic sand of early
Tertiary age. A calcareous formation conformably follows, dipping
north-eastward. These two formations seem to correspond with the
Oligocene rocks of Antigua. The Lafonde Gravel and Marl succeeds
them unconformably, and it is possible that the limestone of the
Usine of Pointe a Pitre is of about the same general age. In
addition to these formations there are raised coral-reefs, consolidated
calcareous sands, alluvia, the loams and gravels of the Petit Bourg
Series, and various fragments of calcareous groups. The tooth of
a small Hlephas, allied to the Maltese type, and found in Grande
Terre, is mentioned.
The land-surface during the Mio-Pliocene period appears to have
been 2,000 feet above the present level, but it was submerged
200 feet at the close of the Pliocene period during the accumulation
of the Lafonde and Lower Petit Bourg gravels and loams. There
was a re-elevation of about 3,000 feet in the early Pleistocene period,
and during this epoch EHlephas could have crossed from the continent.
This was followed by a depression to 100 feet or more below the
present level, a re-elevation to 150 feet, submergence below the
present level with growth of corals, and the elevation of these to
6 or 8 feet above the sea.
4. “On the Geological and Physical Development of Anguilla,
St. Martin, St. Bartholomew, and Sombrero.” By Professor J. W.
Spencer, Ph.D., M.A., F.G.S8.
Deep channels, not less than 1,800 feet deep, separate the bank on
which this group is founded from the banks to the north and south.
The oldest rock of St. Martin and St. Bartholomew consists of
greenstone or dioritic porphyry usually much decayed, followed by
altered limestones, and volcanic ashes and breccias. The calcareous
divisions are associated with chert and deposits of manganese.
Fossils found in these rocks in St. Bartholomew determine the age
as equivalent to the Middle Hocene of Hurope. A white limestone
formation, which appears to correspond with the limestone series of
Antigua, follows unconformably. The limestone is partly phos-
phatized at the surface and is pitted by caverns. It is apparently
succeeded by upper strata, with a modern fauna, similar to that of
the Pointe & Pitre Limestone of Guadeloupe. The limestones are
unconformably covered by mantles of breccia, gravels, and sand,
which may be regarded as the equivalent of the Columbia formation
of the American Continent. The St. Martin plateau was a land-
surface throughout the Mio-Pliocene period, during the earlier part
of which it appears to have stood 2,500 feet above its present level,
and was probably connected with the now neighbouring insular
Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London. 283
masses, from which it was disconnected by denudation during a very
long period of atmospheric activity, followed by a subsidence, so as
to bring the present surface of the submarine banks to a level so
low that the undulating features of a base-level of erosion could be
formed on them; for, during the period when the deep and broad
depressions on the Antillean chain were being fashioned, the now
isolated island-groups stood out as table-mountains, which were
slowly being eaten away by atmospheric agents. There was next a
subsidence to about 200 feet below the present level, about the close
of the Pliocene period, followed by a re-elevation to 3,000 feet, as
shown within the area, but in reality much more. It was during
this early epoch of the Pleistocene that the great rodents described
by Professor Cope reached here from South America, but the race
continued to live here sufficiently long to give rise to distinct species.
The submergence of the mid-Pleistocene period was to the extent
of about 200 feet, and the subsequent elevation was marked by
moderate denudation with the production of shallow watercourses,
traceable across the sunken banks to depths of 150 or 180 feet.
Again there was a moderate depression sufficient to bring the
surface a few feet below the present level, succeeded by a rise during
which the low shell-bearing sands were formed.
5. “On the Geological and Physical Development of the
St. Christopher Chain and Saba Banks.” By Professor J. W.
Spencer, Ph.D., M.A., F.G.S.
The St. Christopher (St. Kitt’s) ridge rises from 2,000 to 2,800 feet
above the submarine Antillean plateau, and is for the most part
covered with shallow water, except between St. Kitt’s and Mont-
serrat, where a depression reaches 2,592 feet, and between Statia
(St. Eustacius) and Saba, where it reaches 1,200 feet. Relics of
old igneous formations are found on the islands, but in most places
they are covered by more recent volcanic formations.
The Brimstone Hill Limestone is the succeeding formation, which
appears to be newer Pliocene or Pleistocene, and to correspond with
the Upper Marls of Anguilla and those at the Usine of Pointe
a Pitre in Guadeloupe.
The St. Kitt’s Gravels succeed, and in beds of apparently the
same age shells of living species have been found at an altitude of
300 feet. The main volcanic activity belonged to the mid-Pleistocene
period. It is inferred that the group underwent the same physical
history as the neighbouring groups of islands. First there was
elevation, followed by subsidence. ‘Then came the second great
elevation to about 3,000 feet and erosion of the region, when the
deep valleys and cirques indented the margins of the tablelands, and
at the same time the great volcanic ridges were built. Next followed
another subsidence to about 300 feet below the present level, and
during this epoch the volcanic domes of Brimstone Hill and the
‘Quill’ of Statia were formed. The succeeding upward movement
carried the land 60 feet or more above the present level, when
ravines and small channels in the sunken shelf were excavated.
284 Correspondence—G. W. Lamplugh.
Another depression to 40 or 50 feet filled up these ravines. Then
came final re-elevation, and it is possible that a downward movement
is NOW in progress.
CORRESPONDENCE.
NAMES FOR BRITISH ICE-SHEETS.
Sir,—Although Professor Bonney does not, I believe, at present
allow himself to be included among “ glacialists who hold the
‘land-ice theory,’” to whom my letter on the above subject (GEOL.
Mae., March, 1901, p. 142) was addressed, his comments (GEOL.
Mae., April, 1901, p. 187) are particularly welcome as he shows,
by practical application of two of the terms, that the proposed
nomenclature may have its advantages even to the opponents of the
‘land-ice theory.’ Granting that the former existence of ice-sheets
in this country is a disputed inference, we may nevertheless find
the suggested terminology convenient in the discussion, even when it
is denied that the terms represent anything more than an ill-founded
conviction. From Professor Bonney and those who think with him
I ask no more than that the nomenclature of the British Ice-sheets
be accepted on this basis.
By the way, I will seek Professor Bonney’s permission to amend
his simile ; surely, in this case it is not that the glacialist is counting
his birds before they are hatched, but after they are flown, by the
indications in the roost.
In his playful suggestion of ‘Dogger-fjeld’ as a name for the
‘East British Ice,’ and in his accompanying argument as to
the direction of ice-flow, Professor Bonney seems to have taken
for granted that the Dogger Bank was a pre-glacial feature. But
there is much reason to believe that this Bank is of glacial origin,
while of the pre-glacial contours of the floor of the North Sea we
know nothing. In areas of low relief the radial point of ice-flow
must depend principally upon the incidence of maximum snowfall,
and under changing conditions of climate may not remain fixed
in the same place. I have elsewhere set forth facts indicating that
the Hast British Ice underwent great changes in this respect during
the progress of the Glacial Period.
The issue raised by Professor Bonney as to the transport of the
Scandinavian boulders to our eastern coast has been frequently
discussed in my writings on the Yorkshire drifts; and it seems
almost superfluous to reiterate my opinion that the presence of these
boulders does not imply their direct transport across the North Sea
basin by land-ice. I was convinced by my prolonged examination
of the Basement Clay of East Yorkshire that the invading ice-sheet
had ploughed up a sea-bottom already strewn with boulders from
the shores,—“ wherefrom it follows that we must not place much
confidence in the evidence gleaned from its erratics as to the actual
direction and distance which the ice-sheet has traversed.”
Correspondence—A. R. Hunt. 285
By another friendly critic a well-grounded objection has been
raised to the proposed term ‘Cambrian Ice-sheet,’ on account of the
risk of confusion with the common stratigraphical use of ‘ Cambrian.’
It would, perhaps, be safer to fall back upon the phrase ‘ Welsh Ice-
sheet’ (with subdivision into ‘North Welsh’ and ‘South Welsh’ if
found desirable).
As previously stated, my more immediate object is especially to
urge the adoption of names for the (hypothetical ?) ice-sheets of our
sea-basins, for which I have recently felt the pressing necessity.
On the terms proposed for the land-areas I do not at present lay
much stress, though it would be convenient if these could be fixed
at the same time. G. W. Lampiucu.
TONBRIDGE.
April 6, 1901.
THE SODIUM OF THE SEA.
Srzr,—I am extremely obliged to Mr. Fisher for his kindly notice
of my communication concerning the ‘Sodium of the Sea,” but feel
at a loss how to reply, owing to uncertainty as to whether Mr. Fisher
has considered and rejected De la Beche’s articles on Granite and
Elvan, Divisional Planes, and Mineral Veins and Faults; or, has
possibly overlooked such an ancient authority.
In addition to all that De la Beche and Dr. Sorby have written,
and since the last edition of the “ Physics of the Harth’s Crust,” we
have the additional fact that all the types of fluid inclusions found
in granites may be matched in different quartz-veins, so that all the
arguments based on the fluid inclusions in igneous magmas must be
prepared to meet the cases of the veins. My object in writing was
not so much to defend the sea-water hypothesis, as to remind
geologists that it existed. Throughout my own early training I was
never allowed to forget that the weakest link in a chain is the
measure of its strength, and I knew full well that the slightest slip
in fact or argument involved public castigation in the Transactions of
the Devonshire Association. If any of the younger geologists in
Devonshire erred in discipline our captain, William Pengelly, rarely
failed to pipe all hands on deck to witness punishment. Mr. Fisher,
I expect, will agree with me that in the present day it is considered
of far more consequence that a theory should present a solid
appearance than that each link should be tested, and if defective,
rejected, not only by the purchaser but by the chainmaker himself.
A. R. Honr.
FoxwortHuy, MorerToNHAMPSPEAD.
May 7, 1901.
INTERNATIONAL GEOLOGICAL CONGRESS.
Srr,—I regret that I omitted to express my thanks in my paper,
“ Geological Notes on Central France,” published in the GroLocicaL
Magazine (February, 1901, p. 59), to the Directors, MM. Boule,
Fabre, and Martel, for their kindness and consideration during the
286 Obituary—Edward Crane, F.GS.
Congress excursion to that region. I did not intend the notes as a
narrative of the excursion, only as a small help to friends interested
in geology who may not possess that most admirable guide, the
“‘Livret Guide,” provided by the Committee for members of the
International Geological Congress, over which so much labour must
have been expended.
T desire now through the medium of the GrotocicaL MAGAZINE
to tender my sincere thanks to the Directors, to whom we were all
greatly indebted for their kind attention and able discourses.
M. 8. JoHNston.
Hazetwoop, WimMBLEDON Hitt.
April 24, 1901.
THE FISH FAUNA OF THE MILLSTONE GRITS.
Str,—May I point out to Dr. Wellburn that the value of his
work on Paleozoology will be enhanced if he will take a little
more trouble in his method. I read Psephodus, sp. nov., Acanthodes,
sp. nov., Huctenodopsis, sp. nov.; but in all these cases I have
to dig the specific names out of the text. They should follow the
generic name; if they do not they are likely to be overlooked.
Those forms which are described, and to which specific names are
given by the author, should also have been properly entered up in
the table. The specialist will, no doubt, read such papers right
through, but that will certainly not be the case of the
OVERWHELMED RECORDER.
Ore) PAGE aya
—S eee
EDWARD CRANE, F.G.S.
Born NovEMBER 22, 1822. Diep Aprit 25, 1901.
Epwarp Crane, youngest son of Wright Edward Crane, Hsq.,
landowner, of Thorney, Cambridgeshire, and Mary, his wife, was
born November 22nd, 1822. He was educated at Wisbech Grammar
School, spent two years fishing and shooting in Ireland, and before
he was of age had settled down to the pursuit of agriculture as
a tenant farmer on the Duke of Bedford’s model Thorney estate.
In 1851 he married Jane Turnell, eldest child of a neighbouring
farmer, and remained in Thorney until 1866, when he retired and
went to live at first in the vicinity of the Crystal Palace. Soon
afterwards, accompanied by his wife and daughter, he visited the
continent of Europe, and, returning to England in November, 1867,
settled in Brighton ; having purchased a house in Wellington Road,
he resided there until his sudden death on April 25th, 1901.
When the town Museum was removed from the Pavilion rooms
to the present building in Church Street, Edward Crane assisted in
arranging the geological gallery. He became a member of the
Museum Sub-Committee in 1873 during the Chairmanship of his
Miscellaneous. 287
old friend Dr. Thomas Davidson, F.R.S. On the death of the
latter in 1885 he was elected Chairman of the Committee, in
which capacity he served the interests of science in the town of
Brighton very faithfully for eight years. Increasing age and
deafness led him to resign the Chair, but he was annually re-elected
a member of the Committee, and although rarely attending the
meetings, continued to be actively interested in the Museum, and
assisted the curators in every way. Edward Crane published in the
Brighton Public Museum Report for the years 1891-92 (Brighton,
1892) a “List of the Type Specimens in the Brighton Museum.”
He was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of London in 1872,
and frequently attended the meetings in London until his age and
deafness denied him the pleasure. He was an enthusiastic visitor at
the Natural History Museum, and also visited the principal museums
of Central Europe and Scandinavia. In 1881, accompanied by his
daughter, he made an extended tour in the Eastern and Western
United States and Canada, and in the Winter of 1884-5 visited Spain,
Cuba, Mexico, and the Southern United States. He had formed
warm friendships with scientists of that great country, which he
dearly loved. Edward Crane remained deeply interested in scientific
literature up to the last, and was keenly enjoying Macnamara’s
‘Origin and Character of the British People,” and his dear friend
Mrs. Zelia Nuttall’s ‘Fundamental Principles of Old and New
World Civilizations,” during the last week of his life. Edward
Crane passed suddenly away from heart disease of long standing
at St. John’s Lodge, Wellington Road, Brighton, on April 25th,
1901, and was cremated and interred on April 30th at Woking,
Surrey (No. 458, facing north-west), by his written directions. His
widow, Jane Crane, survives him, and he leaves issue an only
daughter, Agnes Crane, who has been a frequent contributor to
the pages of the Gronogrcan Maaazrne and other periodicals.
MISCHLILUANBHOUS.
—_»——
CoMPLIMENTARY Dinner TO Sir ARcHIBALD GBEIKIE, D.C.L.,
F.R.S., erc.—Sir Archibald Geikie, who retired from the position
of Director-General of the Geological Survey on February 28th,
after forty-six years of public service, was entertained on May Ist
at a complimentary dinner held at the Criterion, Piccadilly Circus.
The Right Hon. Lord Avebury took the chair, and among those
present were Major-General Sir John Donnelly, Sir George Stokes,
Sir John Evans, Sir Frederick Abel, Sir Norman Lockyer, Sir Henry
Craik, Sir William Turner, Sir Michael Foster, Sir Henry E. Roscoe,
Sir Lauder Brunton, Sir Henry Howorth, Sir John Murray, Admiral
Sir William Wharton, Major-General Festing, Prof. E. Ray Lankester,
Mr. 8. E. Spring-Rice, Prof. T. Me K. Hughes, Mr. Digby Piggott,
Colonel Johnston, Prof. Bonney, Prof. Lapworth, Prof. Watts,
Prof. J. Geikie, Prof. Wiltshire, Prof. Hull, Dr. W. T. Blanford,
Lieut.-General McMahon, Dr. Horace T. Brown, Major Craigie,
288 Miscellaneous.
Dr. H. F. Parsons, Dr. J. S. Keltie, Prof. Galloway, Mr. Hudleston,
Dr. P. L. Sclater, Prof. Joly, Prof. Garwood, Mr. Marr, Prof.
C. Le Neve Foster, Mr. Whitaker, Prof. Sollas, Mr. Bauerman,
Prof. G. A. J. Cole, Prof. Corfield, Mr. Monckton, Mr. Herries,
Mr. G. Griffith, Mr. Teall, Mr. Horace B. Woodward, Mr. F. W.
Rudler, and other members of the staff of the Geological Survey and
Museum of Practical Geology, Mr. G. Murray, Dr. H. R. Mill, etc.
Lord Avebury gave an interesting account of the scientific career
of the guest, and Sir Archibald Geikie made an eloquent reply.
On the menu-cards was printed the coat of arms of “The Royal
Hammerers,” designed by the late William Hellier Baily in 1849,
which we are enabled to reproduce here.
INTERNATIONAL GEOLOGICAL Congress, Paris, 1900: Awn
Avotogy.—In printing ‘Notes on the Geology of the Hastern
Desert of Egypt,” by T. Barron, A.R.C.S., F.G.S., ete. and
W. F. Hume, D.Sc., A.R.S.M., etc., published in the April number
of this Magazine (pp. 154-161), the words “Abstract of a paper
read before the International Geological Congress, Paris, August,
1900,” were, by accident, omitted to be printed as a footnote to
the title, for which the Hditor offers his sincere apologies.
Dratu oF Proressor Gustav Linpstrém, For. Mem. Geol. Soe.
Lond.—In a letter dated 20th May, 1901, addressed to Dr. F. A.
Bather, of the Geological Department, British Museum (Natural
History), Dr. E. W. Dahlgren, Librarian of the Swedish Academy
of Science, Stockholm, writes :—<“I have the painful duty to inform
you of the decease of our common friend, Prof. Gustav Lindstrom, on
the 16th inst. He had been suffering from erysipelas in the face,
but his doctor said it was not dangerous, and no anxiety was felt
about him. On the evening of the 15th, however, he became
suddenly worse, and early next day he expired.” Dr. Lindstrom
was so closely associated with English paleontologists, and was in
such intimate relations with geologists in every country, that his
loss will be keenly felt by a wide circle of attached friends. We
hope to give a suitable notice of Dr. Lindstrém’s life and work in
the July number of the Gronocican Macazinr.—H. W.
May 25, 1901.
aS ee CE awe aera ay
-
ry : a - ;
)
oe Ves ‘
nd i
ved
2) E . x ‘
es *
JOP é
wri’ a
. .
a ‘ay
# 5
. .
A ‘
— ‘ Z
™ ; 7 {
: *
1
, {
: '
st as =»
A /
Bs =
N - a
A gear i 7
hes ¢ -
**S*
, Fi
THE
GHOLOGICAL MAGAZINE.
NEV SERIES.” DECADE IV. VOLE. VII.
No. VIIL—JULY, 1901.
Oreo Ge INAS: 2 iAtied see @ale ee Se
ee
I.—Eminent Livine Grotocists: Prormssor Coartes LApwortu,
LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., of tae BrruineHam UNIversiry.
(WITH A PORTRAIT, PLATE YV.)
HARLES LAPWORTH was born in 1842 at Faringdon, in
Berkshire. Five years afterwards his parents removed to
Lower Newton, one of the farms rented by his grandfather. He
attended the country school at Buckland village, about two miles
off, and the vicar of the parish, the Rev. Joseph Moore, finding him
an omnivorous reader, generously lent him books from his own
library and practically directed his early education. At the age of
15 he became a pupil teacher in the school, and in the year 1862
entered the Training College at Culham, near Oxford, passing out
thence in 1864 with a first-class Government certificate. Of the
posts as schoolmaster which were then offered him he selected that
connected with the Episcopal Church at Galashiels, because it would
give him a home and work in the fascinating borderland of Sir
Walter Scott. This post he retained for eleven years, and was
married in 1869 to the daughter of Mr. Walter Sanderson.
His holidays were spent in wandering over the Border region, and
in the year 1869, in company with his friend Mr. James Wilson, he
began the study of the geology of the district round the town, zest
being given to the work by the discovery of fossils in rocks which
had hitherto been considered barren. His first paper, “On the
Silurian Rocks of Galashiels,’ was read before the Geological
Society of Edinburgh in 1870, and was published by that Society
and in the pages of the Gkronocican Magazine. While at
- Galashiels he wrote his paper “On an Improved Classification
of the Rhabdophora” (18738).
In 1875 he was appointed to one of the assistant masterships in
the Madras College, St. Andrews, and from that year until 1881 he
continued to teach subjects which, though not absolutely uncongenial
to him, gave little or no scope for scientific teaching or scientific
methods. But the post afforded much that he wanted, longer
holiday-time for research, greater leisure for reading, and, above all,
frequent association with such friends as Nicholson and the literary
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. VII. 19
290 Professor Charles Lapworth, LL.D., F.R.S.
and scientific men of the place. His holidays were spent in
continuing his work on the stratigraphy and fossils of the Scottish
Uplands. Here he wrote his papers on the Moffat Series, the Scottish
Monograptide, the Distribution of the Rhabdophora, and others.
But in 1881 came a welcome change, and he was able to throw
his entire energy into science, scientific teaching, and geology. His
researches and papers had by this time made his name familiar
to workers in the older fossiliferous rocks, and, backed by many
of the most famous British and foreign geologists of the day, he
applied for, and was elected to fill, the newly established Chair of
Geology and Mineralogy at the Mason College, Birmingham, his
title being afterwards modified at his own request to Professor of
Geology and Physiography. He at once plunged into the teaching
work of his Chair, but the greater leisure and opportunities the post
afforded allowed him to complete and publish his Girvan paper, to
carry out serious field-work in the Highlands of Scotland, to make
discoveries in the Midland district, and, later on, to begin that work
in the Ordovician districts of Shropshire which was to lead him
down, stage by stage, to the uttermost depths of the Longmyndian
rocks. As the years have gone on he has practically devoted all his
energies to geological and geographical work—not only as a teacher,
investigator, and writer, but as outside lecturer, textbook writer,
university examiner, scientific adviser, and in the other multi-
farious obligations which appertain to the Geological Professor of
modern days.
Lapworth was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of
London in 1872, was awarded the Murchison Fund in 1878, the
Lyell Fund in 1882 and 1884, the Bigsby Gold Medal in 1887, the
Wollaston Medal in 1899, and went on the Council of the Society in
1894. The honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by the
University of Aberdeen in 1884. In 1888 he was elected a Fellow
of the Royal Society, receiving a Royal Medal in 1891, and serving
on the Council in 1895-1896. He has acted as examiner in Geology
to the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London, Victoria, and
Wales, was President of the Geological Section of the British
Association in 1892, is an honorary member of the Geologists’
Association and other scientific societies at home and abroad, and
is now President of the Geological Society of Glasgow.
In considering the general scope of Professor Lapworth’s work
and the bearing of its results, it will be well to divide it into four
branches, Field Geology, Geology in the Laboratory and Study,
Teaching, and Applied Geology.
1. Work in the Field.
The development of the geology of the Southern Uplands may be
said to form the keynote of Lapworth’s field-work. The stratigraphy
of highly complicated districts had already been frequently studied
in outline; and in mountain districts it had been pointed out again
and again that the apparent sequence was not to be trusted. But
the detailed unravelling of such districts had been seldom attempted
Professor Charles Lapworth, LL.D., FBS. 291
with any success. It is well known that previous to Lapworth’s
researches the Silurian rocks of the Southern Uplands had been
considered to be a normal ascending sequence of greywackés, of
enormous thickness, interrupted by occasional thin seams of black,
graptolitic shale. As the graptolite fauna of each shale mass was
broadly the same as that of every other mass, it was naturally
considered that the Upland series had been rapidly deposited,
without any important organic change taking place from base to
summit; and that, consequently, graptolites were of no use for zone
work. Important negative conclusions in the matter of evolution
followed as a corollary.
One of the first things that made Lapworth suspect that things
were not as they seemed was, that graptolites of highly divergent
types, though found near together, were never met with on the same
slab of rock; and this was followed by the discovery that there
was always a difference, sometimes generic and always specific,
in the faunas of contiguous and successive bands in each shale mass.
When he had discovered that on proceeding downwards from the
greywacké of Dobb’s Linn a definite sequence of graptolites was
met with down to a certain point, he hit upon the important fact
that a corresponding and practically identical sequence was met with
also, but in inverted order, in descending beyond this point until
greywackés were again reached. It is said that, on first suspecting
this, Lapworth rushed into the field and, reaching Dobb’s Linn in the
twilight, he rapidly collected one series of graptolites in descending
to the critical point which he placed in his right-hand pockets, and
another in descending below it which he put in the left-hand pockets ;
he then carried both series off to his lodgings to compare in the
lamplight. The comparison verified his hypothesis, and he now
held the proof that in this locality, at all events, half the rock
succession was inverted. Indeed, he had got hold of the right end
of the clue which subsequently enabled him to unravel the com-
plicated stratigraphy of the region. To this task he now devoted
his spare time for seven or eight years, nor did he stop until he had
followed the divisions of the Moffat Shale from sea to sea, mapping
the critical areas in great detail, sometimes on the 6 inch scale, but
in most instances surveying and constructing his own larger scale
maps of the special localities, in which he could insert the zones
as they occurred in the field. At the same time he acquired the
large collection of graptolites necessary to verify his conclusions and
- complete his knowledge of the fauna.
Although probably himself satisfied that the hypothesis of
a chronological sequence of graptolite zones, which worked so
well in elucidating the complicated structure of the Moffat region,
must be in the main a correct one for the Uplands generally,
Lapworth proceeded to apply the severest test that he could think
of to his conclusions. For that purpose he selected next the
Girvan area, where the rocks have a different facies and graptolite-
bearing seams are rare or subordinate, but where it was already
known that there is a vast array of other Silurian fossils and very
292 Professor Charles Lapworth, LL.D., FBS.
great lithological variety in the strata. Here Lapworth found his
work much facilitated by the rich collections of fossils already made
from this district by Mrs. Robert Gray, and he was free to devote
himself to working out the stratigraphy and collecting graptolites.
The outcome of the stratigraphical work on the Girvan succession
was published in a paper to the Geological Society in 1882, but the
publication of some of the broader structural questions connected
with the surrounding area and the Uplands as a whole was deferred
for some years, and was then published as a paper on the Ballantrae
Rocks in the GroLocicaL Macazinz in 1889.
It is needless to say that the Girvan work entirely confirmed that
of Moffat in all particulars. The succession of rocks in the new
area, although more than twenty times the thickness, was found
to tally with that of Moffat, the chronological order of the fossils
common to the two areas agreed, the succession of physical
changes was coincident, and the type of structure indicated that
Moffat and Girvan were parts of the same grand region of deposition
and of the same great system of earth-movement. It is characteristic
of Lapworth, however, that not one of these coincidences is so much
as hinted at in his first Girvan paper. The local facts were described
and the local inferences drawn, but the reader was left to compare
the Girvan and Moffat phenomena, and to draw from them the
inevitable conclusions for himself.
Needless also to remind readers of the GroLocicaL MaGazInE
that the officers of the Geological Survey, unhampered in their
methods and possessed of detailed maps to work with, have in
the course of time entirely confirmed Lapworth’s conclusions in
the two areas, and, by adopting the zonal method which he initiated
with such success, they have been able in some particulars to advance
beyond his original conclusions. The great Survey Memoir on the
Scottish Uplands is not only the record of a fine piece of survey
work, but a monument to the genius of the man who made it possible.
This Upland work, together with its demonstration of the value
of the graptolite as a zone index, brought Lapworth into conflict
with the views of many of the established authorities of the time.
Particularly was this the case with the veteran Barrande, whose
well-known theory of ‘Colonies’ had been founded to get over
difficulties almost precisely similar to those which existed in South
Scotland. Barrande devoted his final ‘‘ Defense des Colonies, No. 5,”
to the matter, but, far from subscribing to Lapworth’s views, he
maintained the validity of his colonies and even named a new one
after his antagonist. But, neither on this nor on any other occasion,
has Lapworth turned aside from his course to indulge in controversy ;
he has simply gone straight on with his work.
Having demonstrated that the Southern Uplands were the relic
of a wide area of orogenic movement, Lapworth was next naturally
drawn to a region in which earth-movement had had even greater
play than in the Uplands. The experience already gained would
constitute the basis of his researches and enable him to get over
preliminary difficulties, while he would learn the effects of a much
Professor Charles Lapworth, LL.D., F-R.S. 293
more complicated movement, carried on through a longer period, over
a greater area, and to a higher degree than in the south. Hence he
started work in 1882 in the Durness-Eriboll district of the Scottish
Highlands, working after the same model as before, by selecting
definite bands of rock, zoning them, and running them as clues
through the complex. Here, however, fossils ceased to be the guide,
and it was only by noticing lithological differences that the selected
strata could be individualized and recognized from point to point.
These were mapped in detail, as before, in order to bring out the
structure. In a short time Lapworth had ascertained the true
succession amongst the unaltered rock-formations, and made out
enough of the tectonic facts to destroy once for all the old idea
of an upward succession into the so-called ‘newer gneiss.’ The
structure was of Alpine character, and “the stratigraphical
phenomena identical with those developed by Rogers, Suess,
Heim, and Broégger in extra-British mountain regions.” These
results were published in 1883 in the earlier pages of “The
Secret of the Highlands.” In the later pages he introduced,
summarized, and discussed the phenomena and principles of
mountain structure developed in Heim’s great work on “ Gebirgs-
bildung,” in preparation for the understanding of the higher stages
of the Highland work. Corresponding stratigraphical results had
been simultaneously obtained by Callaway in the Assynt district,
and the Geological Survey began their mapping of the North-West
Highlands. The Surveyors followed the zonal method, obtained
the same non-metamorphic succession, and in the course of a few
years not only demonstrated the Alpine structure of the region, but
proved the existence of some of the grandest and most important
phenomena known to the world of geology. It is to be hoped that
at no distant date we may see in a Survey Memoir on the Highlands
a worthy companion volume to the great Upland Memoir.
Lapworth returned to the Highlands in the following Summer,
but the plain living and hard thinking brought on a serious illness
which prevented him from writing further on the tectonic side of
the subject. But not before he had reached conclusions on dynamic
metamorphism somewhat similar to those arrived at on other
grounds by Lossen in the Harz and Lehmann in the Erzgebirge.
These views were summarized in a short paper published by the
Geologists’ Association (1885), and more fully developed later on in
his edition of Page’s “ Introduction to Geology ” and elsewhere.
When Professor Lapworth went to Birmingham it was thought
that the fossiliferous Llandovery rocks of the Lickey Hills were the
oldest rocks in the Central Midlands. But in the year 1882, aware
that the earlier geologists had paralleled the quartzites of Nuneaton
and the Lickey with those of the Wrekin and Caradoc, which had
later on been shown by Callaway to be at least older than the
Upper Cambrian, he suggested that these rocks were probably the
outstanding parts of a buried land surface older than the Silurian.
In less than a month actual proofs of this view were discovered at
the Lickey by Mr. F. T. 8. Houghton and by Lapworth himself.
294 Professor Charles Lapworth, LL.D., FBS.
The same year Lapworth and Mr. Jerome Harrison proved that the
rocks of Nuneaton, Hartshill, and Atherstone, instead of being Coal-
measures and Millstone Grit as laid down on the published maps,
were also parts of this buried land and of Cambrian age. This was
established by Lapworth’s finding of Cambrian fossils in the shales
of Stockingford, above the Quartzite, and volcanic rocks of Uriconian
type underneath it. These discoveries, of course, demanded fresh
maps of the districts implicated ; in 1886 the officers of the Survey
came down, satisfied themselves as to their correctness in the
Nuneaton district, and brought out new editions of their maps in
order to include them. In 1898 the same thing was done for the
Lickey Hills, the official surveyor being on this occasion an old
student of Lapworth’s, trained by him on those very hills. The
more crucial parts of both these districts had already been mapped
in detail by Professor Lapworth, sometimes in company with his
students.
The further discovery of calcareous beds in the upper part of the
Nuneaton Quartzite, by Dr. T. Stacey Wilson, led to the searching of
the rocks for fossils along this line of country by Professor Lapworth,
and the discovery of a bed of limestone bearing Hyolites and other
fossils characteristic of the lowest fossiliferous Cambrian or Htche-
minian horizons of America and elsewhere (1897).
In 1886 work was begun in the Shelve district of Shropshire, and
in the course of two or three years the sequence was made out and
compared with that of South Scotland, North Wales, and Scandinavia
(1887, 1894). In later years the more detailed mapping of the
greater part of that area has elucidated its structure, while at the
same time the more complicated Caradoc region on the east of
the Longmynd has been studied. Failing to find in that district
a satisfactory base to the Ordovician System, the Cambrian rocks
were next dealt with, the first outcome being the discovery of
Olenellus and its accompanying fauna at the top of the basal
Shropshire Quartzite (1888). This discovery resulted directly
in the finding of the equivalent of the Olenellus Limestone at
Nuneaton, and indirectly in the finding of Olenellus in the ‘ Fucoid
Beds’ of North Scotland. Thus a definite Lower Cambrian horizon
became marked out over a large area, and the base of the Cambrian
System was drawn at the bottom of the Quartzite.
It was, however, soon found impossible to complete the study of
the Lower Paleozoic sequence of this region without mapping the
underlying floor of Dr. Callaway’s Uriconian and Longmyndian rocks
and working out the sequence and structure of the Harlech anticline,
which has been more or less completed by Lapworth and his friend
Dr. Stacey Wilson.
This bald enumeration of thirty-three years’ field-work naturally
leads to a brief consideration of the causes which have contributed
to its success. The principal reasons appear to the writer to be
the following :—(1) Careful mapping on lines similar to those
adopted by the Geological Survey, but usually in greater detail ;
the difficult areas being done on as large a scale as possible, and
Professor Charles Lapworth, LL.D., FBS. 295
the crucial points visited many times over until their structure has
become quite clear. To this class of work Lapworth was naturally
drawn by his early interest in physical geography, when he was
always seeking to explain the causes underlying observed phenomena.
His untiring industry, actuated by what has been called ‘a genius
for stratigraphy’ and a good eye for a country, filled even the
dullest routine work with interest. (2) The observation of minute
lithological changes whether in a vertical or a lateral direction.
(8) The zonal collection and identification of fossils from every band
which yields them. (4) The capacity to ‘see solid’ into a map
so that a complete picture of the solid structure is constantly present
before the mind. (5) The careful thinking out of the bearing of facts
observed and entered on the maps in the light of many possible
theoretical explanations, until a consistent hypothesis is hit upon
by the method of trial and error. (6) But, above all, the power
to realize vividly the conditions which might have given rise to the
observed phenomena; so that in imagination he sees them at work
and studies their results. It has been said more than once that it
is of no use to contradict Lapworth when he has made up his mind
on a geological question, “because he was there when the rocks
were made.”
2. Work in the Laboratory and Study.
Lapworth’s investigations on the graptolites must be regarded as the
outcome of his work in the Uplands, for from this region he collected
and worked through hosts of these fossils, the difficulty of satisfactorily
identifying species causing him to save all specimens which might
lead to unmistakeable identification or throw light on the life-history
of these extinct hydrozoa. At the time he began the study the
classification of the graptolites in general use was in almost as unsatis-
factory a state as the grouping of the rocks, and the two studies had
to be carried on concurrently. But while this increased the labour it
intensified the interest, and directed attention to points which might
otherwise have been overlooked. The graptolites, among which
excellent work was also being done by Hopkinson and Nicholson,
soon began to sort themselves out ; the rock-formations resisted much
longer. Lapworth’s study and comparison of his own collection,
with those already made in other parts of the world, gave rise to his
paper “On an Improved Classification of the Rhabdophora,” which
was published in 1873, and has since been either accepted as the
standard to which graptolites are referred, or has formed the basis
upon which the newer provisional classifications are founded.
Having acquired a profound belief in the value of graptolite species
for zone work, he took every opportunity for several years to collect
specimens not only in Scotland but in Wales and Ireland, and of
studying the works and collections of others, thus accumulating
a vast amount of material for his invaluable treatise on “The
Geological Distribution of the Rhabdophora” (1879-80), in which
for the first time not only are graptolite zones established over
Britain, but the distribution of the zones and their contents all over
296 Professor Charles Lapworth, LL.D., F.R.S.
the world, so far as was then possible, was analysed, tabulated, and
described, and the inference established that the graptolite was as
reliable as the ammonite for a working stratigraphical index.
Some years elapsed before these conclusions were accepted in their
entirety, except by his friends and fellow-workers in Scandinavia,
but gradually his methods were taken up by first one and then
another of the younger men in Britain and abroad, until, eventually,
students of Paleozoic rocks in all parts were sending Lapworth
graptolites for identification, and numerous papers and appendices
to papers, containing descriptions of new species and identifications
of old ones, were published (1875, 1877, 1881). St. David’s, County
Down, Central Wales, and many other British districts soon yielded
graptolites in sufficient quantity to enable the rock-horizons to be
ascertained, and though the results sometimes conflicted with the
apparent stratigraphy, that was only so much the worse for
appearances and so much the better for facts. From foreign
countries and from the Colonies specimens came in for identi-
fication and as tests of the mapping. Led insensibly thereto by
their own discoveries, paleontologists fell into the habit of similarly
classifying their fossils and employing them zonally, so that now
the despised graptolite of thirty years ago has become universally
accepted as the guide to the zonal order of the older fossiliferous
rocks.
The Upland work demonstrated that graptolites had not been
standing still while all the Silurian rocks were being deposited,
but that there had been continual variation, modification, and
evolution. This, with the material subsequently accumulated,
bearing on the life-history and habitats of the group and the
‘probable causes to which their evolution was due, enabled Professor
Lapworth to contribute to a paper by Walther an important com-
munication on the “ Mode of Life of the Graptolites” (1897), in which
he advanced the theory that whilst the earliest and dendroid graptolites
stood upright in shallow shore water, the later and more typical
forms (Rhabdophora) hung suspended from floating sargasso-like
seaweeds, so that they were drifted over the sea-waters as ‘ pseudo-
plankton’ by currents, and their skeletons thus distributed more or
less all over the sea-bed. This gave origin to the wide distribution
of graptolite zones, and also, in all probability, was the actuating
cause of the morphological evolution of the families and genera of
Rhabdophora, as well as the explanation of their abundance in black
carbonaceous shales.
Later on Dr. Lapworth undertook the task of describing the
British graptolites for the Paleontographical Society, and devoted
a large amount of time to the correct drawing and illustrating of the
fossils. Numerous experiments in the reproduction of illustrations
were tried and are still being tried, and a new form of microscope
(the Lapworth-Parkes) was worked out, by which even large
Specimens can be drawn in great detail, and under such conditions
of lighting that no important point of structure is omitted, the main
purpose being to present the object as like nature as possible without
Professor Charles Lapworth, LL.D., FBS. 296
any interposition of the personality of the artist. The large-scale
drawings are afterwards reduced by means of photography to the
natural size of the fossil. The monograph is now being written and
illustrated jointly by Miss Elles and Miss Wood under Dr. Lapworth’s
editorship.
A rapid reader, with the faculty of quickly ‘tearing the heart out
of a book,’ of ‘spotting’ mistakes into which a writer may have
fallen, and of seeing the importance of an author’s facts even when
his interpretation is wrong, Lapworth goes to his work, whether in
the field or the study, with a clear view of the problems to be faced
and a knowledge of the crucial points for testing hypotheses, of
which he has generally plenty on hand ready for immediate use.
‘Thus it often happens that the main points in a research are settled
in a few days, but, meanwhile, a host of new problems have arisen,
and for their solution it is necessary to work out the district
‘thoroughly. As Professor Marcel Bertrand pertinently puts it,
‘Lapworth’s widest results have been often arrived at “a l’aide de
ces outils qu’il a forgés lui-méme et que d’autres eussent dédaignés.”
This, coupled with a keen zest for outdoor work, which carries him
out into the field. on every fine day and most wet ones if they
happen to be Saturdays or in holiday-time, accounts for the large
amount of single-handed field-work that he has accomplished. His
own explanation is, that it is simply the natural outcome of a child-
hood spent among books in lieu of companions, of a manhood blessed
by the constant encouragement and aid of his friends, and of almost
a lifetime passed in the sympathy of his pupils.
The keenness in understanding and appreciating the work of
others, which led Lapworth to abstract parts of Heim’s Alpine
treatise in order to show that there was nothing new in the
principles employed in his own Highland work except their
application to that district, and which is further exemplified in his
appreciative memoirs of his early scientific friends Linnarsson,
Nicholson, and Crosskey, is accompanied by a vivid imagination
which enables him to visualize accurately the subjects on which he
reads, a power of recognizing connecting links between severed lines
of enquiry, and a faculty for picking out those exceptions to laws
which indicate the existence of some greater law including the less.
In his two papers “ On the Tripartite Classification of the Older
Paleozoic Rocks” (1879) and “The Close of the Highland Con-
troversy’”’ (1885) we see Lapworth in another light. In these
. tactful endeavours to still controversy, neither of them fruitless,
we see such a grip of the subjects dealt with as to indicate
complete mastery of the literature, independent thought, extreme
care and skill in the presentation of conclusions and suggestions,
and just that gentle suspicion of the authority which his own
work on the subjects dealt with entitled him to assert. In
each case Lapworth brought out the best points in the discoveries
of the rival pioneers, and showed that of such points those
which were vital were generally the common property of the
rivals and their schools; but he indicated most firmly that past
298 Professor Charles Lapworth, LL.D., F.RB.S.
history and dead controversy must never be allowed to clog the
wheels of progress. In both cases the old men had built a firm
platform on which the new men were standing ready for the next
rush forward; they should not be too much concerned about the
building of that platform when once they are convinced about its
soundness, nor must they spend all their time quarrelling as to how
its parts were first put together. The great thing for them is to
make the next advance and to see that it is unhampered by questions
of authority or nomenclature. It is largely due to the moderate tone
of these papers that the Highland question is now no more, and that
the term ‘ Ordovician’ has been adopted nearly ail over the world.
The appointment of Professor Lapworth to the presidency of the
Geological Section of the British Association at Edinburgh in 1892
necessitated the preparation of an address, and gave him the
opportunity of welding together his researches and theories in
geology and geography by dealing with the rock - fold, the
‘wedding-ring’ of the two sciences. After treating of the
physical and geological aspects of the structure he passed on to
apply it to the making of mountains and continents, and to connect
it with the form and structure of the earth itself. Further develop-
ments of this subject in time and space were communicated to the
Geologists’ Association and the Royal Geographical Society respec-
tively, and have been treated of in college and other lectures on
tectonic geology.
As Lapworth’s South Scottish work came into contact with and
made Barrande’s theory of ‘Colonies’ untenable, so his views on
the effects of mountain movement conflicted with Richthofen’s
beautiful theory of the coral-reef origin of the limestone masses of
the Dolomites. A paper on the Dolomite country by Miss Ogilvie
(Mrs. Gordon) was read before Baron von Richthofen, who was
present at the Edinburgh meeting, and Lapworth, who had long
considered the matter, although he had never visited the ground,
took the opportunity of stating his belief that the so-called reef
structures were the result of crust-deformation and not of original
deposition, and that the associated igneous rocks belonged to the
period of movement. The work and conclusions of Miss Ogilvie
on this Dolomite region are familiar to tectonic geologists.
But although the results of Lapworth’s work have conflicted with
some of the grandest geological hypotheses of his time, there is
probably no other geologist who employs theory as a working tool
to a greater extent in his own research, in teaching, and in prompting
investigation and discovery in others, or who so instinctively relies
upon the scientific use of the imagination. In his favourite ‘fold
theory,’ ‘reciprocal’ or ‘antilogous’ theory of deformation, the
rock-fold, made up of two homologous and balanced parts, the one
positive and the other negative (‘antilogues’), is made to do duty
as the archetype, and this type, so characteristic of more or less
flexible sheets, is traced in the one direction into the wave-shape
of fluids, and in the other direction into the fractures and faults of
solid bodies. The fold-line or zero line is identified with the elastic
Professor Charles Lapworth, LL.D., F.RS. 299
curve, and the fold-shape is regarded as recognizable in all three
dimensions and in all gradations of size. When we hear the
applications of this theory employed by Lapworth to account for
the land and water hemispheres of the globe, the shapes and trends
of all crust movements, and hosts of other geological phenomena, we
are fascinated with the manner in which the countless facts fall into
apparent order and relationship, and for the time are almost willing
to accept his sanguine view that “this twisted plate unlocks the
whole treasure- house of the new geology.” But we confess, all
the same, to a feeling of profound satisfaction when its employer
asserts that it must be regarded in the meantime as a working
hypothesis, a symbolical expression of facts, rather as a means of
grouping than of explaining phenomena, until such time as its
assumptions and illustrations have been more fully identified with
the every-day results and conclusions of the physicist.
How interesting and stimulating is Lapworth’s habit of employing
some striking theory and stringing upon it crowds of associated
facts, those who attended the Shropshire excursion in 1894 will
remember, who heard him describe the effects of the rolling in of
the Caledonian crust-creep from the north-west upon the Ordovician
region, already folded to the north and south, and how the location
of the laccolites and other igneous injections in particular parts of
the wrinkles was thus determined ; or those who joined the long
excursion to Birmingham in 1898, and heard the physiography of
the middle valley of the Severn explained as the result of the
enforced irruption of the original upper Dee in early Glacial times,
or the relations of the Triassic and Paleozoic rock of the Midlands
pictured as those of a rugged mountain region slowly buried under
a sea of desert-sand and marl. In the same way his advanced
students are led to store up and correlate countless facts in their
memory by their natural harmony with some all-embracing theory,
such, for example, as the explanation of the tectonics, lithology, and
paleontology of the Palzozoic rocks on the theory of the develop-
mental history of an ancient festoon island region like that of
Eastern Asia, or the explanation of the phenomena of the
Carboniferous rocks by the struggle for supremacy between the
Caledonian and the Armorican crust-creeps. But these theories
are always regarded as servants and not masters, merely provisional
approximations to the truth.
3. Teaching Work.
For twenty years Lapworth has been sending into the world
a stream of geologists, many of them equipped, not only with know-
ledge of their subject, but with enthusiasm and capacity for original
work in it. He has watched the Mason Science College grow into
the Mason University College, and that again into the University of
Birmingham, and has taken an active part in each step of the
advance. While he does not disdain to drill his students and drum
into them by question and answer the points he wishes them to get
hold of, he is rarely content in his lectures with the mere imparting
300 Professor Charles Lapworth, LL.D., F.RS.
of information, but almost invariably he happens upon points which
rouse genuine interest. His department not only covers so much of
Geology as can be crammed into the limited time allotted to the
study, but he has started and maintained large classes in Geography,
dwelling particularly on those parts of the study which admit of
scientific treatment. Indeed, these classes, the bearing of the
Edinburgh address, and the bias of much of his own research, are
all symptoms of his attitude towards the sister science, regarding
Geology as the Geography of the past, and Geography as the
Geology of the present. He has aroused a widespread local interest
in Geology by delivering afternoon and evening lectures of a more
popular but still systematic character, by holding weekly excursions
during the Summer, and by delivering occasional lectures in the
neighbouring towns. Amongst the characteristic features of his
teaching may be mentioned the classes on structural and field
geology, his economic courses, and his research classes. His classes
on structural geology learn the principles which guide the field
geologist’s work, and his practical class spends a term in the actual
mapping of a Midland district on the six-inch scale, with the
accompanying office-work. One or more workers are generally to
be found in the research department engaged upon graptolites,
trilobites, brachiopods, rock-specimens, or other material collected
in the field. In order that he may have a larger amount of time to
devote to investigation and to those portions of his teaching which
may be regarded as special to himself, the lovers of science in the
city and district have provided him with an assistant-professor to
take the rest of his College teaching.
For many years a Geological Section of the Birmingham Natural
History and Philosophical Society has met in his rooms in the
Mason College. The largest contributor of papers and subjects for
discussion has been the Professor himself, but the first drafts of
many papers afterwards contributed to the greater learned societies
have often been read and discussed by his students in that Section.
By conducting long excursions for the Geologists’ Association, the
British Association, and other bodies, into districts with which he was
especially familiar, by publishing papers and guidebooks descriptive
of the regions to be studied, and by his textbooks on geology and
physical geography, his teaching has reached a wider circle.
But more far-reaching still has been his influence amongst
specialists. The zonal and graptolite work has been taken up by
many observers in similar lines of research, not only in Britain,
but all over the world, in Scandinavia, Bohemia, France, Canada,
and the United States. The value of his advice and assistance has
been felt again and again by scientific investigators. His faculty
for picking out exceptional facts, the patience which enables him
to listen to a long and detailed account of a research, the avidity
with which he seizes on those points which fit in with or run
counter to his own theories, his delight in each bit of new discovery,
and, above all, his encouraging sympathy and the generous manner
in which he gives his own ideas and principles-in the hope that they
Professor Charles Lapworth, LL.D., ERS. 301
may bear fresh fruit in new soil, all make him an ideal confidant ;
for to him there is nothing that is ‘‘conmon or unclean,” each branch
of research has its separate value, and he has the faculty of giving
those who consult him the impression that their work forms a part
of some greater whole; there is nothing more encouraging to
a young man than to find that what he had perhaps considered an
isolated line of enquiry is really linked up with the advance of
science as a whole.
Although it comes rather under the head of administrative than
educative work, it may be here mentioned that Lapworth’s intense
belief in the practical and educational value of geology has led him
to advocate the teaching of the economic side of the science, not
only to miners, prospectors, and engineers, but to those engaged in
building, surveying, brewing, and sanitary business, and of the
pure science to those who are never likely to make any practical use
of it except as a means of enlarging their knowledge of nature.
Throughout a good deal of friendly antagonism to the Geological
Survey he has always retained the personal friendship of its Officers
and strenuously maintained the vital importance of that institution to
the country; and acting recently on a Departmental Enquiry into
the functions and work of the Survey he has taken his share in
remodelling its scope and administration.
4. Applied Geology.
During his residence ia Birmingham Lapworth has been frequently
consulted in matters relating to such subjects as sites, water, and
minerals. In this way he has had means of acquiring a vast amount
of information, otherwise inaccessible, relating to the structure of the
Midland coalfields and their surrounding areas. Indeed, it may be
said that one of his main inducements to undertake this class of
work has been in order to enrich his knowledge of a branch of
science which is practically untouched by the learned societies and
the textbooks. The complicated geology of the Midlands, a rugged
region covered unconformably by Coal-measures and in most places
buried up unconformably by New Red Sandstone, gives rise to
a series of difficult problems, each of which must be the subject of
a special investigation involving scientific methods, the careful
mapping of areas, and the disentangling of the involved structure
of difficult districts. In the Midland region, at least, it has become
abundantly clear that the most complicated questions of stratigraphy,
_ vulcanicity, and paleontology, all have an eventual, if not an
immediate, application to the economic side of the subject ; and that
there is probably no problem in pure geology that will not in the end
have its bearing on applied geology.
In conclusion, one would like, were it permitted, to say a word of
the man apart from the geologist. But, after all, is it necessary ?
His personality is so well known, his influence so wide, his geniality
and kindliness of heart so patent to his friends, that it is quite
needless to refer to them; and his enemies have yet to be discovered.
302 Professor Charles Lapworth, LL.D., FBS.
Opponents and antagonists there have been in plenty, but it is in
their ranks that we find many of those who respect Lapworth most,
whilst not a few of them have become his warmest friends.
SCIENTIFIC PAPERS BY PROFESSOR C. LAPWORTH.
1870. ‘On the Lower Silurian Rocks of Galashiels’?: Grot. Mae., Dec. I,
Vol. VII, pp. 204-209, 279-284; Trans. Edinb. Geol. Soc., vol. 11 (1874),
. 46-58.
is72. On the Graptolites of the Gala Group’’: Rep. Brit. Assoc., vol. xli, p. 104.
1872. ‘* Note on the Results of some Recent Researches among the Graptolitic Black
Shales of the South of Scotland’”’: Grou. Mac., Dec. I, Vol. IX, pp. 533-555.
1873. ‘‘On an Improved Classification of the Rhabdophora’”’?: Grou. Mae.,
Dec. I, Vol. X, pp. 600-604.
1874. <‘‘ Note on the Graptolites discovered by Mr. John Henderson in the Silurian
Shales of Habbie’s Howe, Pentland Hills’’: Trans. Edinb. Geol. Soc., vol. ii,
pp. 376-377.
1874. ‘*On the Diprionidee of the Moffat Series’’?: Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. iii,
pp. 165-168.
1874. <‘‘ On the Silurian Rocks of the South of Scotland ’’ [1872]: Trans. Glasgow
Geol. Soc., vol. iv, pp. 164-174.
1875. (With John Hopkinson.) ‘‘ Descriptions of the Graptolites of the Arenig and
Llandeilo Rocks of St. Davids ’’ [1874]: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxxi,
pp. 631-672.
1876. (With Professor Henry Alleyne Nicholson.) ‘‘ On the Central Group of the
Silurian Series of the North of England”’: Rep. Brit. Assoc., 1875, pp. 78-79.
1876. ‘On the Scottish Monograptide ’’?: Grozt. Mac., Dec. II, Vol. II,
pp. 308-321, 350-360, 499-507, 544-552.
1876. ‘Llandovery Rocks in the Lake District”: Grou. Mac., Dec. II, Vol. ITI,
pp. 477-480.
1876. ‘Silurian Rocks of the West of Scotland ”’ (with figures of the Graptolites) :
Western Scottish Fossils Catalogue.
1877. ‘On the Graptolites of County Down ’’: Proc. Belfast Nat. Field Club,
Appendix, 1876-7, pp. 125-144 ; three plates.
1878. ‘The Moffat Series’? [1877]: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxxiv,
pp. 240-343, 345-346.
1879. ‘On the Tripartite Classification of the Lower Paleozoic Rocks’’: Grou.
Mace., Dec. II, Vol. VI, pp. 1-15.
1879-80. ‘On the Geological Distribution of the Rhabdophora’’: Ann. Mag. Nat.
Hist., vol. iii (1879), pp. 245-257, 449-455 ; vol. iv (1879), pp. 333-341,
423-431; vol. v (1880), pp. 45-62, 273-285, 358-369; vol. vi (1880),
p. 16-29, 185-207.
1880. <‘‘On the Genus Nemagraptus (Nematolites) of Emmons’’ [1879]: Proc.
Edinb. Phys. Soc., vol. v, pp. 106-118.
1880. ‘‘ On Linnarsson’s Recent Discoveries in Swedish Geology”: Gxou. Mae.,
Dec. II, Vol. VII, pp. 29-37, 68-71, 240.
1880. ‘‘On New British Graptolites’’: Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. v, pp. 149-177.
1880. ‘On the Correlation of the Lower Paleozoic Rocks of Britain and
Scandinavia’’?: Guon. Maa., Dec. II, Vol. VIII, pp. 260-266, 317-822.
1880. <‘‘ On the Cladophora (Hopk.) or Dendroid Graptolites collected by Professor
Keeping in the Llandovery Rocks of Mid-Wales”’ [1880]: Quart. Journ. Geol.
Soc., vol. xxxvii, pp. 171-177.
1881. “Introductory Textbook of Physical Geography,” by the late David Page.
Tenth edition, Revised and enlarged by C. Lapworth.
1882. ‘* Recent Discoveries among the Silurians of South Scotland” [1878]:
Trans. Glasgow Geol. Soc., vol. vi, pp. 72-84.
1882. <The Girvan Succession’’; Part i, Stratigraphy [1881]: Quart. Journ. Geol.
Soc., vol. xxxviil, pp. 537-664.
1882. ‘The Life and Work of Linnarsson”: Gon. Mac., Dec. II, Vol. IX,
p. 1-7, 119-122, 171-176. [Silurian Rocks of Sweden. |
1882. ‘*On Graptolites’’ [Abstract]: Trans. Geol. Soc. Glasgow, vol. vi, pt. 2,
pp. 260-261.
Professor Charles Lapworth, LL.D., F.R.S. 303
1882. ‘* History of the Discovery of Cambrian Rocks in the Neighbourhood of
Birmingham’’?: Gront. Maa., Dec. II, Vol. IX, pp. 563-566; Proc.
Birmingham Phil. Soe., vol. iii (1883), pp. 234-238.
1883. ‘The Secret of the Highlands’’: Grou. Maa., Dec. II, Vol. X, pp. 120-128,
198-199, 337-344.
1883. ‘* Geikie’s Textbook of Geology’? : Grou. Mac., Dec. II, Vol. X, p. 39.
{1884 ?] ‘*The Mason College and ‘Technical Education’’: an address delivered at
the Mason Science College, Birmingham, 1884.
1885. ‘‘ On the Close of the Highland Controversy’: Grou. Maa., Dec. III, Vol. II,
pp. 97-106 ; see also Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. viii (1884), pp. 438-442.
[1885 ?] <‘* Books on Historical Geology”: Birmingham Reference Library Lectures.
1885. ‘‘On the Durness and Eriboll Areas’’: Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. ix, No. 2,
. 56-66.
1886. On the Sequence and Systematic Position of the Cambrian Rocks of
Nuneaton’’: Grou. Maa., Dec. III, Vol. III, pp. 319-322.
1886. <‘*On the Paleozoic Rocks of the Birmingham District’’: Rep. Brit. Assoc.
(Sect. C), 1886, pp. 621-622; see also British Association Handbook, 1886,
pp. 216-236,
1886. <‘‘ Preliminary Report on some Graptolites from the Lower Paleozoic Rocks on
the South Side of the St. Lawrence from Cape Rosier to Tartigo River, etc.”:
Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada (Sect. iv), 1886, pp. 167-184.
1887. ‘‘The Cambrian Rocks of the Midlands’’: Rep. Brit. Assoc. (Sect. C), 1886,
. 622-623.
isg7. ee The Ordovician Rocks of Shropshire’’: Rep. Brit. Assoc. (Sect. C), 1886,
pp- 661-663.
1887. ‘‘The Highland Controversy in British Geology, its Causes, Course, and
Consequences ’’: Rep. Brit. Assoc. (Sect. C), 1886, pp. 1025-1026.
1888. ‘On the Discovery of the Olenellws Fauna in the Lower Cambrian Rocks of
Britain’’: Grou. Mac., Dec. III, Vol. V, pp. 484-487.
1888. ‘Introductory Textbook of Geology,’’ by David Page; revised and in great
part rewritten by C. Lapworth.
1889. ‘On the Ballantrae Rocks of South Scotland, and their Place in the Upland
Sequence’’: Grou. Maa., Dec. III, Vol. VI, pp. 20-24, 59-69.
1889. ‘‘ Note on Graptolites from Dease River, B.C.’’: Gon. Mag., Dec. III,
Vol. VI, pp. 30-81; see also Canadian Record of Science, vol. iii (1889),
pp. 141-142.
1891. ‘‘On Olenellus Callavei and its Geological Relationships’?: Gron. Mae.,
Dec. III, Vol. VIII, pp. 529-536.
1891. ‘‘The Geology of Dudley and the Midlands,’’ an address delivered to the
Midland Union of Natural History Societies: Proc. Dudley and Midland Geol. &
Sci. Soc. & Field Club, 1891. :
1893. Address to the Geological Section of the British Association: Rep. Brit.
Assoc., 1892, p. 695. See also ‘‘ Heights and Hollows of the Earth’s Surface”’ :
Journ. Roy. Geog. Soc., N.s., vol. xiv (1892), pp. 688-697.
1894. (With W. W. Watts.) <‘‘The Geology of South Shropshire ”: Proc. Geol.
Assoc., vol. xiii, pp. 297-355; two plates.
1894. ‘* The Face of the Earth’’: Nature, vol. xlix, pp. 614-617.
1894. ‘Our Future Coalfields,’’ abstract of Gilchrist Lecture: Birmingham Daily
Post, 1894.
1895. ‘‘Dr. Crosskey and Geology’’: extracted from ‘‘ The Life and Work of
Henry William Crosskey, LL.D., F.G.S.”? ; Birmingham, 1895.
1897. ‘‘ Die Lebensweise der Graptolithen’’ ; contributed to ‘‘ Ueber die Lebens-
weise fossiler Meeresthiere von Prof. Dr. Johannes Walther”: Zeitsch. der
Deutsch. Geol. Gesell., vol. xlix, 2, pp. 238-258.
1897. ‘Note on Cambrian Hyolithes Sandstones from Nuneaton’’: Trans. Edinb.
Geol. Soc., vol. vii, pp. 281-282.
1898. ‘Sketch of the Geology of Birmingham District, ete. ’’: Proc. Geol. Assoc.,
vol. xv, pp. 313-408.
1899. ‘The Survey Memoir on the Southern Uplands
Dec. IV, Vol. VI, pp. 472, 510.
1899. ‘‘ An Intermediate Textbook of Geology,’’ founded on the ‘‘ Introductory
Textbook of Geology ’’ by the late David Page.
99
; areview: Grou. Maa.,
304 HH. Stanley Jevons—Nomenclature of Igneous Rocks.
I].—A Systematic NomMENCLATURE FoR IGNEOUS Rooks.
By H. Stanrey Jevons, M.A., F.G.S.,
Assistant. Demonstrator in Petrology in the Woodwardian Museum, Cambridge.
J. InrrRopuctTorY.
f{\HE present nomenclature of igneous rocks is generally ac-
knowledged to be unsatisfactory, for not only is it without
useful meaning, but it is also so unsystematic that it forms a severe
tax upon the memory. The manifest and urgent need of reform,
which these circumstances create, must be my excuse for presenting
in a short note a suggestion likely to require much elaboration.
A systematic nomenclature, I need hardly say, can only rest upon
a systematic classification, so that the proposals I shall herewith
make would have been fitly accompanied by an attempt at producing
a classification of the kind. As I have found, however, that much
expenditure of time and labour will be necessary to accomplish this
task, I have decided upon publishing at once certain proposals with
regard to nomenclature, which could be largely applied to classifi-
cations at present in use.
It has long been the custom of many authors to name subdivisions
of groups by prefixing to the family-name the name of the mineral
which distinguishes the subdivision.1 Thus we have, for instance,
muscovite-granites, biotite-granites, hornblende-granites, and augite-
granites; also hornblende-biotite-granites, augite-biotite-graniies, etc.
This system is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, because the
name of a sub-group is thus made to point out the distinguishing
feature in its composition. When more than one prefix is required,
however, such names become too cumbrous for general use, and the
practical result is that in such cases a new name is invented,
generally signifying nothing but the locality where the rock was
first found, or the name of its discoverer. The method breaks down,
in fact, under a severe test.
IJ. Description oF PREFIXES.
The system of nomenclature which i propose is based upon that
just described, but differs from it in that the prefixes are contracted.
Several can be used, therefore, before a name tends to exceed
a reasonable number of syllables in length. Instead of hornblende-
biotite-granite, for instance, I should say hornbi-granite, pronouncing
the bi-syllable long, as in ‘ biotite.’
Other advantages have been secured by the use of conventions as
to the arrangement of the prefixes, and as to the exact meaning of
the family-names. The order of the prefixes denotes the relative
abundance of the minerals, that of the most abundant standing next
to the family-name. Thus in a hornbi-granite biotite preponderates
over hornblende, whilst in a bihorn-granite the reverse is the case.
1 LT use the term family throughout in the sense in which it is used by Rosenbusch
in his ‘‘ Elemente der Gesteinslehre,’’ that is to say, for groups like the granites,
diorites, etc.
H. Stanley Jevons—Nomenclature of Igneous Rocks. 305
If objection were taken to making the relative abundance of minerals
a factor in the nomenclature, I should answer that I believe it will
prove a useful step, as too little attention has hitherto been paid to
variations in the relative abundance of a rock’s constituents, and
there exists a very simple method of determining this factor."
Other properties besides mineral composition are occasionally
made use of as bases of subdivision, and further prefixes will be
required in naming the groups thus formed. When the subdivisions
are based upon structure, prefixes may be obtained by contracting
the names of the various structures. For example, pilotawitic can
be contracted to pitaxo-, intersertal to inserto-, and so forth. It is
almost exclusively amongst the dyke-rocks and lavas that structure
is made the basis of subdivision, and names would be produced
such as mipegmo-rhyolite for a granophyric or micropegmatitic
rhyolite, or hypidio-basalt for a basalt with hypidiomorphic-granular
structure.
Besides mineral and structure prefixes, others denoting some fact
in the chemical composition of the rock as a whole may be required.
Thus bas- or basi- would mean basic, ali- would signify alkaline,
and soon. These prefixes should generally come immediately before
the family-name, and should be separated from it by a hyphen
when they are used to name subdivisions of the principal families.
Thus the alkaline-syenite family, a group which may be ranked
as of equal importance with the normal or calc-alkaline syenites,
would be named alisyenite; but the name of the basic subdivision
of the diorite family, if such a subdivision were made, would be
written basi-diorite with a hyphen.
III. Inpex MInERALs.
The use of a family-name must evidently in every case imply
the presence in the rock to which it is applied of certain essential
minerals, which need not therefore be mentioned in the prefix.
These I term the index minerals of a family, because, being common
to all its members, they serve to point out to which family a new
specimen belongs. As an example, I may take the family-name
granite. Every rock so named, whether there be a prefix or not,
must contain the minerals quartz and orthoclase in abundance, and
these, therefore, are its index minerals. Granites usually, of course,
contain other minerals besides, and some or all of them may be
mentioned in the prefix. In the same way the index minerals of
gabbro are obviously plagioclase and monoclinic pyroxene.
It is very important that accurate definitions of the index minerals
of all rock-families should be provided; but I am not in a position
to supply them at present. A few such definitions 1 have been
successful in framing, and I therefore feel confident that with
sufficient study every family can be properly defined.
In the meantime, before this work is completed, the want of
accurate definitions will not seriously affect the application of
1 See A. Rosiwal: Verhandlungen der k. k. geol. Reichs-Anstalt, 1898, p. 143.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. VII. 20
306 A. Stanley Jevons—Nomenclature of Igneous Rocks.
the system of nomenclature here proposed. Petrologists of any
experience know more or less accurately from constant use the
index minerals of every family, and ambiguity is likely to arise
only in the case of rocks falling near the boundary between two
families.
TV. Tue PREFIXES a- AND mono-.
The recognition of index minerals and the formation of definitions
would be of little use, however, if the fact were not acknowledged
that rocks exist which do not contain the index minerals of any
family, and so cannot be classified at all if the scheme be rigidly
maintained. So far as I know, such aberrant forms are nearly
always schlieren, products of differentiation in immediate continuity
with and passing gradually into the parent mass; and they are
therefore generally classed along with the rock of their parent mass,
from which they differ only in the absence of one of the index
constituents.’ To indicate the abnormality of their composition in
their names, I propose to place in the prefix the name of the absent
index mineral, preceded by the privative a-. This combined prefix
should stand immediately in front of all the other mineral prefixes,
separated from them by a hyphen. As examples of names thus
produced I may quote apyr-gabbro for anorthosite, which is essentially
a gabbro without the pyroxene, and apyr-magne-peridotite, which
denotes certain of the schlieren which sometimes occur in masses
of gabbro and peridotite, and consist of magnetite associated with
olivine and only traces of other minerals.
The difficulty of determining whether a mineral is actually
present or not, when it is suspected in small quantities, will tend
to produce confusion, if an index mineral must necessarily be
absolutely wanting before it can be declared absent in the name.
For all practical purposes an index mineral has vanished if its
proportion be less than 5 per cent. by weight of the whole rock,
and I therefore propose this amount as the limit, falling below which
the rock either passes into another family or requires the missing
index mineral placed in the prefix with the privative a-.
There remains yet one more prefix whose use I have found
indispensable, namely mono- or mon-, meaning only. It is of use
chiefly in the case of sub-groups which are distinguished from others
of the same family by the absence of minerals, rather than their
presence. For instance, a rock which consists of nothing but the
index minerals of some family can only be distinguished from other
members of the same family by the absence of the minerals which
characterise them. This want of additional minerals may be
expressed by using mono- as the sole prefix in naming a rock.
Thus a mono-gabbro is a rock consisting solely of an intermediate
or basic plagioclase and a monoclinic pyroxene, the index minerals
1 The word schizere is here used in the sense defined by Rosenbusch (‘‘ Elemente
der Gesteinslehre,’’ 1898, p. 41), Reyer (‘¢ Theoretische Geologie,” p. 81), and Zirkel
(‘‘ Petrographie,’’ 1893, i, p. 787). It has been introduced into the English language
by Holland (‘‘The Charnockite Series’’: Mem. Geol. Surv. India, vol. xxviii, p. 217).
H. Stanley Jevons—Nomenclature of Igneous Rocks. 307
of the gabbro family, no account being taken of the usual accessories.
Reference to the table (No. IV) on p. 312 will show that this prefix
occurs again in the descriptive name for umptekite, namely monamph-
-alisyenite. It is used here because, whilst in certain members of the
family an amphibole is the most abundant ferromagnesian mineral,
in umptekite it is the only one, and to avoid all risk of confusion it is
well to state that fact in the name. The use of this prefix is really
simply a means of avoiding the use of the same name in both an
extended and restricted sense at once.
V. OrperR oF PREFIXES.
The order in which prefixes of different kinds are placed when
required in the same name is an important matter. The rule which
I propose is that a prefix used to name a major subdivision be
always placed nearer to the family name than a prefix used for
a minor subdivision. For instance, supposing that the subdivisions
of the dolerite family, founded on mineral composition in the
ordinary way, were themselves subdivided according to structure,
then the structure prefix would always precede the mineral prefix
in the name of each of the ultimate subdivisions, producing such
names as ophit-oli-dolerite, hypidio-horn-dolerite, etc. When on the
other hand the first subdivision is on the basis of structure, as in
the rhyolites, the order must be reversed, producing such names as
diopsi-mipegmo-rhyolite, bi-perlo-rhyolite, etc. This rule is obviously
the most convenient, for it leaves the name of a major subdivision
intact in the names of the minor subdivisions which it contains,
so that a single glance shows to which major subdivision any minor
subdivision belongs. It must not be supposed that this double
subdivision and the cumbrous names it produces will be frequently
employed. It is probable, however, that as the study of igneous
rocks progresses, subdivision will be carried further and further ;
and it is therefore well to be prepared beforehand with a method
for naming sub-groups of future origin in any system of nomen-
clature which we adopt to-day.
It will have been observed that hyphens are always placed
between prefixes of different kinds, and between a prefix and the
family-name, in order to facilitate reading the compound name.
They are not required to separate prefixes of the same kind, as for
instance when a series of mineral prefixes follow one another, nor
should they be inserted within family- or subfamily-names.
VI. Lists or CONTRACTIONS.
The various kinds of prefixes have now been fully discussed.
For the sake of uniformity, in case others should wish to use this
system, I proceed to display in full all the contractions which
appear likely to be necessary. The first list, containing the
contractions of mineral names, includes, I believe, all that are
likely to be required. It will be noticed that different forms are
generally needed according to whether the next syllable begins with
a vowel or a consonant.
3808 H. Stanley Jevons—Nomenclature of Igneous Rocks.
Table I. List of Contractions for the Names of Minerals.
BEFORE A BEFORE A BEFoRE A BEFORE A
Minerau Consonant VoweEL Minerau Consonant VoweEL
Actinolite Actino- Actin- Hornblende Horn- Horn-
Aigyrine Liigi- g- Hypersthene Hyper- Hyper-
Albite Albi- Alb- Labradorite Labra- Lab-
Amphibole Amphi- Amph- Leucite Leu- Leuc-
Analcime Analci- Anal- Magnetite Magne- Mag-
Andesine Ande- Andes- Melanite Melano- Melan-
Anorthite Anorthi- Anorthi- Melilite Melli- Mel-
Anorthoclase Anorthoclase- Anorthoclas- Mica Mica- Mica-
Anthophyllite Antho- Anthy- Microcline Microcline- Microcline-
Apatite Apa- Ap- (Ortho-) (Orth-)
Arfvedsonite Arive- Arfved- Muscovite Musc- Musc-
Augite Augi- Aug- Nepheline Neph- Neph-
Barkevicite Barke- Bark- Nosean Nose- Nos-
Basalt Horn- Oligoclase Oligo- Olig-
blende \Bashorn- Bashorn- Olin, OIE Ol
Biotite Bi- Bi- Orthoclase Ortho- Orth-
Bronzite Bronzi- Bronz- Pyroxene Pyro- Pyr-
Bytownite Byto- Byt- Quartz Quartz- Quartz-
Cancrinite Cancri- Can- Riebeckite Riebe- Rieb-
Corundum Corun- Corund- Sodalite Sodali- Sodal-
Diallage Dial- Dial- Sphene Spheni- Sphen-
Diopside Diopsi- Diop- Titanite Tita- Titan-
Enstatite Ensta- Enst- Topaz Topa- Topaz-
Felspar Fels- Fels- Tourmaline Tourma- Tourm-
Garnet Garnet- Garnet- Tremolite Tremo- Trem-
Haiiyne Hau- Hau- Zircon Zircon- Zire-
The names of structures do not admit of contraction quite so
readily as those of minerals, but it is only in very few cases that the
name cannot be reduced to three syllables. The list of contractions
given below (Table II) is almost complete, but for some words such
as hypocrystalline-porphyritic and glomeroporphyritic, besides granular,
granulitic, etc., unambiguous contractions do not exist. It may
become necessary, in some cases, to adopt new names for such
structures, though I hesitate to go so far at present. Suggestions
from any quarter will, however, be gratefully received and con-
sidered. In the case of names for which contractions cannot be
invented, and which are therefore omitted from the following list, it
will probably be best for the present to use the whole name without
contraction.
The contractions are given in the form which should be used
when the next syllable begins with a consonant. When followed
by a vowel the finai -o should in most cases be dropped. The
pronunciation remains unaltered in contractions which are formed
by the omission of a syllable from the centre of the word. Thus, for
instance, the mi- in misphero- is pronounced long as in ‘ microscope’
or ‘microspherulitic,’ and not short as in ‘ miss.’
The name amygdaloidal is omitted from the list because that
structure is merely a secondary derivative of the vesicular structure.
As it is generally the rule in naming an igneous rock to imagine it
back in its original and unaltered condition, the two structures
H, Stanley Jevons—Nomenclature of Igneous Rocks. 309
become for our purpose essentially the same, and the name vesicular
may be used for both.
Table II. List of Contractions for Names of Structures.
NaME CoNTRACTION NaME ConTRACTION
Allotriomorphic-granular Allotrio- Ophitic Ophito-
Eutaxitic Eutaxo- Panidiomorphic-granular Panidio -
Felsophyrie (see Microfelsitic) Mifelso- Pilotaxitic Pitaxo-
Glassy or vitreous Vitri- Peecilitic Peecilo-
Hyalopilitic Hyapilo- Porphyritic Porpho-
Hypidiomorphic-granular Hypidio- Rhomboidal (Rhomben-)) Bhoncdel
Intersertal Inserto- felspar structure aes
Miarolitic Miaro- Spherulitic Sphero-
Microfelsitic Mifelso- Trachytic Tracho-
Micropegmatitic or Granophyric Mipegmo- | Variolitic Varilo-
Microspherulitic Misphero- | Vesicular Vesico-
Ocellar Ocello- Vitrophyric (see Glassy) Vitri-
There remain a few miscellaneous contractions which are
occasionally employed, and may be conveniently exhibited in
another table. The prefixes for ‘rich in soda’ and ‘rich in
potash’ are obtained by contracting the German words natron and
kali, rather than the English words soda and potash, because, owing
to their use for symbols in chemistry, the former are more widely
understood in England than are the latter in Germany.
Table III. List of Miscellaneous Contractions.
BEFORE A CONSONANT BEFORE A VOWEL MEANING
a- 500 Aa an- sie without (privative)
ali- see Bee ali- ats rich in alkalies
basi- ah eo bas- op basic
calci- ous fe cale- ee rich in lime
kali- 8c See kali- es rich in potash
kalko- was se kalk- in rich in lime (German)
medio- Te i medi- oe medium, middle
mono- doc oO mon- SoC only
multi- eee Bus mult- ae much, many
natro- be ae natr- be rich in soda
pauci- pauc- Bee little, few
VII. Famity-Names.
For the sake of further illustration, I have prepared, and
reproduced below, a table showing the classification of the Alkaline
Series of plutonic igneous rocks, which gives both the old and the
new names (see Table IV, p. 312). The Alkaline Series is troubled
with a particular superabundance of names. Probably this is
because most of its members have been discovered in recent years,
since detailed petrographical research became general, and its families
have therefore actually become subdivided to a far greater extent
than those of the Calc-alkaline Series, although the latter has been
studied very much longer. The table therefore shows that a great
number of names will become redundant, if a systematic nomen-
clature be adopted.
Hitherto nothing has been said respecting the names of families.
This is because complete revolution is impossible, and existing
310 H. Stanley Jevons—Nomenclature of Igneous Rocks.
names must be accepted to a great extent, however meaningless
and awkward they may be. There is, however, one family-name
which I have felt the necessity of altering, as reference to the table
will show; that is, the name nepheline- or elcolite-syenite. The
name was probably the best which could be given at the time the
family was established, pointing out as it did the relation which
these rocks were then supposed to hold to a well-known group, the
Syenites.' In view of what we know at the present time, however,
concerning the Alkaline Series, the name is not only useless but
misleading. In no essential quality does the so-called nepheline-
syenite resemble a normal syenite. The silica percentage, which
ranges, roughly speaking, from 50 to 60, is that of the more basic
diorites and some acid gabbros, rather than that of the syenites.
As regards mineral composition also, the two are absolutely distinct.
The normal syenite consists of orthoclase and a ferromagnesian
mineral, which are the index minerals of the family, together with
a plagioclase felspar not exceeding the orthoclase in amount, and
usually a small quantity of quartz. The nepheline-syenite, on the
other hand, contains alkali-felspar (either potash or soda _pre-
dominating) and nepheline as index minerals, with which are
associated ferromagnesian minerals in small quantity and mostly
of an alkaline type, and frequently sodalite, leucite, nosean,
cancrinite, etc., without plagioclase or quartz. Hence it is evident
that merely removing the nepheline from a nepheline-syenite would
not make it into an ordinary syenite, and the name has therefore
no justification. Since the family is a member of the Alkaline
Series, and at the same time occupies a middle place in the range
of silica percentage, I propose to substitute for nepheline-syenite
the descriptive name midalkalite. This is compounded of ‘mid,”
the abbreviated form of ‘ middle,’ and ‘alkali,’ which signifies the
series to which the family belongs. The only alternative was the
form medalkalite, adopting the Latin word medius for ‘middle.’
The word sounds strange and uncouth, however, to English ears,
and conveys its meaning much less clearly than midalkalite ; whilst
the latter is probably equally adaptable to French and German.
Possibly the coining of a new name upon a new principle demands.
some apology. It may be suggested that the better course would
have been to select one of the numerous names already given to
various members of the nepheline-syenite family, and to extend its
meaning to embrace the whole group. Every other family-name
has arisen in that way, and a uniform system might have been
preserved. I consider, however, that there are very strong objections
to any such extension of the meaning of a name; indeed, I hold that
an extension of meaning is justifiable only when the additional species.
taken in do not surpass, either in the wideness of their difference from
one another or in number, the species already associated with the name
—the word species being here used merely to designate any small
' The name was given by Rosenbusch in 1877. He himself anticipates the:
objection which I am about to raise (see Mik. Phys., 1877, ii, p. 204), and.
proposes that, if it be insisted on, the name foyaite should be adopted instead.
HH. Stanley Jevons—Nomenclature of Igneous Rocks. 311
group possessing well-recognised characteristics. It is inevitable that
the meaning of a name should be altered from time to time—some-
times narrowed, though generally extended ; but every such alteration
must be gradual, taking place step by step. The reason for this lies
in human nature. A radical alteration in the meaning of a name
involves such a revolution of ideas and habits that most men refuse
to accept any such proposal; and its adoption by only a few simply
leads to endless confusion. On the other hand, a slight alteration of
meaning requires but a trifling readjustment of ideas and habits;
and, therefore, so long as the change is clearly justified, it is soon
recognised as convenient and gradually comes into use.
Whilst these objections clearly prevent the adoption of such
names as lwaurite, litchfieldite, etc., to replace nepheline-syenite,
there is one name, foyaite, which would appear at first sight to
escape them. It has been suggested, and sometimes used, as
a synonym for nepheline-syenite, and few authors, if any, now
restrict its meaning solely to the type of rock originally described
by Blum under that name. A little investigation shows, however,
that even this name has not had an application wide enough to
allow of its extension over the whole group which I propose to call
midalkalites. Rosenbusch uses it to include only what might be
called the normal types of nepheline-syenite ; those which are poor
in coloured constituents, and in which the alkali felspars are both
abundant, the potash felspar predominating over the soda felspar,
rather than the reverse. This use of it excludes such types as
Litchfieldite, Laurdalite, Lujaurite, and many others, but includes
Brogger’s and Derby’s Foyaites. At the same time it appears
probable that the majority, if not all, of those authors who have
used foyaite as synonymous with nepheline-syenite, have had in
their minds only those normal types included by Rosenbusch under
that name. The name is therefore applied to a definite group of
rocks closely allied to one another, and it would be a contravention
of the principle above stated to apply it to such widely differing
rocks as laurdalite, litchfieldite, borolanite, leucite-syenite, and sodalite-
_ syenite. It will, indeed, be found convenient to retain the name
foyaite with Rosenbusch’s meaning as marking a subfamily.
The only course left me was to coin a new name. A descriptive
name seemed likely to be most convenient, and I therefore chose
midalkalite. The fact that all other family- names are of the
non-descriptive kind, and that I do not at the same time propose
descriptive names to replace them, is no valid objection to the
introduction of one such name. If this one prove a success, others
can be added from time to time as desired.
Two other family-names require a brief notice. Desiring to
reduce the number of existing family-names as far as possible,
I have followed Rosenbusch and grouped together the soda and
potash rocks, so that the theralites and shonkinites form one family,
and the ijolites and missourites another. Instead of retaining the
double name for each family, however, as he does, I have selected
one of the names in each case to cover both the soda and potash
312 H. Stanley Jevons—Nomenclature of Igneous Rocks.
rocks. Guided by the principle above set forth, I have selected the
name of the soda rocks in each case, because they are far more
important, both in number and variety, than the corresponding
potash rocks. The family of Theralites and Shonkinites therefore
becomes the family of Theralites, and the family of Jjolites and
Missourites becomes the family of Tjolites. The name jolite is
neither convenient nor euphonious, but I fear there exists no
alternative which could be adopted. It is not objectionable enough
to warrant the proposal of a new name, and there is no other name
in the family which has sufficient extension to allow it to be applied
to the whole family in accordance with the above-mentioned rule.
The chief reason for combining the soda and potash rocks in one
family as I have done, is that if they were separated here, amongst
the plutonic alkaline rocks, the same multiplication of families
ought to be allowed throughout the whole igneous series. Instead
of about thirty-five families, as we now have, we should then have
nearly sixty, each with a name to be remembered. This seems to
me too large a number, in the present state of our science. It will
be observed, however, that I propose still to keep the potash and
soda rocks separated, making them subfamilies instead of families,
and naming them accordingly. The theralites and shonkinites, for
instance, become respectively natrotheralites and kalitheralites.
The silica percentages, which are stated for each family in
Table IV, are intended for information only. They show roughly
the limits of silica variation in each family, so far as its members
have been analysed and the results have been accessible to me, but
they must not be considered as a part of its definition. The limits
are stated in whole numbers for the sake of clearness, but they
should be read so that the limit stands 0-5 per cent. on the outside
of the figure given. A range of 67-57 per cent., for example, must
be read as 67:°5-56°5 per cent. This convention is necessary
because the limiting values fall more frequently on the half unit
than the unit.
Table LV. Scheme of Classification of the Plutonic Division of the
; Alkaline Series of Igneous Rocks.
Family I.—ALIGRANITES. (= Alkaligranites, Ros.)
Two InpEx Minerats: Quartz; and an alkali-felspar.
SiO, % 78-68.
1. Bi-aligranite (= Nordmarkite, Broacer, in part).
2. Amph-aligranite (includes Riebeckite-granite, SAUER).
3. Pyr-aligranite.
Family II—ALISYENITES. (= Alkalisyenites, Ros.)
OnE INpDEx MinERaL: Ax alkali-felspar.
SiO, % 67-57.
. Pyrobiamph-alisyenite (= Pulaskite).
. Biamph-alisyenite (= Nordmarkite, the greater part).
. Monamph-alisyenite (= Umptekite).
. Rhomfels-pyr-alisyenite (= Laurvikite).
. Aig-alisyenite (= Aigyrine-syenite).
Ot Cob ee
H. Stanley Jerons—Nomenclature of Igneous Rocks. 318
Family III—MIDALKALITES. (=Nepheline- or Eleolite-syenites. )
Two Inprex Mingrats: An alkali-felspar ; avd nepheline.
SiO, % 60-48.
. Pyr-midalkalite (= Foyaite, Brum ; Pyroxene-foyaite,
—
Ros.).
. Amphi-midalkalite (= Ampbibole-foyaite, Ros.).
. Bi-midalkalite (= Mica-foyaite, Ros. ; includes Miascite ;
and Ditroite).
. Natro-midalkalite (= Litchfieldite).
. Rhomfels-pyr-midalkalite (= Laurdalite).
. Eudegi-midalkalite (= Lujaurite).
. Leuci - midalkalite (cncludes Leucite-syenite of Magnet
Cove, Arkansas).
. Cancri-midalkalite (= Cancrinite-syenite).
- Melano-midalkalite (includes Borolanite ; and nepheline-
syenites of Montreal and Magnet
Cove, Ark. [Cove-type]).
10. Sodali-midalkalite (includes Sodalite-syenite of Juliane-
haab).
©© CO “10> Or co bo
Family IV.—ESSEXITES.
Turee InpEx Mrinerats: Labradorite; augite or diopside ;
and biotite (or an alkaline amphibole or pyroxene).
SiO, % 50-48.
1. Multifels -essexite (includes Essexites of Cabo Frio;
Jacupiranguinha; Rongstock; and
Dignaes).
2. Mediofels-essexite (includes Hssexites of Salem, Mass. ;
and Sélvsberg).
3. Paucifels - essexite (includes Essexites of iAbieianel ;
Montreal; Penikkavaara, near
Kuusamo and Brandberq).
Family V.—THERALITES. (= Theralites and Shonkinites.)
THREE InpEx Minerats: 4 pyroxene; felspar (plagioclase
or Oppel) ; and nepheline, or sodalite, or leucite.
SiO, % 50-40
Subfamily A—NATROTHERALITES.
1. Augi-natrotheralite | (= Theralite, sen. str. ; and includes
most of the Teschenites).
2, Aigi-natrotheralite (— Natronsussexite).
3. Barke-natrotheralite (= certain Teschenites).
Subfamily B—KALITHERALITES.
1. Augi-kalitheralite* (= Shonkinite).
2. Aigaugi-kalitheralite (= Pyroxene-malignite).
3. Amphi-kalitheralite (= Amphibole-malignite).
4, Melano-kalitheralite (= Garnet-malignite).
1 The a@ of natro- and of /ali- is pronounced long as in ‘ state.” The z of kali- is
short as in ‘ pit,’ but it is dropped i in the name kalijolite, i in which the first i should
be pronounced long as in ‘ write.’
314 HH. Stanley Jevons—Nomenclature of Igneous Rocks.
Family VI—IJOLITES. (= Ijolites and Missourites.)
Two Inpex Minerats: Pyroxene; and nepheline, or sodalite,
or leucite.
SiO, % 47-40.
Subfamily A—NATRIJOLITES.
1. Augi-natrijolite’ (includes Tjolites of Imandra See, Kola
Penin. ; Eleolite-syenite (Ridge-
type) of Magnet Cove; and
Jacupirangite).
2. Aigaugi-natrijolite (includes Ijolites of Kuusamo; Kal-
jokthal; and Alno).
3. Aigi-natrijolite (= Urtite).
4, Aneph-sodali-natrijolite (includes Tawite ; and Sodalite-
syenite of Square Butte, Montana).
Subfamily B.—KALIJOLITES.'
(Includes at present only Missourite.)
VIII. CHaNncEs IN THE SUBDIVISION OF FAMILIES.
The subdivisions of the families contained in the above table are
in almost every case those suggested by Rosenbusch in the most
recent editions of his works, but I have not adopted them without
testing their validity whenever possible. The aligranites he does
not subdivide, but as I see no reason why they should not be treated
in the same way as the granites, I have subdivided the family on
the basis of its coloured minerals. Amongst the midalkalites, the
subdivision melano-midalkalite is new. Rosenbusch places borolanite
in the leuci-midalkalite (leucite-syenite) group; but, considering
that Horne and Teall distinctly state that they give that name to
a rock consisting essentially of orthoclase and melanite, and that
leucite only occurs in parts of the mass which they describe, I think
that borolanite and rocks of that composition should be entitled to
rank as a distinct sub-group in the great midalkalite family. Garnet
plays an important rdle as an original constituent in many basic
rocks of the alkaline series; to a much greater extent indeed than is.
generally recognised.
The two rocks urtite and tawite are removed from the midalkalite
(nepheline-syenite) family, with which they are classed by
Rosenbusch, presumably because of their association. They will
be found in the family to which their mineral composition assigns
them, that is to say, the Ijolites.
The principal difficulty which I experienced in naming sub-
divisions was the frequent want of definite information as to the
relative proportions of the constituents of a rock. Many descriptions
even of recent date fail in this respect, and it would be well if all
petrologists realized, as a few already do, that a mere statement of
the minerals found in a rock is not a complete description of it. On
1 See footnote on preceding page.
2 See ‘‘ Elemente der Gesteinslehre,’’ 1898, and Mikr. Phys., 1896, vol. ii.
H. Stanley Jevons—Nomenclature of Igneous Rocks. 315
the contrary, it is the relative proportions of the constituents which
establishes the identity of the rock. For instance, a kalitheralite
(e.g. malignite) may contain the same minerals as an alisyenite.
The former may contain 25 per cent. orthoclase, 25 per cent.
nepheline, and 50 per cent. of ferromagnesian minerals, and the
latter 90 per cent. orthoclase, 5 per cent. nepheline, and but
5 per cent. of ferromagnesian minerals. They may be composed
of exactly the same minerals, and yet in such different proportions
that they belong to widely separated families.
Another example will show how unsatisfactory is this practice of
merely giving a qualitative description of a rock. I have, of late,
frequently had to read descriptions of rocks in order to determine
to which subdivision of a family they should be consigned in cases
where the subdivisions are distinguished by the most abundant ferro-
magnesian mineral. In one description, after two or three pages had
been devoted to an amphibole and two pyroxenes which the rock
contained, it was just mentioned at the end that the rock contained
biotite. The impression given was that the amphibole and pyroxenes
were the important ferromagnesian minerals, whilst biotite was quite
subordinate in quantity. On examining a slice of the rock, however,
I saw at a glance that the biotite was far more abundant than both
the amphiboles and pyroxenes taken together, and that it had received
so little attention merely because it presented no point of special
interest. Now that an easy method of determining the relative
proportions of constituents is known, namely, that of Rosiwal already
referred to (see footnote, p. 305), it is to be hoped that there will be
speedy reform in this matter.
Although I believe that the names given to the rocks in the
above table generally represent their composition correctly, I cannot
vouch for the fact. Owing to the vagueness of many descriptions
in the above-mentioned respect, and because I have not thought it
worth while merely for the purpose of illustration in a preliminary
notice tospend much time in consulting literature not to be obtained
in Cambridge, it may be that a few of my names will bear correction.
That cannot, however, affect the value of the system of nomenclature
itself; and I trust that authors who are acquainted with any rocks
which I may have misnamed will be so kind as to set me right.
IX. Tue Naminea or Newry Discoverep Rocks.
In conclusion, I may perhaps offer some suggestions as to how
_ newly discovered rock-species should be named in the future. The
first step in identifying a rock is to determine its essential con-
stituents, that is to say, those which make up more than 5 per
cent. by weight of the whole rock. According to their nature,
whether they are of the alkaline type or not, the rock is first
assigned either to the Alkaline or the Calc-alkaline Series. Amongst
the essential constituents it will next usually be possible to find
two or three which coincide with the index minerals of some
particular family, and the rock can then be forthwith placed in
that family. Should the essential constituents include the index
316 Lieut.-Gen. MeMahon—Tourmaline of White Granite.
minerals of more than one family, which will rarely be the case,
the rule is to choose those which are most abundant. The family-
name being thus obtained, observe next upon what basis the family
is subdivided, whether it is by the nature of the ferromagnesian
mineral, by the kind or quantity of felspar present, or by some
other property. All the constituents of the rock, essential and
accessory, being now considered, it will be easy to assign the rock
to its right subdivision, supposing one already exists. If, on the
other hand, the rock is a new type and no place awaits it, a new
subdivision can be created and named in accordance with the
general system.
The only rocks which it will be found difficult to name are those
which do not contain the index minerals of any family. In such
cases the association of the rock is the first point to be considered.
If any such rock clearly forms part of an igneous mass which can be
readily assigned to a family, let the doubtful rock also be assigned
to the same family, and give it a name in which the missing index
mineral is preceded by the privative a-. If, however, besides being
entirely new, the rock does not appear to be associated with any
known type, it becomes a question whether a new family should
be established. This course must be adopted only when there is
really no other way of naming the rock, and the family name
selected should be, as far as possible, descriptive of the rock’s
peculiarity in mineral or chemical composition.
I cannot end without expressing my gratitude to Prof. Bonney,
my first master, for the interest with which he has followed my work
upon classification and nomenclature and for the many suggestions
which he has freely offered. To Prof. Rosenbusch also I am deeply
indebted for the kindly instruction received at Heidelberg, which
has opened my eyes and smoothed my path in many ways, but more
especially in this research.
IIJ.—Nores on THE TOURMALINE OF THE WHITE GRANITE OF
Meupon, Dartmoor.
By Lieutenant-General C. A. McManon, F.R.S.
‘W\HIS “remarkable variety of granite” was briefly described by
Mr. J. J. Harris Teall, F.R.S., in his “ British Petrography ”
(1888), p. 816, and an interesting account was given in a footnote
of the process by which the author was able to identify the topaz
found in the rock.
In a paper on Dartmoor published in 1893 (Q.J.G.S., vol. xlix,
p. 585), I described in some detail the mode of occurrence of this
intrusive rock and some of its characteristics; and in the following
year (Q.J.G.S., vol. u, p. 338) I noted the occurrence of a second
outcrop on the flank of South Down.
None of the above references to the white granite of Meldon
contain a description of the tourmaline found in it, and as this
mineral presents some unusual features a few remarks on it may
interest students of petrology.
Lieut.-Gen. McMahon—Tourmaline of White Granite. 317
White tourmaline (achroite) has not yet, so far as I am aware,
been found in the British Islands, but the tourmaline of the Meldon
granite approximates to colourless tourmaline sufficiently closely to
render it probable that if the attention of mineralogists is drawn to
the subject true achroite may yet be detected in British rocks.
The following remarks are based on the study of a good suite
of thin slices made from hand specimens collected by me, and of
numerous fragments of tourmaline separated from these specimens
with the aid of a heavy solution. When I was at Meldon the
granite was being quarried, and I was able to get unweathered
samples.
Fragments of tourmaline examined with a powerful pocket lens
are seen to be in part colourless and in part of pale-brown colour.
Under the microscope, when examined with the aid of transmitted
light, the tourmaline in thin slices (as thin as those ‘‘made in
Germany” for instance) is absolutely colourless and devoid of
dichroism. It is consequently difficult to distinguish from the topaz
with which it is associated. This difficulty is increased by the fact
that both minerals, as seen in thin slices of the Meldon rock, closely
resemble each other in habit. Both are allotriomorphic and occur
in irregular shaped grains. The tourmaline rarely presents itself in
prismatic form, whilst the cleavage, usually so characteristic of topaz,
is rarely to be seen in the topaz of the Meldon granite. As, moreover,
the refraction of both minerals is higher than that of Canada balsam,
and of the felspar and quartz with which they come in contact,
the difference in the refraction of topaz, as compared with that of
tourmaline, does not help one to discriminate between them.
The positive character of the double refraction of topaz could not
be made out in any of my slices, as no bisectrix could be seen in
converging polarized light. The axial angle in topaz from different
localities varies very much, and it is probably large in the variety
found in the Meldon granite.
The rock under consideration affords an illustration of the help
that may sometimes be afforded by our much abused thick slices
of English manufacture. In such slices the Meldon tourmaline
presents a somewhat more normal appearance. Even in thickish
slices, however, the mineral is sometimes colourless in whole or in
part, but more often a reddish or reddish-brown streak or patch is
to be seen in the otherwise colourless grains which exhibits the
characteristic dichroism of tourmaline.
The appearance of these coloured stripes and patches suggests
to me the possibility that the colour may be due to the alteration of
an originally colourless tourmaline ; namely, to the oxidation of the
iron contained in the mineral. Iron is not an essential constituent
in this complex silicate, and my previous studies have familiarized
me with the idea that iron may be removed, or oxidized, without
breaking up the fundamental silicate of which it is more or less
a casual unessential member.
The tourmaline in the Meldon granite very rarely exhibits
prismatic outlines in thin slices, but in the isolated fragments both
318 Lieut.-Gen. McMahon—Tourmaline of White Granite.
this mineral and the topaz show a slightly increased tendency to
do so. The tourmaline, however, even in thin slices, is frequently
elongated in the direction of the vertical axis (c’); and as the
greatest absorption takes place at right angles, and compensation
with the quartz wedge occurs parallel to this direction (viz. to c’),
a ready and sure means of identifying the mineral exists in such
cases.
When this observation can be made one cannot remain in doubt
as to which is tourmaline and which is topaz, as the latter is not
dichroic in thin slices, and compensation with the quartz wedge,
in the case of topaz takes place at right angles to ec’, and in the case
of tourmaline parallel to ¢’.
When dichroism is apparent in the Meldon tourmaline the change
is from colourless (e) to a yellowish or reddish-brown (0).
In cases where the above-mentioned observation cannot be made,
namely, when dichroism is absent, I have found the following
methods very useful.’
I have often, when examining the topaz in my slides, been able
to obtain in converging polarized light the interference figure of an
optic axis, namely, a single bar, or a bar bisecting the first ring of
the interference figure, which remained without change of character
during a revolution of the crossed nicols through 360°. When this
interference figure is obtained it shows clearly that the mineral is
a biaxial one, and consequently that it is topaz and not tourmaline.
Axial sections of the latter mineral, on the other hand, may be
obtained in my thin slices, which in converging polarized light
yield a negative uniaxial cross which does not open out en revolving
the nicols. Sometimes when the section has not been cut quite
normal to the vertical axis of the crystal, only two of the arms
of the cross can be seen, and sometimes their point of junction
is outside the field. In such cases, with one of Swift’s improved
one-sixth objectives, I can generally get the two arms just on or
just outside the edge of the field, and can make sure that the arms
are those of an uniaxial mineral. In cases of doubt I am able to
confirm this observation by inserting the one-fourth undulation mica
plate, when the double refraction of tourmaline being negative,
one dot (only half of the cross being visible) appears in a line with
the axis of the mica plate and well within view.
Observation of the strength of the double refraction also affords,
in some cases, a method of distinguishing between the two minerals.
The birefringence of topaz does not exceed 0-010, whilst that of
tourmaline is 0:020. The colour of the former mineral, as seen
in thin slices, does not rise above the indigo-blue of the second
order of Newton’s scale, and very often falls below that. On the
other hand, the colour shown by the tourmaline in my sections
frequently rises to the indigo-blue of the third order.
Lastly, the character of the metamorphism effected by aqueous
agents affords a useful test. Tourmaline alters to steatite, mica,
1 T confine myself to optical tests and those which can be applied to thin slices.
A. Strahan—Chloritic Marl, Dorset. 319
chlorite, and cookeite;! whilst topaz changes to steatite, mica, and
kaolin.
In my Meldon specimens the green tint seen in some of the
tourmaline is probably due to the birth of ultra-microscopic particles
of chlorite in the originally colourless crystals. The topaz, on the
other hand, sometimes exhibits partial kaolinization, and when it
does so it is clear that the mineral is topaz and not tourmaline.
On the whole, I think it probable that the somewhat partial and
patchy colour seen in the Meldon tourmaline is due to the post-
genital alteration of an originally colourless variety of this mineral.
I do not think the faint colour now visible is due to the bleaching
of an originally dark-coloured tourmaline. An operation of this
kind would imply the bleaching of the whole of the white granite
itself, which I do not think probable. Moreover, it would involve
chemical action to an extent that must have left very powerful
marks on the felspars and other susceptible minerals contained in
the rock, that could not remain unobserved.
IV.—An Apyormat Section oF Cutoritic Mart at Mure Bay,
Dorset.
By A. Srrawan, M.A., F.G.S.
[* “The Geology of the Isle of Purbeck and Weymouth” (p. 152)
I referred to some green sand which occurs next below the
Chalk in Mupe Bay, Dorset, as somewhat resembling Chloritic
Marl, but as being too thick for that bed. As it was followed by
the Gault, I concluded that it belonged to the Upper Greensand.
The section was subsequently visited by Mr. W. Hill, who collected
from the sand in question Holaster subglobosus, var. altus, and
Echinoconus castanea among other fossils, and inferred that it was
Chloritic Marl. He considered that though it passed up insensibly
into the Chalk it was faulted against the Gault, but that there had
been also considerable contemporaneous erosion of the Upper Green-
sand. In April of this year I revisited the section in company with
Mr. Hill, and was fully satisfied as to the correctness of his views.
The following account has been drawn up from our observations :—
The Lower Chalk becomes extremely impure in its lower part,
and contains much glauconite; it thus graduates insensibly down-
wards into a gritty glauconitic sand. The sand contains a few
phosphatic casts, more or less worn or corroded, scattered throughout
it, but has a well-marked nodule-bed crowded with these casts at
its base; other fossils with the shell preserved and not filled in with
phosphate occur also throughout the whole bed.
Below the sand comes a sandy glauconitic clay, forming part of
the Gault, but the fact that the separation is sharp, and that the
chert-beds of the Upper Greensand and the passage-beds down
into the Gault are absent, proves that the two are faulted together,
although the fault-plane is parallel to the highly inclined bedding.
1 See Dana’s textbook, last edition.
320 A. Strahan—Chioritic Marl, Dorset.
The thickness of sand between the fault and what may be taken as
the base of the Chalk amounts to 15 feet.
The following list of fossils includes those collected in April, 1901,
and those obtained previously by Mr. Hill. ‘They prove that the
whole of the sand should be referred to the Chloritic Marl. The
identifications are by Mr. E. T. Newton. .
CHLORITIC MARL, MUPE BAY.
ScATTERED THROUGH THE BED.
Terebratula squamosa, Mant. Holaster subglobosa, var. altus, Ag.
Cidaris Bowerbanki, Forbes. Holaster suborbicularis ? Defr.
Echinoconus castanea, Brongn. Plocoscyphia ?
Holaster subglobosa, Leske.
From NopvuLE-BED AT BASE.
Helicoceras, sp. Cardita, sp. (?° tenwicosta).
Columbellina ? Pleuromya (Panopea).
Turritella, sp. Cytherea plana, Sow.
Cucullea carinata ? Sow. Plicatula, sp.
Cucullea mailleana? D’ Orb. Exogyra, sp.
Isocardia, sp. Polyzoon on Lamellibranch.
Trigonia, sp. Rhynchonella (near to grasiana).
Cardium, sp.
A section at the top of the cliff (referred to on p. 151 of the
Memoir on the Isle of Purbeck) shows that the Chloritic Marl
maintains an abnormal thickness for 200 yards at least west of
the section on the beach. It is there succeeded downwards by
a considerable thickness of Upper Greensand, in which, however,
no representative of the Chert Beds could be found, and which
presumably belongs to the lower part of the formation. Two
explanations for this sequence may be offered: firstly, that the
fault which throws Chloritic Marl against Gault on the beach does
not follow the bedding precisely, but cuts obliquely through the
Upper Greensand, so as to throw Chloritic Marl against that forma-
tion westwards; secondly, that the upper part of the Upper Greensand
suffered erosion before the deposition of the Chloritic Marl.
The first explanation is supported by the fact that the section on
the beach places the existence of a fault beyond doubt, and shows.
also that the fault is approximately parallel to the highly inclined
beds. In favour of the second explanation it may be urged that the
abnormal thickness and character of the Chloritic Marl point to the
Upper Greensand having undergone erosion. The phosphatic casts
of fossils, though but little water-worn, are fragmentary. While,
therefore, they have neither travelled far nor been rolled upon
a beach, they are not in their original matrix. The absence of
any fragments of chert among the nodules in the Chloritic Marl
appeared to me to point to the erosion of the Upper Greensand
having been but slight, but in explanation of this Mr. Hill suggests
that the chert-nodules were formed at a later date, and that the beds
were all soft when the erosion took place. For myself I am inclined
to think that the segregation of nodules followed as a rule closely
upon the deposition of the sediments in which they occur.
Notices of Memoirs. 321
The fossils, generally speaking, have too wide a range to determine
exact horizons in the Upper Greensand, but Mr. Jukes-Browne
points out to me that Cytherea plana, which occurs as a phosphatic
cast in the nodule-bed, favours the idea of erosion to below the
Chert Beds, for he has not observed it from any higher horizon.
In the Memoir on the Isle of Purbeck (pp. 161, 162) I referred
to the general consensus of opinion that there had been some slight
erosion of the Upper Greensand before the deposition of the Chloritic
Marl, and gave some instances, but I know of no other case in which
the evidence is so strong or where the erosion appears to have been
so great as at Mupe Bay. That it was strictly local is proved by
the fact that in Lulworth Cove to the west, and in Warbarrow Bay
to the east, the sequence is normal, and the Chloritic Marl resumes
its normal thickness of 3 to 4 feet. It is unfortunate that the
existence of a fault introduces a doubt how far the incompleteness
of the sequence should be attributed to contemporaneous erosion and
how far to subsequent movement. While accepting the evidence
that there was erosion, perhaps considerable, of the Upper Green-
sand, I am disposed to call in the aid of the fault at the top as well
as at the bottom of the cliff, to account for some of the missing beds.
My thanks are due to Mr. Hill for giving me the opportunity of
making this correction, and for supplying much of the material on
which it is founded.
NWOQRtECHS GO WeEEVeO@rsS=
I.— Ortern oF THE AncrENT CrystaLtiIngE Rocxs.— Dr. Frank
Dawson Adams gives an account of the excursion to the Pyrenees
in connection with the Kighth International Geological Congress
(Journ. Geol., 1901, ix, pp. 28-46). The object of the excursionists
was to examine, under the leadership of Professor Lacroix, certain
intrusive granite masses, which have not only intensely altered
the strata through which they pierce but which have produced
a wholesale transformation of the sedimentary rocks in question
into granite, the granite now occupying the space formerly occupied
by the sediments. The districts examined were Aix-les-thermes,
L’Etang de l’Estagnet, L’Etang de Baxouillade, Cirque de Camp
Ras, Foix, Arignac, Cabre, Vicdessos, Sem, Massat, Bagnéres-de-
Bigorre, Pouzac, Payole, Cirque d’Arbisson, and Baréges. While
recognizing that the excursion was merely a rapid traverse of
a district which has received detailed attention from the French
petrographers, Dr. Adams sums up as follows: ‘“ While the
transfusion of a certain amount of material into the limestones
along the immediate contact of the intrusions and also a solution
of the limestone to a limited extent in certain cases seems highly
probable ; the wholesale transformation of limestone into diorite, or
of shale into gneiss and granite, which has been described in the
case of these contact zones of the Pyrenees, is as yet very far indeed
from being proved.”
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. VII. 21
322 Notices of Memoirs.
II.—Nopvutar Granite From Pine Laks, Ontario. By Frank
Dawson Adams, Ph.D. (Bulletin of the Geological Society of America,
1897, vol. ix, pp. 163-172, pl. xi; February 10, 1898.)—Professor
Adams, while carrying out some work for the Geological Survey of
Canada in the eastern part of the Province of Ontario, has discovered
a remarkable occurrence of orbicular or nodular granite in the
township of Cardiff, in the county of Peterborough. In this part
of the country the fundamental rocks are Crystalline Limestones,
associated with Gneisses and Amphibolites, broken through by great
intrusions of Granite. The nodule-bearing Granite occurs on the
north and south sides of Pine Lake. It is rather fine-grained and
usually gneissic in places, but often massive. The nodules are
confined to a portion only of the Granite, and are not in proximity
to the Amphibolite; and therefore the nodular structure is not
a contact phenomenon. The nodules are spherical or ellipsoidal,
and occur either scattered through the rock or, more rarely, in
lines. When the nodules occur in rows they gradually get closer
together until they seem to fuse or coalesce into a continuous band
or vein. The centres of the nodules exhibit little segregation
bunches of schorl. Professor Adams concludes that these nodules
are due to a primary differentiation of the magma, for the reason
that they do not include certain minerals such as Microcline, which
have evidently crystallized from the magma latest, and which are
abundant in the surrounding Granite; while on the other hand Silli-
manite occurs in the nodules, being one of the first to separate from
the magma, but does not occur in the surrounding Granite.—F. C.
III.—An ExperimentaL INvEsTIGATION INTO THE FLow oF
Marsie. (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of
London, 1901, vol. cxcv, pp. 363-401.)—These experiments have
been carried out by Messrs. Frank Dawson Adams and John Thomas
Nicolson; pure Carrara marble being the rock selected. The paper
deals with the methods employed, deformation of the dry rock at
ordinary temperature, at 300 C., and at 400 C., and at 300 C. in the
presence of water. Comparison is made of the structures produced
in Carrara marble by artificial deformation with those produced by
deformation in the case of metals, and comparison of the structures
produced with those observed in the limestones and marbles of
highly contorted portions of the earth’s crust. The following is
the summary of results:—(1) By submitting limestone or marble
to differential pressures exceeding the elastic limit of the rock
and under the conditions described by the authors, permanent
deformation can be produced. (2) This deformation, when carried
out at ordinary temperatures, is due in part to a cataclastic structure
and in part to twinning and gliding movements in the individual
crystals composing the rock. (8) Both of these structures are seen in
contorted limestones and marbles in nature. (4) When the deforma-
tion is carried out at 300 C. or, better, at 400 C., the cataclastic structure
is not developed, and the whole movement is due to changes in the
shape of the component calcite crystals, by twinning and gliding.
(5) This latter movement is identical with that produced in metals
Notices of Memoirs. 323
by squeezing or hammering, a movement which in metals as
a general rule, as in marble, is facilitated by increase of temperature.
(6) There is therefore a flow of marble just as there is a flow of
metals under suitable conditions of pressure. (7) The movement
is also identical with that seen in glacial ice, although in the latter
case the movement may not be entirely of this character. (8) In
these experiments the presence of water was not observed to
exert any influence. (9) It is believed, from the results of other
experiments now being carried out but not yet completed, that
similar movements can, to a certain extent at least, be induced in
granite and other harder crystalline rocks, and that several structures
developed in these rocks in nature in highly contorted regions can
thus be reproduced. Photo-micrographs of the marble are given.
IV.—Grotogy oF West Cornwati.— Mr. J. B. Hill, who has
been studying the geological structures of Western Cornwall for
some years, has been talking to the Royal Geological Society of
Cornwall about them. His paper has appeared in the Transactions
(1901, vol. xii, pt. 6), and his conclusions, given in his own words,
are as follows:—‘The structures of the stratified formations in
West Cornwall are identical with the structures of crystalline schists.
In the Falmouth district, so far as yet examined, true slates have
not been met with. The strata have been thrown into a series of
isoclinal folds, accompanied by small faults. With these folds and
faults minor structures have been set up until the whole rock has
often become a mass of minute folds and thrusts, with their
accompanying strain-slip cleavages. These processes have been
carried so far that ‘crush-conglomerates’ have been produced on
a large scale. It is evident, from a study of this district, that had
the rocks been subjected to those stresses at a greater depth and
below the zone of fracture, where they would not have been so free
to move, they would have been converted into true schists. They
possess now every structure of schists, but the mineralization has
been wanting.”
“The visible dip of the rocks is of no value, except as registering
the inclination of the limbs of folds. As an illustration of this fact,
it may be pointed out that although the strata have a general dip to
the south-east, between Falmouth and Truro, we are apparently
crossing the strike from the coast to the heart of the county, yet,
instead of getting deeper in the stratigraphical series, we are on
precisely the same geological horizon as at Falmouth, the intervening
- ground being made up of a succession of isoclinal folds.”
This last paragraph is, we believe, confirmatory of De la Beche’s
view, and does not support the view sometimes expressed, that in
this district we have a great thickness of sedimentary deposits.
V.—ARGONAUT FROM THE TERTIARY OF JAPAN.—Mr. Yoshiwara has
just published in Annotationes Zoologice Japanenses (1901, vol. iii,
pp. 174-176) a description of a supposed new Argonaut from the
Neogene tuff of Agenokimura, near Matsue, Iugori, province Izumo,
Japan. This was found by Mr. J. Asai, and mentioned by Professor
324 Notices of Memoirs.
Jimbo as long ago as 1896 in the Journal of the Tokyo Geographical
Society, vol. viii. 'The specimens, of which there are two, can only
be distinguished from ‘ A. tuberculosa, Linn.’ (said by Yoshiwara
to be identical with A. nodosa, Sol., and A. oryzata, Mensh.), by
the general outline of the shell, the size of the whorls near the
centre, and the rows and numbers of the ribs. It is of considerable
interest to find that this tuberculate form of the genus, which has
never been found living in Japan, existed there in Tertiary times.
VI.—Tue Granp Canyon or THE Cotorapo.—Professor W. M.
Davis has published in the Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative
Zoology at Harvard College (Geol. Series, v, No. 4, May, 1901) an
account of an excursion to the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. His
results may be summarized as follows :—‘“‘ There is some probability
that the San Rafael swell, like the Waterpocket flexure, is of
pre-Tertiary origin. The other deformations of the region, both
flexures and faults, are almost exclusively of much earlier date than
the canyon cycle, and they may have been formed relatively early
in the erosional history of the district. The total denudation of
the region thus far accomplished may be considered in two parts,
of which the first—the great denudation—was far advanced before
the general uplift by which the second—the erosion of the canyon
and the stripping of weak strata from the plateaus—was introduced.”
“But the great denudation was complicated by repeated move-
ments, after each of which the processes of erosion may have
reached an advanced stage before the occurrence of the next series
of disturbances. It is only by an analysis of these repeated
movements and revived erosions that the origin of the drainage
system can be determined. As far as this analysis can be attempted
at present for the Grand Canyon district, the side streams seem to
be of various origins, except that none of them appear to be
antecedent. The Colorado itself may be in part antecedent to some
of the many dislocations that the district has suffered, but it seems
to be for the most part consequent on the displacements caused by
faulting in the later part of the great denudation, and on the form
that the surface had assumed at that time.”
“The floor of the Toroweap valley is higher than the neighbouring
valley floors, because it is sheeted with heavy lava flows which have
effectively withstood the intermittent erosive effects of wet-weather
floods. The past climate of the region cannot be safely determined ;
a change from a humid to an arid climate at the close of the Miocene
does not appear to be demanded by the facts that have been appealed
to in its support.”
Professor Davis gives a bibliography and some illustrations, many
of which are new, and one of which, a general photographic view of
the Grand Canyon, is especially good. T. BR. J.
VII.— Sorter GeronogicaL Notres.— Enkanan Briuines, for
twenty years paleontologist to the Geological Survey of Canada,
and the founder of the Canadian Naturalist and Geologist, formed
the subject of Dr. Ami’s address as president of the Ottawa Field
Reviews—Heddle’s Mineralogy of Scotland. 325
Naturalists’ Club, last December. The material has now been
extended, a bibliography added, and the whole published in the
American Geologist for May.
Proressor E. W. Hitearn’s “ Historical Outline of the Geological
and Agricultural Survey of the State of Mississippi,” which appeared
in the publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, has been
reprinted in the American Geologist tor May. It gives an interesting
picture of the origin, rise, and progress of one of the United States
Surveys, and provides an official account of the publications, always
of value.
Mr. J. A. Cunnrncuam has published a contribution to the
Theory of the Order of Crystallization of Minerals in Igneous
Rocks, in the Scientific Proceedings of the Royal Dublin Society
(1901, vol. ix, pt. 4). The paper should be read in connection with
Dr. Joly’s paper, “Theory of the Order of Formation of Silicates in
Igneous Rocks,” published by the same Society in 1900.
5% Jah Wh aE 22h WW Se
I.—Tue Mrveratocy or Scornanp. By the late M. Forstmr
Heppiz, M.D., F.R.S.E. Edited by J. G. Gooncutrp, F.G.S.
2 vols.: 360 pp., 80 figures in text, 117 plates. (Edinburgh:
David Douglas, 1901. Price 36s. nett.)
URING the greater part of a long life the late Professor Heddle,
for many years Professor of Chemistry in the University of
St. Andrews, spent his holidays in the mineralogical exploration
of his native country, and scarcely a single locality from which
there was a likelihood of obtaining good specimens can have been
left unvisited by him ; he was thus able to bring together a collection
of Scottish minerals remarkable for its completeness and for the
excellence of its material; to its examination, chiefly chemical, he
devoted all his available time. Some years ago the collection was
purchased for the nation and deposited in the Museum of Science
and Art at Edinburgh; there it was arranged and labelled, for
public exhibition, by Dr. Heddle during the latter years of his life.
Of the topographical and chemical mineralogy of Scotland,
Professor Heddle had thus an unsurpassed knowledge, and he made
voluminous notes with a view to the eventual publication of
a treatise by means of which the information so laboriously acquired
might be preserved to posterity. Unfortunately, like too many
other investigators, he was called to his rest when his work was
still far from complete; there was thus a great danger that his notes
might never be printed and made available for general use. His
family has done what was possible to avert the threatened
catastrophe, and have obtained help for the completion and editing
of the work; the notes have been prepared for press and the treatise
has been edited by Mr. J. G. Goodchild, who is now closely
associated with the custody of the collection itself.
To complete the work, Mr. Alexander Thoms, son-in-law of
326 Reviews—Buckman on Brachiopoda.
Professor Heddle, has compiled a list of the mineral species which
have been found in each of the counties of Scotland; Mr. James
Currie has prepared a list of Scottish Pseudomorphs, and an index
of Scottish paleosomatic minerals; Mr. J. G. Goodchild has added
an alphabetical list of minerals, indicating by means of asterisks
those which occur in Scotland, and has further prepared a series of
beautiful gnomograms and stereograms of the crystallographic forms
of the more common mineral species.
The result is the issue of the two fine volumes now before us ;
the book is well printed, and illustrated regardless of expense; an
excellent portrait of the author is given as frontispiece, and is
followed by a short memoir. No more impressive memorial of
Dr. Heddle could have been devised by his family.
The work is of course of the dictionary type, and designed, not
for continuous reading, but for the purposes of reference; its
usefulness depends, to a large extent, on the completeness and
accuracy of the specification of the localities. No pains have been
spared over this part of the book; all the places mentioned in
Dr. Heddle’s notes have been identified as far as possible, a tedious
task, involving much difficulty and enquiry when the localities are
remote from railways, are not recorded on the best maps, and are
represented by names of which there is much diversity of spelling.
Fortunately, Dr. Heddle had left a set of Ordnance Survey Maps,
on which his annual wanderings had been traced; with the help of
these, and much aided by the wide information of Mr. James Currie,
Mr. Goodchild has prepared a Synonymic Index (83 pages) to the
Scottish Mineral localities, specifying for each locality the position
on the Ordnance Map and the names of the mineral species to be
found there.
The numerous plates illustrating the forms of crystals have been
prepared at great cost, and they add to the beauty of the volume;
but Dr. Heddle left behind him no information as to whether the
figures were original or not. Some, at least, were doubtless taken
from works illustrating the minerals of other countries, though
probably they at the same time illustrate Scottish minerals preserved
in his own collection.
It should be mentioned that in the text there are numerous.
illustrations of agates, to the mode of origin of which Dr. Heddle
had given much study.
It would add to the usefulness of the work if in a subsequent
edition an alphabetical index to the mineral species and varieties,
with page-references, were placed at the end of it.
I].— Homa@omorpuy amone Jurassic Bracuropopa. By S&S. S.
Buoxman. Proc. Cotteswold Naturalists’ Field Club, 1901,
vol. xii, pt. 4, pp. 281-290, pls. xiii-xiv.
ii this paper Mr. Buckman performs a welcome service by drawing
attention to the occurrence of what he terms ‘homceomorphy”
in Jurassic Brachiopoda. The part played by parallelism in
producing striking similarities between members of separate
Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London. 327
stocks has hitherto been sadly neglected, and the failure to
recognize this independent acquirement of similar general features
has doubtless repeatedly led to confusion. ‘T'wo of the most striking
examples of this phenomenon, described by the author, are furnished
by Terebratula imitator and Zeilleria subcornuta, and by Terebratula
subomalogaster and Zeilleria anisoclines.
Some of the descriptions of new forms in this paper are
unfortunately too brief, and might with great advantage have been
amplified. The value of generic separations among the Jurassic
Terebratuloids is, to some extent, admittedly a matter of personal
opinion. But it may seriously be doubted whether any useful
purpose is to be attained by the adoption of such a ‘genus’ as
Pseudoglossothyris, proposed in this paper. It appears, at least, to
be hardly justified by the somewhat slender distinctive characters
embodied in the definition provided. Abuses of the word ‘genus’
are now unfortunately common, and there is a widespread and
regrettable tendency to burden an already involved nomenclature
by such additions.
The expression ‘date of existence’ scarcely commends itself
when employed in relation to fossil shells. Doubt may be enter-
tained whether the elaborate ‘time-table’ provided by the author
can ever have more than a local value, and perhaps this is all that is
claimed for it. For his useful and suggestive contribution to our
knowledge of homeomorphy, Mr. Buckman is to be congratulated.
REPORTS AND PROCHEDINGS.
GEOLOGICAL SoorEty oF Lonpon.
I.—May 8th, 1901.—J. J. H. Teall, Esq., M.A., V.P.R.S., President,
in the Chair. The following communication was read :—
“The Influence of the Winds upon Climate during the Pleistocene
Epoch: a Paleo-Meteorological Explanation of some Geological
Problems.” By F. W. Harmer, Esq., F.G.S.
Winds are an important factor in determining the distribution of
climatic zones. Deviations of the isotherms from the normal are
generally connected with the direction of the prevalent winds. The
influence of marine currents is indirect rather than direct. Changes
of wind cause marked and sudden changes in the weather, though
the general direction of ocean-currents remains the same. Permanent
alterations in climate during past epochs would have equally resulted
from permanent changes in the wind. Anomalous weather is due to
some unusual arrangement of high and low-pressure areas. Former
cases of anomalous climate can only have occurred when the
meteorological conditions were favourable.
Continental areas tend to be cyclonic in Summer and anticyclonic
in Winter, while the reverse is broadly true of the oceans. During
the Glacial Period ice-covered areas would have remained more or
less anticyclonic throughout the year, while low-pressure areas must
have prevailed in regions to the south of them and over the adjoining
|
328 Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London.
oceans. This would have altered the prevalent direction of the winds
and the distribution of rainfall; thus the anticyclone of the European
ice-sheet may have caused cyclonic storms to pass farther south than
at present, bringing oceanic winds over the Sahara, which formerly
enjoyed a humid climate. Dead shells are rarely found now on
the eastern shores of Norfolk and Suffolk, though they are driven.
on to the Dutch coast by westerly gales. Shell-débris in the Upper
Crag-beds of East Anglia shows that easterly gales were common at
that period. This may have been due to the altered path of cyclones,
caused by the glacial conditions which were becoming established in
regions to the north of Great Britain. The abundance of mammoth-
remains along the shores of the Polar Sea and the alternate humidity
and desiccation of the basin of Nevada may have resulted from
allied causes.
It is difficult, however, to restore hypothetically the meteorological
conditions of the Pleistocene epoch on the theory that the maximum
glaciation of the eastern and western continents was contemporaneous.
In that case an enormous anticyclone would have extended from the
pole southward over both continents at the same time, causing
cyclonic conditions in the Atlantic both in Summer and Winter.
Such a condition of things would have flooded Western Europe with
warm southerly winds. No such meteorological difficulties arise if
the hypothesis that the more important glacial and interglacial
periods alternated in the western and eastern continents be adopted.
Thus persistent and excessive cold in North America during the
Winter of 1898-99 was coincident with abnormal warmth in Europe ;
the winds were northerly and polar in America, southerly and
strictly complementary in Europe.
On the other hand, the effect of an ice-sheet anticyclone extending
from Greenland to Central Europe might have been to force the
storm-tracks of the North Atlantic to the south-west, producing
warm south-easterly winds in Labrador, which would have tended,
moreover, to divert the surface-currents of the North Atlantic from
the European to the American coast. The glaciation of Great
Britain could only have happened at a time when the Icelando-
British Channel was closed. No permanent ice-sheet could have
existed in Britain and Scandinavia while the influence of the Gulf
Stream was as it is at present.
It is possible that the shifting of glacial conditions from one side
of the Atlantic to the other may have been due to differential
earth-movements.
The views taken in this paper afford a simpler explanation of
geological facts than those usually adopted. Instead of supposing
that the climatic changes of the Great Ice Age, several times
recurrent at intervals of a few thousand years, were due to
astronomical or physical causes, it is suggested that the climate of
the Northern Hemisphere being, from some unexplained cause, colder
than that of our era, conditions of comparative warmth or cold may
have been more or less local, affecting the great continental areas
at different periods.
Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London. 329
Il;— May 22nd, 1901.—J. J. H. Teall, Esq., M.A., V.P.RB.S.,
President, in the Chair.
Mr. George Abbott, in exhibiting some specimens of Cellular
Limestone from the Permian beds at Fulwell, Sunderland, which
he proposed to present to the British Museum (Natural History),
remarked that their interest depended upon the assumption that
they were entirely inorganic. Although showing a remarkable
resemblance to corais, yet no zoologist or geologist had yet claimed
them as organic. If this surmise were correct, the carbonate-of-
lime-molecules—probably when amorphous—must have had some
inherent molecular directive force which produced the numerous
distinct patterns in their structure. ‘These fall into four distinct
classes—honeycomb (two kinds), coralloid, and pseudo-organic,
the last-named being remarkable for having a constant discoidal
shape, and therefore those of this class must have had their external
form also controlled by the hypothecated force. Hach class appears
to have passed through four stages of ‘growth’ and to have
undergone some marvellous rearrangements of the particles while
in the solid condition. So far as he knew, no one had previously
attempted to classify the different patterns, nor had anyone, except
Mr. William King, in his work on “ Permian Fossils,” offered any
theory as to the formation of this cellular structure in the Magnesian
Limestone. (See Prof. G.A.J.Cole’s letter, Grou. Maa., April, p. 187.)
The following communications were read :—
1. “On the Skull of a Chiru-like Antelope from the Ossiferous
Deposits of Hundes (Tibet).” By Richard Lydekker, Esq.
Twenty years ago the author proposed the provisional name of
Pantholops Hundesiensis for an extinct species of antelope typified
by an imperfect skull figured in Royle’s “ Botany, ete., of the
Himalaya Mountains,” pl. iii, fig. 1. The specimen is in the
Museum of the Geological Society, and an examination has confirmed
the original determination. The skull, although of rather smaller
dimensions, comes very close to that of the existing chiru (Pantholops
Hodgsoni) of Tibet in general form of brain-case, in the strong ridges
marking the upper limits of the temporal fosse, and in the contour
of the occipital surface. The horn-cores have the same highly
elliptical cross-section, and the same general setting-on and upright
direction. The fossil apparently came from the horizontal deposits
of Hundes, and its age is probably not greater than Upper Pliocene.
2. “On the Occurrence of Silurian (?) Rocks in Forfarshire and
Kincardineshire along the Eastern Border of the Highlands.” By
George Barrow, Esq., F.G.S. (Communicated by permission of the
Director of H.M. Geological Survey.)
These rocks occur in three lenticular strips between the schistose
rocks of the Highlands and the boundary-fault next the Old Red
Sandstone. The largest is about 20 miles long, and extends almost
from Cortachy to beyond the Clattering Bridge; it is about { mile
wide at its widest. The rocks are divided into two groups: the
Jasper and Green Rock Series below and the younger Margie Series
000 Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London.
above. A section along the North Esk River is described in detail,
and other sections referred to it. The lower division consists of
fine-grained sandstones (bearing microcline), grey slaty shales,
jaspers (sometimes containing circular bodies resembling radiolaria),
and a variable series of basic igneous rocks (‘ green rock’) of coarse
texture and probably intrusive origin. The upper division consists
of conglomerates, pebbly grits, dark and white shales, pebbly
limestone, and grey shale. The age of the series cannot be definitely
ascertained, but the lower division is compared with the Arenig
cherts, etc., of the Southern Uplands, while the Margie Series is-
newer than this, but older than the Old Red Sandstone. Both
groups have been much deformed, but the sediments contain clastic
micas and have undergone practically no recrystallization, and the
igneous rocks are never changed into hornblende-schists. The
deformation is greatest near the junction with the Highland Schists,
giving rise to a deceptive appearance of an upward succession and
an apparent transition in crystalline character, but the crushing
never extends more than a few yards into the Highland Series.
A major thrust separates the Highland Schists from the Jasper and
Green Rock Series, and a minor thrust generaliy separates the
latter from the Margie Series. The position of the major thrust
and that of the later great boundary fault skirting the Old Red
Sandstone have been determined by the outer limit of the aureole
of crystallization of which the South-Eastern Highlands form a part.
The harder crystalline schists to the north-west have snapped off
from the softer portions, now covered by newer rocks to the
south-east.
3. “On the Crush-Conglomerates of Argyllshire.” By J. B. Hill,
Esq., R.N. (Communicated by R. 8. Herries, Esq., M.A., Sec.G.S.,
with the permission of the Director of H.M. Geological Survey.)
While the sedimentary origin of the Highland Boulder-bed is
proved by the foreign boulders contained in it, there occur in the
Loch Awe region certain conglomerates, often along definite horizons,
which may have been confused with it, but which the author is.
able to prove have originated by crushing. The sedimentary rocks
of the area include all the members of the Loch Awe Series, consisting
of grits, slates, and limestones, the latter being mostly gritty in
character. Associated with these is an enormous amount of igneous.
material of Dalradian age, ranging from intermediate to basic in
composition, together with porphyrite-dykes probably of Old Red
Sandstone age and a plexus of Tertiary dykes. The sediments are
everywhere folded, the folds being of isoclinal type. The Dalradian
igneous material consists of epidiorites; and evidence is brought
forward to prove that these rocks are intrusive, while their great
apparent bulk is probably to be accounted for by repetition due to
folding. A petrographical description is given of the various types
of rocks represented among the epidiorites, the minerals of which
include hornblende and felspar, with chlorite, epidote, calcite, quartz,
and iron-ores. There is every gradation in texture from a coarse
Correspondence—A. M. Davies. 331
gabbro-like type to the finest schists, and some of the rocks are
vesicular. The rocks are frequently foliated.
The crush-conglomerates have been observed in the limestones,
quartzites, and epidiorites ; but they are most conspicuously developed
at the junction of rocks of dissimilar character, and especially when
the limestone and epidiorite are in juxtaposition. The junction of
the two rocks is intricately folded: folded knobs of epidiorite
measuring from a few inches to a foot or more being packed
together in a limestone matrix. In the sections big blocks may
be seen in process of division by shearing movements, which have
succeeded the folding. The limestone seems generally to have
played the part of a plastic body, and has accommodated itself
as a matrix to the folded and isolated fragments of epidiorite,
between which it has been squeezed. Thus the origin of the
conglomerate is satisfactorily proved by the fact that it contains
fragments of rocks newer than the sediments in which the crush-
conglomerates are embedded. The author considers that it would be
safer to regard such conglomerates in this area as have a calcareous
matrix as having been formed by crushing.
CORR HSL ON Saiwes-
——_—_<——
THE MAMMILLATUS-ZONE IN EAST SURREY.
S1z,—In a short communication to this Magazine for May, 1899
(pp. 234-5), evidence was brought forward of the persistence of the
zone of Hoplites interruptus along the Gault outcrop through Kent
and Surrey. Since then Mr. Jukes-Browne’s valuable memoir on
the English Gault and Upper Greensand has appeared, and in this
certain beds at the extreme base of the Gault in West Kent and
East Surrey are considered as probably belonging to the lower zone
of Acanthoceras mammillatum, though paleontological evidence of
this is wanting. This evidence can now fortunately be supplied.
About a mile and a half south-south-east of Merstham, at a point
marked on the new 1-inch sheet 286 as “ Stocklands Farm,” there is-
a small brickfield where the extreme base of the Gault is dug. The
junction with the Folkestone sands is not actually seen, but these
sands are dug within a few yards of the section. In the lowest
part of the clay there are abundant large and irregular phosphatic
nodules, full of glauconite grains and with many quartz-grains also.
In these nodules fossils occur, including two species of Ammonites,
Acanthoceras mammillatum and Desmoceras Beudanti, the latter being
particularly abundant. (These determinations have been kindly
verified by Mr. Crick, of the Natural History Museum.) Other
fossils occur, but not abundantly, and I cannot give a list, as most
of them were dispersed among a party of my students before the
special interest of the section was discovered. Coniferous wood
occurs abundantly, beautifully preserved.
The section is closely similar in appearance to one at Reigate,
described in Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xvi, p. 162, and there said to:
be unfossiliferous. On a recent visit, however, I found a piece of
332 Correspondence—T. G. Bonney—J. RK. Dakyns.
coniferous wood there just like that at Stocklands, but no Ammonites.
I would suggest to local geologists the advisability of a persistent
search for the latter. A. M. Davizs.
25, Mortimer Street, WV.
NAMES FOR BRITISH ICE-SHEBRTS.
Srr,—To discuss fully the wide questions raised by Mr. Lamplugh’s
reply to my letter of last April would require far too much
space, so I content myself with repeating that to propose a name
for that which has not been proved to exist is, to say the least,
premature. It is also objectionable, because so many persons cannot
-become familiar with a name without assuming that it implies the
existence of a reality. As man is naturally prone to idolatry, which
in the present age commonly takes the form of phrase-worship, I am
sure that if the North Sea Ice-sheet passed without protest it would
quickly materialize into a geological fact. I had no objection to
using the term ‘Scandinavian Ice-sheet,’ because something of the
kind must have existed in that country, yet I was careful to speak
only of ‘Caledonian ice.’ So I cannot allow Mr. Lamplugh to
smuggle in an East British Ice-sheet under the cover of any phrase
in my letter. As for the late Glacial age of the Dogger Bank, that
of course is possible; but I think whoever makes use of it as an
argument should indicate under what circumstances such a long
shoal-like mass of morainic matter was deposited in that position.
Also, I should like to have an explanation of the causes which would
lead to an exceptional precipitation of snow on any particular part of
a comparatively level plain which had considerable land masses on
three sides. My complaint against the school of glacialists to which
Mr. Lamplugh belongs is, that they insist on those facts which seem
to favour their ideas and ignore all which have the contrary effect.
Thus, like the defenders of the Ptolemaic system of Astronomy, they
support hypothesis by hypothesis, and invent epicycles to escape
from difficulties. It is, however, a gain to have it admitted that
boulders did not take an inside or outside passage on an ice-sheet
the whole way from Scandinavia to Eastern England. This
encourages me to hope that a course of sea-bathing early in the
Glacial Epoch may embolden some geologists to repeat the process
later in the same, and to extend southward the submergence which
must have occurred then (Grou. Mac., 1877, p. 72, and 1900,
p- 289) in a more northern region. T. G. Bonney.
CURIOUS BRECCIAS IN THE HIGHLANDS.
Srr,—There are in the Scottish Highlands between Loch Katrine
and the upper part of Loch Lomond several bosses of diorite
surrounded by brecciated schist. These are very curious, for each
boss of diorite is surrounded by a narrow fringe of breccia consisting
entirely of schist without any admixture of igneous matter. It seems
to me that the diorite must have been forced up in a solid state
through the schist, which in consequence got broken up; for had the
diorite been in a molten state when it came up, some of it would
surely have flowed among the fragments of schist.
Geol. Mag, 1901. Dee. 1V,., Vol. VOU Te eae
Obituary— Gustaf Lindstrom. 3303
Further north, in Glenfalloch, there is a more extensive area of
similar brecciated schist, where, however, as far as I remember, no
igneous rocks are to be seen.
The researches of Lapworth, Peach, and Horne in the Highlands,
of Lamplugh in the Isle of Man, and of others elsewhere, have
taught us that solid rocks have been broken up or ground into
powder by mechanical violence on a far larger and more extended
scale than had been previously dreamed of.
If I am right in my conjecture as to the origin of the breccias
mentioned above, they are instances of the same sort of thing.
June 4, 1901. J. R. Daxkyns.
P.S.—I am reminded by my friend, Mr. C. T. Clough, that the
breccias may be due to explosions. They are mentioned by Sir
Archibald Geikie in his work on “ Ancient British Volcanoes,” but
I have not the book at hand to refer to.—J. R. D.
GSR EAD UN AR Ge
Ta
GUSTAF LINDSTROM.
(WITH A PORTRAIT, PLATE XIII.)
Born at Wisspy, AvuG. 27, 1829. Diep at SvockHomm, May 16, 1901.
How vividly comes to one’s mind that little room looking into the
courtyard of the Riksmuseum at Stockholm, with its plain deal
floor, deal tables and writing-desk, and the rough deal shelves for
books covering three of its walls, the only decoration a few portraits
(as of Angelin and Darwin), the only sign of comfort an old horse-
hair sofa. Here for twenty-five years, day after day, Gustaf
Lindstrém pursued his quiet labours on that wonderful collection
stored in the adjoining room, a collection rich chiefly in the fossils
of Silurian Gotland amassed by the successive exertions of Hisinger,
Angelin, and Lindstrom himself. At one of the windows in that
room, overmuch darkened though it was by the tall houses opposite,
one would see G. Liljevall developing some rare fossil or making
those exquisite drawings that illustrated Lindstrom’s papers; at
another window the attendant boy, usually a Gustaf too, made
cardboard trays or sorted out new accessions; while a third window
was generally occupied by some foreign paleontologist who had
journeyed far to study the famous collection. Many are there of
these who to-day mourn Lindstrom, not merely as a leader gone from
among them, but as an ever attentive host, and as a dear friend.
Born among the medizval ruins of Wisby, in whose cliifs and on
whose strand fossils are to be had for the mere taking, the meditative
and retiring youth could not fail to have his interest aroused by the
relics of the past. He might have been a great archeologist, in fact
his academic thesis was on the history of his native island in Queen
Christina’s reign, and in after years he published two thick volumes
on the Middle Ages in Gotland ; but the direct incentive to paleeonto-
logical studies was early furnished. “In 1845,” he once wrote,
“when I was quite a boy, much wondering at the marvellous things
I saw enclosed in the limestone rocks of my native island of Gotland,
334 Obituary—Gustaf Lindstrom.
Sir Roderick, accompanied by M. de Verneuil, visited the island and
ranged its strata, along with the other old ‘transition rocks’ of
Sweden, in his newly-founded realm ‘Siluria.’ This fact acted upon
me as a fresh revelation, and indicated the path upon which to
proceed.” It was no doubt also Murchison’s visit which suggested
his enquiry into the elevation of Gotland, the subject of his first
paper (1852).
But Lindstrém, though he continued to the last to study the
geological relations of the Gotland rocks, did not become a mere
stratigraphical paleontologist. In 1848 he commenced student at
Upsala University and took the opportunity of attending a course of
lectures delivered by Lovén in Stockholm. Thus was impressed on
him the need to the paleontologist of a thorough understanding of
living animals, and so, after taking his doctor’s degree in 1854, he
served for a time as extraordinary amanuensis at the zoological
museum of the University, and published purely zoological papers—
on the invertebrate fauna of the Baltic, on the larva of Peltogaster,
and on the development of Sertularia. In 1856 he accepted a post
as school-teacher in Wisby, and in 1858 a mastership at the
Grammar School in that town. During these years he translated
a textbook of zoology by H. Masius, and produced his “‘ Geologiens
Grunder,” which was an adaptation of the works of Lyell to Swedish
students, and contained numerous original illustrations from the
geology of Sweden; it speedily ran through two editions, and did
much to increase the study of geology in that country.
Now settled in Wisby, Lindstrém, without dropping his zoological
researches, as proved by a paper on the fish of Gotland (1867),
devoted more attention to the fossils of the island. He began with
the Brachiopoda (1860), but soon turned to the Ccelentera, and in
1865 published the first of that valuable series of papers on the
rugose corals which led up to his memoir on the operculate corals
of the Paleozoic formations (1883). These papers, while disclosing
hitherto unsuspected facts of coral structure, finally solved the problem
of the systematic position of the peculiar Calceola, previously regarded
as an aberrant brachiopod. A remarkable type of madreporarian
was fully described by him in 1868 under the name Calostylis, and
again discussed in his memoir on the Anthozoa perforata of Gotland
(1870). He wrote also on the tabulate corals, and was at the same
time investigating the deep-sea corals of the Atlantic. To
complete the account of his work on the corals, we may mention
his papers on Silurian corals from Russia (1882), on Rhizophyllum
(1884), on Prisciturben (1889), on the ‘Corallia baltica’ of Linnzeus
(1895), a description of some Silurian corals from Gotland, including
the new genera Nodulipora, Holophragma, and Dinophyllum, with re-
descriptions of his Helminthidium, Pachypora, Polyorophe, Actinocystis,
and others (1896), on a Tetradium from Beeren Hiland (1899), on
the Neocomian Thecocyathus Nathorsti from King Charles Land
(1900), and his great memoir on the Heliolitide (1899).
But before these last-mentioned papers were written occurred the
death of the Keeper of the fossil Invertebrata in the State Museum
at Stockholm, N. P. Angelin, and the Academy of Sciences appointed
Obituary— Gustaf Lindstrom. 335
Lindstrém to the post (1876). One of his first tasks in this new
and more favourable position was the completion and publication
of the ‘ Fragmenta Silurica” (1880), for which some plates had
been prepared by Angelin. There also fell on him the difficult
and ungrateful labour, shared with Lovén, of editing Angelin’s
“Tconographia Crinoideorum.” These tasks accomplished, Lindstrém
found time to attack other groups of Gotland fossils. Thus, in 1884
we have from him a beautifully illustrated memoir ‘“ On the Silurian
‘Gastropoda and Pteropoda,” of importance as indicating the varying
nature of the fauna in correspondence with the varying conditions in
different parts of the Gotland sea. In 1885 he issued a revision of
the trilobites and Merostomata, containing descriptions of many new
species. while in the same year he was associated with T. Thorell
in a publication that awoke profound interest, namely, the description
of a scorpion, Palgophonus nuncius, from a bed of Lower Ludlow age
at Wisby.!. This was the oldest air-breathing animal then known,
but there have since been described Proscorpius, Whitfield, from
the Waterlime group of New York, Palgoblattina, Brongniart, from
the Middle Silurian of Calvados, and Protocimex, Moberg, from the
Upper Ordovician of Sweden. He then turned his attention to the
remains of Cephalopoda preserved in a hard, splintery limestone of
Southern Gotland, and requiring the utmost patience for their
extraction and elucidation. The result of this was the important
memoir on “The Ascoceratides and the Lituitide,” in which he
lucidly explained the complicated structure of that extraordinary
nautiloid, Ascoceras. The year 1895 produced another discovery of
the greatest interest, namely, a Cyathaspis from beds of Lower
Wenlock age at Lau in Gotland; the minute structure of the plates
was very fully described by Lindstrém.
These important memoirs by no means exhausted the activities
of Professor Lindstrom. He visited Gotland every summer and
pursued his enquiries into its geology, as many minor papers bear
witness. On these wanderings through the island he also collected
the materials for his archeological studies. He published a list of
the fossils of Gotland, followed by lists of the Cambrian, Ordovician,
and Silurian faunas of Sweden. He took an active part in the affairs
of the Academy, and occasionally gave popular lectures on subjects
of general geological interest. Of recent years, as the burden of age
began to press more heavily, he rejuvenated himself (as he expressed
it) by visits to Italy, in which both as naturalist and archeologist he
took the greatest possible delight. But this did not cure the gradual
failure of eyesight that was his greatest trouble, and rather more
than two years ago he finally lost the use of one eye. When I saw
him last, in 1899, he was dreading the loss of the other, but was
still hard at work, and greatly excited over an important discovery
just made in the trilobites. Oddly enough, this concerned certain
macula, believed by him to be vestigial eye-spots, occurring on the
hypostome of many genera. This gave rise to the last paper he ever
wrote, a wonderfully detailed study of these macule and of the
1 Another Silurian scorpion, referred to Lindstrém’s genus Paleophonus, has been
discovered by B. N. Peach at Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire.
336 Obituary— Gustaf Lindstrom.
visual organs of the trilobites in general, with important bearings on
the zoological position of those animals (February, 1901).
The scientific work of Gustaf Lindstrém, though not greatly
affecting the more theoretical and philosophical questions of zoology
and geology, was marked, as we have seen, by many discoveries:
of great interest and importance. But the discovery of to-day is the
stale news of to-morrow, and it is not by any sensational features of
his work that his fame will continue. It will continue and it will
increase by reason of the immense care he bestowed on all details,
the accurate descriptions, and the exquisite illustrations. He
recognized the futility not merely of the ordinary semi-diagrammatic
figures but also of the more pretentious photographs, when there
was question of such perplexing detail and variation as is presented
by the corals. It is only just to say, and Lindstrém himself always
insisted, that in his attempts he received the greatest help from the
remarkable artistic talents of Mr. G. Liljevall. His work will live
because of the absence of unwarranted speculation, because of its
thoroughness, because of its honesty. He had always, in the rich
collection at his elbow, and in the appeals of his contemporaries, the
temptation to publish much more than he did, but future generations
will rejoice that he understood how it was better to do one thing
conscientiously than many things superficially.
Lindstrom indeed was thorough and true-hearted in all relations
of life. Though retiring and careless of popular applause, he was
more sensitive of the opinion of others than he might have been had
he mixed more with the world. It were far from the truth, however,
to regard him as a narrow-minded recluse. He interested himself
in many subjects outside those of pure science, and one soon per-
ceived the sly and kindly humour that twinkled behind his spectacles.
He was ever ready to discuss English literature or politics. Those
of other countries too, perhaps; but he had a great affection for
England, which he visited last in 1874, and he was always full of
reminiscences of Murchison and our ancient heroes of geology.
Huxley also he met and was much impressed by, and hoped that
a day would yet come when a “ Life” would be written that would do
justice to “that great and good man.” Most of his important works
were written in English, while of some he published translations in
the Geonoetcat Magazine. To the workers from all countries who
made pilgrimage to Gotland or to Stockholm he was attentive and
hospitable, but I have thought that the particular kindness he
showed to me at all times, and specially when I first came to
Sweden an unknown student, must have been due to my nationality.
He was member of the Russian and Prussian Academies of Science,
of the Belgian Geological Society and many others, but few honours
pleased him more than those received from the Geological Society of
London, of which he was elected Foreign Correspondent in 1888,
Foreign Member in 1892, and whose Murchison Medal he received
in 1895. There are many in this country who now sorrow for his
loss, and while all will ever honour him as a great palzeontologist,
there are not a few who will long remember him with affection as
a personal friend. F. A. Batuer.
THE
GHOLOGICAL MAGAZINE.
NEW SERIES. ~“BDECADE IV., VOL. VIII.
No. VIII—AUGUST, 1901.
OE eG ae IN Ae PAS ea eae Sse
= a
J.—Tue Harutest Traces oF Man.!
By Sir Henry H. Howorrn, K.C.I.E., F.R.S., F.G.S.
HE origin of Man remains an unsolved problem. In spite of
very keen and anxious researches, extending over many years,
we are still without a real clue to the difficulty. Whence and how
and when he came we do not know, and we had better say so. :
In the valley of the Nile, where the earliest knowledge of writing
has been traced, our written records take us back perhaps 7,000
years. At that period the various races and varieties into which
the human race is divided by the naturalist were apparently com-
pletely differentiated. The different families of language which
the philologer has discriminated were sharply defined, while his
thought and the products of his thought (of which language is an
index), of comparative archeology, mythology, etc., etc., show that
these races were as trenchantly distinguished as they are now.
Whatever else this means it must mean (if the history of mankind
has been continuous) that the origin of man is a long way off,
a much longer way off than people were once willing to admit.
The differences and distinctions here pointed out must have taken
a very long time to mature, and if man originated in one stock,
which has overspread and conquered the earth, as some of us think,
it must have taken a vast time for the many languages, religions,
customs, and thoughts, which characterize his many and varied
clans and tribes and nations, to diverge so much from each other.
It may be that presently with the assistance of comparative
methods applied scientifically to language, religion, and art, we may
be able to disentangle the crooked threads into which the web of
human progress has been woven ; but this must take a long time.
It will involve a wide and searching analysis of difficult details,
1 ¢ Paleeolithic Man in Africa,’’ by Sir John Evans, K.C.B., F.R.S.: Proc. Roy.
Soc., 1900, vol. lxvi.
‘< Eolithic Implements,’’ by Rev. R. Ashington Bullen, B.A., F.L.S., F.G.S.:
Trans. Vict. Inst., 1900.
‘* A Collection of Stone Implements in the Mayer Museum,”’ by H. O. Forbes,
LL.D.: Bull. Liverpool Mus., 1900, ii.
“‘The Age of the Surface Flint Implements of Egypt and Somaliland,’ by
H., O. Forbes, LL.D.: Bull. Liverpool Mus., 1901, iii.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. VIII. 22
338 Sir H. H. Howorth—The Earliest Traces of Man.
and will probably depend a good deal more on the ethnographer
and the linguist than on the archeologist.
With that great problem we have not at present to do, however.
If we are to make any progress at all we must limit it very con-
siderably, and detach ourselves completely from such ambitious
issues as the origin of Man, etc., etc., as we must from all attempts
at surveying the universe from China to Peru. Our geographical
as well as our archeological frontiers must be sharply limited.
Let us for a few paragraphs, therefore, limit ourselves to a smaller
area and narrower conditions, and try to realize what we have
been able to learn of the oldest inhabitants of the European area.
It will readily be seen that the problem means that we must
summon the geologist to our help. The problem is, in fact, as much
a geological as it is an archeological one. It depends for its solution
quite as much upon clearly distinguishing the geological horizon
where the test object is found as upon the character and appearance
of the object itself. If an object is found in an undisturbed bed
of sand, gravel, or clay, it must if thus in sita& be as old as the
laying down of the bed in question, and that is a geological problem.
The first step taken in answering the question we are discussing
was a long time ago. In 1713 an implement made of black flint
and of the type now known as Paleolithic was discovered with the
tooth of an elephant in digging gravel in Grays Inn Lane. This
implement was distinctly recognized as of human workmanship,
and was presented to the British Museum, in which collection it
has since remained.
In the catalogue of the Sloane Collection we find the following
entry in regard to this very famous relic:—“ No. 246, a British
weapon found, with elephant’s teeth, opposite to black St. Mary’s near
Grayes Inn Lane (Conyers). It is a large black flint shaped into
the figure of a spear point (K.).” It appears, says Sir John Evans,
to have been found at the close of the seventeenth century, and
a rude engraving of it illustrates a letter on the antiquities of
London, by Mr. Bagford, in 1715, and printed in Hearne’s edition
of Leland’s “ Collectanea,” 1, lxiv. From his account it would seem
that the skeleton of an elephant was found not far from Battle-
bridge by Mr. Conyers, and that near the place where it was found
‘‘a British weapon made of a flint lance, like unto the head of a spear,
was dug out” (Evans, “Stone Implements,” 2nd ed., pp. 582-3).
Sir J. Evans gives a full-sized illustration of this very interesting
implement. The importance of this discovery was not recognized.
Neither the geological position of the gravels in the Thames Valley
nor the fact of the elephant in question having been an extinct
animal could then be known or appreciated, and the discovery was
doubtless treated as in no sense an extraordinary one from the
archeological side.
The next recorded step taken in this inquiry was also made in
Britain, namely, the discovery by John Frere in 1797 of three flint
implements of the same type in the beds at Hoxne in Suffolk, which
have since become so famous, and in company with bones of great
Sir H. H. Howorth—The Earliest Traces of Man. 339
size. The objects in question were found twelve feet deep in the
ground, and Frere, who clearly discriminated them as of human
workmanship, says of them, “I think they are evidently weapons of
war, fabricated and used by a people who had not the use of the
metals” (Archgologia, xiii, 103). This statement was the first one
in which the position was maintained by a scientific person that man
had passed through a stage of culture in which he used stone only for
his tools and weapons, and when he was still ignorant of the use of
metals. Beyond this Frere could not of course go. The key to the
whole position was not yet available. What it is very important
to remember is, that long before the question was sophisticated by
discussions about the antiquity or origin of man, and when it was a
mere question of discriminating early specimens of human workman-
ship, these flint objects from the gravels of the Thames and the
so-called diluvial beds of Suffolk were distinctly recognized as
having been made by human hands.
The key necessary to unlock the next difficulty in the progress
of discovery was produced by Cuvier in 1813, when he showed that
the remains of elephants and other great beasts found in the
superficial beds belong to species no longer living.
This conclusion ought to have been followed by its natural
corollary, namely, its application to the discoveries already
mentioned, and the admission that man was contemporaneous with
the extinct animals; but the geology of the surface beds (since
known as Post-Tertiary and Pleistocene) was still an unexplored
province of that science; the discoveries in question were buried and
forgotten, and Cuvier, whose researches had been almost entirely
confined to the Tertiary beds, where he had chiefly to do with a fauna
all of which had passed away, not unnaturally adopted a sceptical
attitude in regard to man having lived with animals now extinct.
He had met with no examples of the kind himself, and naturally
appealed to other explanations when evidence to the contrary which
seemed ambiguous was produced.
Such evidence was, in fact, forthcoming in 1828, when Ami Boué
brought before the same great anatomist the discovery of some
human bones found in the widespread loamy deposit of the Rhine
Valley known as loess or lehm. This discovery was made near
Lahr. (See Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 1829-50.)
When this discovery was brought before Cuvier he refused to
accept its testimony. Discussing it in 1831 (“Discours sur les
révolutions du globe,” p. 29), he says, “Toute porte a croire, que
Vespéce humaine n’existait point dans les pays ou se découvrent les
ossemens fossiles, 4 l’6poque des révolutions qui ont enfoui ces os.” It
can well be believed that such a pronouncement from such a source
largely dominated European opinion on the subject, for Cuvier’s
authority was naturally paramount.
Tournal, in a communication addressed to the Annales des Sciences
Naturelles in October, 1828, says of the caverns at Bize, near
Narbonne, “human bones occur in the same beds as the bones of
extinct animals, and both exhibit the same chemical and organic
840 Sir H. H. Howorth—The Earliest Traces of Man.
characters,” and he urges that the existence of actually fossil human
remains must be treated as a question in suspense. Inasmuch,
however, as Tournal tells us that with the human bones were found
pottery and modern marine shells, it would seem that the remains
must in part, if not altogether, have belonged to so-called Neolithic
times. (See Annales des Sciences, vol. xv, pp. 348-350.)
In 1829 M. Tournal communicated to this publication further
remarks on the same subject. In this letter he refers to the
researches of M. Christol, and says they were both agreed that
the existence of man was not separated from that of the extinct
animals, but they had been contemporaries. He says that M. Christol
had shown him the human bones which he had found in the
department of the Gard, i. in the caves of Sauvignargues,
Poudres, etc, and that it was impossible to distinguish their
condition from that of the bones of tigers, lions, and hyenas found
with them. Their physical and chemical condition was the same,
and they were found in the same beds; while in regard to the
bones of some of the extinct animals he had himself found in the
caverns of Bize, they bore the character of having been cut by human
weapons. (Id., vol. xviii, pp. 142 seq.)
These remarks fell upon deaf ears, and the long and dreary process
of sapping and undermining the prejudices of the dominant school
of geologists had to be pressed for many a long year before the
position was stormed. The two most effective workers in this field
both died without their conclusions being accepted. One of them,
who spent his life and his fortune in exploring the caves of Belgium
and died broken-hearted, was Schmerling. The other, a Roman
Catholic clergyman called McHnery, did corresponding work at
Kents Hole. In each case the explorer claimed to have shown
from evidence that was irreproachable that man had lived con-
temporaneously with the extinct beasts, and had left his remains
mingled with theirs in the red earth beneath the stalagmite floors of
the caverns.
It must not be forgotten that the person who persistently in
England refused to accept the conclusion of the contemporaneity of
man and the extinct beasts, and who caused McHnery’s now famous
memoir to be locked up at the Royal Society for years after his
death, was Huxley, while Owen’s views on the matter were much
more enlightened.
Meanwhile, M. Boucher de Perthes, an antiquary at Abbeville,
became convinced, after years of patient search, that implements of
human workmanship occurred in the undisturbed gravels of the
Somme Valley, and must date from the time when those gravels
were deposited. He had preached for years in vain, when fortunately
a great English paleontologist, the late Dr. Falconer, passed that
way and was persuaded by the evidence he saw that M. Boucher de
Perthes was right, and he eventually persuaded Professor Prestwich,
Sir John Evans, and Sir John Lubbock to visit Abbeville and
Amiens and to explore and report upon the facts. The result of
their labours was embodied in a famous memoir in the Philosophical
Sir H. H. Howorth—The Earliest Traces of Man. 341
Transactions. This made the position so clear and patent that the
pendulum, which had been obstinately pointed to the recency of
man, swayed right over, and the great mass of scientific men accepted
what they had previously refused to credit.
It must be remembered by all those who turn to this famous
memoir that its authors proved nothing whatever new. Their
conclusions were those which had been arrived at by Tournal
and Christol, by Schmerling and McEnery, long before. They
merely stamped with a kind of official sanction what ought to have
been generally received before.
The memoir in question, however, gave a great impetus to the
inquiry about early man in Europe, and the credit of the next step
in the enquiry is due to Lord Avebury (then Sir John Lubbock)
and Professor Dawkins. It was Professor Dawkins, I believe,
who first definitely showed that there was a gap in the history of
early man, which was indexed and measured by a very important
paleontological fact, namely, that of the separate coexistence of man
with extinct animals and his coexistence with domesticated animals,
the remains of the two sets of beasts never overlapping so far as
we know. ‘This remains the real touchstone separating the earliest
known men in Europe from their successors.
Sir John Lubbock completed Professor Dawkins’ distinction by
giving a special name to each section of early man. The men who
lived with the extinct beasts and used roughly chipped tools and
weapons he styled Paleolithic, while those who used finely chipped
or polished weapons and tools and had domesticated animals he
called Neolithic.
After this mapping of the general problem a vast deal of work
was done in many countries defining the geographical area where
Paleolithic man lived, and describing his mode of life and sur-
roundings, and among those who worked most assiduously in this
behalf none have earned our gratitude more than Messrs. Christy
and Lartet.
A great problem still remained to be solved, which involves
a polemic, though one in which the strugglers on the old platform
are becoming fewer and fewer. This is the question whether
Paleolithic man lived before or after the distribution of the Drift ;
on this question I have myself written a good deal, and in a large
work to be shortly published have tried to condense a vast mass
of evidence justifying those geologists, and I believe they are now
the large majority, who hold that Paleolithic man lived before the
distribution of the Drift, and that the great gap, which is recognized
by everyone, between Palzolithic and Neolithic man is coincident
with that distribution and in all probability connected with it.
In quite recent years a further step has been taken which I believe
will be eventually justified. The period before the Drift, which is
specially marked by the presence of two elephants — EF. antiquus
and primigenius — was, I believe, perfectly continuous with that
known as the Forest Bed, and marked by the presence of a special
fossil elephant known as &. meridionalis. ‘The two were, I believe,
342 Sir H. H. Howorth—The Earliest Traces of Man.
simply phases of one continuous period. It would not, therefore, be
prima facie improbable if the remains of Paleolithic man should be
found in the Forest Bed.
Such remains are claimed to have been found at that horizon
in Norfolk by Mr. Abbott and Mr. Savin, in Dorsetshire by
Dr. Blackmore, and they have been also reported from the same
horizon at St. Prest in France and in the Val d’Arno, north of
Italy, in each case the remains of human workmanship being
accompanied by those of H. meridionalis. I believe these finds
are quite genuine. They are what we should prima facie have
expected, and so far as we know they are the earliest remains of
man hitherto found.
So far there is a fairly general agreement among geologists and
archeologists in regard to the evidence about primitive man. At
this point, however, a clear divergence must be recognized. A small
and pertinacious body of inquirers, including especially Mr. B.
Harrison, Mr. W. J. Lewis, and the Rev. R. A. Bullen, have in
season and out of season insisted that traces of human workmanship
have been discovered at a much earlier horizon in the form of very
rude flint implements which have been found in the so-called
plateau gravels of Southern England. To these implements the
name of eoliths has been given, and the champions of their age and
authenticity number among them no less important persons than
Professor Prestwich and Professor Rupert Jones. They have
failed, however, to secure the countenance of a large number of
sceptical critics, among whom I confess I find myself. I have seen
many hundreds of these eoliths, but I have seen very few which
seem to me to have any purpose or motive of any kind in their
shape or construction. ‘This was fully admitted by Prestwich, who
confessed that the number of these stones which showed any rational
purpose in their shape was a very small percentage indeed, and
surely this ought to be the first and prime necessity in attributing
them to human handiwork. It was this special feature in the
palzoliths of the river gravels and the caves which made men first
assign them to human handiwork. How can this same conclusion
be applied to thousands of shapeless stones, whose irregular outlines
defy all classification? The champions of the stones fall back upon
a class of tools whose shape need not be very precise, and to read
their lucubrations one would suppose that the men and women who
used these eoliths were engaged from January to December in
nothing else but scraping skins. Some have, in fact, suggested that
they did nothing else than scrape their own skins, and that the
eoliths performed the double function of strygils and vermin-killers !
There are no arrow-heads amongst these stones, no lances, no
tools such as we are accustomed to find among recognized palzoliths.
What we do find, and what needs explanation, is a large number
of once angular flints whose angles have been rubbed down by
trituration, probably in a stream, and whose edges have been snipped
all round their sinuous outlines. This snipping seems to be the only
reasonable ground for attributing them to human hands. I am
Sir H, H. Howorth—The Earliest Traces of Man. 348
bound to say it appears to me a very crude and remote reason
upon which to base such a stupendous hypothesis.
_Apart from the characters of the stones themselves, there is the
difficulty of their geological age. In the book already referred to
which I am about to publish, the age of the southern gravels will,
among other things, be discussed. JI have ventured to argue in it
once again that these plateau gravels, as now distributed, were not
the result of diurnal causes, fluviatile or otherwise, but of the same
general cause which laid down the great mass of the drift and which
acted independently of the contour of the country. I cannot, there-
fore, see in these gravels any traces of that vast lapse of time
postulated by the champions of the human origin of the eoliths, and
on the supposition that they were of vastly greater age than
palzoliths.
We must remember another fact, namely, that the types we style
Paleolithic, which are well marked, can now, as we have seen, be
traced back to the horizon of the Forest Bed. It is very strange
that some of them should not occur with these eoliths in the plateau
gravels, that in many places they should not overlap and be found
mixed together, and that nowhere, so far as we know, should these
same eoliths be found with the remains of extinct animals by which
their real age could be tested. How is it they do not occur in the
caverns or in the brickearths and gravels of the valleys, and how is
it there is no continuity of shape and contour with their successors ?
It is these questions which stiffen our obstinacy and increase our
scepticism about these so-called eoliths,
A few words about another matter. As we have seen, the real
and logical distinction in Europe between the so-called Paleolithic
and the so-called Neolithic age is the existence of a gap hitherto
unbridged. On the one side we find articles of human workmanship
associated with extinct beasts, and on the other with domesticated
animals, the two never having been found mixed together. This is
the real and supreme distinction; for in regard to the shapes of the
implements, their mode of tooling, etc., intermediate forms occur—
perhaps I ought to say necessarily occur. The significance of
this gap is a polemical subject. To me it has always meant a great
catastrophe, and I have urged it in many ways and produced the
evidence for it in many quarters, and was never more convinced
of its occurrence than at this moment. I have never, however,
argued that this catastrophe, whatever it was, overwhelmed the
_ greater part of Africa. That continent seems to have a very long
history as a continuous subaerial surface. Its black races represent
very primitive forms of man, many of them hardly changed for
thousands of years, and living apparently very much in the same
way and with the same surroundings as Paleolithic man had in
Europe.
Paleolithic man may therefore be said to still survivein Africa. It
is consequently not wonderful that in several places on that continent,
notably in South Africa, in Somaliland, and in the Sahara, implements
called Paleolithic have occurred in large numbers, not buried in
344 Professor J. Joly—Salt and Geological Time.
gravel beds containing the bones of extinct animals, but lying about
on the surface, their age being therefore quite indefinite. To call
them paleoliths seems a misnomer, for that term has an archzological
sense in Europe and defines a geological horizon which it is im-
possible to equate with anything in Africa, where traces of the
catastrophe we have mentioned and of the gap which it caused
are not available. And if we are to justify the use of the term,
it must be apart altogether from its defining a geological period
or a particular archeological horizon, and merely as marking
a stage of culture. Hence we have had recently a mighty fight,
which has been largely upon the connotation of a name. This
fight has occupied the pens of Sir John Evans and Dr. Forbes,
both of whom have written with the skill and knowledge that
might have been expected of them. The issue has been com-
plicated by the fact that Africa north of the Atlas Mountains
is zoologically and archeologically a part of Hurope. In Algiers
evidence is ample that the same destruction of Pleistocene animals,
marked by their rapid entombment in gravel and brickearth, took
place as occurred in Europe; and there, as in Europe, the traces of
Paleeolithic man, properly so called, have been found in the gravels
and drift-beds associated with the extinct beasts, a fact to which
Sir John Evans has called especial attention. In the valley of the
Nile similar remains of man were found long ago by General Pitt-
Rivers in the breccias and coarse gravels of the great valley, and
here also may claim to be truly Paleolithic. But in the case of the
surface implements from Somaliland and the country of the bushmen,
we must, if we are to be precise, be careful that in applying the
term Paleolithic we do not in some way imply great age, for all it
may mean is a mere survival, just like the survival of the stone
lamps of the Hsquimaux and the stone pots and pans of the
Hebridean cottiers.
I].—Tue Crrounation oF SALT AND GEOLOGICAL TIME.
By Professor J. Jouy, M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S.
ROM time to time I have received from correspondents
suggestions that the method of determining the geological
age of the Harth by the rate of solvent denudation of sodium might
be open to considerable error if the allowance made in my paper
(Trans. R.D.S., ser. 11, vol. vii), for sodium chloride carried from
the sea by winds and washed from the atmosphere by rain, was
seriously at fault. These suggestions arise from incomplete study
of the quantities involved. Had more space been given in my
paper to this question, the hasty criticisms I have had to contend
with, doubtless, would be less often advanced. The whole matter
is capable of the simplest arithmetical statement, and the limit of
error arising from this source easily defined. Recently one
gentleman has written at considerable length on the matter in the
pages of the Chemical News. I have replied to Mr. Ackroyd in
that journal. But the definition of the limit of error referred to,
Professor J. Joly—Salt and Geological Time. 345
and the consideration of some other points raised in the discussion,
are more in place in a geological than in a chemical journal.
I would therefore seek for space in the GxrorocrcAL MaGazine
wherein to repeat in part what I have said in the Chemical News,
adding some matters more especially suited to geological readers.
If all the chlorine in rivers were combined with sodium present
in the river-water, much the larger part of the sodium would remain
over. The guantity of sodium in river-water which finds its
equivalent of chlorine in the water requires special consideration.
It obviously may in part be derived from the ocean by the agency
of winds and rains. That this part only can be considered as
derived from such a source a simple proof is given later on. The
question then arises as to what amount of sodium chloride is
observed to fall in rain, or what amount of chlorine falls with rain ;
the assumption being made, not quite accurately, that the sodium
carried by rain is measured by the chlorine present.
Very full information relating to the chlorine content of rain-
water falling in various parts of England and Scotland, and some
other coastal parts of the world, is on record. What is wanted is
fuller knowledge of the chemical character of rains falling in inland
areas, more especially as to their content of sodium. The broad
fact at our disposal is, that as we proceed inland a rapid diminution
of the percentage of chlorine appears. In inhabited parts of
Europe but 200 miles from the sea, the proportion observed appears
to be one-twelfth, normally, of what is observed 30 or 40 miles
from the sea. In India, about 300 miles from the sea it was found
to be 0:04 per 100,000.
In a country like ours where no point is more than a few score
miles from the sea, coastal conditions prevail over its entire area.
Even within the small British area, however, there appears to be
a rapid diminution in the proportion of chlorine carried by the
wind to more inland parts. This is observed even in the more
inhabited parts, notwithstanding the fact pointed out by Dr. Angus
Smith that where coal is being consumed on a considerable scale
this proportion must be expected to rise. Although this is so, I do
not think it can be doubted that a large part of the chlorine of
British rivers, and of well waters also, must be sea-derived.
A simple comparison of the chlorine content of British surface
waters and of rain, bearing in mind the inevitable concentration of
the latter by evaporation, sufficiently demonstrates this fact.
_ This is pointed out in my paper “ An Estimate of the Geological
Age of the Harth” (p. 35).
In inland countries on the other hand it is extremely doubtful,
according to our present knowledge, if any of the chlorine observed
in rain is derived from the sea, for the circulation of salt from the
earth to the air or from inland salt deposits, along with other mineral
dust, may be accepted as inevitable. Raised with every wind, again
washed down with rains, evaporated to dryness, and again raised
mingled with the light dust of soils, an amount of saline matter
comparable with so minute a quantity of chlorine as was observed
346 Professor J. Joly—Salt and Geological Time.
in India might well circulate from the earth to the air, and be
returned by the rains to the rivers. Such chlorine is, of course,
derived by solvent denudation from the soils.
Mr. Ackroyd (Chemical News, June 7th, 1901) goes so far as to
assume that the inland salt lakes must owe their salts mainly to
wind-borne chlorine. That some of the salt lakes of the earth
situated near the ocean, or in the track of storms, or even of
prevailing winds from the sea, derive contributions of salts from
the ocean, is probable. Calculations have been made by Pierre in
France and others showing how considerable in amount the salts
carried from the sea in immediate coastal regions may be. It is,
however, only necessary to refer to the chemical composition of the
salt lakes themselves to see that any such origin for the greater
mass of the salts present is totally inadmissible. The Dead Sea,
for instance, shows a very large excess of magnesium salts over
sodium salts, their chlorides constituting 15°9 per cent. and 3-6 per
cent. respectively of the total solids. ‘There is even a large excess
of calcium over sodium in its waters. In the Great Salt Lake the
proportions are just the other way; the percentages are nearly
marine, 11:9 of sodium chloride and very little magnesium chloride,
but 1:1 per cent. There is relatively very little calcium. Now
this is the more embarrassing for Mr. Ackroyd’s hypothesis, in that
the first lake is close to the sea, the latter very remote from it.
Thus the lake which is most favourably situated for the rain supply
of sea-salts is just that one which most completely departs in its
chemical composition from that of the ocean. Again, we find a lake
such as the Hlton Lake of the Kirghis Steppe, 200 miles from the
Caspian, possessing a chemical composition approximating to that of
the Dead Sea: 19-7 per cent. of Mg Cl, 5:3 per cent. of MgSO,, and
3°8 per cent. NaCl. Calcium is, however, in its case absent or
inappreciable. Now while the observed wide differences in chemical
composition are entirely at variance with a pluvial origin, the rain
being supposed to derive its burden from the common reservoir of
the ocean (almost homogeneous in composition), they are quite in
accord with an origin by solvent denudation, as a glance at the
considerable differences of river analyses will show, and as indeed
would be a priori inferred from the wide range of solubility and
chemical composition of the surface materials of the earth.
But all indirect arguments as to the magnitude of the error which
might arise from the circulation of sea-salt must be used in sub-
ordination to a simple demonstration, on the known facts, of the
magnitude of the maximum error possible from this source. The
estimation of the maximum error is easily arrived at.
Professor Dittmar in his report on the chemical composition of
the ocean shows that the amount of chlorine present is in excess
of the sodium, so that attaching chlorine ions to sodium ions there
remains over a large excess of chlorine, appearing in the statement
of total solids as 10:8 per cent. of MgCl. We have, in fact, 77-7
per cent. of Na Cl and 10:8 percent. of MgCl. A simple calculation
will show that it results that 18 per cent. of the Cl must be
Professor J. Joly—Salt and Geological Time. 347
otherwise allocated than to the sodium, or is, in short, in excess
of the Cl equivalent of the sodium present.
Now it is certainly a fair assumption that if rain receives its saits
from Sea spray a similar excess of Cl ions over Na ions will obtain
in rain-water. We must at least conclude (in deference to the
current belief that the proportions of salts in rain-water and sea-
water are not generally quite in accord) that the sodium equivalent
of the chlorine found in rain-water constitutes an excessive estimate
of the former. Pierre’s results, to which I have already referred,
fully confirm this statement. He finds, in kilogrammes received
per hectare per annum, quantities of sodium chloride and other
chlorides, as well as of sodium sulphate, which afford 29-7 kilos
of chlorine and 17:72 kilos of sodium. Ascribing to this amount
of sodium its equivalent of chlorine, we have still a balance of
over 8 per cent. of the chlorine.!
We now turn to what we know of the chemical constitution
of river salts. I take Sir J. Murray’s mean analyses of nineteen chief
rivers of the world. Here we find the striking fact that there
is a large excess of sodium over chlorine: or the conditions of the
sea are reversed. We find, in fact, 157 x 10° tons of sodium and
84 x 10% tons of chlorine carried to the ocean per annum, and as
the combining weights of these elements are to one another as
23 : 35 it will appear that considerably the larger part of the sodium
of rivers must exist otherwise combined than with chlorine, were the
ionizing conditions removed. Let us now go so far as to assume
that all the chlorine in rivers is derived from rain, and that this
brings into the rivers its full equivalent of sodium, and we can
obviously calculate the maximum possible effect upon the age of
the Earth arising from the circulation of salt. (This can fall short
of the maximum only on the assumption of a selective retention of
chlorine in soils, for which I know of no evidence.) In this method
of treating the quantities at our disposal we leave, in short, the
whole of the sodium equivalent of the chlorine of rivers out of
account in deducing the age of the Earth. The result of the new
calculation is that the previous estimate of 96 millions of years
rises to under 148 millions of years. This result is, however, over
the maximum deducible even from the foregoing assumptions, for
as we diminish our estimate of the chlorine derived by solvent
denudation during geological time we increase the estimate we
necessarily make for original sodium in the ocean derived by
-a primeval acid denudation effected by free HCl (for we must
1 Pierre’s figures for the several salts in the units mentioned above are —
Na Cl ~~ = he ae ane 37°65
KCl : mae ne 8-2
Mg Cl, 25
Ca Cl, 1°8
Na,S O4 8:4
K,8 O,4 8-0
CaSO, ... see 6°2
Mg 8 0,4 ece . 5°9
A rainfall of 60 cm. per annum is assumed.
348 Professor J. Joly—Salt and Geological Time.
assume so much more chlorine to have been free in the original
atmosphere), and thus we are bound to diminish our numerator
as well as our denominator. The final result would be 141 x 10°
years. In obtaining this figure we simply assume that no part of
the chlorine now in the ocean was at any time contained in the
rocks, and that in a period of primeval acid denudation it acted
as HCl to bring chlorides into the original ocean. In other words,
that the 28,316 x 10” tons of Cl now in the ocean took part
in the primeval denudation, 6:7 per cent. of it uniting with sodium,
and thus bringing 1,250 x 10” tons of sodium into the primeval
ocean, the calculation being made on the basis defined in my paper.
Deducting this from the 15,627 x 10” tons of Na now in the ocean,
we have 14,877 x 10” tons to be accounted for by the annual river
supply. On our present assumptions the annual supply is not to be
taken at its full value of 157 x 10° tons, but this reduced by the
sodium equivalent of the whole of the chlorine in rivers (that is, the
equivalent of 84 x 10° tons), i. 55 x 10° tons. The geological
age is therefore the quotient of 14,8377 x 10” by 102 x 10°, which
is rather less than 141 million years.
The assumptions made in obtaining this upper limit are, I need
scarcely point out, unjustifiable. We are not at liberty to ascribe
all the chlorine of the rivers to rain. Whether derived directly
from the rocks and soils, extravasated deposits (as when contained
in ore deposits), or from accumulations due to past or present inland
denudation in ‘rainless’ areas, this element, so far as it is a carrier
of sodium, must enter our denominator. Nor can we assume the
chlorine of rain-water a fair measure of sodium transported from
the sea, seeing that such chlorine, if directly sea-derived, should, to
the extent of 18 per cent., exist combined with magnesium or other
element, and according to observation does so exist to the extent
of over 8 per cent. And again, what chloride of sodium is found
in rain-water is very surely in part derived from the land. Finally,
what we know of the percentage of chlorides in inland rains
points to a supply inadequate to furnish the quantities appearing
in Sir J. Murray’s analysis of mean river-water, for of coastal rains
by far the greater part finds its way back quickly and directly to
the sea by the small rivers and streams, and does not enter into the
composition of the larger rivers, the catchment areas of which are
either far inland or rise on the land side of the great. mountain
ranges. The amount of chlorine appearing in the mean river-water
is a little over 0°30 part per 100,000. Contrast this with the
estimate 0:04 obtained 300 miles from the sea in India, or the
Darmstadt estimate 0:09 part per 100,000, both localities being
still relatively close to the sea. On all these grounds I have
restricted my allowance for rain-borne chloride of sodium to 10 per
cent. of what appears in rivers.
We might base an allowance on the scanty knowledge we possess
as to the chlorine content of rains falling some 800 miles from the
sea. Let us accept 0:10 per 100,000 as the average amount of Cl
carried by rains to the rivers after evaporation, and assume that all
Professor J. Joly—Salt and Geological Time. 349
this was of marine origin and brought with it its full equivalent of
sodium. We thus assume that one-third of the chlorine in rivers is
derived from the ocean. We will now calculate what correction on
the 96 millions of years this allowance will involve.
The total chlorine discharged by rivers annually into the ocean is
84 x 10° tons, and 385 per cent. of this is 28 x 10° tons; this is,
we assume, derived from the ocean. Of the total Cl discharged by
rivers we see that 56 x 10° tons (the part derived from the rocks)
are not cyclical.
The 33 per cent. of chlorine which is wind-carried, as we assume,
has a sodium equivalent of 18-4 x 10° tons. Deducting this from
the total annual river supply of sodium, i.e. from 157°3 x 10° tons,
we have 138:9 x 10° tons derived from the rocks.
Let now N = the sodium now in the ocean = 15,627 x 10”.
n= the quantity of sodium derived from solvent
denudation and discharged annually by rivers
= 138:9 x 10°.
C = quantity of chlorine now in the ocean
= 28,316 x 10”.
¢ = quantity of chlorine derived by solvent denudation
and annually discharged by rivers = 56 x 10°.
(All in tons.)
If now X= Geological Time, we see first that the quantity of
chlorine eX was derived from the rocks during the time X, and
therefore the amount C — cX must have originally been free in the
primeval atmosphere. I have shown in my paper on the Age of the
Earth that there is reason to believe that 6°7 per cent. by weight of
such free chlorine would take up sodium from the earth-crust.
Consequently, the weight of sodium brought in, expressed as
a fraction of the free chlorine, is 5%; x 3%, the last fraction being
the ratio of the combining weights. This factor becomes 0-044
when reduced. In other words, the mass of sodium brought into the
primeval ocean was 0:044 (C — cX).
Hence the equation for Geological Time will be—
x_v¥ 0-044 (C —cX)
VW
and from this we have—
N — 0:044 €
~ n — 0044 ¢
Inserting the numbers given above, we get X = 105 x 10°.
Allowing, as I have done in my first paper, a deductive correction
for direct coastal denudation, we may state our final result as just
about one hundred millions of years. We are not justified in stating
our result more definitely. We keep in mind that our knowledge of
river analysis and of ocean mass are certainly not final.
So far, then, as error from rain-borne chloride of sodium can affect
our result, surely the limits are fixed with sufficient straitness !
We have, without any further deductions, 96 millions of years if we
accept the correction of 10 per cent. on the chloride of sodium of
350 Professor T. Rupert Jones—The Enon Conglomerate
rivers; we have 105 millions of years if the correction should be
38 per cent. I do not believe an unbiassed consideration of the
knowledge at our disposal will permit of an allowance larger than
the latter.
I have given the foregoing estimation in its algebraic form in
consequence of the remark of a writer in Wature (in a review of my
paper) that it was a pity that the age of the Harth has to be assumed
in making allowance for the primeval acid denudation. Such
assumption of the duration we seek to determine is not, however,
necessary, as the foregoing algebraic statement shows.
The teaching of the calculation which I gave in my original
paper, that the missing sodium of the rocks is equal to or in excess
of that added to the ocean during geological time, has been taken by
some as by no means opposed to the view that the ocean may have
primevally contained the greater part of its present sodium, or to
a rapid convergence in the rate of solvent denudation.
The greater part of these sediments, we are assured, were laid
down under conditions not even inimical to life, or, as Sir Archibald
Geikie has contended for the very ancient Torridonian rocks, under
physical conditions much as obtain to-day. But this is not all.
The oldest sediments are just those which are chemically the least
impoverished and the least washed out of the whole series, and,
indeed, might almost be identified by their higher alkali percentages.
This fact is obviously quite opposed to the view that they were
exposed to more intense solvent actions than obtain to-day. In
a word, the internal evidence, chemical, physical, and organic,
afforded by the successive strata, controverts the convergence of
denudative activity which some have casually assumed, and in
the light of this fact the calculation in question does oppose the
theory of a sodium-charged primeval ocean. We are assured, in
fact, that the introduction of sodium age by age had to wait upon
the denudation of the rocks, and was thus regulated by a rate to
which we know of no disturbance.
TII.—On tHe Enon ConGLOMERATE OF THE CAPE oF Goop Hops,
AND ITs Fosstn HsTHERLz.
By Professor T. Rurprrr Jonzs, F.R.S., F.G.S., ete.
N the “ Annual Report of the Geological Commission ” published
at Cape Town in 1895, Dr. Corstorphine refers at pp. 16-19
to the extent and features of the Enon Conglomerate, and to the
occurrence of fossil Estherig@ in some of its strata. His two assistant
geologists, Messrs. A. W. Rogers and H. H. L. Schwartz, in their
“Reports on the Southern Districts between Breede River and
George” and “On Oudtshoorn,” at pp. 73, 76-79, describe in detail
the position and characters of the Enon Conglomerate and its
‘ Estheria shale.’
This Conglomerate (with its sandstones and shaly beds) occurs in
the Breede River valley, Worcester Division of the Western Province,
and its Fossil Estherie. 351
and extends to Ashton and the Swellendam Division, just south of
the Langebergen; it covers also a large area eastwards as far as
Mossel Bay, and along the valley of the Olifant’s River in the
Oudtshoorn District, just south of the Great Zwarteberg range. This
formation consists of a quartzose conglomerate with a ferruginous
cement, and with intercalated, variable, lenticular sandstones. In
general it is less than 50 feet thick, but in some places the con-
glomerate hills rise 400 feet above the valleys (pp. 16 and 17).
At about 80 miles east of Swellendam, and 20 miles from the sea,
there is an outlier of Enon Conglomerate, on which are the two towns
of Heidelberg and Riversdale. In the vicinity of the former rises
the Duivanhocks River, which runs down to the sea at St. Sebastian
Bay. Near Heidelberg occur the shaly arenaceous strata, with
multitudes of flattened Estheriz on the bed-planes.
The name ‘ Enon Conglomerate’ was first used by Dr. W. Guybon
Atherstone (astern Province Monthly Magazine, vol.i, No. 10, June,
1857, p. 528), for the quartzose conglomerate which he noticed at
Enon, in the Alexandria Division of the Eastern Province, among
the upper waters of the Sunday’s River, on the flank of the
Zuurberg. The name has been adopted by others, and used
particularly in Mr. E. J. Dunn’s Geological Map of South Africa.
Mr. A. G. Bain’s section and remarks at p. 58, vol. vii, Trans.
Geol. Soc., ser. 11, 1845, indicate this conglomerate and some over-
lying portions of the Wood-bed series of the Uitenhage Jurassic
formation, in Lower Albany, north of the Bushman River. Mr. Bain
also noticed (op. cit., p. 184) the occurrence of the Enon Con-
glomerate, with ferruginous cement, “at Lange Kloof and other
parts of the district of George,” as well as “on the flank of the
Zuurberg ” and “at Grobbelar’s Kloof near Graham’s Town.”
In the Mining Journal for July 3rd, 1886, the following arrange-
ment was given by me for this conglomerate and associated strata :—
Trigonia Beds
Wood Bed
Jurassic: Uitenhage Formation! Saliferous Bed
Zwartkop Sandstone ...
Enon Conglomerate ... 300 feet.
(Unconformable or Devonian and other old rocks in Albany.)
At pp. 76-78 of the Rep. Geol. Comm. for 1898 it is stated
that “The Enon Conglomerate extends from the Paardeberg
eastwards, as a huge sheet covering up the Bokkeveld Beds on the
south and the Malmesburg Beds on the north. It lies in the middle
of the valley between the Zwartebergen and Langebergen. ‘T'ypically
it consists of pebbles of quartz and quartzite, imbedded in a dark
red matrix, but varieties occur which are very similar to those in
the conglomerate south of the Langebergen. Along the Gamka
Flats there are white gravels with large boulders similar to those
in Honig Klip’s Kloof, and along the Olifant’s River on the west
there are green sandstones and white claystones [?], the same as
*** | 400? feet.
1 See also Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1867, vol. xxiii, pp. 149 and 167.
302 Professor T. Rupert Jones—The Enon Conglomerate
one finds north-west of Heidelberg. The Enon Conglomerate of the
Oudtshoorn District closely resembles, in its lithological character
and relation to the older rocks, the similar deposits in the country
to the south of the Langebergen. Although determinable plant-
remains, with the possible exception of lignite, in which the minute
structure has been preserved, have not yet been found in the rock,
there are indefinite casts of fragments of wood in the sandstone near
Oudtshoorn, which are very like the casts in the sandstone of Cape
St. Blaize and Heidelberg.”
At p. 19 Dr. Corstorphine remarks :—‘ The character of the Hnon
Series—thick banks of conglomerate, passing in most localities
within a short distance, vertically and horizontally, into coarse,
lenticular beds of sandstone, the latter containing stems and other
plant-remains, with fresh-water stheria, and in one instance
a coleopterous wing-cover—points to a fluviatile origin for the whole.
It is, with the exception of the recent sand-dune limestones and
other superficial deposits, the youngest formation in the area so far
surveyed.”
At p. 18 he states: — “Shales and claystone [?] also occur,
sometimes gray, sometimes black and almost coaly in appearance.
Near Herbertsdale and Heidelberg the shales are common, and at
the former locality they contain numerous plant-remains. At
Heidelberg a white shale [shaley arenaceous bed] occurs with
abundant Hstheria casts.”
In March, 1899, I received from Mr. A. W. Rogers, one of the
Geological Surveyors of Cape Colony, three specimens of Enon
Conglomerate collected at Heidelberg, Swellendam District. Two
of the specimens (500 a and 802 a) consist of hard, white, laminated,
fine-grained sandstone (not argillaceous nor calcareous), showing
bed-planes, covered with flattened valves of Hstheria. The other is
an irregular and slickensided fragment of similar siliceous rock
(296 a). A large part of it is not laminated, and the matrix seems
to have been crushed after consolidation ; it contains some imperfect
and indeterminable casts and fragments of valves, modified by
pressure. These relics are distinguishable by their being stained
with yellow ochre. The rest of the piece is laminated, and the bed-
planes show many valves crowded together, flattened and modified
in their outlines. Their surfaces mostly present the appearance as
if the outer layer or film of shell had been dissolved or melted, as it
were, into a very thin, sometimes brownish varnish or glaze; and
no reticulate or other ornament between the concentric ridges can be
discovered in these valves.
Looking at the striking general similarity of the numerous
variable, sub-oblong, and sub-oval shapes in the crowds of extremely
flattened valves on these bed-planes, we evidently see the result of
shoals of probably one kind, or local tribe, of Hstheria having been
suddenly enveloped in heavy deposits of mud; and it is difficult to
distinguish any specific difference among the individuals.
Venturing, however, to place them all under one quasi-specific
title, I group them as EstHmr1a ANoMALA, sp. nov. (Figs. 1-4).
and its Fossil Estherie. 399
On specimen 302 a there is one individual (Fig. 1) which has
retained in great part the shape of the bivalved carapace, but is
rather narrowed vertically. The left valve remains exposed, and
a portion of the dorsal region of the other valve protrudes beyond it.
This left valve has the oblong-ovate shape common in the genus,
and bears indications of numerous concentric close-set lines or
ridges. It measures 5 mm. in length and 3 mm. in height.
Fic. 1.—Estheria anomala, sp. nov. Carapace showing the left valve, somewhat
narrowed by crush. Magnified 8 diam.
Fic. 2.—A right valve, crushed quite flat. Magnified 8 diam.
A modified right valve (Fig. 2), on the same specimen, quite
smooth, and widened out by pressure until it is almost suborbicular,
measures 5°75 mm. in length and 45 mm. in height, and yet may be
of the same species as the foregoing, there being many intermediate
shapes on the bed-planes of this rock.
On specimen 300a are other flattened valves, often nearly sub-
orbicular. Fig. 8, which has a short and broad ovate form, with an
apparently short but distinct dorsal border or hinge-line, measures
6:25 by 4:25 mm., and may be taken as belonging to the specific
type. The spaces between the concentric ridges (Fig. 4) exhibit no
ornament,
Fic. 3.—Estheria anomala, sp. nov. A right valve, somewhat misshapen by pressure.
Magnified 8 diam.
Fic. 4.—Part of the surface of Fig. 3. Magnified 75 diam.
None of the Estherie above mentioned from the Enon Con-
glomerate of Heidelberg correspond with the three known South
African species :—
Estheria Greyii, Jones: Grou. Mac., 1878, p. 100, Pl. III, Fig. 1.
This differs altogether in the general shape. It was from the
Lower Karoo beds, near Cradock, Cape Colony.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VUI.—NO. VIII. 23
3854 Dr. Forsyth Maor—Reported Fossil Camel and Nilghai.
Estheria Draperi, Jones: Grou. Mac, 1894, p. 289, Pl. IX,
Figs. la, 6, c. This sub-oblong form is much larger, and
has ornamented interspaces, but is the nearest in general
form. It was from the Uppermost Karoo beds, in the
Drakensberg, Natal.
Estheria Stowiana, Jones: Grou. Mac., 1894, p. 290, Pl. IX,
Figs. 2a, b. This little valve differs from the others
especially in its sub-elliptical outline. Having its full
complement of numerous concentric ridges, it is not a young
form, as suggested in 1894. From the Uppermost Karoo
beds, in the Drakensberg, Natal.
TV.—On tHe ReEportTED OccURRENCE OF THE CAMEL AND THE
NinGHal In THE Upper MiocrenrE or Samos.
By C. I. ForsytH Masor, M.D., F.Z.S8.
N a notice on “ Fossil Camels in Europe,” inserted in the
periodical Natur und Haus (1901, ix, 5, p. 179), it is stated
that amongst the fossils from Samos in the Stuttgart Museum there
occurs, under a wrong name, the well-preserved skull of a Camel,
and likewise ‘‘a near relative of the Indian Nylgau, Portax pictus.”
On a visit to the Stuttgart Museum a few weeks ago, I was kindly
allowed to examine the above-named specimens, with the result that
the skull supposed to be a Camel is found to be that of a hornless
member of the Giraffides, agreeing almost exactly in form with horn-
less skulls of Samotherium Boissieri, Maj., but considerably smaller.
It is doubtless the female skull of Palgotragus Rouenii, Gaud.
Breadth of frontals behind the orbits in a Samotheriwm Boissierti Q ... 240°5mm.
Breadth of frontals behind the orbits in the Stuttgart skull... ... ... 187 ,,
Breadth of frontals across the orbits in the Stuttgart skull ... ... ... 161 ,,
Breadth of frontals across the orbits in Paleotragus Rouenii, according
to Gaudry Luan aatled (were! Tieeeh Gbaibieas) Aaa ees |ilee Gees) fecal OOM
The hornless Camelopardalis parva, Weith., from Pikermi, is the
same species as Palgotragus Rouenii. The difference in the shape of
the molars is only apparent, the examination of the type-specimen
of the latter in the Paris Museum showing that the teeth are not
correctly drawn in fig. 2, pl. xlv of the “‘ Animaux fossiles et Géologie
de l’Attique.”
The fossil claimed to be a near relative of the Portax is likewise
a Giraffoid, intermediate in size between Samotherium Boissiert and
Palgotragus Rouenii; the incorrectly repaired supraorbital horn of
the left side is preserved. In size and shape the molars correspond
with (1) some isolated teeth doubtfully assigned by Gaudry to his
Camelopardalis Attica; (2) an “isolated upper tooth series ” from
Maragha (Persia), described by Rodler & Weithofer; (3) isolated
teeth, also from Maragha, in the British Museum (M. 3,867 and
3,869) ; (4) the teeth of the type-specimen of Giraffa vetusta (Wagn.),
from Pikermi, if due account is taken of the latter’s rather worn
condition. The Stuttgart skull shows the characters of Palgotragus
Geol Mag 1901.
GMWoodward del. etlith. West,Newmen imp
Silvie Caster opoda .
a
F. R. Cowper Reed—Salter’s Undescribed Species. 398
and Samotherium (the unfortunate former name will presumably, as
previously stated by me, supersede the latter) ; it is therefore probable
that its anterior and posterior limbs were of approximately the
same relative length as in Samotherium Boissieri, and not giraffe-like
asin Camelopardalis Attica. If this suggestion proves to be correct,
the proper name for this intermediate-sized member of the Giraffide
will be Palotragus vetustus (Wagn.).
The hornless skull and the teeth described under the name of
Alcicephalus Neumayri in Rodler & Weithofer’s paper on the
Ruminants of Maragha (1890) belong to Samotherium Boissieri
(1888) ; not so the limb-bones ascribed to 4. Newmayri, which agree
better with the size of Palgotragus Rouenit.
It is but fair to state that there are labels in the Stuttgart
Museum to show that the Giraffoid affinity of the two fossils in
question had been duly recognized.
V.—Woopwarpian Museum Notes: Saurer’s UNDESCRIBED
Species. V.
By F. R. Cowrrr Rezezp, M.A., F.G.S.
(PLATE XV.)
PLEUROTOMARIA STRIATISSIMA (Salter). (Pl. XV, Figs. 1 and 2.)
1878. Pleurotomaria striatissima, Salter: Cat. Camb. Sil. Foss. Woodw. Mus.,
p- 171 (a 987, a 991).
1891. Plewrotomaria striatissima, Woods: Cat. Type Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 113.
There are two specimens of this species in the Woodwardian
Museum, both of which were named and labelled by Salter. The
smaller and more perfect one, a 987 (Fletcher Collection), is first
mentioned, and is stated to have come from the Lower Ludlow of
Dudley. The larger specimen is from the same horizon of Green
Quarry, Leintwardine, and shows only a portion of the upper surface.
Dracnosts. —Shell much flattened, discoidal; very low, short
spire; whorls five or six in number, much flattened, coiled into
a nearly flat spiral; outer whorl with acute margin furnished with
small, narrow projecting band, marked off by groove from rest of
whorl, and bordered by a raised thread-like line above and below
(shown in Leintwardine specimen). On the inner whorls this band
lies on the suture-line and is almost hidden. Apical surface of
whorls ornamented with regular, equidistant, longitudinal, revolving
strize, 80-40 in number. At about one-third the distance from the
outer margin is a raised thread-like line or keel, parallel to the
stri and more conspicuous on the inner whorls. Umbilical surface
of shell flattened or very weakly convex, swelling slightly
towards the mouth (which is not preserved). This surface is
ornamented with revolving strie, similar to the apical surface,
but there is no raised thread-like line or keel amongst them.
Umbilicus deep, circular, and about one-fifth the width of the base.
306 =6F. R. Cowper Reed—Salter’s Undescribed Species.
M&EASUREMENTS.
mm.
Diameter of larger specimen ... Ade a ep 35
Diameter of smaller specimen ... ft oat 22
PLEUROTOMARIA UNIFORMIS, Salter. (Pl. XV, Fig. 3.)
1873. Pleurotomaria uniformis, Salter, n.sp.: Cat. Camb. Sil. Foss. Woodw.
Mus., p. 155 (a 879).
Salter (loc. cit. supra) described this species as ‘large, quite
without ridges except band.” His original specimen (a 879), from
the Fletcher Collection, is the only one which we possess, and it is
poor material on which to base a new species, as it is distorted and
the shell mostly missing. It was found in the Wenlock Limestone
of Dudley, and measures approximately 65 mm. in length and 60 mm.
in width across the body-whorl.
Draenosis.—Sheli large, broadly conical, of few whorls (the three
upper ones are alone preserved). Whorls convex, with apical face
oblique to axis and having its surface slightly raised in the middle
between the suture-line and slit-band. Slit-band of moderate width,
marginal, separating apical face from convex portion of whorl below,
and situated above the middle line of the whorl; with rounded
prominent borders, and with a convex surface crossed by transverse
crescentic striz and occasionally by thicker lamelle. Suture-line
shallow. Body-whorl large, apparently nearly half the length of
shell. Ornamentation of apical face of whorls consisting of trans-
verse sigmoidal lines; rest of whorls crossed by transverse non-
sigmoidal striz, with a few thicker striz interspersed at irregular
intervals.
PLEUROTOMARIA ? HELICOIDES, Salter.
1873. Platyschisma helicoides, Salter: Cat. Camb. Sil. Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 186
6 140, ¢ 26).
1891. Bat nelicoidee, Woods: Cat. Type Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 111.
The two specimens on which Salter founded this species are both
from the Upper Ludlow of Lesmahagow. Neither is at all well
preserved, and but very few characters are visible. Salter says of
this species: ‘A shell very like the Trochus helicites of the British
Ludlows, but flatter and having a marked subangular band.”
Draenosis.— Shell small, coiled into a low spiral of five or six
whorls. Whorls angulated ; apical surface narrow, flat, horizontal,
with elevated keel round edge; sides steeply sloping. Margin of
last whorl appears to be expanded into horizontal lamellar band.
No slit-band visible. Surface ornamentation unknown.
MEASUREMENTS.
Height ...
Width ... 000 500 ae 060
Remarks.—As Salter remarks, this species is quite distinct from
Sowerby’s Trochus [ Platyschisma] helicites,: but it is unfortunate
1 Sil. Syst., pp. 603, 706, t. iii, figs. le, 5. Siluria, 4th ed., p. 162, Foss. 26,
fig. 9; t. xxxiv, fig. 12.
F. R. Cowper Reed—Salter’s Undescribed Species. 357
that the material is so badly preserved that even the genus is
doubtful. It is quite possible that it is a Horiostoma, but the
apparently alate margin reminds one of Plewrotomaria alata (His.),"
and the shape of the whorls is also similar, especially in the variety
subcarinata.
Trocuonema Brsucosa, Salter. (Pl. XV, Fig. 4.)
1873. Trochonema bijugosa, Salter, n.sp.: Cat. Camb. Sil. Foss. Woodw. Mus.,
p- 156 (a 875).
1891. Trochonema bijugosa, Woods: Cat. Type Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 115.
There are only two specimens of this species in the Woodwardian
Museum, and they are the original ones determined by Salter. The
larger one shows a portion of the body-whorl and succeeding whorl
with the shell well preserved ; the smaller one is merely an imperfect
internal cast of the two basal whorls, and it is doubtful if it is
rightly attributed to the same species. Both are from the Wenlock
Limestone of Dudley and belong to the Fletcher Collection. Salter
describes the species as “much resembling T. (Turbo) trochleatus
of McCoy and Hall,” and the figure in the margin appears to be
a rough restoration of it.
Dracnosts. — Shell conical, turbinate ; of six (?) whorls; apical
angle 60°. Whorls angulated by two parallel longitudinal keels,
between which their surface is flattened and vertical. Apical
surface of whorls sloping down steeply from suture-line to upper
keel, but swollen into a low, revolving ridge close below suture-line,
defined below by distinct groove. Lateral surface flattened vertical,
about one-third height of whorl, bounded above by upper keel and
below by lower keel; lateral surface meets apical surface at
angle of 45°, and in basal whorl meets umbilical surface at same
angle. Umbilical surface sloping, faintly convex. Keels forming
rounded, projecting, parallel bands, marked off above and below by
faint narrow grooves. The lower keel is rather the larger of the
two. Surface of valves ornamented by regular, continuous, strong,
equal striz. On apical surface the striae are oblique, and close to
the upper keel bend sharply back and cross it in a series of sharp
crescents resembling those on the slit-band of Pleurotomaria.
Between the keels on the lateral surface the striae are nearly
straight and vertical, and cross the lower keel directiy without
bending back, and continue thence on to the umbilical surface,
where they become sigmoidal.
MEASUREMENTS.
mm.
Width of larger specimen... Abe “bt uae 20°0
Estimated height of ditto... e . : 20°0
Remarks. —It is unfortunate that the material on which this
species is based is not more complete, and accordingly the species
does not admit of very satisfactory definition. At any rate, it seems
to be distinct from any previously described.
1 Lindstrém: Sil. Gastrop. Pterop. Gotl., p. 118, pl. x, figs. 33-37.
308 Dr. C. Davison—British Earthquakes, 1900.
BriiEroPHon Ruruvent, Salter. (PI. XV, Figs. 5 and 6.)
1873. Bellerophon Ruthveni, u.sp., Salter: Cat. Camb. Sil. Foss. Woodw. Mus.
661
Ne
1891. Bellerophon Ruthveni, Woods: Cat. Type Foss. Woodw. Mus., p. 96.
It is to be regretted that the four specimens on which Salter
founded this species are so poorly preserved and distorted. They
are all from the Kirkby Moor Flags of Benson Knot, near Kendal,
and were labelled by McCoy B. expansus (Sow.). Salter describes
B. Ruthvent as “Smaller than B. dilatatus and with the band
angular, and the whorls angular where the band becomes so. Very
common, 1+ inch wide.” The shape of the shell resembles B. expansus
with large expanded aperture, with inner lip bent down considerably
and outer lip possessing a wide acuminate V-shaped sinus. The
slit-band is comparatively narrow, and lies sunk between faintly
elevated margins. Near the aperture the whorl seems to be slightly
carinated and compressed, though this appearance may be due to
crushing in the rock. In one of the smaller specimens there are
traces of one or two longitudinal thread-like lines running parallel
to the slit-band on the surface of the shell, slightly diverging
towards the mouth, but no other ornamentation or surface-markings
are visible. The specimens are so poor that it is impossible to give
any satisfactory definition of the species, and it is extremely doubtful
in my mind whether Salter’s species can stand.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE XV.
Fic. la.—Pleurotomaria striatissima, Salter, viewed from above, enlarged twice
natural size.
Fic. 14.—The same, viewed from beneath, enlarged twice natural size.
Fig. 1c.—Side-view of same, enlarged twice natural size.
From the Lower Ludlow of Dudley.
Fic. 2.—Pleurotomaria striatissima, Salter, natural size; from the Lower Ludlow,
Leintwardine.
Fic. 3.—Pleurotomaria reniformis, Salter, natural size; Wenlock Limestone,
Dudley.
Fic. Realy sere bijugosa, Salter, enlarged twice natural size; Wenlock
Limestone, Dudley.
Fie. 5.—Bellerophon Ruthveni, Salter (side-view), natural size; Kirkby Moor
Flags, Benson Knot, Kendal.
Fic. 6.—The same (carinal aspect), enlarged twice natural size; same locality.
VI.—On tHe British HartHquakes or 1900.
By Cuartzs Davison, D.Sc., M.A., F.G.S.
(WITH A MAP.)
URING the past year there were only two undoubted earth-
quakes in this country. Some may have occurred in Glen Garry,
one of our most sensitive regions; but the construction of a new
railway through the valley renders it difficult to identify true
earthquakes with certainty. The total number of British earth-
quakes during the last twelve years thus amounts to 116, of which
46 had epicentres in England and Wales and 70 in Scotland, 42 of
the latter number being confined, or almost confined, to Glen Garry.
Dr. C. Davison—British Earthquakes, 1900. 309
Ocuit Eartruquakes or Sept. 17 anp 22, 1900.
The two undoubted earthquakes occurred on Sept. 17 at 10.15 p.m.
and Sept. 22 at 4.30 pm. There were also four other reported
shocks, whose seismic character is not established, at the following
times :—
(a) Sept. 17, 5.30 p.m., Menstrie.
(6) Sept. 17, 10.5 p.m., Alva.
(c) Sept. 18, 2 a.m., Alva.
(d) Sept. 18, about 2.55 a.m., Bridge of Allan.
The first two were noticed by several persons at each of the places
mentioned, but I have no record of them except the statement that
slight shocks were felt.
Karthquake of Sept. 17, at 10.15 p.m.—lI have received 56 accounts
of this earthquake from 26 places, in addition to negative records
from 11 other places.'| The epicentre is situated among the Ochil
Hills, and consequently the intensity of the shock in the central
region is unknown. At places near the boundary, in the valleys of
the Forth and Allan, the intensity was 4, and it can hardly have
exceeded this degree in any part of the disturbed area.
The boundary of the disturbed area, which corresponds to an
isoseismal line of intensity slightly less than 4, is roughly elliptical
in form, 15 miles long and 94 miles broad, and includes 117 square
miles. Its longer axis is directed H. 138° N. and W. 138° S., and the
centre of the area is 3 miles N. 82° W. of Alva. In spite of the
absence of observations from the neighbourhood of Glendevon, it is
probable that the curve is drawn with a fair approach to accuracy.
The shock seems to have been nearly uniform in its character all
over the disturbed area, a single prominent vibration succeeded by
a tremor such as would be caused by a heavy weight falling on the
floor and making the building shake, and lasting altogether not more
than three seconds. :
Of the 55 observers who provide detailed accounts of the earth-
quake, 48 distinctly heard the sound, 4 are doubtful or fail to
answer the question, while 3 state that they heard no sound at all.
Thus, the percentage of those who heard the sound is not less
than 87. <A few observers describe the sound as a loud sharp crash
or a low rumbling sound, while as many as 41 refer it to one of the
ordinary types. Of these, 29 per cent. compared it to the noise of
heavy waggons or traction-engines passing, 10 per cent. to thunder,
5 per cent. to wind, 12 per cent. to the tipping of a load of coal or
bricks, 17 per cent. to the fall of a heavy body or the banging of
a door, 12 per cent. to blasting or explosions, and 15 per cent. to
miscellaneous sounds, such as the trampling of horses, a distant
waterfall, a large flock of pheasants flying over the house, or the
rush of heavy rain against the window. On the whole the frequency
of comparison to sounds of short duration is unusual, and this no
doubt is due mainly to the prominence of the heavy thud that
' The outer curve on the map and all places marked refer to this earthquake.
360 Dr. C. Davison—British Earthquakes, 1900.
accompanied the principal shaking, while the rumble which died
away with the tremor was unnoticed or undescribed.
The beginning of the sound preceded that of the shock in
10 cases and coincided with it in 19; while the end of the sound
preceded that of the shock in 2 cases, coincided with it in 17, and
followed it in 3 cases. The time-relations of both initial and final
epochs are given by 22 observers, and these show that the sound
was of greater duration than the shock in 8 cases, and of equal
duration in 12, while in 2 others the relative duration is doubtful.
Earthquake of Sept. 22, at 4.30 p.m.—This shock was weaker and
less widely observed than the preceding, and I have not more than
20 accounts from 18 places, together with negative records from
15 places. The intensity of the shock was 4, and probably was not
much greater even near the epicentre.
The boundary of the disturbed area is an isoseismal of the same
intensity as that of the earlier shock, that is, slightly less than 4.
In the north-east quarter, the boundary is indicated by a broken
line, being doubtful owing to the absence of observations in this
part of the disturbed area. It is 11 miles long and 7 miles wide,
and contains an area of 60 square miles. The longer axis is
parallel to that of the other shock, and its centre is 2} miles N.
37° W. of Alva.
Scale of Miles
e
Blackford
e
Greenloaning
Glenhead
- ~
- ~
Glendevon
® Dunblane
Bridge of Auer. ae, 1 eTillicoultry’
* e Alwa
(S2 " abouts a
--7<@ :
SATE 8 See Lullibody®
fo)
© Stirling eCambus
Alloa °
9 Clackmannan
Though slighter, the shock closely resembled that of the 17th
inst., one observer (at Bridge of Allan) describing it as a sudden
abrupt loud shock, as if some extremely heavy body had fallen
outside the house, followed immediately by a tremor.
The earthquake-sound was recorded by 138 out of 15 observers
who enter into details, that is, the audibility-percentage, as in the
first earthquake, was 87. Of the few observers who describe the
Dr. C. Davison—British Earthquakes, 1900. 361
sound, 9 per cent. compare it to passing waggons, 27 per cent. to
thunder, 9 per cent to wind, 36 per cent. to a cart of coals or bricks
being emptied, 9 per cent. to the fall of a heavy body, and 9 per
cent. to the distant firing of cannon. Thus, the reference to sounds
of brief duration is even more marked than in the earlier shock.
The beginning of the sound preceded that of the shock in 2 cases
and coincided with it in 5; while the end of the sound coincided
with that of the shock in 4 cases.
Origin of the Harthquakes.—From the seismic evidence, we can
determine only the direction of the originating fault, which must be
about E. 138° N. and W. 138° S. If it hades to the north, the
fault-line must lie to the south of the centres of the disturbed
areas, and if to the south on the north side.
On the map of the earthquakes is shown that part of the great
Ochil fault which traverses the disturbed areas of the earthquakes.
Its general direction is E. 11° N. and W. 11° S., and, if the fault
haded to the north, it would thus satisfy the seismic conditions ; but
this, I am informed through the kindness of Sir A. Geikie, is not the
case. ‘It is known to hade to the south both by direct observation
and by the effects of denudation upon the intrusive sill of dolerite
in the Carboniferous rocks, where it is thrown against the andesites
and agglomerates of Lower Old Red age.’’ As the shock would be
less strongly felt on the hard compact rocks of the Ochil Hills than
on the softer rocks to the south, it follows that the earthquakes
cannot be attributed to slips along the Ochil fault.
There is no other parallel fault of any consequence marked on the
Survey map (Sheet 39), though several faults cross the Ochil Hills
in a nearly perpendicular direction. The only conclusion we can
come to, therefore, is that the earthquakes are connected with some
fault or faults, whose existence has not yet been ascertained by
geological evidence.
DoustFruL HARTHQUAKE.
Pendleton (near Manchester), April 7, 1900.—An earth-shake,
somewhat similar to that of Feb. 27, 1899, occurred at 1.17 a.m. on
April 7. Mr. Mark Stirrup has again kindly sent me records of this
shock, from which it appears that the disturbed area, as before, is not
more than 4 or 5 miles in diameter, and that the centre is close
to the Irwell Valley fault, but a mile or two further to the south
or south-south-east of that shaken in 1899. At Pendleton the
vibration resembled that felt in a house when a heavy traction-
engine passes; and the sound appeared as though the mortar and
walls were being crushed. In the collieries, at a depth of about
3,000 feet, the noise was also considerable ; and the shock is said
to have caused dust to rise. As the intensity of the shock was
4 or 5, and the disturbed area very small, the depth of the centre of
disturbance must have been slight. The evidence is less complete
than in the former case, but, so far as it goes, it supports the view
of the origin of these earth-shakes in mining districts which
I suggested in my last paper on British earthquakes.
362 M. Fergusson—WNotes on Geology of Tanganyika.
Spurious HArtTHQuUAKES.
Shortly after 10 p.m. on July 18, a series of disturbances was
observed at different places along the south coast of England,
between Torquay and Brighton. At first they were supposed to be
earthquakes, but they were afterwards traced to the gun-firing during
a sham fight which took place at Cherbourg at the hour mentioned
in honour of the French President’s visit to that town. The
evidence for this conclusion is as follows:—(1) The area within
which the sounds were heard was a narrow band hardly more than
a mile or two wide, following all the windings of the coast, and
interrupted in that part of Hampshire shielded from Cherbourg by
the higher ground of the Isle of Wight. (2) The disturbances
occurred in groups, each of which lasted several minutes. (38) The
waves were obviously propagated through the air, for they caused
a drumming in the ears, and windows were shaken while floors were
still. (4) Lastly, the sounds were recognized as those of heavy
guns, and were ascribed to this origin with a confidence which
increased with the observer’s neighbourhood to Cherbourg.
VII.—Gerotocicat Notes From TanGanyika NoRTHWARDS.
By Matcoitm FeEreusson, Esq.
(WITH TWO MAPS.)
HE southern shore of Lake Tanganyika and the country for
a distance of 40 miles south of the lake consist of sandstones
and conglomerates, dipping north about 10°. These sandstones stretch
some little way up the eastern and western shores, and appear to
continue away to the south-west. Proceeding further north along
the lake shore they get harder, being in places metamorphosed into
a pink quartzite.
In colour the sandstones are reddish or grey, generally very
coarse. At the lake they are of enormous thickness, being quite
3,000 feet at Kituta, and they surround the southern shore in
a precipitous horse-shoe which descends to the water’s edge. On
the west coast they come to a sudden stop at the Lufu Valley, where
there is a break in the range, the plateau descending to the level of
the lake into which the Lufu River flows. Here the geology
changes, and an intrusive dyke of quartz-felsite comes in, followed
by a lava-flow which has every appearance of stratification, and
which I mistook for a sedimentary deposit at a distance. It is
a rhyolite which has poured down the Sumbu Valley into Cameron
Bay, the present appearance being a bank of rhyolite rising from
the beach.
[‘‘ Under the microscope the rock has a brecciated appearance,
owing to the intermingling of lenticular pink (or in one specimen
dark) spherulitic patches with colourless, finer-grained, microfelsitic
material showing well-marked flow-structure. A few small pheno-
crysts of quartz and altered felspar (mainly oligoclase) are present.” |
M. Fergusson—WNotes on Geology of Tanganyika. 363
Immediately north of this rhyolite the country begins to rise again,
splitting up into small detached hills at first and gradually rising to
mountains of quartz-felsite at Moliro’s. [‘* This rock contains fairly
large phenocrysts of quartz and orthoclase in a microfelsitic base
showing flow structure and in parts also spherulitic structure.” ] _,
oe
&
os
® GEOLOGY oF
THE LAKE DISTRICTS
oF
oe
Megas iit CENTRAL AFRICA
| Tea ill BY MALCOLM FERGUSSON
| wes MMM voteanic te
—= ESS Gneiss & Schists
¥ 3d — Scale of Mules
° 0 20 E + 60
Note, Boundaries of the formations
are only roughly apprartmate
ALBERT
NVANZA
2100 2}
Mbokowta, L
TANGANYIKA LAKE
as 23 o eckrs
Crossing now to the eastern shore, we find the sandstones
continue up as far as the German station of Kasanga, but just north
of this they terminate and felsitic rocks again intrude and pre-
dominate, granite sometimes showing up through the mass. As we
364 M. Fergusson—Notes on Geology of Tanganyika.
proceed further north the felsite disappears, and at Mpimbwi occur
granite, gneiss, and schists. [‘‘A specimen of gneiss or crushed
granite from this locality presents under the microscope a good
example of cataclastic structure with long irregular patches of
quartz (showing marked undulose extinction), some microperthite,
and bands of sericite in a mosaic of crushed quartz and felspar.”’ |
While at Kilando we experienced three earthquake shocks, only
a small interval of time elapsing between them. The missionaries
say they are of frequent occurrence, especially during the months of
September, October, and November. Here the plateau is broken
up, and the country descends in altitude to hills of 400 feet or
500 feet in height, with sometimes extensive plains and valleys.
The occurrence of felsitic rocks on both sides of the lake suggests
that the rift had occurred through the middle of a large mass of
this rock which originally had been continuous, and that the lake
was formed subsequently.
Recrossing to the western shore at Tembwi we find granite, gneiss
and schists with a large quantity of white quartz veins running
through them. Going north and approaching the Lukuga Valley
these gradually descend, breaking up into low ridges and hills, and
give place to deep red sandstones, which, however, are only of limited
extent and appear to be quite recent, as I found what I took to be
crab markings on the surfaces, and they were probably deposited
along a river valley. The river was evidently of much larger size
at one time, and even now is of considerable size during the time of
floods, as evidenced by the great width of the bed and the position
of native dwellings, which are all situated high up and back from
the banks.
The only known deposit of limestone in the Tanganyika district
occurs at the French mission station Mpala, a few miles south of
Tembwi. It is a white crystalline limestone, containing no fossils,
and supplies the whole district with lime.
North of the Lukuga the country is almost flat for a distance of
10 miles or so and for some way inland. About one mile north of
the outlet there is a small stream, the Lubui, flowing into the lake.
Ten miles from the Lukuga the country rises sharply again at
Kahangwa, where I landed to look at the formation which strikes
out into the lake in a sharp bluff composed of dark-grey contorted
phyllite. At Mtowa the formation seems to be principally schists.
Again crossing the lake, I found soft grey sandstones which
continue north to Ujiji, but in many places here is open plain land
and the rock is covered with soil and vegetation.
Immediately north of Ujiji the country rises again precipitously
from the lake shore, showing sandstone formation containing thick
beds of conglomerate, dipping generally east about 20°. These
sandstone beds rest on granite, which can be seen above the water
line at Viuwko and Lumungi.
North of Lumungi the sandstones give place to granites, gneiss,
and schists, which form the main constituents of the mountain
range running north along the shore and up past Usambura, where
M. Fergusson—Notes on Geology of Tanganyika. 365
they bend east a little and form a large open fertile plain, enclosed
by these mountains on the one side and by the Western Congo
Range on the other.
Referring to the question of Tanganyika having been once
connected with the sea, it is impossible to state definitely any ideas
on the subject from the limited observations I was able to make,
but the enormous thickness and extent of the sandstones on the
southern shore, extending southwards forty miles and then bending
round and continuing west, give one the idea that this might have
been an old arm of the sea connecting Tanganyika westward by
way of the Congo. If the sandstones could be traced towards the
Congo the problem might be solved. Connection northwards at any
time seems to me impossible. The mountain range at Kivu forms
a dividing barrier, in fact is a north and south watershed, from
which the waters flow south to Tanganyika and north to the Nile.
North of Tanganyika is a broad fertile alluvial plain covered with
grass, euphorbias, and scrub, extending north for about 25 miles.
Then spurs come down from the main ranges east and west, and
from here the country is hilly.
Just south of Butagata, the German station on the Rusisi, occur
some hot springs. From here the country rises again sharply for
about 2,300 feet, with rounded hills covered with deep red soil
showing no outcrop of rock. This continues round the south-eastern
shore of Lake Kivu. Then gneiss and schists come in which continue
northwards as far as the volcanic area. In one place, on the north-
eastern shore at which we landed, I found a white fissile rock. [‘‘ This
rock is very similar to rocks from Abyssinia, which have been referred
to sdlvsbergite (see Min. Mag., 1900, xii, p. 265), the fissile character
being due to the platy arrangement of the felspars. Under the
microscope it shows a trachytic felt of small felspar laths with
interstitial, minute, ragged patches of a pale-green augite. From its
poorness in coloured minerals the rock is best referred to the
bostonites.”’ |
The main eastern range comes down to the lake and extends
along the east and north shores as far as Kumchengi, then
continuing north; the western range also follows the lake shore
and strikes north, forming a valley similar to the Rusisi Valley
north of Tanganyika; but this valley of Kivu is filied with lava
which has been poured out from several volcanoes, of which two
are still active, emitting steam and sulphurous fumes. The larger
of these, Kirunga-cha-gongo, is 11,350 feet in height, and the crater
is about one and a half miles in diameter at the top. It has been
recently eruptive, as can be seen by the streams of lava cutting
through the forest.
The lava seems to be extremely scoriaceous everywhere, and has
poured down southwards into the lake and northwards almost as far
as the Albert Edward. The line of volcanic action seems to be
proceeding from east to west, as there are six or seven large extinct
cones almost in a line east of this, and the two active ones are at the
western extremity.
ie =]
GEOLOGY OF
THE LAKE DISTRICTS
CENTRAL AFRICA
' BY MALCOLM FERGUSSON
¥ Scale of Strut Miles.
Hi U
f uv 1g A=
| ————— stuck bch, —————
rio PO Eel ee
Va me
; MN votcanic
. =— Gnetss and Schists
Uy ai Wi, Sandstone
Note, pene of the formations
are only roug ly approximate
SS
ERY
aR
WN)
It7
ye Wy
YY
Map or Lake TANGANYIKA.
M. Fergusson—Notes on Geology of Tanganyika. 367
Around the large cone, Kirunga-cha-gongo, there are many
smaller cones which appear to radiate off along definite lines of
weakness. Thus :—
The great Western or Congo Range here consists of granite, gneiss
and schists, the schists increasing in proportion as it gets further
north, till at the Albert Edward the whole range appears to be
composed of mica-schist.
Lake Kivu, whose only outlet is the Rusisi, does not seem to
have fallen in level at any time, as there are no signs of old terraces
round the shores, and there are many old trees growing close down
to the shore, cemented in by a sort of concrete wall formed by spray
dashing up on the boulders and pebbles, evaporating and leaving
a deposit of carbonate of magnesium. The floor of the lake is in
places paved with this deposit.
Generally the lake is deep right up to the shore. It has every
appearance of having been formerly simply a river running down
the valley northwards into the Albert Edward. The volcanic
eruptions then took place in the valley, filling it up with lava and
damming up the water, which gradually rose and flooded the banks
till it found an outlet south by way of the Rusisi into Tanganyika.
The natives call it ‘The River.’
A curious point about the water of Kivu is that, unlike ordinary
water, which contains a solution of calcium carbonate, it contains
a solution of magnesium carbonate. The floor of the lake is paved
with what appears to be a precipitate of this substance, and the
pebbles and boulders around the shore are cemented with it. There
are no dolomites or other magnesium rocks, as far as I could see in
the district; therefore the inference is that springs containing
magnesium carbonate in solution must be feeding the lake and
keeping up a constant supply.
[‘‘The quantity of water received and the state of preservation
were not such that reliance could be placed on quantitative results,
but from analyses made by Mr. J. Hart Smith, A.R.C.S., it is
evident that magnesium replaces calcium in the water, the analytical
and spectroscopic evidence showing that traces only of calcium salts
are present. Fragments obtained from the lake floor, consisting of
a calcareous tufa evidently deposited round vegetable débris, were
analyzed by Mr. W. Robertson, A.R.C.S., and were found to contain
CaO 28:65, MgO 12:66 per cent. as the mean of two closely
agreeing analyses.”—W. E. W. |
Lake Albert Edward is a shallow lake throughout, with a sandy
368 M. Fergusson—Notes on Geology of Tanganyika.
bottom. The natives can pole their canoes nearly everywhere, only
occasionally having to resort to paddles. The lake is not in a
‘rift’ like Tanganyika, but has more the appearance of an overflow.
Immediately north of Albert Edward, at Katwe Fort George,
a white volcanic tuff occurs. [‘‘ It is on the occurrence of these tufts
round ‘crater-lakes’ that the idea of considerable recent volcanic
activity at the foot of Ruwenzori mainly depends. The present
tuff shows signs of stratification, with parallel flakes of biotite and
muscovite, so that it has been probably rearranged by water.
Microscopic examination shows that it consists by no means
wholly of voleanic material. It contains small angular fragments
of a biotite-granite or gneiss, oligoclase, quartz, biotite, brown
hornblende, pink garnet, and colourless augite. Any doubts, how-
ever, which might have been entertained as to the volcanic origin
of these ‘tuffs’ were set at rest by an examination of the tuff
collected by Mr. Scott-Hlliot, and referred to as No. 96 in the paper
already cited. Under the microscope this tuff is seen to be made
up mainly of round lapilli, of which the larger ones consist of a mere
shell of glassy volcanic material surrounding fragments either of
biotite or of a granitic or gneissic rock, which must have been torn
from the walls of the vent during the eruption.” |] Tuffs with crater
lakes, hot springs, and cones continue up to Ruwenzori and around
the eastern foothills to beyond Fort Gerry. There are salt lakes
around Katwe. The foothills of Ruwenzori are composed of gneiss ;
beyond and above this mica-schists occur, dipping steeply; and
still higher, nearer the centre of the mountain, epidiorite® is the
predominating rock.
The accompanying Figure shows a section of the mountain as
approached from the east.
Amphibolite ie Ses
|
l
4
|
{
|
}
|
Volcanic Gneiss Mca Schists
DIAGRAM-SECTION ON THE East SIDE oF RUWENZORI.
Proceeding eastwards from Toro, the prevailing rock is gneiss as
far as Uganda, with occasional dolerite dykes. [‘‘ A specimen of these
dolerites consists of large ophitic plates of a nearly colourless augite,
felspar laths, and large plates of ilmenite ; in parts in the interstices
1 Scott-Elliot & Gregory: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1895, li, p. 674.
2 Scott-Elliot & Gregory, l.c.
M. Fergusson—WNotes on Geology of Tanganyika. 369
of the felspars were ophitic plates of quartz. In its quartz contents
and general character the rock is strikingly similar to quartz-dolerites
(diabases) of the Transvaal (e.g. rock from near Potchefstroom).” |
To the west of Lake Victoria sandstones overlie the gneiss and
continue round the lake shore for some distance. This gneiss
formation is again in evidence on the eastern shore, and continues
up the Nandi plateau till the volcanic disturbances from the eastern
rift valley occur at Mau.
[“ The rocks collected in this volcanic region consist mainly of
phonolites and phonolitic trachytes. Most of them contain pheno-
erysts of anorthoclase and egirine-augite in a trachytic groundmass
of felspar-laths, through which are distributed irregular grains and
feathery patches of augite, and of soda-hornblendes closely related
to, if not identical with, Cossyrite and the Catophorite of Brogger.
Some of them contain olivine in small amount, and in this respect
as well as in their more glassy character approach closely to the
pantellerite-like rocks or Kenytes of Mt. Kenya described by Gregory."
An anorthoclase phonolite from Mau differs from the phonolites on
the east side of the rift valley in containing large crystals of a
remarkably pleochroic (colourless to deep rose-red) sphene, which
appears to have crystallized about the same time as the augite
phenocrysts, since in some cases it includes augite and in others is
included by that mineral. Besides the phonolites there is also
a specimen of andesitic hornblende-enstatite-basalt, somewhat similar
in character to the so-called enstatite-porphyrite from Schneide-
miillerskopf, Thuringia.” |
North of Lake Naivasha I found a deposit of very pure diatomaceous
earth containing fragments of obsidian, and on account of this
I imagined it to be a volcanic tuff till Mr. J. J. H. Teall examined
it and found it to be fullof diatoms. [‘* The obsidian chips appear to
be worked implements similar to those from the same neighbourhood
described and figured by Gregory (‘The Great Rift Valley,’
p. 324).” |
The diatomaceous earth has been examined by Mr. Thomas Comber,
who finds that it consists of fresh-water species, of which he has
identified the following :—
1. Neidium affine, Cl., forma major, ; 14. Cymbella lanceolata, V. H.
Woral 15. C. cistula, V. H., var. maculata,
2. Anomeoneis spherophora, Cl. Kutz.
3. Diploneis ovalis, Cl. 16. C. cymbiformis, V. H.
4. Pinnularia acrospheria, Rbh. 17. C. parva, Cl.
5. P. legumen, Ehr. 18. C. leptoceras, Kutz.
6. Navicula baciiliformis, V. H. 19. C. turgida, Greg.
7. NV. pseudobacillum, Grun. 20. OC. amphicephala, Naeg.
8. N. pupula, Kutz. 21. Gomphonema gracile, Khr.
9. N. Tuscula, Grun. 22. var. aurita, Breb.
10. NV. slesvicensis, Grun. 23. G@. intricatum, Kutz.
ll. WV. radiosa, Kutz. 24. G@. subelavatum, Grun.
12. var. tenella, Breb. 25. G@. montanum, Schum.
13. N. mutica, Kutz. 26. Amphora ovalis, Kutz.
1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1900, lvi, p. 205.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. VIII. 24
Notices of Memoirs.
27. Cucconeis placentula, Khy. 43. F. virescens, Ralfs.
28. var. lineata, Grun. 44. Synedra splendens, Kutz.
29. Achuanthidium lanceolatum, Breb., | 45. 8. wna, Ebr.
var. dubia, V. H. 46. S. oxyrhynchus, Smith.
30. Epithemia gibba, Kutz. 47. var. nova, var. mesolepta.
31. Epithemia gibba, var. parallela, | 48. Odontidiwm mesodon, Kutz.
VenEL: 49. Surirella linearis, Smith.
32 var. clavata (= E. clavata, | 50. S.Smithii, Ralts (a large form of it).
J.L.B.,MS.inColl.R.M.8.). | 51. Witzschia tenuis, Smith.
33 var. ventricosa, Kutz. 52. N. amphibia, Grun.
34. #. zebra, Kutz. 53. Stephanodiscus astrea, Grun.
35. var. proboscidea, Kutz. 54 var. spinwlosa, Grun.
36. E. sorex, Kutz. 55. Oycelotella Kutzingiana, Thwaites.
87. E. gibberula, Kutz. 56. C. operculata, Kutz.
38. Lnnotia incisa, Greg. 67. Melosira granulata,
39. Fragilaria mutabilis, Grun. Ralfs. Theses
40, —— var. intermedia, Grun. 58. M. crenulata, Kutz. ch other
41. F. construens, Grun. 59. M. tenuis, Kutz. ee ;
42. var. venter, Grun. 60. UU. distans, Kutz.
My deepest thanks are due to Mr. G. T. Prior, of the British
Museum (Natural History), to Dr. Wynne. of the Royal College
of Science, and to Mr. Thomas Comber,—to Mr. Prior for his
kindness in examining and naming the rock specimens, and in
supplying the petrographical descriptions; to Dr. Wynne for
chemical analyses of water and rocks, and for the deep interest
he has shown in the matter; and to Mr. Comber for his exhaustive
examination of the diatomaceous earth.
INT @)ARI Rees) (Qsey IMEIshIMEOIEISs3=
_—_——_——
J.—Tur Grotogican History oF THE Rivers oF Hast YorKSHIRE,
being the Sedgwick Prize Hssay for the year 1900. By F. R.
Cowper Reed. 8vo. London (Clay), 1901, 4s. nett.—The selection
of the dependence of the watercourses of a country upon its
geological structure as the subject of the Sedgwick Essay for 1900,
gave Mr. Reed an opportunity of turning out a piece of work on
a subject which has not received that attention in this country it
hasdeserved. ‘The district chosen by the author for his investigations
has been carefully surveyed and mapped, and due acknowledgment
has been made of the work of the Officers of the Geological Survey,
and particularly of that of Mr. Fox-Strangways.
Mr. Reed divides his essay into five parts :—(1) General characters
of Hast Yorkshire ; (2) Geological structure; (3) Physical history ;
(4) The present rivers and their relations to the geological structure ;
(5) The history of the relations of the rivers to the geological
structure. His observations are illustrated by maps.
Mr. Reed draws the following conclusions :—‘“ By the preceding
examination of the geological and physical evidence we have traced
the general outlines of the evolution of the present drainage-system
of Hast Yorkshire through several successive stages, and we find
that its history is intimately bound up with that of the whole of
Hastern England since Paleozoic times. There are local details
Notices of Memoirs. 371
still waiting to be filled in and branches of the subject still to be
investigated, but it is believed that they will produce no evidence
which will contradict the main results here worked out. The
division of the physical history of the region since Cretaceous times
into six stages or cycles is based on geological evidence which is
practically incontrovertible; the assumptions as to the original
slope of the surface and the deformation of the peneplain are
supported by orographical measurements and geotectonic considera-
tions of great weight, as well as by being in harmony with evidence
from other parts of England; and, finally, the theory of consequent
and subsequent streams has been established on a firm foundation
by Davis and many other workers in the same field. The hypothesis
of the secondary origin of the Moorland anticlinal as a watershed
more or less parallel to the original consequent streams has been
found to afford a natural and satisfactory explanation of the behaviour
and characters of the watercourses which it concerns; and the
modifications effected by the Glacial Period have been interpreted
in most cases from direct field-evidence.”
IJ.—Rocky Movunratn Reeron or Canapsa.—One of the last
labours of the lamented geologist, George Mercer Dawson, was
his presidential address, delivered before the Geological Society
of America on December 29th, 1900. It appeared in the Bulletin
for February. Dr. Dawson took as his text “The Geological Record
of the Rocky Mountain Region of Canada.” The address was an
enumeration of the several formations now known to be represented,
a brief description of each, and a review of the main outlines of the
geological evolution of the area in so far as it has been made
apparent. Dr. Dawson began by giving a sketch of the physio-
graphical features, then he took the various formations in review,
and finally gave an excellent account of the physical history of
the area.
Il].—Age or THe Karra.—Professor Joly’s paper on the Age of
the Earth, discussed by Osmond Fisher in the GroLogrcan MaGazing
for March, 1900, recalled to the memory of M. P. Rudzki a method
of estimation which he had published in Petermann’s Mittheilungen
in 1895. Rudzki has now published his further researches and
results in Bull. Ac. Sci. Cracovie (February, 1901). The paper is
printed in French.
IV.—A Fosstr CraB AND oTHER T'RAILS.— Cancer proavitus,
a new crab from the Miocene greensand of Martha’s Vineyard, is
described by Packard in Proc. Amer. Ac. Sci., 1900. It resembles
the living irroratus, and provides material for some general remarks
on the phylogeny of the genus Cancer. In another paper in the
same Proceedings Mr. Packard describes supposed Merostomatous
and other Paleozoic arthropod trails, with some notes on those of
Limulus. He shows that there is a marked difference between
the trails of limuloids and isopods, and that while the trail of
Merostomichnites Beecheri is limuloid, that of Merostomichnites Narra-
gansettensts is isopodal.
372 Reviews—G. Merzbacher—On the Caucasus.
V.—SuHortER GerotocicaL Notrs.—In his report of progress of
the Lausanne Museum for 1900, Professor Renevier calls attention
to a fine collection of fossils received by the Museum from
M. Rittener, of Sainte-Croix. The collection contains 2,000 speci-
mens, all of which are properly located and zoned.
A skin and two skulls of the new and remarkable mammal, lately
discovered by Sir Harry Johnston in the forest on the borders of
the Congo Free State, were exhibited before the Zoological Society
at their meeting on the 18th June. Sir Harry Johnston’s original
idea that the animal belonged to the giraffes was endorsed, it having
relations with the extinct Helladotheres. It was named Okapia
Johnston.
Gustav Ketizr has drawn and Dr. Andreae has described six
large wall-diagrams of extinct animals. They are—Rhytina gigas,
Elephas primigenius, Triceratops and Agathawmas, Megaceros giganteus,
an Ichthyosaur, and a Plesiosaur. They are published by Th. G.
Fischer, of Cassel, and can be bought separately at six marks apiece.
In Symons’ Meteorological Magazine for June, 1901, are several
matters of geological interest. There is a report of the Second
Conference for the International Investigation of the Sea and the
Air ; there is the programme drawn up by the Leeds Committee for
proposed Observations on Dew-ponds; and there is a note on tbe
Norwegian Rainfall Service, in which service snow and rain are
measured in separate gauges.
TuE School of Mines and Industries of Bendigo, Victoria, issues
an Annual Report for the year ending June, 1900, of 96 pages. The
Macgillivray Museum attached to the School pays special attention
to mining matters, and the curator asks for donations of books and
specimens connected with the subject. The syllabus of examinations
is a full one. The Mining Science Society seems to have had
a successful year of work.
154 J2H We JE 2h Wr SS},
I.—Tuer Caucasus.
Aus pEN HocureGcionen pes KauKasus. WANDERUNGEN, ERLEB-
NISSE, BEOBACHTUNGEN VON GoTTFRIED Mrrzpacurr. 2 vols.:
pp. Xxxvili, 958 and 964, with 246 illustrations and a map.
(Leipzig : Duncker & Humblot.)
ERR MERZBACHER has observed the Horatian rule of
keeping a book in the desk for nine years, because the
journey of which this is the fruit was undertaken in the Summer
and Autumn of 1891. He was accompanied by the well-known
Alpine climber, Herr L. Purtscheller, who, however, returned rather
before his friend, and by two guides from Kals. Though the weather
at times was unpropitious they succeeded in ascending several
important peaks, such as Elbruz, Tetnuld, Dongus-orun-Jusengi-
Baschi, a mountain as difficult as its name, its companion Sulu-
kol-Baschi, Dschanga-tau, Kasbek, Gimarai-Choch, and others,
Reviews—G. Merzbacher—On the Caucasus. 373
besides an unsuccessful attempt on Uschba, the Matterhorn of
the Caucasus—sixteen peaks in all, ranging in height from
18,000 to over 18,000 feet—together with other excursions during
a journey along the greater part of the chain from west to east.
After giving some account of his expeditions in the publications
of the German-Austrian Alpine Club for 1892, Herr Merzbacher
has worked up the material into two bulky volumes. His book
must be the outcome of great and assiduous labour, for he has
apparently made himself master of the literature of the Caucasus,
or at any rate of all that is accessible. He describes the physical
characters, geology, glaciers and glaciation, the meteorology, and the
ethnology of this great mountain chain, which, unlike the Alps, is
more of a bridge than a barrier between the east and the west. He
might apply to the Caucasus the well-known epigram “ what there
is to know I know it,” and he places this at the disposal of his
reader. The present work differs mainly from the two handsome
volumes published by Mr. Douglas Freshfield in 1896 in that it is
written more definitely from the scientific point of view, and thus
is practically a monograph on the Caucasus. Both works contain
good maps and are enriched with numerous illustrations, but those
in the one before us, though in many cases excellent, hardly succeed
in reaching the level of the best in Mr. Freshfield’s book.
To do justice to Herr Merzbacher’s work would require an essay,
so that it must suffice to notice a few points of special interest to
geologists. In the main the author accepts the conclusions in regard
to the structure, orography, and geology of the Caucasian chain which
I expressed in an appendix contributed to Mr. Freshfield’s book.
As a mountain system the Caucasus is more elevated, but less complex
in structure than the Alps. The author has drawn up a list of
the principal peaks in each, which demonstrates that those in
the Caucasus tower above their bases (like Mont Blanc above
Chamonix) fully a thousand feet, and sometimes considerably
more, than those in the Alps; the crest of the chain also
is more elevated, and conspicuous gaps, at any rate in the
western half, are fewer. The average height of the snow-line
in the Caucasus is 7,690 feet on the north side, and 7,950 feet
on the south, though on the former a glacier comes down to
5,791 feet and on the latter to 5,325 feet, but on taking an
average of nearly twenty in each case, those on the north side, as
might be expected, descend lower by about 240 feet. On two points
Herr Merzbacher inclines to differ from me. The mention of some
important conglomerates in beds of Miocene age led me to infer
that the Caucasus, like the Alps, had been produced by two sets
of earth-movements, the mountain chain being due mainly to the
former, the eruptions to the latter. He refers the whole to a single
set of movements corresponding with the later or Pliocene age.
Again, I thought it more probable that the mountain-making thrusts
had come from the north ; he gives them an opposite direction. Much
may be said on both sides, but so far as I can see, instead of bringing
forward any new evidence he contents himself with calling my
374 Reviews—G. Merzbacher—On the Caucasus.
opinion “rein theoretisch,” forgetting to remark that I carefully
stated this to be an hypothesis which, with one or two more, was
advanced as being, in my opinion, ‘‘ the most probable interpretation
of such facts as have been ascertained.”
Herr Merzbacher collected a fair number of geological specimens,
which are minutely described by Dr. L. von Ammon in an appendix.
The latter separates them into four groups: (I) the Archean rocks
of the Central I/assif; (II) diabases and contact rocks from Gimarai-
Choch to Kasbek; (III) biack shales or slates,) and sandstones;
(IV) younger eruptive rocks. He also has given a note on some
sinter from the hot springs of Saniwa. (I) Additions have been
made to the detailed knowledge of the Central Massif even since
the publication of Mr. Freshfield’s volumes, and now Dr. von Ammon
describes specimens collected from some of its important summits.
Among them is a gneiss, with two species of mica, from Dongus-
orun ; the rocks on the upper part of this mountain are mostly
granitic, and Dr. von Ammon thinks the gneissic character of this
specimen may be due to pressure. Next come a white granite,
containing, however, some scales of biotite (passing into a chloritie
mineral) from Uschba: a biotite granite from Sulu-kol-Baschi;
granite with two micas from Tetnuld: green-speckled white granite
from Dschanga-tau (these three being the highest rocks on the
peaks) with a chlorite epidote schist and a quartzose epidote rock
from the last-named mountain, a rather fine-grained green-speckled
granite from the peak of Sugan-Tau, and a diabasic rock from
that of Tepli. The localities rather than their petrographical
character give an interest to all these. So it was with the few
which I examined for the late Mr. Donkin in 1887. (II) Gimarai-
Choch, 15,676 feet high, lies rather more than five miles to
the west of Kasbek. The rock of the actual peak is a diabase,
which has been minutely examined, but seems not to be specially
interesting, except that a little quartz is present; varieties of
the same rock were brought from a rather lower level, on one
of which were some glass splashes, doubtless due to lightning ;
a schalstein or diabase tuff was obtained rather more than 300 feet
below the peak, and specimens of sedimentary rocks (hornschiefer
and schieferiger hornfels), probably members of the next group, were
also obtained on this mountain. (III) Dr. von Ammon separates
these (sedimentary rocks) into three groups: (a) the first, dark
schiefer, he assigns, for reasons presently to be given, to the
Jurassic system; (b) the second, also black schiefer, from the
Pirikitelisch range in the Eastern Caucasus and from Daghestan ;
(c) those from Laila. They have been carefully studied, for doubt
has been expressed as to their geological age. Favre claimed
to have identified Bythotrephis in some, and assigned these to
the Paleozoic era. This identification, however, bas been dis-
puted, so that further evidence is desirable. Most of Herr
1 The ambiguous word schiefer is used. Perhaps some day Continental geologists
will put an end to a long-standing confusion by using one term for a cleaved, another
for an uncleaved rock. Here, I expect, the rocks are commonly slates.
Reviews—G. Merzbacher—On the Caucasus. 370
Merzbacher’s specimens are unfossiliferous, while some of the dark
schiefer contain numerous rutile needles; this, however, is not
conclusive, and on the whole Dr. von Ammon is disposed to refer
them to the Jurassic period, to which one sandstone, from its
fragments of echinoderms, almost certainly belongs. But Herr
Merzbacher speaks in his narrative of schiefer which he regarded as
more ancient, so it is very possible (as I pointed out in 1896) that
these dark rocks may be, some of Mesozoic, some of an earlier date.
(c) The rocks of Laila come next, with which we may consider
(a) already mentioned. Laila (13,400 feet) is a peak to the
S.S.E. of Elbruz, but on the opposite side of the watershed. On it
Signor Sella in 1889 found some fragments of crinoids. These, as
was explained in the appendix to Mr. Freshfield’s book, were
considered by Mr. Bather and Dr. Gregory to resemble most nearly
Balanocrinus, a subgenus of Pentacrinus, of late Cretaceous or
Tertiary age, while Herr Merzbacher, both then and now, placed
them very near £xtracrinus subangularis, a Liassic species. Dr. von
Ammon, after examining some other specimens collected by his
friend, agrees with him in the identification and in referring the
rocks to the Lias. Fossils were also obtained at a spot in the heart
of Daghestan between Tindi and Aknada. Among them are joints of
a pentacrinus, which Dr. von Ammon figures, assigning it to a new
species, P. Merzbacheri, which is near to P. pentagonalis (Goldf.),
and very probably belongs, like it, to the Callovien, or, at any rate,
the Middle Jura. A pecten was also found, which closely resembles
P. personatus (Goldf.), also a Jurassic form. Hence the upper part of
Laila is more probably composed of Jurassic than of Cretaceo-Hocene
rocks. (IV) With the younger eruptive rocks comes a specimen
from the western summit of Elbruz, obtained possibly at a slightly
greater elevation than that which I examined.’ Dr. von Ammon
seems to think my description too brief, but I believe that I omitted
nothing of importance, and doubt the utility of enlarging on trivial
details. His specimen, however, contains a little hypersthene* and
quartz, both of which are absent from mine. The rock of which
he gives an analysis contains 63°80 of SiO,, with a rather high
percentage of alkalies, viz. Na,O=5-47 and K,O=3:-26, but
is not otherwise remarkable; very probably the two specimens
represent slightly different ejections. He expresses a doubt whether
this peak is a broken crater, but the descriptions of earlier visitors
(a violent gale gave Herr Merzbacher little opportunity of making
observations) seem favourable to the idea. In any case he regards
the volcano as comparatively modern, thinking it may have continued
its eruptions even into the Glacial Epoch. The remaining specimens,
three in number, come from Kum-tube, a mountain rising from the
Tschegem-thal on the northern side of the watershed, some thirty
miles east of Elbruz. The volcanic rocks, which have been already
! Proc. Roy. Soc., 1887, vol. xlii, p. 318.
2 T have again examined my slice, but though a pyroxene is certainly (I said
possibly before) present in grains of rather variable size, most at any rate give an
oblique extinction. But I think it may also contain about two flakelets of biotite.
376 Reviews—Silurian Crinoids of Chicago.
noticed by Abich, break through and alter Jurassic sediments.
Some of them are hypersthene-augite andesites (the former mineral
dominating markedly in two specimens)—that on the summit distin-
guished by the epithet vitrophyrischer—and another is a hornblende-
biotite-dacite. ‘These accordingly seem to be nearly related to the
volcanic rocks of Elbruz and Kasbek, and to belong to the same
group as those of Ararat.
We have dwelt chiefly on the petrology, because that has received
such close attention, but valuable geological information is intro-
duced into the narrative throughout the book. Herr Merzbacher,
however, does not forget to notice the physical geography, the
natural history, the inhabitants of the various districts, their dress,
accoutrements, architecture, and habits of life. All these are
abundantly illustrated by reproductions of photographs, which are
valuable to the ethnologist, and will be more so in the future, as the
distinctive characteristics of tribes once isolated by the obstacles of
a mountain region disappear before the advance of Huropean
civilization. The book, in fact, is a monument of laborious research
and a perfect mine of information, which will be useful alike to the
mountaineer, the traveller, and the scientific student.
T. G. Bonney.
II.—Srnur1an Crinoips oF CuHtcaco.
Tue PaLeontoLocy or THE NraGaran LimEsToNE IN THE CHICAGO
Arga. Tue Crinoirea. By Stuart Wetuzr. Bull. Nat. Hist.
Survey Chicago, IV, part 1, 153 pp., xv pls., and text-figures ;
27 June, 1900.
HE Crinoids of the Niagara Limestone of the Chicago region,
including south-eastern Wisconsin, have been the subject of
publications by Winchell & Marcy, James Hall, and S. A. Miller.
Nevertheless the amount written was by no means proportional to
the size of the fauna, and a large number of species escaped notice
even in Wachsmuth & Springer’s great Monograph of the North
American Camerata. This has not been due to want of material,
for the collections of these fossils are many and rich, but to their
unattractive appearance as, for the most part, internal casts of the
theca alone in a coarse dolomite. Gratitude and praise are therefore
due to the energetic instructor in paleontology at the University of
Chicago, Dr. Stuart Weller, for the trouble that he has taken in
deciphering this unpromising material and for presenting the
results in this clearly written and clearly illustrated memoir.
The results are of wider interest than might have been anticipated.
It was hardly to be expected that Dr. Weller should discover new
facts of morphology, nor has he done so. But the Crinoidea, perhaps
to a larger extent than the other elements of the fauna, shed much
light on the problems of distribution. They are represented by no
less than 69 species (Dr. Weller says 68), classified as follows :—
Monocyctica, Inadunata, Stephanocrinus 1 sp., Myelodactylus 1 sp.,
Zophocrinus 1 sp.; Adunata, Platycrinus? [probably one of the
Reviews—Silurian Crinoids of Chicago. ol?
Coccocrinine | 1 u.sp., Marsipocrinus 1 n.sp.; Camerata, Jelocrinus
or Mariacrinus (the evidence of the fixed brachials suggests the
former genus to Dr. Weller, but to me the latter) 1 sp.,
Macrostylocrinus 4 spp. of which two are new, Corymbocrinus
(i.e. Clonocrinus) 2 n.spp., Hucalyptocrinus 18 spp. of which three
are new, Callicrinus 9 spp. of which four are new, the allied
Chicagocrinus n.g. with 2 n.spp., Periechocrinus 7 spp. of which
one is new; Droycnica, Inadunata, Ampheristocrinus 1 n.sp.,
Cyathocrinus 3 spp. of which one is new, Crotalocrinus 1 n.sp.,
Botryocrinus 1 sp.; Flexibilia, Pycnosaccus 1 n.sp., Lecanocrinus
2 spp., Ichthyocrinus 1 sp., and the doubtful Gazacrinus 2 n.spp. ;
Camerata, Thysanocrinus (i.e. Dimerocrinus) 4 spp., Cyphocrinus
1 n.sp., Lampterocrinus 4 spp. of which three are new, Siphonocrinus
3 spp., Archeocrinus 1 n.sp., Lyriocrinus 1 sp. Thus this region
‘contains, next to the Island of Gotland . . . a larger number
of species of crinoids of this horizon than any similar region in the
world, so far as is known at the present time.” Dr. Weller credits
Gotland with 172 species ; but, as he rightly says, ‘‘ these are not all
associated in the same stratum.” There are probably more than 69
species in bed f of Gotland, but fewer in bed d, which latter alone
corresponds to the Niagaran. Failure to recognize this vitiates the
contrast of “only six species of inadunate crinoids in the Chicago
fauna against 40 in Gotland,” for bed d has yielded only two
Inadunate species, whereas I, with the classification given above,
find nine in the Chicago fauna. In this connection it is interesting
to note that bed d in Gotland is characterized by abundant Hucalypto-
crinidz, Dimerocrinids, and Periechocrinids, and that these are
the families most largely represented in the Chicago area. The
really interesting point, however, is that the crinoid fauna of this
area, and indeed the Silurian fauna of the Mississippi valley
generally, is related to the contemporaneous fauna of north-western
Europe more closely than to the neighbouring New York fauna.
The present memoir describes species of Crotalocrinus, Pycnosaccus,
and OCorymbocrinus (i.e. Clonocrinus), genera hitherto known only
from England and Scandinavia, if we except a few Crotalocrinus
stems from Arctic America. Dr. Weller, from the consideration of
this and other evidence, concludes that the connection was by way
of a “North Polar sea with a great tongue stretching southward
through Hudson Bay to about latitude 88°. . . At the latitude
of New York there was a bay reaching to the eastward, in which
the Silurian sediments of the New York system were deposited.”
Labrador, Greenland, and Scandinavia formed a more or less
continuous Jand mass, around which another tongue of the northern
sea extended south into Europe. In this connection Dr. Weller
raises an imaginary difficulty by saying that “in western Russia the
Silurian strata are not exposed”; they are indeed not so fully
developed as the Cambrian and Ordovician, but they do occur, and
are also found on the mainland of Sweden and Norway and in
Belgium, countries in which Dr. Weller’s map does not indicate
them. These corrections of course do but strengthen Dr. Weller’s
378 Reviews—Silurian Crinoids of Chicago.
suggestion ; but it remains no more than a suggestion, to be confirmed
or rejected when our knowledge of Silurian faunas is far greater than
it now is. A remembrance of the numerous local variations in the
character of the Silurian faunas, and of the sporadic distribution of
many genera, especially among crinoids, should make us exceedingly
cautious. It is well, however, to keep these broad questions before
our minds, since they emphasize the need for the most detailed
systematic description and the most exact collecting.
In view of the importance of correctness and exhaustiveness in
work of this nature, it may be as well to remedy a few slips and
omissions that have very naturally crept in, as well as to make
a few minor suggestions. Dr. Weller gives a Bibliography of
Silurian Crinoidea, believed to be nearly complete so far as American
literature is concerned. It does not, however, contain the names
of F. de Castelnau, E. J. Chapman, T. A. Conrad, B. F. Shumard,
R. P. Whitfield, or L. P. Yandell; nor is there reference to
J. Hall’s paper in Trans. Albany Institute, x, p. 57, or to Beachler’s
notes in the American Geologist, vii, p. 178, and ix, p.408. Reference
to J. W. Salter’s appendix to Sutherland’s “Journal,” 1852, might
give Dr. Weller more information about Arctic American crinoids,
while he might be interested in a note of my own on Brachiocrinus
(Amer. Geol., xvi, p. 218). Neither that genus nor its unique
species is mentioned in his very useful list of Silurian Crinoids,
which also lacks my Botryocrinus decadactylus and B. ramosus.
A stranger omission is that of Hapalocrinus retiarius (Phillips, as
Actinocrinus). Hapalocrinus, which is due to Jaekel, is, as one
anticipated, confused with Haplocrinus, Steininger. Dr. Weller
does not, of course, intend his list as authoritative on nomenclature ;
but it is as well to point out that Cyathocrinus capillaris, Phillips,
is a Gissocrinus, that Potertocrinus dudleyensis, Austin, is at all
events not a Cyathocrinus, that Pisocrinus milligani, Mill. & Gurl.,
is synonymous with P. quinquelobus, Bather, and that Pycnosaccus
ornatus, Weller, is apparently a lapsus calamd for P. americanus,
Weller. I may further take this opportunity of stating that
Arachnoerinus, Callicrinus, Calpiocrinus, Cordylocrinus, Desmidocrinus,
Hapalocrinus, Lyriocrinus, Mariacrinus, Patelliocrinus, Pycnosaccus,
Stephanocrinus, and perhaps other genera, are represented in the
Wenlock Limestone or Wenlock Shale of England, although not
so indicated in Dr. Weller’s list of genera (in some cases through
inadvertence). This substantiates the criticism that Dr. Weller’s
comparative census is, through no fault of his, a little too “‘ previous.”
The memoir contains a general account of crinoid structure which
should be useful to those for whom it is intended. But is it quite
safe to say that the food-supply of a crinoid is increased by its
stationary position? The assertion seems to ignore the locomotive
power of those crinoids that are not attached as well as the action
of ciliary currents. At any rate it is misleading to describe
Carabocrinus as ‘‘a very simple crinoid whose dorsal cup consists
entirely of three circles of plates.” The definition of the terms
‘proximal’ and ‘distal’ applies only to the dorsal elements; for
4
Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London. 379
ventral elements the centre of reference is the oral pole. Figure 13
is labelled Pisocrinus flagellifer, a name that is a synonym of
P. pilula. Fig. 14 is labelled Cyathocrinus ramosus, just as all
text-book writers persist in labelling it, although in 1893 I proved
that the specimen belonged to C. longimanus.
The descriptions of the species are clear, but comparison would
have been facilitated had the author been at the pains to construct
diagnoses; while the labours of his successors might have been
lightened had he fixed on type-specimens for his new species and told
us in what collections such specimens were preserved. A few minor
points also need elucidation. Thus, the description of the arms in
Cyathocrinus cora does not seem to me to agree with Figs. 8 and 9;
since this is the most striking feature of the species, enlarged
drawings should have beengiven. The diagram of Ampheristocrinus
on p. 67 seems to agree with the new species A. dubius rather than
with A. typus; but this is misleading. The arms of the new species
Lampterocrinus dubius are said to differ from those of typical species
“in having no brachial plates of higher order than the costals,”
or primibrachs; but since the arms are not preserved, it is hard to
see how this can be proved. Archeocrinus has hitherto been
recognized only in the Trenton Limestone, but a species 4. depressus
is here described, although the elevated median series of anals is
not characteristic of the genus. The new species described as
Platycrinus (?) dubius shows no sign of the large interradials usual
in that Carboniferous genus, and is more likely to be a Coecocrinus
or Cordylocrinus. Dr. Weller says that. for most of his generic
descriptions he is largely indebted to the publications of others.
It is therefore not clear how much weight is to be attached to his
accounts of Gazacrinus, Stephanocrinus, and Zophocrinus, all genera
about which fresh information was badly wanted. Dr. Weller’s
own paleontological work has been quite enough to justify him in
publishing his own opinions and descriptions, and such a course
would more advance science and would fix the responsibility for
certain doubtful statements.
Dr. Weller’s further studies in the paleontology of the Niagaran
Limestone of Chicago will be awaited with interest. They are
likely to fulfil the promise of this first one, and perhaps if the author
will take a friendly hint or two they will meet with an even more
favourable reception. FE. A. Baruer.
RaPORTS AND PROCHEDIN GS.
! GronoaicaL Soctrnry or Lonpon.
I.—June 5th, 1901.—J. J. H. Teall. Esq., M.A., V.P.R.S., President,
in the Chair. The following communications were read :—
1. “On the Passage of a Seam of Coal into a Seam of Dolomite.”
By Aubrey Strahan, Esq., M.A., F.G.S.
The author was informed by Mr. N. R. Griffith in 1900 that the
Seven-Feet Seam of the Wirral Colliery had been found to pass into:
380 Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London.
stone of an unusual character. For a distance of 1,600 yards from
the shaft this seam was good, and about 4 feet thick. A little
farther in, bands of stone from 1 to 10 inches thick made their
appearance in it, and, gradually increasing in thickness, these bands
eventually constituted the whole seam, the last traces of workable
coal disappearing at 250 yards from the point where the change
first began. The boundary of the barren area has been found for
a distance of 1,480 yards, and it runs north and south. The stone
is at first black, but after weathering it becomes grey, and displays
curious structures, among which are pisolitic or mammillated
structures, the intervening spaces being filled with coaly matter.
One specimen displays woody tissue filled with dolomite. Analyses
by Dr. W. Pollard yield from 18:5 to 13 per cent. of magnesia.
The phenomena are not those of a ‘ wash-out,’ as there is no sign
of erosion, but there is proof that the dolomite was formed in almost
motionless water, and the conditions appear to have been those
under which a tufa would form. It appears to have been formed on
a spot to which clastic material scarcely gained access, and which
was reached even by vegetable matter in scant quantity and in
a finely divided condition.
2. “On some Landslips in Boulder-clay near Scarborough.” By
Horace W. Monckton, Esq., F.L.8., V.P.G.S.
In 1893 Mr. Clement Reid drew attention to a foliated structure
developed in Drift at Beeston, near Cromer (Proc. Geol. Assoc.,
vol. xiii, p. 66), and soon afterwards the present author noticed
examples of a very similar character in Boulder-clay on the
Yorkshire coast. ‘The Clay forms much of the cliffs, and slips,
large and small, are very frequent. When the Clay is dry, vertical
cracks forming a sort of columnar structure occur, and the Clay
breaks away in lumps, while a moister condition causes flow,
producing more or less horizontal flow-structure which, as in the
Cromer case, has the appearance of irregular bedding. The author
illustrated his remarks by photographs of the cliffs taken by himself.
IJ.—June 19th, 1901.—J. J. H. Teall, Esq., M.A., V-P.R.S., President,
in the Chair. The following communications were read :—
1. “On the Use of a Geological Datum.” By Beeby Thompson,
Ksq., F.G.S8., F.C.8.
A proper interpretation of geological phenomena frequently
requires that allowance shall be made for differential earth-move-
ments that have taken place since the period under consideration.
Present differences of level in rocks of the same age may be due
to actual differences in depth of the sea-floor on which they were
deposited; but they may also be the result of subsequent differential
earth-movements. The rock selected as a datum should combine
as far as possible the following characteristics :—It should be thin,
of considerable horizontal extension, having similarity in physical
characters and paleontological contents over a large area, and
Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London. 381
situated as near as possible, in vertical sequence, to the reference
deposit. In Northamptonshire three formations meet these require-
ments—the Rheetic beds, the Marlstone Rock-bed, and the Corn-
brash. The author applies the Marlstone rock-bed as a datum to
the study of the five chief deep explorations in Northamptonshire,
with the following results :—While the old land-surface (below the
Trias) now varies in height by more than 250 feet, the variation in
thickness of the rocks between it and the Middle Lias only reaches
564 feet; and although the old land-surface is actually lowest
where the Rheetic rocks have not been detected, when compared
with the position of the Marlstone it is found to be the highest.
The further application of the same method enables the author to
recognize Rhetic rocks at Northampton, to correct the record of
the Kingsthorpe shaft, and to explain the presence of Triassic saline
water in the Marlstone. A revised section of the Kingsthorpe shaft
is given. Another point proved is that a general levelling-up
process was going on just before the beginning of the Lower Liassic
Period, and another at the close of the Middle Liassic Period.
2. “On Intrusive, Tuff-like, Igneous Rocks and Breccias in
Ireland.” By James R. Kilroe, Esq., and Alexander McHenry, Esq.,
M.R.I.A. (Communicated by R. 8. Herries, Esq., M.A., Sec. G.S.,
with the permission of the Director of H.M. Geological Survey.)
Many fragmental igneous rocks, although resembling tuffs, cannot
be regarded as ejectamenta on account of their character and mode
of occurrence in the field. Rocks of this type occur to the east
of Lough Hake in Donegal, in the district of Forkhill in Armagh,
at Blackball Head in Cork, in Waterford, near Arklow, in Wexford,
and elsewhere. Sometimes they consist of partly fused and broken-
up felspathic mica-schist merging into felsite-dykes, at other times
of brecciated slate, granite, and felsite embedded in a scanty andesitie
matrix. At Blackball Head the rocks cross the bedding of the
associated sedimentary rocks of the region. The authors agree with
Professor Lapworth in considering it possible that ‘igneous matter
making its way between the moving masses may consolidate as
sills when the pressure is great. . . . As movement progressed
intermittently, we should have the formation of subterranean
agglomerates, tuffs, and breccias, which would be forced sometimes
between bedding-planes, sometimes into dyke-like fissures.” A
series of sections is exhibited to illustrate how tuff-like masses
invade black slate of Llandeilo age in the south-east of Ireland,
generally adhering to the direction of bedding, but frequently
cutting across it and detaching numerous pieces from the slate,
which are more abundant near the margins of the intrusion than
elsewhere. The masses frequently assume a tuff-like appearance.
At Arklow Rock tongues of tuff-like rock penetrating black slate
of Llandeilo age contain pieces of limestone of Bala age, as well as
pieces of the slate. The development of vesicular texture in lapilli-
like, contained, fragments may be due to the simple release of
pressure.
3882 Obituary— Richard Howse, M.A.
CORRESPONDENCE.
ie
SUARDALAN, GLENELG.
Sir,—At a recent meeting of the Geological Society, after the
reading of Mr. G. Barrow’s communication on the supposed Silurian
Rocks of Forfarshire, Sir A. Geikie alluded to similar rocks which
have been found elsewhere along the Highland Border, and (as
reported) he gives to me the credit of having found these rocks in
the district lying between Loch Lomond and Callander.
The credit of this discovery does not belong to me, but to my
friend and former colleague, Mr. J. R. Dakyns. I merely completed
the mapping of the rocks alluded to after Mr. Dakyns left Scotland.
GLENELG, June 19, 1901. C. T. CLoueH.
Gus Cao UO) ANWIS8 82S
RICHARD HOWSE, M.A.
Born 1821. Diep 1901.
Aux visitors to Neweastle-upon-Tyne on the occasion of the last
meeting of the British Association there, in 1889, remember the large
and, in some respects, unique collections displayed in the fine and
spacious new building known as the ‘“‘ Hancock Museum.” Older
visitors will also remember the same collections housed, or rather
hidden away, in the cramped and crowded old Natural History
Museum at the other end of the city. All must have carried away
a pleasing recollection of the handsome, dignified and, latterly,
venerable naturalist who was the loving and somewhat jealous
guardian of the scientific treasures in both places. Mr. Richard
Howse had for so many years been identified with these collections,
had for so long watched over, exhibited, and described their
rarities, that he had come to be regarded, as it were, as the one
living being amongst the multitudinous dead things around him,
and it is difficult to think of them bereft of his animating
presence. Mr. Howse was no ordinary Curator. Born in
Oxfordshire in 1821, much of his boyhood was spent in collecting
the land and fresh-water shells, the birds and eggs, and especially
the fossils which abound round Thame, his native place. At a
very early age he came and established himself as a schoolmaster
at South Shields, and from that time—for some sixty years—his
residence in the North of England was unbroken. From the
moment of his arrival on Tyneside he made the study of the natural
objects of the land and sea about him the main purpose of his life.
To his extraordinary activity as an observer and collector all the
scientific publications of the North bear witness. His name is to
be found repeatedly quoted in—I think I may say—every one of the
many lists of plants, animals, or fossils which make the ‘l'ransactions
of the Newcastle and Berwickshire Societies so valuable as sources
of accurate reference. He was fortunate in coming at a time when
Obituary—Richard Howse, M.A. 383
Dr. Johnston of Berwick, Albany Hancock, and Joshua Alder were
working out the Invertebrates of the North-East coast, when the
materials for Baker’s “ Flora” were being accumulated by Watson,
Bowman, Wailes, and Oliver, when George Tate of Alnwick was
classifying the Lower Carboniferous rocks of North Northumberland,
and William Hutton, with Lindley and Witham, was bringing out
his Fossil Flora, when King was beginning his Permian work,
when Bold was cataloguing the insects of the district, and when
John Hancock and Hewitson were studying its birds and their eggs.
Mr. Howse was a fellow-worker with all these men and, later, with
Atthey, Norman, Hodge, Embleton, Kirkby, Duff, Dinning, the
two Bradys, and others of whom some are still with us. He
botanized, geologized, dredged, collected fossils, and all things—in
a universal way almost appalling to a modern specialist. Moreover,
in geology he was by no means a mere collector, for he did
a considerable amount of original mapping—as in Weardale and in
Redesdale—long before the Geological Survey had entered upon
the ground. Chiefly in order to be nearer the Museum and the
Library of the Literary and Philosophical Society he after a few
years removed from Shields to Newcastle, where he opened another
private school, in which many of the present leading men of the
North were educated—including, I believe, the actual senior
Member for the city. When Dr. King left Newcastle Mr. Howse
succeeded to the Curatorship of the Museum, still keeping school,
however, and devoting only what time he could spare to the
collections. But this was for a short period only, and in the
seventies he was able to relinquish teaching and give his whole
time to the Museum. ‘The removal of the specimens, many of
which had scarcely been unpacked before for lack of room, and their
entire rearrangement in the Hancock Museum (largely due to the
liberality of the late Lord Armstrong, and opened by the Prince of
Wales in 1884), were carried out by him with the assistance of his
well-known and capable lieutenant, Mr. Joseph Wright. Curating
was not his only work: he was ea-officto editor of the joint
Transactions of the Natural History Society and Field Club, and
also for many years one of the Honorary Secretaries of the latter.
Mr. Howse’s publications were far too numerous to be fully
detailed here. Amongst the most important must be mentioned
an admirable Synopsis of the Geology of Northumberland and
Durham, written jointly with Mr. Kirkby for the use of the British
. Association in 1863; a Catalogue of Permian Fossils, with a later
Supplement, which gave rise to a lively priority dispute with
Dr. King, whose own “ Catalogue”? appeared almost on the same
day as Mr. Howse’s; a Catalogue of the Hutton Collection of Fossil
Plants; one of the local Carboniferous Fossils in the Museum;
another of the Fishes, etc.; and some joint paleontological papers
with Albany Hancock and others. Of purely geological memoirs
two—one on the Boundary between the Millstone Grit and the
Carboniferous Limestone Series and the other on the Divisions of
the Drift in the North of England—were of special value.
384 Obituary—Prof. Joseph Le Conte.
Mr. Howse’s writings on geology and paleontology, however, do
not represent a tithe of the results of his labours. He overflowed
with information, but was slow to publish. Much of his knowledge
has died with him, since he does not appear to have left any
manuscript notes of consequence. Many undescribed specimens
remain in safe keeping which it had been his intention to describe,
and which are still, of course, available for study.
Mr. Howse was essentially a practical and original worker, and
a willing helper to other workers. His kindness to all in whom
he saw even the slightest trace of the great love of Nature which
was his own most striking characteristic was unfailing. Coupled
with this was a sensitiveness which sometimes led him into con-
troversies such as that with Professor King already referred to, and
a constitutional shyness which prevented him from taking any
prominent part on public occasions. It is pleasant to think that
notwithstanding this he was gratified towards the close of his active
and useful life by the award of an honorary degree by the University
of Durham. G. A. Lrpour.
JOSEPH LE CONTE.
Born Fes. 26, 1823. Diep 1901.
JoserH Le Conte was born in Liberty Co., Georgia, Feb. 26th,
1823. He was a descendant of a French Huguenot who towards the
end of the seventeenth century emigrated to New Rochelle, New
York. His grandfather removed to Georgia before the revolution.
His father, Louis Le Conte, was a graduate of Columbia College.
Joseph graduated at Franklin College, Georgia, in 1841, and at
the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1846.
After practising for a short time at Macon, Georgia, he went to
Cambridge, Mass., where he studied under the elder Agassiz, whom
he accompanied in 1851 on an exploring expedition to Florida.
After graduating at the Lawrence Scientific School in Cambridge
he was for a few years Professor of Natural History and Geology
in Franklin College, and from 1856 to 1869 Professor of Chemistry
and Geology in South Carolina College. In 1869 he was appointed
Professor of Geology and Natural History in the University of
California, a post that he held from that time until his death.
In 1892 he was President of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, the meeting being held that year at
Rochester, New York. He wrote a series of papers on Monocular
and Binocular Vision, but his more important works deal with
Natural History and Geology. In 1874 he issued his book on
‘Religion and Science; a series of Sunday lectures on the relation of
natural and revealed religion,” and in 1888 his work on “ Evolution :
its history, its evidences, and its relations to Religious thought.”
He published several papers on Physical Geology; of these his
essay entitled “A theory of the formation of the great features
of the earth’s surface” deserves to be specially mentioned. His
‘‘Hlements of Geology” appeared in 1878, and a revised and
enlarged edition in 1882.
THE
GHOLOGICAL MAGAZINE.
NEW SERIES. DECADE IV. VOL. VIII.
No. IX—SEPTEMBER, 1901.
Oe GeeN, Auk, Abs: CaaS:
J.—Eminent Livinc Geronocists: Toe Rev. Proressor T. G.
Bonney, D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., F.S.A.
(WITH A PORTRAIT, PLATE XIV.)
HOMAS. GEORGE BONNEY was born July 27th, 1833, at
Rugeley, Staffordshire. His family is of Huguenot origin, and
thus affords yet another instance of the remarkable intellectual
enrichment of our country which resulted from the religious
persecutions in France. His father, the Rev. Thomas Bonney,
son of the Rev. George Bonney, vicar of Sandon, and sometime
Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, was a man of wide and varied
interests, and a hard worker, in spite of feeble health; he was
master of the Grammar School, Rugeley, and for many years
‘ perpetual curate’ of Pipe Ridware, a very small parish about
five miles from Rugeley. The church was rebuilt through his
efforts, and he took great interest in primary education, acting for
some time informally as Inspector of Schools in the Diocese. He
married a daughter of Edward Smith, a Staffordshire man of
independent means, and died in 1858, leaving a widow and ten
children, of whom Professor Bonney, then just entering upon his
second year at Cambridge, was the eldest. The family inherited
some property, but the income it afforded was small for the education
of so many.
Professor Bonney’s inclination towards natural science was to
a great extent inherited ; both father and mother were keen botanists
and had a general love for natural history, which was shared by all
‘their children. The boys were great collectors of eggs, butterflies,
moths, and beetles; but in Professor Bonney’s case a special
inclination towards geology was first aroused by the gift of some
fossils from a relative, a lady who was herself a good geologist,
a friend of Buckland, Sedgwick, and others of that generation.
Some four years later—he would then be a boy of about 14—
he visited Filey with his father and mother, and collected. fossils
there, so that when, soon after, he went to school at Uppingham he
was already bitten.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. IX. 25
386 Rev. Professor T. G. Bonney, D.Sc., F.R.S.
Of course, no Natural Science was taught at school in those days,
but in compensation football and cricket were then regarded merely
as recreations and had not attained to their present tyranny, so that
the boys were free to take country walks, and were even rather
encouraged to do so. Here, then, was an opportunity for fossil-
collecting, and though none of the other boys were geologically-
minded, several of them were egg-collectors, and as Bonney was
that too, his occasional search for fossils was excused as an amiable
weakness. Before he left, Bonney was head of the school, and in
1852, having obtained a School Exhibition, he went to Cambridge,
entering at St. John’s College, where he was fortunate enough to
obtain a scholarship at once.
His school-teaching had been chiefly classical (of the Oxford
stamp), but he owed to two of the masters a real liking for
mathematics, and the Headmaster had given him a taste for
literature. While at Cambridge the famous ‘Coprolite’ pits of the
Cambridge Greensand began to be opened, and Bonney was
amongst the earliest to collect from the rich and remarkable fauna
they revealed. As he was reading for both the Mathematical and
Classical Tripos there was naturally no time for attending lectures
on science, yet the fame of Sedgwick drew him now and then
' within the walls of the geological lecture-room, and he had
the privilege of hearing the ‘old man eloquent’; but a regular
course of geological or other science lectures he never attended,
and hence to some extent no doubt the individuality and indepen-
dence of his systematic views. Professor Bonney took his degree
in 1856; he was 12th Wrangler, and 16th in the second class of
the Classical Tripos. He had proposed to read for the Theological
Tripos, but his health failing, he left Cambridge and spent part of
the summer at Weymouth and Freshwater, when he made his first
acquaintance with the Tertiary fossils of the Isle of Wight; the rest
of the Long Vacation was spent in Switzerland. The complete
change restored his health, and while abroad he accepted an offer
of the Mathematical Mastership at Westminster School. The
laborious task of teaching now had the chief claim on his attention,
but still left opportunities of leisure, especially during vacation,
which Bonney made the most of as he continued the study of
geology. He had now also to prepare for the Church, and was
ordained deacon in 1857 and priest in 1858. In 1859 he was
elected to a Fellowship at St. John’s, and returned to that College
in 1861 as Junior Dean. Natural Science was then beginning to
secure a due recognition from the University. Up till 1861 the
Natural Science Tripos, which had been in existence for something
like sixteen years, was open only to Bachelors of Arts; but in that
year it acquired equal rights, and a candidate could then obtain the
degree of B.A. without previously passing through the Mathematical
or Classical School. Of late years the candidates for this Tripos
have considerably exceeded in number those for either of the ancient
schools. The study of Natural Science received, however, but
slight encouragement from the Colleges, and Bonney, as soon as he
Rev. Professor T. G. Bonney, D.Sc., F.R.S. 387
was well settled down at Cambridge, joined in the movement which
was being made to press its claims; an open exhibition in Natural
Science was offered by St. John’s, partly as a consequence of his
efforts. Professor Bonney, in what perhaps may be regarded as an
excess of grateful recognition, has been known to say that he owes
whatever success he has had in life to the Fellowship he obtained
at St. John’s; with equal, if not more truth, many who are now
engaged in the advancement of scientific learning might say the
same of the opportunities which this college exhibition has
afforded them.
In the summer of 1858 Bonney paid his second visit to
Switzerland, crossing the Strahleck and the Weissthor; his love
of the Alps dates from this journey; since then he has returned
to them something like two out of every three years of his life.
In 1860, 1862, 1868, and 1864 he was chiefly engaged in exploring
the French and Italian Alps, then rather imperfectly known. At
the end of the last journey he went on to the South of France, and
while there fell a victim to malaria, from the effects of which he
has never since been entirely free. These, though they prevented
him from ‘ roughing’ it as much as he would have liked, did not put
a stop to his climbing, which he continued in a steady but not too
adventurous way till about ten years ago, and even still he sometimes
undertakes an ordinary ascent of 5,000 feet or so. Hence his intimate
knowledge of the Alps, which from the Visp to the Salzkammergut
is well-nigh unrivalled.
By the year 1868 Bonney’s knowledge of geology had ceased
to be that of an amateur; the stage of preparation had passed, and
having in that year been appointed Tutor he commenced to give
College lectures on the subject; in the next year he was formally
appointed Lecturer on Geology by the College. He had not enjoyed
the advantages which are now open to every geological student,
but he had fully availed himself of that strenuous training which
we are beginning regretfully to look back upon as the good old-
fashioned education. Mathematics had impressed upon his mind
the real necessities which are demanded by a proof. Classics had
assisted him to cultivate a literary gift, and travel had taught him
facts at first-hand. Freshness and reality as a natural consequence
were the distinctive marks of his Cambridge teaching. Soon after
he commenced to lecture, his great contemporary Sedgwick, yielding
to failing health and the increasing infirmities of old age, gradually
retired from the active work of his Chair, and thus it fell upon
Bonney to keep alive the traditions of the Cambridge School of
Geology. How thoroughly alive they were kept his numerous
pupils may testify. To his pupils he might be said to have given
all he had: he helped them to the utmost of his powers, by lectures,
private tuition, friendly advice, and informal teaching in the field ;
the last took place during Term in the district around Cambridge,
and in Vacation in various remote parts of the British Isles. Nor
must the social gatherings be forgotten, when his students made
from time to time the acquaintance of the leading geologists of the
388 Rev. Professor T. Gi. Bonney, D.Sc., FBS.
day. In this self-devotion Bonney was perhaps too careless of
advancing his own reputation; the Long Vacations were spent in
investigation and research, but Term left little or no time to prepare
the results for publication, and hence his fame fell behind his merits.
This was unfortunate ; it injuriously affected his claims when he stood
for election to Sedgwick’s Chair, and he was defeated by 6 votes.
The range of his teaching was very wide; even in those early days
he had recognized the ‘one in the many’ of earth-knowledge, and
while on one occasion he would describe in detail the structure
of a single mountain, on another he would treat undauntedly of
the earth as a whole. Physical Geography was taught in a way
to convince students that, if they wished to become geologists, they
must also be meteorologists, hydrographers, and geographers as
well; but Cosmogony was by no means banned, and some knowledge
of Astronomy was essential, so that unless they exercised great
care his students might find themselves unexpectedly knocking
their heads against the problem of the ‘ three bodies.’ Palzeontology
was the subject of a course, and in 1873 one on Petrography,
practically illustrated by the microscope, was added. This was
among the first courses of systematic teaching in modern Petrography
given in the British Isles, probably the very first. From it Teall
and Sollas (not to mention others) gained their first insight into this
branch of Geology. A list of those who attended the general course
on Geology would be interesting reading, but without it the names
of J. E. Marr, A. Strahan, Jukes-Browne, Clough, W. W. Watts,
R. D. Roberts, Milnes-Marshall, P. H. Carpenter, and F. M. Balfour
may be recalled, as well as those first mentioned. IF. M. Balfour
will be best known as the bright particular star of the Biological
School, but his interest in Geology at that time is shown by a clever
paper written in conjunction with his cousin, Gerald Balfour (late
Chief Secretary of State for Ireland), to explain the downward dip
of the beds surrounding a volcanic neck.
The thoughts of an old student often wander fondly to those
early days spent under Professor Bonney’s paternal care. Let us
set out on one of those reminiscent journeys. Here is the bold
portal of St. John’s; we turn in, cross the first quad, and enter that
beautiful second court, so justly praised by John Ruskin; in the
middle of the left-hand side is an entrance which leads to a narrow
staircase, and on the first landing we read over a door, in white
letters on a black ground, Rev. T. G. Bonney. We knock
and pass into the outer room, furnished in the austere beauty of
ancient oak; a massive lecture-table stands in the middle, and at
the nearer end is a bookcase full of white-vellum covered volumes
containing presentation copies of scientific pamphlets. This is the
lecture-room, and somehow it impresses us; there is a feeling as of
an ancient University in the air, and when the tall spare figure of
the Tutor approaches to welcome us we seem to realize an idea
already formed in the mind as an expression of the genius loci. He
leads us through a door at the other end into his private sanctum,
a bright and cheerful chamber, the walls lined with books, except
Rev. Professor T. G. Bonney, D.Sc., F.R.S. 389
above the fireplace, whither our eyes are drawn by the vigorous yet
delicate outlines of Alpine ranges, displayed in long panorama, the
fruits of the Professor’s pencil in Long Vacation rambles. The
Tutor takes his seat at the table, and perhaps spends a good
half-hour in a running commentary on the answers we have given
to his preparatory examination papers, or, it may be, discusses with
stimulus and advice some budding idea which by an artful kindness
he leaves us to imagine is as interesting to him as to ourselves. Out
of this room a door leads into another, larger, and by its light and
elegant furniture proclaimed the drawing-room; on the walls are
many beautiful glimpses of mountain scenery in, the dream-like
colouring of Elijah Walton. This is the place of many a social
gathering, especially after Chapel on Sunday evenings: there you,
an undergraduate, just out of your teens, may meet Adams of
Neptunian fame, and recognize, to your surprise, that he is really
a fellow man; Miller, the most exact of mineralogists, will probably
be there ; and sometimes there are ladies, and the gracious presence
of Miss Bonney, the Tutor’s sister. This time it is the last meeting
in the May Term, and we discuss the coming Vacation ramble ;
a few weeks, and the scene has shifted to the Lizard, where the
class, nearly a full score strong, is hammering out the mysteries
of gabbro and serpentine, and hornblende-schist. There is Teall,
he is very busy over a supposed Troctolite at Coverack, and by his
side Jukes-Browne, adherent with argument; Milnes-Marshall is on
the beach sketching a queer dyke over which Sollas is climbing
with cat-like agility; R. D. Roberts is busy with a notebook, and
Strahan is discussing with the Professor a question of intersection,
whether the gabbro cuts the elvan or the elvan cuts the gabbro.
It is a long sunny day; at its close the Professor presides at
a frugal meal, and we come home to quarters by boat; Edmund
Kelly, with his clean-cut Greek profile, wearing a Phrygian red cap,
takes the helm and steers with the courage of an ancient Viking.
Such were those days when life was young and tobacco was sweet,
and our revered Professor was a great boy like the rest of us, only
infinitely more wise.
In 1877 Bonney was elected Professor of Geology in University
College, London, but still continued to lecture at St. John’s; in
1881, on being appointed Secretary of the British Association, he
finally quitted Cambridge and took up his residence in London, on
the borders of Hampstead Heath.
On an endowment accruing to the Chair in University College in
1885, he resigned the Secretaryship of the Association in order the
better to devote himself to the professorship. This, however, was
very uphill work; single-handed, and unprovided with modern
appliances, he found himself set to make bricks without straw. To
add to his difficulties the effects of the agricultural depression now
began to make themselves felt, and he found it necessary to supple-
ment his income by literary work; thus commenced his connection
with one of the leading London journals, for which he still continues
to write. In 1901 he resigned the professorship and was succeeded
390 Rev. Professor T. G. Bonney, D.Sc., F.R.S.
by Mr. Garwood. One alleviation in his London work cannot here
be overlooked, the voluntary assistance rendered by Miss Raisin, who
was for several years a zealous pupil and co-worker. She wrote
several petrological papers in conjunction with Professor Bonney.
A few years before his retirement, in 1895, the feelings of his
old students, both Cambridge and London, found spontaneous
expression in the gift of his portrait painted by Mr. Trevor Haddon.
The presentation took place in University College before a large
and distinguished assembly, and few who were present will forget
how on that dull December afternoon a warm glow of feeling
seemed to expand and grow luminous as speaker after speaker rose
to express his gratitude “to the Tutor whom they had feared, the
Master whom they reverenced, and the Friend they loved.”
Amidst his engrossing labours as a teacher and investigator in
geology, Professor Bonney has found time for work as a literary
author. ‘Outline Sketches of the High Alps in Dauphiné” was
published in 1865, “The Alpine Regions of Switzerland and the
Neighbouring Countries ” in 1868, ‘The Coast of Norway” (1870),
‘Vignettes, Alpine and Hastern” (1873), “The Bernese Oberland ”
(1874), «Lakes and Mountain Scenery of the Swiss Alps” (1874),
“‘Welsh Scenery” (1875-76), “English Lake Scenery” (1876),
the letter-press in Walton’s “Peaks and Valleys of the Alps”
(1867), and in the same artist’s “Flowers from the Upper Alps,”
and much of the descriptive text in such well-known works as
“ Picturesque Europe,” “ Our Own Country,” “ English Cathedrals ”
is from his pen. Of more particularly scientific works may be
mentioned “The Story of our Planet” (1893), ‘Charles Lyell and
Modern Geology” (1895), ‘Ice Work, Past and Present” (1896),
“Lewis; on the Genesis of the Diamond” (1897), and “Volcanos”
(1899).
The life of a geologist, the life of an author, have not, however,
been sufficient to satisfy Professor Bonney’s insatiable industry ; he
has lived, too, the life of a clergyman. He was one of the Cambridge
Preachers at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, in 1876 to 1878, and has
five times been a Special Preacher before the University of
Cambridge, on the last occasion being Hulsean Lecturer. These
lectures were published in 1885 under the title of ‘‘The Influence
of Science on Theology.” He has also published ‘‘ The Holy Places
of Jerusalem” (1864), “Old Truths in Modern Lights” (Boyle
Lectures, 1890, 1891), and ‘Doctrine and Modern Thought ”
(Boyle Lectures, 1891, 1892).
He is an Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Manchester and
an Honorary Canon of that Cathedral. He frequently preaches in
London, and those who listen to him will recognize the same
independence of thought and variety of mood which distinguish
his scientific lecturing ; at one time the hearer will be charmed with
a rare eloquence, at another he will enjoy that keen satire which once
led to the remark ‘ Professor Bonney has a tongue like a sword!”
Professor Bonney became Fellow of the Geological Society in
1860; he was one of the Secretaries from 1878 to 1883, and
Rev. Professor T. G. Bonney, D.Sc., F.RS. 391
President in 1884 and 1885. In 1889 he received the award of
the Wollaston Medal. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal
Society in 1878. In 1886 he was President of the Geological
Section of the British Association; in 1888 he delivered one of its
Evening Discourses. He has also been President of the Mineralogical
Society, is a member of the Alpine Club and has been its President.
He is a Doctor of Science, Cambridge, he has received the honorary
degree of LL.D. from the University of Montreal, and of D.Sc.
from the University of Dublin, which was conferred on the occasion
of the celebration of the Tercentenary of Trinity College.
The subject which earliest engaged the attention of Professor
Bonney was glaciers and their action; this was at the time when
Ramsay’s fascinating theory of the origin of lake-basins, developed
by that genial and brilliant investigator with his accustomed skill,
and urged with all his infectious enthusiasm, had captivated the
minds of nearly all the young English geologists. Possibly the
more readily, owing to the besetting sin of the so-called Uniformitarian
School, which in its neglect of quantitative reasoning was content for
the most part to discover tendencies, without proceeding to inquire
whether these were sufficient or continued far enough to produce
the effect they were supposed to explain. Thus it was urged that
since a glacier can be shown to have produced a number of mountain
tarns, there is no reason why in sufficient time it should not
accomplish the incavation of a lake or an inland sea, such as Lake
Geneva, or Superior, or the Caspian.
Bonney’s mathematical training had freed him from this fallacious
tendency, and his intimate knowledge of the Alps and their glaciers
led him to take very different views as to the origin of the Swiss
lakes; and thus amongst his earliest papers we find a careful
analysis of the problem as illustrated by particular instances, with
observations and arguments which led to complete disproof of the
erosion theory and a return to views which are more suggestive
of the spirit of De la Beche than of Lyell. Glacial problems have
from that time to this always maintained their interest for him,
and the popular theories of to-day are at present as little accepted
by him as were those which first engaged his attention. Whether
the present theories will be longer lived than those of the past, time
alone will show. From glaciers Bonney next turned his attention
to rocks, and here again was led into conflict with prevailing views,
which seem to have been inspired by the same pursuit of suggestive
tendencies. The remarkable changes produced on sedimentary rocks
by what is vaguely termed metamorphic action had led the Lyellian
school to assign a metamorphic origin to granite. If a shale may
become converted into a slate, or even a mica-schist, why should
not the process continue and mica-schist pass into gneiss, and gneiss
find its final term in granite? A study of contact phenomena will
frequently afford evidence of the continuity of granite with gneiss,
and thus but one link remains to be discovered by the connection
of gneiss with mica-schist. The imagination sometimes supplied
this, and thus a cycle was completed ; for, commencing with granite,
392 Rev. Professor T. G. Bonney, D.Sc., FBS.
this, suffering first disintegration and then deposition, is known to
give rise to sedimentary rocks, while these under the magic of
metamorphism were supposed to be converted into granite again.
Thus a beginning or ending to which Lyellians were always averse
was evaded. ‘To insist on the significance of the missing link, and
to restore to the igneous rocks their true place in the constitution
of our planet, was one of the tasks which Bonney set himself and
successfully accomplished. But if where geologists: had traced
a gradual passage a sharp line of demarcation could be shown to
exist, dividing the igneous from the sedimentary rocks, what of
the alleged transitions between the various schists themselves ?
Had imagination played its useful part in their case also?
“‘Metamorphic action is of all ages” had been translated into
the statement that “any kind of metamorphic rock may be of
any age.” This is a formula that Bonney has never been able
to accept: the Archean rocks are for him marked as such not
only by their infraposition to the Hozoic systems but also by
their intimate structure ; and he professes to be able to distinguish
them not only in the field but also under the microscope.
Whether in this important matter he be in the right or no, again
time alone can decide, but whatever its verdict on this point
the immense additions to our knowledge which have resulted from
his researches into the difficult and obscure subject of the most
ancient rocks will always retain a permanent value. The difficulties
are sufficient to render it repulsive to most minds, but the less
known about a thing the greater are its attractions for Bonney.
Charnwood was a true ¢erra incognita up to 1877, when Bonney
first made known the fragmental igneous character of much of its
rock, and afterwards assigned it to a Pre-Cambrian horizon. How
thorough his work was in this region will appear from the
subsequent investigations and detailed mapping of Professor Watts,
who has been known to grumble that Professor Bonney was always
right, and has left very little for his successors to discover in this
region. From Charnwood attention was next directed to Anglesey,
which was found to offer so many perplexities that it was abandoned
for a while, and the Alps were again resorted to in the hope that
there might be found some suggestive clue to their interpretation.
But in the Alps Professor Bonney found himself in mediis rebus; he
had left the outskirts for the very centre of the arcanum, and ever
since has been engaged in trying to decipher the history of the
crystalline schists and gneisses in that chain, as well as in other
lands. A summary of his views is given in his Presidential Address
to the Geological Society in 1885 ; a more recent account appears in
“An Outline of the Petrology and Physical History of the Alps,” read
before the Geologists’ Association in 1897. Of course, while working
on such subjects as this, when the facts are often obscure and opinion
still fermenting, the chances of controversy are great, scarcely indeed
to be avoided, even were it well to avoid them; for it is still true
that strife in the domain of things intellectual, as elsewhere, is
lord over the ways of evolution, the great eliminator of error, and
Rev. Professor T. G. Bonney, D.Sc., FR.S. 393
thus also the revealer of the truth. Professor Bonney has never
shrunk from controversy, and has but little reason to regret it.
The exposure of the mistake which had been made over the nature of
the ‘‘ Belemnite-bearing garnetiferous Calc-schist”? was well worth
a fight ; but that the mistake should have been made at all diminishes
any surprise that might have been felt at the easy way in which one
limb of the great Glarus double-fold yielded at the first serious
assault, and was sheared off into the limbo of defunct hypotheses.
The English Trias is perhaps one of the most interesting of our
systems, for, in spite of its scarcity in fossil remains, it offers many
fascinating problems to the explorer of the unknown; the mystery
of the pebble beds in particular appeals to the imagination. Pro-
fessor Bonney’s explanation of these as fluviatile deposits has now
become generally accepted, and Continental geologists, like Penck,
have extended his views to other cases; nor, indeed, have all the
results which are likely to follow from this promising theory yet
been harvested.
The history of coral atolls, one of the most important problems
now pressing for solution, has for long been a subject of interest to
Professor Bonney ; the summary of the arguments, for and against
Darwin’s explanation, which he has given in an appendix to the last
edition of Darwin’s “Coral Reefs” may be taken as a model of
judicial fairness. Subsequently, as Chairman of the Coral Reefs
Committee appointed by the Royal Society, he worked hard in the
interests of the various expeditions which were sent out from this
country and Australia to investigate the atoll of Funafuti, and from
which such valuable results have followed.
Professor Bonney’s petrographical work is too multifarious for
a short epitome; its commencement belongs to the early period of
Zirkel and Rosenbusch, and is anterior to the publication of the
great classic, “ Mineralogie Micrographique,” of Fouqué & Levy.
Among his earliest essays were explanations of the origin of
Serpentine and Luxullianite; later he found an almost unexplored
field awaiting the microscope among the older igneous rocks of
North Wales; from then onwards till the present we owe to him
a continuous succession of studies on igneous rocks from various
parts of the world, and among his most recent discoveries is that by
which the diamond has at length been traced to its true birthplace
and shown to be an original constituent of what is itself a somewhat
rare igneous rock, namely, eclogite.
Needless to add that Professor Bonney has been a somewhat
extensive traveller: besides the Alps, his most familiar ground, he
has travelled in the Pyrenees, Auvergne, Normandy, Brittany, over
many parts of Germany and Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and
Canada, which he visited on the occasion of the meeting of the
British Association in 1884. Every journey has had a definite
geological purpose, usually an attempt to solve some special problem ;
and the observations which were made were always recorded on the
spot, usually with illustrative sketches ; the notebooks in which
these are accumulated would make a small library. Professor Bonney
394 Rev. Professor T. G. Bonney, D.Sc., F.B.S.
possesses considerable artistic power, and at one time sketched
a good deal, but of late years he has ceased to do so, except for
geological purposes.
When we contemplate the monumental results of Prof. Bonney’s
prodigious activity we shall surely conjecture that here was a man
especially blessed with bodily robustness, and with leisure, the fruit
of private means; yet he has always suffered from imperfect health,
to which sedentary work was obnoxious, and has all his life been
compelled by circumstances to labour for an income.. What, then,
is the secret of his success? Possibly, mainly method, the habit of
doing a thing at once, and doing it only once; the time which most
people lose in hesitation, procrastination, and repetition has thus
been secured for useful work: but such method is the privilege of
those only who are possessed of an indomitable will and of a mind
logical to an unusual degree.
In spite of years Professor Bonney is still young: he has
accomplished much; much more remains for him to do. With
unabated ardour he still presses forwards in the pursuit of truth.
That he may attain it, and in no small degree, is the earnest wish
of his sincere friends and admirers. We bid him God speed!
LIST OF SCIENTIFIC PAPERS BY PROFESSOR T. G. BONNEY.
‘¢On some Flint Implements from Amiens’’: Rep. Brit. Assoc., 1862, pt. ii, p. 70-
‘¢ On the Historical Evidence of Volcanic Eruptions in Central France in the Fifth
Century’’: Grou. Maa., 1865, Dec. I, Vol. II, pp. 241-244.
‘‘On Traces of Glaciers in the English Lakes’’: Grou. Mac., 1866, Dec. I,
Vol. III, pp. 291-293.
“¢ Note on a case of Prismatic Structure in Ice’’: Proc. Cambridge Phil. Soc.,
1866-67, vol. i, pp. 57-49.
‘¢Kitchen-Middens on the Great Ormeshead’’: Grou. Mac., 1867, Dec. I,
Vol. IV, pp. 343-344.
“On Traces ot Glacial Action near Llandudno’’: Gon. Mac., 1867, Dec. I,
Vol. IV, pp. 289-293.
“¢ On the supposed occurrence of Pholas Burrows in the upper parts of the Great
and Little Ormesheads’”’: Grou. Mac., 1869, Dec. I, Vol. VI, pp. 4838-489.
‘©On supposed Pholas-Burrows in Derbyshire’’?: Grout. Mac., 1870, Dec. I,
Vol. VII, pp. 267-270.
“Notes on the Geology of the Lofoten Islands’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1870,
vol. xxvi, p. 623; Phil. Mag., 1871, vol. xli, p. 76.
‘¢ Prismatic Structure in Ice’’: Nature, 1870, vol. i, p. 481; 1871, vol. iu, p. 288.
‘¢ On a Cirque in the Syenite Hills of Skye’’: Grou. Mag., 1871, Dec. I, Vol. VIII,
pp. 035-540.
‘On the Formation of ‘ Cirques,’ and their bearing upon theories attributing the
Excavation of Alpine Valleys mainly to the action of Glaciers’’?: Quart. Journ.
Geol. Soc., 1871, vol. xxvii, pp. 312-324; Phil. Mag., 1871, vol. xlii,
pp. 317-318.
“«Tce Scratches in Derbyshire ’’?: Guot. Mae., 1872, Dec. I, Vol. IX, pp. 269-270.
‘‘On certain Lithodomous Perforations in Derbyshire’?: Gxor. Mae., 1872,
Dec. I, Vol. IX, pp. 315-318.
“Notes on the Roslyn Hill Clay Pit’?: Guon. Macg., 1872, Dec. I, Vol. IX,
pp. 403-408.
. ‘Lakes of the North-Eastern Alps, and their bearing on the Glacier-Erosion
Theory’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1873, vol. xxix, pp. 382-396.
‘¢On the occurrence of a Quartzite Boulder in a Coal Seam in South Staffordshire ”’ :
Grou. Mac., 1873, Dec. I, Vol. X, pp. 289-291.
**On the Upper Greensand or Chloritic Marl of Cambridgeshire ’’ [1872]: Proc..
Geol. Assoc., 1874, vol. iii, pp. 1-20.
Rev. Professor T. G. Bonney, D.Sc., PRS. 395
‘¢ Notes on the Upper Engadine and the Italian Valleys of Monte Rosa, and their
Relation to the Glacier-Erosion Theory of Lake-Basins’’: Quart. Journ.
Geol. Soc., 1874, vol. xxx, pp. 479-489.
‘¢On some supposed Pholas Burrows in Carboniferous Limestone Rocks ’’ [1869]:
Proc. Cambridge Phil. Soc., 1876, vol. ii, pp. 150-152.
“¢ Note on supposed Mollusc Borings in the Carboniferous Limestone of Derbyshire ”’
[1870]: Proc. Cambridge Phil. Soc., 1876, vol. ii, pp. 182-183, 266-267.
“On a Cirque in the Syenite Hills in the Isle of Skye’’ [1871]: Proc. Cambridge
Phil. Soc., 1876, vol. ii, pp. 238-239.
‘On the Section exposed at the Roslyn Hill Pit, Ely’’ [1872]: Proc. Cambridge
Phil. Soc., 1876, vol. ii, pp. 268-269.
‘¢On a Boulder in a Coal Seam, South Staffordshire’’ [1873]: Proc. Cambridge
Phil. Soc., 1876, vol. 11, p. 301.
‘¢ Some Notes on Glaciers’’: Gror. Maa., 1876, Dec. II, Vol. III, pp. 197-199.
*©On Columnar, Fissile, and Spheroidal Structure’’?: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,
1876, vol. xxxii, pp. 140-154; Phil. Mag., 1876, vol. i, p. 328.
‘©The Lherzolite of Ariége’’?: Grou. Mac., 1877, Dec. II, Vol. IV, pp. 59-64.
‘On Mr. Helland’s Theory of the Formation of Cirques’?: Grou. Mac., 1877,
Dee. II, Vol. IV, pp. 273-277.
‘¢On certain Rock-structures, as illustrated by Pitchstones and Felsites in Arran’? :
Grou. Maa., 1877, Dec. II, Vol. IV, pp. 499-411.
“On the Serpentine and Associated Rocks of the Lizard District”: Quart. Journ.
Geol. Soc., 1877, vol. xxxiii, pp. 884-924; Phil. Mag., 1877, vol. iv, pp. 74-79.
‘On the Microscopic Structure of Luxullianite’?: Min. Mag., 1877, vol. i,
pp. 215-221.
‘“Notes on the Relations of the Igneous Rocks of Arthur’s Seat’’: Proc. Geol.
Assoc., 1878, vol. v, pp. 500-411.
“‘ Note on the Felsite of Bittadon, North Devon’’: Guox. Maa., 1878, Dec. II,
Vol. V, pp. 207-209.
‘¢ Note on the Microscopic Structure of some Welsh Rocks’’ [1877]: Quart. Journ.
Geol. Soc., 1878, vol. xxxiv, pp. 144-146.
<¢On the Serpentine and Associated Igneous Rocks of the Ayrshire Coast ’’: Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soc., 1878, vol. xxxiv, pp. 769-784.
‘¢The Pre-Cambrian Rocks of Great Britain’’: Proc. Birmingham Phil. Soc., 1879,
vol. i, pt. 3, pp. 140-159.
“©QOn Professor Dana’s Classification of Rocks’?: Gzou. Mac., 1879, Dec. I,
Vol. VI, pp. 199-203.
‘Notes on some Ligurian and Tuscan Serpentines ”?: Grou. MaG., 1879, Dec. II,
Vol. VI, pp. 362-371 ; Italia Com. Geol. Boll., 1879, vol. x, pp. 461-474.
‘Notes on the Microscopic Structure of some Rocks from Caernarvonshire and
Anglesey”: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1879, vol. xxxv, pp. 305-308. :
‘©On the Quartz-Felsite and Associated Rocks at the Base of the Cambrian Series
in North-Western Caernarvonshire ’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1879, vol. xxxv,
pp. 809-820.
“‘Note on some Rocks from South America’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1879,
vol. xxxv, pp. 588-490.
‘‘ Notes on the Microscopic Structure of some Shropshire Rocks’’: Quart. Journ.
Geol. Soc., 1879, vol. xxxv, pp. 662-669. :
‘‘ On some Specimens of Gabbro from the Pennine Alps’? [1878]: Min. Mag., 1879,
vol. ii, pp. 5-8. d
‘On the Backs of the Lizard District (Cornwall) ’’ [1877]: Proc. Cambridge Phil.
Soc., 1880, vol. ili, p. 85.
‘Note on the Microscopic Structure of some Pre-Cambrian Rocks’’?: Grou. MaaG.,
1880, Dec. II, Vol. VII, pp. 125-127.
‘©On some Recent Classifications of Welsh Pre-Cambrian Rocks”: Gon. Mac.,
1880, Dec. II, Vol. VII, pp. 298-808.
‘‘ Note on the Pebbles in the Bunter Beds of Staffordshire’: Gzon. Mac., 1880,
Dec. II, Vol. VII, pp. 404-407.
‘On some Serpentines from the Rhetian Alps’”?: Gzon. Maa., 1880, Dee. Ni
Vol. VII, pp. 638-542.
“ Petrological Notes in the vicinity of the upper part of Loch Maree” [1879] :
Quart. Journ. Geol, Soc., 1880, vol. xxxvi, pp. 93-107.
396 Rev. Professor T. G. Bonney, D.Sc., FBS.
«¢ On the Serpentine and Associated Rocks of Anglesey, with a Note on the so-called
Serpentine of Porthdinlleyn (Caernarvonshire)’’ [1880]: Quart. Journ. Geol.
Soc., 1881, vol. xxxvu, pp. 40-50.
‘‘On a Boulder of Hornblende Picrite near Pen-y-Carnisiog, Anglesey’’: Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soc., 1881, vol. xxxvii, pp. 187-140.
“‘ Notes on the Microscopic Structure of some Anglesey Rocks’’: Quart. Journ.
Geol. Soc., 1881, vol. xxxvii. pp. 232-237.
“¢ On the Twt Hill Conglomerate ’’: Grou. Mac., 1882, Dec. II, Vol. IX, pp.18-22.
‘Notes upon some Specimens of Shropshire Rocks’’ [1881]: Quart. Journ. Geol.
Soc., 1882, vol. xxxviii, pp. 124-125.
‘On some Nodular Felsites in the Bala Group of North Wales”: Quart. Journ.
Geol. Soc., 1882, vol. xxxviii, pp. 289-296.
“« Report on three Specimens of Rocks trawled in the English Channel’’: Trans.
Devon. Assoc., 1883, vol. xv, p. 367.
“¢ Remarks on a Proposed Classification of Rocks ’’ [1881]: Proc. Geol. Assoc., 1883,
vol. vii, pp. 96-104.
“On a New Theory of the Formation of Basalt’’ [1881]: Proc. Geol. Assoc., 1883,
vol. vii, pp. 104-111.
‘¢ Second Note on the Pebbles of the Bunter Beds of Staffordshire’’: Grou. Mae.,
1883, Dec. II, Vol. X, pp. 199-205.
‘On some Breccias and Crushed Rocks’’?: Grou. Mac., 1883, Dec. II, Vol. X,
pp. 435-438.
““ On a supposed case of Metamorphism in an Alpine Rock of Carboniferous Age”’ :
Grou. Mag., 1883, Dec. II, Vol. X, pp. 507-511.
““ Note on the Nagelflue of the Rigi and Rossberg’’?: Guox. Mac., 1883, Dec. II,
Vol. X, pp. 511-514.
“The Hornblendic and other Schists of the Lizard District, with some additional
Notes on the Serpentine’’ [1882]: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1883, vol. xxxix,
pp. 1-24.
“¢ The Microscopic Structure of a Boulder from the Cambridge Greensand, etc. ”’ :
Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc., 1883, vol. v, pp. 65-67.
‘‘Note on the Lithological Characters of a Series of Scotch Rocks collected by
Dr. H. Hicks’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1883, vol. xxxix, pp. 159-166.
“* Additional Notes on Boulders of Hornblende Picrite near the Western Coast of
Anglesey’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1883, vol. xxxix, pp. 264-260.
““Notes on a Series of Rocks from the North-West Highlands collected by
C. Callaway’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1883, vol. xxxix, pp. 414-420.
“‘On a Section recently exposed in Baron Hill Park, near Beaumaris’’: Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soc., 1883, vol. xxxix, pp. 470-477.
‘©On the Rocks between the Quartz - Felsite and the Cambrian Series in the
Neighbourhood of Bangor’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1883, vol. xxxix,
pp. 478-485.
“On a Collection of Rock Specimens from Socotra ’’ [1882]: Proc. Roy. Soc., 1883,
vol. xxxiv, pp. 145-148; Phil. Trans., 1883, pp. 273-294.
“The Building of the Alps’’: Royal Institution, April 4, 1884.
‘‘Microscopic Structure of Rocks from the Andes of Ecuador’? (EK. Whymper) :
Proc. Roy. Soc., 1884, vol. xxxvi, pp. 241-248, 426-434; 1884, vol. xxxvii,
pp. 114-137, 394-410.
“The Microscopic Structure of Trowlesworthite’’: Trans. Roy. Geol. Soc. Corneo,
1884, vol. x.
“© On the Archean Rocks of Great Britain’’: Rep. Brit. Assoc., 1884, pp. 529-551.
“On the Geology of the South Devon Coast from Torcross to Hope Cove’’: Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soc., 1884, vol. xl, pp. 1-27.
‘“On some Rock Specimens collected by Dr. Hicks in Anglesey and North-West
Caernarvonshire’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1884, vol. xl, pp. 200-208.
“Notes on the Microscopic Structure of Rocks from Guernsey’’: Quart. Journ.
Geol. Soc., 1884, vol. xl, pp. 420-430.
““ Note on some Rock Specimens collected by Dr. C. Callaway in Anglesey’’ : Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soc., 1884, vol. xl, pp. 583-589.
‘Remarks on Serpentine’’?: Grou. Maa., 1884, Dec. III, Vol. I, pp. 406-412.
“©On the so-called Diorite of Little Knott (Cumberland), with further remarks on
the occurrence of Picrites in Wales’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1885, vol. xli,
pp. 511-522.
Rev. Professor T. G. Bonney, D.Sc., FBS. 397
‘* Address on Geological Progress in Britain during the year 1884, especially with
regard to the Western Highlands, with a Discussion of the Principles of
Petrological Nomenclature ’’?: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. (Proc.), 1885, vol. xli,
pp- 46-96.
‘« On the occurrence of a Mineral allied to Enstatite in the Ancient Lavas of Eycott
Hill, Cumberland’? : Grou. Mac., 1885, Dec. III, Vol. II, pp. 76-80.
“Report on the Rocks collected by H. H. Johnston, Esq., from the upper part of
the Kilima-njaro Massif’’: Rep. Brit. Assoc., 1885, pp. 682-685.
‘* On Bastite-Serpentine and Trokolite in Aberdeenshire, with a Note on the Rock
of the Black Dog’’: Rep. Brit. Assoc., 1885, p. 1016; Gort. Maa., 1885,
Dec. III, Vol. Il, pp, 489-448.
‘* Preliminary Note on some Traverses of the Crystalline District of the Central
Alps’”’: Rep. Brit. Assoc., 1885, pp. 1027-1029.
‘* Remarks on the Stratified and Igneous Rocks of the Valley of the Meuse in the
French Ardennes’: Proc. Geol. Assoc., 1885, vol. ix, pp. 247-260.
‘On some Rock-specimens collected by Dr. Hicks in North-West Pembrokeshire ” :
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1886, vol. xlii, pp. 357-363.
«¢On Lava from Old Providence Island’’: Min. Mag., 1886, vol. vi, pp. 39-45.
‘‘On Picrite from Gipps Land and Serpentine from Tasmania’’?: Min. Mag.,
1886, vol. vi, pp. 54-58.
‘¢ Presidential Addresses ’’: Min. Mag., 1886, vol. vi, pp. 111-119 and 195-201.
‘¢ Address on the Work done by the Society and on other matters connected with the
Progress of Geology in this Country, and on the so-called Metamorphic Rocks”’:
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. (Proc.), 1886, vol. xli, pp. 49-115.
‘‘Note on the Microscopic Structure of some Rocks trom the Neighbourhood of
Assouan collected by Sir J. W. Dawson’’: Gxror. Mac., 1886, Dec. III,
Vol. III, pp. 103-107.
“¢ Address to Geological Section’: Rep. Brit. Assoc., 1886, pp. 601-621.
‘¢ Notes on the Structures and Relations of some of the older Rocks of Brittany”’ :
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1887, vol. xliii, pp. 301-321.
‘* Microscopic Structure of three Rocks from the Caucasus’’: Proc. Roy. Soc.,
1887, vol. xlii, pp. 318-325.
‘*On a Glaucophane Kcloglite from the Val d’Aoste’”’?: Min. Mag., 1887, vol. vii,
. 1-7.
ce Ons Variety of Glaucophane from the Val Chisone’”’: Min. Mag., 1887, vol. vii,
. 191-198.
“ Note on some Specimens of Glaucophane Rock from the He de Groix”’:
Min. Mag., 1887, vol. vii, pp. 150-155.
‘‘ Note on Specimens of the Rauenthal Serpentine’’?: Gon. Mac., 1887, Dec. III,
Vol. IV, pp. 65-70.
‘< Preliminary Note on Traverses of the Western end of the Eastern Alps during the
Summer of 1887’’: Rep. Brit. Assoc., 1887, pp. 705-706. ;
‘On some results of Pressure and of the Intrusion of Granite in Stratified Palseozoic
Rocks near Morlaix, in Brittany ’’? : Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1888, vol. xliv,
. 11-19.
“On the Obermittweida Conglomerate, its Composition and Alteration’’: Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soc., 1888, vol. xliv, pp. 25-81.
‘Notes on a part of the Huronian Series in the Neighbourhood of Sudbury
(Canada) ’?: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1888, vol. xliv, pp. 32-49.
« Note on Specimens from Mysore collected by G. Attwood, Esq. ’’: Quart. Journ,
Geol. Soc., 1888, vol. xliv, pp. 651-6653. : ’
«‘ Observations on the Rounding of Pebbles by Alpine Rivers, with a Note on their
bearing upon the Origin of the Bunter Conglomerate’: Gor. Maa., 1888,
Dec. III, Vol. V, pp. 54-61; Rep. Brit. Assoc., 1888, pp. 721-722. _
«¢ Note on the Structure of Ightham Stone’’: Gxou. Maa., 1888, Dec. III, Vol. V,
pp. 297-300.
‘©The Sculpture of Alpine Passes and Peaks’’: GEou. Mage., 1888, Dec. III,
Vol. V, pp. 540-548. A :
‘‘On a Peculiar Variety of Hornblende from Mynydd Mawr”: Min. Mag., 1889,
vol. viii, pp. 103-107. f va
‘‘On a Picrite from the Liskeard District’’?: Min. Mag., 1889, vol. viii,
pp. 108-111.
398 Rev. Professor T. G. Bonney, D Sc., F.R.S.
“¢Notes on two Traverses of the Crystalline Rocks of the Alps’’: Quart. Journ.
Geol. Soc., 1889, vol. xlv, pp. 67-111.
“¢On the Crystalline Schists and their Relation to the Mesozoic Rocks in the
Lepontine Alps’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1890, vol. xlvi, pp. 187-240.
“¢ On the occurrence of a variety of Picrite (Scyelite) in Sark’? : Gzron. Maa., 1889,
Dec. III, Vol. VI, pp. 109-112.
“« Note on some Pebbles in the Basal Conglomerate of the Cambrian at St. Davids”’ :
Grou. Mac., 1889, Dec. III, Vol. VI, pp. 315-318.
«<The Effects of Pressure on Crystalline Limestones’’: Grou. Mae., 1889, Dee. III,
Vol. VI, pp. 483-486 ; Rep. Brit. Assoc., 1889, pp. 571-572.
“¢ Preliminary Note on the alleged occurrence of Fossils in the Crystalline Schists of
the Lepontine Alps’’: Rep. Brit. Assoc., 1889, p. 571.
“«Mr. Mellard Reade’s Interpretation of the Lower Trias Physiography’’: Gow.
Mae., 1890, Dec. III, Vol. VII, pp. 52-55.
“Note on the Effect of Pressure upon Serpentine in the Pennine Alps’’: GzoL.
Mae., 1890, Dec. III, Vol. VII, pp. 533-542.
“Note ona Contact Structure in the Syenite of Bradgate Park’’: Quart. Journ.
Geol. Soc., 1891, xlvii, pp. 101-108.
“¢ Petrological Notes on the Kuphotide of the Saas-thal’’ : Phil. Mag., 1892, ser. 111,
vol. xxxili, pp. 237-2650.
“¢Growth and Sculpture of the Alps’’: Alpine Journal, 1892, vol. xiv, pp. 38-80,
105-118, 221-235.
“«Notes on some Specimens of Rocks which have been exposed to High Temperature”’ :
Proc. Roy. Soc., 1892, vol. x, pp. 395-403.
‘Specimen from the Permian Breccia of Leicestershire’’: Midland Naturalist,
1892, vol. xv, pp. 25 and 49.
“¢On the so-called ‘ Gneiss’ of Carboniferous Age at Guttannen (Canton Berne,
Switzerland) ’’?: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1892, vol. xlviii, pp. 390-400.
«¢ On the Relation of the Bunter Pebbles of the English Midlands to those in the Old
Red Sandstone Conglomerates of Scotland’: Rep. Brit. Assoc., 1892, p. 719.
“Do Glaciers Excavate ?’’?: Geographical Journal, 1893, vol. i, pp. 481-499.
“‘Note on the Nutenenstock (Lepontine Alps)’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1893,
vol. xlix, pp. 89-93.
“On some Schistose ‘Greenstones’ and allied Hornblendic Schists from the
Pennine Alps, as illustrative of the effects of Pressure- Metamorphism’’: Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soc., 1898, vol. xlix, pp. 94-103.
‘On a Secondary Development of Biotite and of Hornblende in Crystalline Schists
from the Binnenthal’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1893, vol. xlix, pp. 104-113.
“<On some Quartz-Schists from the Alps’’: Grou. Mac., 1893, Dec. III, Vol. X,
pp. 204-210.
“¢On some Assumptions in Glacial Geology ’’: Rep. Brit. Assoc., 1893, pp. 775-776.
“¢On some cases of the Conversion of Compact ‘Greenstones’ into Schists”’:
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1894, vol. u, pp. 279-284.
“Mesozoic Rocks and Crystalline Schists in the Lepontine Alps”: Quart. Journ.
Geol. Soc., 1894, vol. u, p. 285.
<¢ Some Notes on Gneiss’’: Grou. Mac., 1894, Dec. IV, Vol. I, pp. 114-121.
‘‘On the Probable Temperature of the Glacial Epoch’’: Rep. Brit. Assoc.,
1894, p. 660.
‘A Note on Cone-in-cone Structure ’’: Min. Mag., 1895, vol. xi, pp. 24-27.
‘¢ A Comparison of the Pebbles in the Trias of Budleigh Salterton and of Cannock
Chase’’: Rep. Brit. Assoc., 1894, p. 655; Grou. Mage., 1895, Dec. IV,
Vol. II, pp. 75-78.
“¢ Supplementary Note on the Narborough District (Leicestershire) ’’: Quart. Journ.
Geol. Soc., 1895, vol. li, pp. 24-34.
‘©On the Mode of Occurrence of Hozoon Canadense at Cote St. Pierre’: Grou. Mac.,
1895, Dec. IV, Vol. II, pp. 292-299. ‘
‘« The Serpentine, Gneissoid, and Hornblende Rocks of the Lizard District’’: Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soc., 1896, vol. Jii, pp. 17-51.
‘©On a Pebbly Quartz-Schist from the Val d’Anniviers (Pennine Alps)’’: Gzox.
Mae., 1896, Dec. IV, Vol. III, pp. 400-405.
‘¢The Kirchet and its Critics’? : Alpine Journal, 1897, vol. xix, pp. 29-40.
“¢ Additional Note on the Sections near the Summit of the Furka Pass (Switzerland) ’’:
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1897, vol. liii, pp. 16-21.
Rev. Professor T. G. Bonney, D.Sc., F.R.S. 399
«* Note on an ‘ Ovenstone’ (‘Talcose-schist) from near Zinal, Canton Valais’’. Grou.
Mae., 1897, Dec. IV, Vol. IV, pp. 110-116.
“On some Rock-specimens from Kimberley, South Africa’?: Grou. Mac., 1897,
Dec. IV, Vol. IV, pp. 448-453, 497-502.
**An Outline of the Petrology and Physical History of the Alps’’: Proc. Geol.
Assoc., 1897-98, vol. xv, pp. 1-18.
«<The Garnet-Actinolite Schists on the Southern Side of the St. Gothard Pass”? :
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1898, vol. liv, pp. 357-378.
“‘Notes on some small Lake-basins in the Lepontine Alps’’?: Gxox. Maa., 1898,
Dec. IV, Vol. V, pp. 15-21.
‘«« Fulgurites from Tupungato and the Summit of Aconcagua’’: Grou. Mae., 1899,
Dec. IV, Vol. VI, pp. 1-4.
‘< On the Bunter Pebble-beds of the Midlands and the Source of their Materials ’’ :
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1900, vol. lvi, pp. 287-306.
«« Plant-stems in the Guttannen Gneiss’’: Guoxt. Maa., 1900, Dec. IV, Vol. VII,
pp. 215-220.
“¢ Parent Rock of the Diamond in South Africa’’: Proce. Roy. Soc., 1900, vol. lxv,
p. 223-236.
“¢ Additional Notes on Boulders, ete., from Newland’s Diamond Mines’: Proc. Roy.
Soe., 1900, vol. Ixvii, pp. 475-484.
‘“The Parent-rock of the Diamond’’: Grot. Mac., 1900, Dec. IV, Vol. VII,
. 246-248.
uc Galanel Feilden’s Contributions to Glacial Geology’’: Gon. Maa., 1900, Dec. IV,
Vol. VII, pp. 289-294.
‘‘Schists in the Lepontine Alps’’: Gxron. Mac., 1901, Dec. IV, Vol. VIII,
pp. 161-166.
BY PROFESSOR T. G. BONNEY AND S. ALLPORT.
‘‘Report on the Effects of Contact-Metamorphism near New Galloway’’: Proc.
Roy. Soc., vol. xlvi, pp. 193-204.
BY PROFESSOR T. G. BONNEY AND MISS E. ASTON.
‘©On an Alpine Nickel-bearing Serpentine with Fulgurites’’: Quart. Journ. Geol.
Soe., 1896, vol. li, pp. 452-459.
BY PROFESSOR T. G. BONNEY AND REV. E. HILL.
‘The Pre-Carboniferous Rocks of Charnwood Forest’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,
1877, vol. xxxiii, pp. 754-789; 1878, vol. xxxiv, pp. 199-238; 1880,
vol. xxxvi, pp. 337-350 ; Phil. Mag., 1877, vol. iv, pp. 76-77.
“‘ The Hornblende-schists, Gneisses, etc., of Sark’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1892,
vol. xlviii, pp. 122-146.
“¢ Relations of the Chalk and Drift in Méen and Riigen’’: Quart.'Journ. Geol. Soc.,
1899, vol. lv, pp. 805-326.
‘On the Drifts of the Baltic Coasts of Germany’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1901,
vol. lvii, pp. 1-19.
BY PROFESSOR T. G. BONNEY AND F. T. S. HOUGHTON.
«*On some Mica-Traps from the Kendal and Sedbergh Districts ’’ [1878]: Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soc., 1879, vol. xxxv, pp. 165-179.
“¢ On the Metamorphic Series between Twt Hill (Carnarvon) and Port Dinorwig’”’ :
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1879, vol. xxxy, pp. 321-3825.
BY PROF. T. G. BONNEY AND MAJOR-GENERAL C. A. McMAHON.
«Results of an Examination of the Crystalline Rocks of the Lizard District’? :
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc , 1891, vol. xlvii, pp. 464-499.
BY PROFESSOR T. G. BONNEY AND MISS ©. A. RAISIN.
‘‘Report on some Rock-Specimens from the Kimberley Diamond Mines,’’ with
Note by Professor T. R. Jones: Grou. Maa., 1891, Dec. III, Vol. VIII,
. 412-415.
<7On the so-called Spilites of Jersey’’: Gror, Maa., 1893, Dec. III, Vol. X,
pp- 69-64.
400 Dr. C. W. Andrews—Extinct Egyptian Vertebrates.
“‘On the Relation of some of the Older Fragmental Rocks in North-Western
Caernarvonshire ’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1894, vol. u, pp. 578-602.
‘‘On Varieties of Serpentine and Associated Rocks in Anglesey’: Quart. Journ.
Geol. Soc., 1899, vol. lv, pp. 276-304.
‘Rocks and Minerals from Karakoram Himalayas’’: Proc. Roy. Soc., vol. lv,
pp. 468-487.
BY PROFESSOR T. G. BONNEY, MISS C. A. RAISIN, AND
SIR J. B. STONE.
‘¢ Notes on the Diamond-bearing Rock of Kimberley, South Africa’ : Gzox. Mac.,
1895, Dec. IV, Vol. II, p. 492.
CONTRIBUTIONS (GEOLOGICAL) TO BOOKS PUBLISHED BY OTHERS.
E. Whymper, ‘‘ Travels among the Great Andes of Ecuador,’’ 1891: Appendix,
pp. 140-148.
K. Fitzgerald, ‘‘ Climbs in the New Zealand Alps,’’ 1896: pp. 387-839.
Freshfield & Sella, ‘‘ The Exploration of the Caucasus,’’ 1896: vol. ii, pp. 223-232.
C. E. Mathews, ‘‘ The Annals of Mont Blanc,’’ 1898: pp. 286-294.
K. Fitzgerald, ‘‘ The Highest Andes,’’ 1899: pp. 311-332.
H. J. Pearson, ‘‘ Beyond Petsora Kastward,’’ 1899: pp. 234-289, 258-263, and
(with H. 8. Jevons) 277-287.
IJ.—Preuiminary Note on some Recuentzty DiscovereD Extinct
VERTEBRATES FROM Hieypr. (Part I.)
By Cuas. W. AnpreEws, D.Sc., F.G.S., British Museum (Nat. Hist.).
eae a recent visit to Egypt, through the kindness of Captain
H. G. Lyons, Director-General of the Egyptian Survey, I have
on several occasions had opportunities of accompanying members of
the Staff of the Geological Survey on collecting expeditions into
the Western Desert.
On one of these journeys I accompanied Mr. H. J. L. Beadnell,
F.G.8., to the Fayim, and we took the opportunity of examining the
escarpments of Upper Eocene and Oligocene age in a locality from
which Mr. Beadnell had previously obtained some remains of
Zeuglodonts and Sirenians. On our first visit it was not until
we were about to return to Cairo that any finds of importance were
made, but on the last day of our stay a number of interesting
specimens were found, including portions of the skeletons of
a Sirenian (probably Hothertum cegyptiacum, Owen),' of Zeuglodon
(? Z. Osiris, Dames),” and of a small ungulate, as well as remains of
reptiles (Crocodilia, Chelonia, and Ophidia). On our return to Cairo it
was arranged to go back to this rich locality and make as extensive
collections as possible. The results of this second visit were very
satisfactory, and a number of interesting specimens were obtained.
The beds from which the remains were collected are, in Mr.
Beadnell’s opinion, probably of Upper Eocene and Lower Oligocene
1 Owen, ‘‘ On Fossil Evidences of a Sirenian Mammal (Hotheriwm egyptiacum,
Owen) from the Nummulitic Eocene of the Mokattam Cliffs, near Cairo’”’?: Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxxi (1875), p. 100, pl. iii.
* Dames, ‘‘ Ueber Zeuglodonten aus Aegypten und die Beziehungen der Archaeo-
ceten zu den Uebrigen Cetaceen’’: Palaeont. Abhand., neue Folge, Bd. i (1894),
p. 189.
Dr. C. W. Andrews—Extinct Egyptian Vertebrates. 401
age. In the present paper, merely very brief notices of some of the
more important new forms are given, but subsequently it is intended
by Captain Lyons to publish as complete an account as possible of
the geology and physical geography of the district, prepared by
Mr. Beadnell, with detailed descriptions of the fossil vertebrata
by the present writer.
MamMALIA.
The mammalian remains obtained include a Sirenian probably
identical with Hotherium egyptiacum from the Mokattam Hills,
described by Owen on the evidence of a brain-cast only ; Zeuglodon,
including apparently Dames’ Z. Osiris, and perhaps a second species;
and, lastly, several ungulates which are new to science, and are the
subjects of the following notices.
Palgomastodon Beadnelli,! Andrews. (Fig. 1.)
One of the most important specimens found in the higher beds
(probably Lower Oligocene) is the nearly complete left ramus of the
mandible of a Proboscidean, which is in many respects similar to
that of Mastodon angustidens, but belonged to a much smaller and in
Pete eee
i
m
ah ete ONd anh e CE:
. Write fe
ye 1 wig TiN Ne We
i __= SSH) WY hy VES J
== SSS SES SEE,
ie =S=
Fic. 1.—Left ramus of mandible of Paleomastodon Beadnelli. One-sixth natural
size. (A) From above; (B) outer surface.
several respects more generalized form. Remains of M. angustidens
(or a very closely allied form)’ were found by Mr. T. Barron and
1 « Tageblatt des V Internationalen Zoologen - Congresses,”’ Berlin, No. 6,
August 16th, 1901, p. 4. t :
2 Remains of a small Mastodon from the Lower Miocene (Cartennien) near
Isserville (Kabylie), Algiers, have been described by Depéret (Bull. Soc. Géol.
France, sér. 111, tom. xxv, 1897, p. 518) under the name Mastodon angustidens, var.
pygmeus. The teeth from Moghara, though slightly smaller than specimens from
Sansan, are not sufficiently so to justify their reference to this small variety.
Moreover, there seems to have been little or no cement in the valleys of these teeth,
while in Depéret’s specimen it was abundant.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. IX. 26
402 Dr. C. W. Andrews—Extinct Egyptian Vertebrates.
myself in Lower Miocene at Moghara, to the north-west of the
present locality, and it seems probable that this mandible may have
belonged to an ancestor of that well-known Miocene species.
The mandibular ramus (Fig. 1) is long and relatively narrow
from above downwards, and is very slightly decurved anteriorly.
It is chiefly remarkable for the elongation of the edentulous region
in front of the cheek-teeth ; in this region the alveolar border forms
a sharp edge without trace of tooth sockets. The symphysis com-
mences about 12 cm. in front of the anterior premolar, but its length
cannot be determined, as the anterior portion of the jaw is broken
away. Judging, however, by the large size of the central canal
at the broken end, it seems probable that the symphysis was
considerably elongated, though possibly not to the same extent as
in M. angustidens. The base of an alveolus for a tusk (Fig. 1, 7) is
preserved on the broken end.
The coronoid process rises from the outer surface opposite the
posterior third of the last molar; but its upper part is broken
away, as also are the condyle and the angle. The cheek-teeth are
distinctly proboscidian, and the molars are very similar to the
anterior molars of some Mastodons. There were originally five
teeth in siti, but the anterior one (pm.3) has fallen out of its
socket, the form of which indicates that this tooth had two roots,
a smaller anterior and a larger posterior; probably the crown was
triangular in outline. The next tooth (pm.4) is much broken; it
seems to have consisted of a high anterior ridge, a median trans-
verse crest, only traces of which remain, and a small posterior
ridge now much worn. The next tooth (m.1) is likewise
trilophodont, the hinder crest being much the smallest. It is
much worn and considerably broken on the inner side. The suc-
ceeding molars are in an excellent state of preservation. Both are
trilophodont, but in the last the hinder ridge (talon) is considerably
larger than in m.2. Hach transverse ridge is evidently composed
of two tubercles, and is connected with the ridge behind by a very
slightly developed longitudinal prominence. Small tubercles occur
at the inner ends of the transverse valleys in m.3. The outer
ends of the ridges are far more worn than the inner, which stand
up considerably above the rest of the tooth-crown. There is
a regular increase in the degree of wear from m.3 to m.l. It
seemed just possible that the tooth here described as m. 1 might
be the last milk-molar, but its state of wear compared with that
of the other teeth, and the absence of any trace of a premolar germ
in the jaw beneath it or of a molar behind those now described,
prove that the interpretation here adopted is the correct one.
It will be seen that this genus differs from Mastodon in the greater
simplicity of m. 3, and in the fact that two premolars and three
molars are in use at once. I propose the generic name Palzomastodon
for this form, the name of the species being P. Beadnelli after
Mr. H. J. L. Beadnell, of the Egyptian Geological Survey, to whom
the discovery of these fossils is mainly due and by whom the survey
of the Faytim area has been carried out.
Dr. C. W. Andrews—Extinct Egyptian Vertebrates. 403
The dimensions of the specimen figured are as follows :—
mm.
Total length of specimen ... fee 610
Depth of ramus in middle of diastema aL Ae 96
a », immediately in front of p.m. 8 ... eae 105
a », immediately beneath p.m.4_ ... vee 120
a6 », at symphysis a BAC se 50 97
Dimenstons or Texts (in millimetres).
Length. Width.
jets) Cae 41 (of alveolus) —
p-m.4 ... sc 48 aes Sor 33 (approx.)
Movie 48 560 Be 37 (approx.)
Wie?) Bee S05 65 spt doe 51
Wee) oe une Us) cae 566 53
Approximate length of molar and premolar series ... 285mm.
Other specimens probably referable to this form are a maxilla
with two molars, a nearly perfect specimen of m. 2, a scapula,
a humerus, a femur, a tibia, an imperfect os innominatum, an atlas,
and an axis.
Meeritherium Lyonsi,‘ Andrews. (Fig. 2.)
In the lower beds of probably Upper Eocene age a great quantity
of remains of an ungulate about the size of a large tapir was obtained.
These include numerous portions of the skull and mandible, some
with the teeth in good preservation, associated sets of vertebra: more
or less complete, ossa innominata, femora, humeri, etc. From these
it will eventually be possible to obtain a very good idea of the skeletal
structure of this animal. Here it will only be possible to refer
briefly to the skull and teeth.
The skull is very massively built. The cranial region is depressed,
and the stout zygomatic process arises far back and projects strongly
outward. The external auditory opening is on the upper surface of
the base of this process, and is bordered posteriorly by an outgrowth
of the squamosal which grows round it as in the elephants. The
brain-case is relatively large. The orbit is small, and the nasals
seem to have been rather short, leaving a large narial aperture.
The teeth are remarkable. In the upper jaw the median pair
of incisors are small, the second pair greatly enlarged, triangular
in section, and form a strong pair of downwardly directed tusks
1 « Tageblatt des V Internationalen Zoologen - Congresses,”’ Berlin, No. 6,
August 16th, 1901, p. 4. The generic name refers to the fact that the remains of
the animal were found near the bed of the ancient Lake Mceris. The species is
named after Captain Lyons, Director-General of the Egyptian Geological Survey.
Schweinfurth, in his account of the Fayum (Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft fur
Erdkunde zu Berlin, 1886, Bd. xxi, p- 139), states that in a hill about 124 miles
west from the temple discovered by him he collected a jaw of Zeuglodon and two
mandibular rami of a creature resembling a pig or tapir and corresponding in many
respects to Cheropotamus. ‘These specimens were atterwards described by Dames,
who (loc. cit. supra) states that the so-called Chawropotamus jaws are in fact the
anterior ends of mandibles of Zeuglodon. It seems not improbable, however, that
Schweinfurth was more nearly right, and that the specimens actually belonged to
the present species. A further examination of these specimens is desirable.
404 Dr. 0. W. Andrews—Extinct Egyptian Vertebrates.
(Fig. 28). Immediately behind the large incisor are two small teeth
(represented only by alveoli), the anterior one probably being the
third incisor, the posterior the canine; behind this is a diastema of
some length (about 27mm.). (Fig. 24.)
A
= Om y
_ YF
Fic. 2.—Dentition of Meritherium Lyonsi. One-fourth natural size. (A) Upper
teeth; (B) front of snout, showing the tusk-like second incisors; (C) left
ramus of mandible from outer side.
The cheek-teeth are sixin number. The anterior premolar (pm. 2)
consists of an outer wall composed of four blunt tubercles, of which
the middle two (protocone and tritocone of Scott?s nomenclature)
are largest and subequal. The anterior (? parastyle) and posterior
(? metastyle) are smaller. The inner side of the tooth forms
a broad triangular shelf-like edge, worn into a concavity by the tooth
below. The next tooth (pm.3) has two external tubercles (proto-
and tritocone) and a large inner tubercle (deuterocone). The
cingulum is well developed, and forms a shelf-like hollow on the
posterior border. The next tooth (pm.4) is similar. The first
molar is bilophodont, but the crests, which are completely separated
by the transverse valley, are distinctly composed of two tubercles,
those forming the anterior one being the paracone and protocone,
those in the posterior the metacone and hypocone. The cingulum
is well developed on the inner and anterior border of the tooth,
less distinct on the posterior, and absent on the exterior border.
The next tooth (m. 2) is similar, the last is wanting in the specimen
described.
The mandible is very solidly constructed, the rami being
thickened and very convex from above downward on the outer
Dr. C. W. Andrews—Extinct Egyptian Vertebrates. 405
surface. The symphysial region is massive and spout-like. The
dental foramen is beneath pm. 3. The coronoid process arises
from the outer surface of the ramus beneath the anterior end of m. 3,
and has a thickened anterior border which often remains when the
rest is broken away (see Fig. 2c). The condyle is transversely
extended, and is convex in that direction as well as from before
backward.
There are two pairs of lower incisors, the first being comparatively
small teeth crowded between the second pair, which are modified
to form large tusks and are triangular in section. The incisors are
procum bent.
The first of the cheek-teeth (pm.2) consists of a high, blunt
anterior cusp, and a low, broad shelf-like talon. The next (pm. 3)
has a high anterior crest which seems to be composed of at least two
united cusps, and in front of the ridge thus formed there is a small
antero-internal cusp. Behind there is a talon with a slight median
prominence. The next tooth (pm. 4) is similar, and is, therefore,
simpler than the succeeding first molar, which is bilophodont, each
ridge being evidently composed of two tubercles. On the outer
side there is a distinct cingulum, which on the hinder border of the
tooth broadens out into a narrow talon with a median tubercle
forming a small third lobe to the tooth. The next tooth (m. 2)
is similar, but the talon is larger. In the last molar the talon is
large and bears a transversely elongated cusp on its postero-internal
border.
The molars show a strong tendency to assume a trilophodont form ;
in fact, the two last may almost be regarded as having already done
so. This circumstance, together with the fact that in both jaws the
second incisors are enormously enlarged, while at the same time there
is a tendency to suppress the others (the third lower having already
disappeared), incline me to believe that in this animal we have
a generalized forerunner of the Mastodon type of Proboscidean.
This conclusion is likewise supported by some points in the structure
of the skull and skeleton. As to the group of primitive mammals
to which Meritherium is most nearly related, it is not possible
to arrive at any definite conclusion till all the available parts of the
skeleton have been examined, but perhaps it will be found to have
arisen from some, at present, unknown subdivision of the Amblypoda.
Dimensions oF Upper Dentition. (Fias. 24 and B.)
Approximate length of upper pm. and m. series... 147 mm.
Approximate diameter of tusk “08 ace “ae 30 ,,
Length of diastema ... are ae nie —, Die
Dimensions oF Upper CuHErk TEETH.
Length. Width.
pm. 2 27 mm. “0 23 mm. (approx.)
pm. 3 26°5 ,, 29°5 ,,
pm 4 23 ” 27 5) ”
29 27 sy
406 Dr. C. W. Andrews—Extinct Egyptian Vertebrates.
DIMENSIONS OF THE MANDIBLE AND LOWER DENTITION SHOWN IN FG. 2¢.
Totallength ... Shc ae nee se mae 320 mm.
Height of condyle above inferior border... nee 153 ,,
Length of premolar and molar vee 00 oo WPA 55
Length. Width.
pm. 2 22 mm. 566 16 mm.
pm. 3 43) 96 Bilt 5p
pm. 4 MB) 5p 23 4,
Tale 26°5 ,, 24°5 ,,
OM MOeLae. Phu Leavin ASA mee atingoee
Tso ee Aaa ee Wink80 pee
A large part of the skeleton of this animal is known, and will be
described in the detailed account of these specimens. Here we may
Fie. 3.—Mandible and lower teeth of Bradytheriwm grave. One-sixth natural size.
(A) Right ramus of mandible from outer side; (B) mandible from below;
(C) third left lower molar.
merely mention that the femur is without third trochanter, and the
humerus has no entipicondylar foramen.
aa
Dr. C. W. Andrews—Extinct Egyptian Vertebrates. 407
Bradytherium grave, Andrews. (Figs. 3 and 4.)
Another very remarkable animal from the lower beds is an
enormously heavily built ungulate, which in many respects re-
sembles Dinotherium, but in others reminds one of some of the
gigantic Amblypoda of North America.
The mandible is shown in Fig. 34 and B. It will be seen that
it is a very massive structure. Its inferior border beneath the
molar series is convex, and immediately beneath the front of the
anterior premolar it bears a stout tuberosity which is directed
outward, downward, and forward, and is somewhat similar to the
protuberances occurring in the same place in some Dinocerata. In
front of this process the lower border of the jaw slopes upward,
and forms the floor of the socket for the large tusk-like procumbent
incisors. The dental foramen is situated beneath the anterior
premolar, and there seem to be two smaller foramina farther back.
The coronoid process rises from the middle of the ramus at the level
of m.2. Its greatly thickened border slopes somewhat forward,
and rises some 11 cm. above the crowns of the teeth. It then turns
back at right angles, but is broken away posteriorly, as also are
both the condylar and angular regions. The symphysis is very long
(Fig. 88), commencing beneath m.1; its upper surface is spout-
like and narrows rapidly anteriorly, so that the anterior premolars
are only about 5 or 6cm. apart. In front the pair of large tusk-like
incisors are almost in contact in the middle line.
As just mentioned, there was a pair of large tusks, procumbent
in position, and close together in the middle line. In this specimen
the broken base of the tooth is in sit on the left side, while
on the right the alveolus is empty. It is possible that there
may have been a second pair of small incisors above the large
ones, but the evidence of this is not clear. Behind the incisors is
a diastema of about 13cm. The portion of the alveolar border
bearing the cheek-teeth is raised considerably above the diastema.
There were three premolars, of which the anterior one (p.m. 2) has
a triangular crown; it appears to have three roots, of which one
is anterior, the other two arranged transversely posteriorly. The
next two (pm. 3 and pm. 4) have quadrate crowns, apparently
bilophodont, and four roots. The first molar is greatly broken ;
it had four roots. The second is bilophodont, and the crown is
somewhat longer than broad; there are four roots. The last
(Fig. 3c) consists of two transverse crests and a large talon: in
this also there seem to have been only four roots, the postero-
external one being enlarged to support the talon. All these teeth
are greatly worn, especially on the outer side. They are also
greatly damaged by exposure to drifting sand. The upper cheek-
teeth are also much damaged: those of the left side are shown in
Fig. 4. The anterior premolar (pm. 2) is broken on its inner side:
it seems to have had three roots, and its crown narrowed con-
siderably in front. pm.3 and pm.4 are both four-rooted, and their
1 «* Tageblatt des V Internationalen Zoologen-Congresses,’’ Berlin, No, 6,
August 16th, 1901, p. 4.
408 Dr. C. W. Andrews—Extinct Egyptian Vertebrates.
rectangular crowns are wider transversely than from before backward.
Their surface is greatly worn, so that no trace of cusps or ridges
remains. The greatly worn m.1 is similar. m.2 and m.3 have
quadrate crowns, each composed of a pair of transverse ridges,
which are much more worn on the inner than on the outer sides.
Fie. 4.—Left upper cheek-teeth of Bradytherium grave, Andrews.
One-sixth natural size.
Besides the mandible and upper teeth here described the collection
includes the scapula, humerus, ulna, and some other portions of the.
skeleton.
The humerus is enormously stout, and its distal end greatly
expanded.
This remarkable animal, for which the name Bradytherium grave
is proposed, in many respects resembles Dinotherium, at least as
far as its dentition goes, but differs in several points, e.g. in the
presence of three premolars and in the existence of a talon on the
third lower molar. In some ways, as in the presence of the
tuberosity on the lower border of the mandible and in the form of
the humerus, it shows some similarity to certain of the Dinocerata.
Its actual position remains for the present doubtful. Portions of
three individuals were found, so that there is every reason to hope
that further search may yield more material for settling this question.
The dimensions of the specimens described and figured are (in’
millimetres) :—
Length Width
Uprrr TEETH.—pm.2_... 208 57 es site 57
pm. 3 tee 50 39 ae S00 65
pm. 4 a sbi 50 500 Gad 80
m. 1 ii ace 59 ae 50 84
m. 2 ut 360 75 =e a0 86
m. 3 83 Ke ae 87
Lower Tretu.—pm.2... she 51 ae bik: 35 (approx.)
pm.3 i... iy 43 ous was 47
pm. 4 Bh et 57 Aue fon 55
m. 1 57 =
m. 2 86 64
m. 3 106 70
mn.
Total length of upper molar and premolar series is8 365
Total length of lower molar and premolar series (approx.) 385
Total length of mandible as figured : a0 see 660
Depth of ramus beneath pm. 4, about... sos “02 256
Dr. Henry Woodward—On Pleurotoma prisea. 409
The discovery of these Lower Tertiary mammals is of considerable
importance, not merely on account of the interest of the specimens
hitherto collected, but as showing that much may be expected from
further investigation of the Tertiary deposits of the Libyan Desert.
At present I am acquainted with (probably) Upper Eocene, Lower
Oligocene, Lower Miocene, and Lower Pliocene mammal-bearing
beds; and in several localities, during journeys across the desert,
fragments of teeth and bones were observed when it was impossible
to stay to make any search after more complete specimens, which
must no doubt be obtainable. Another point of importance is that
the fauna now described differs entirely from that found in deposits
of the same age in Europe, and points to the existence of a large
land area to the south which had long been isolated. The few
species so far obtained can only represent a very small fraction of
those which existed, and when found will throw great light on many
obscure questions of geographical distribution. One long-standing
problem, viz. the place of origin of the Proboscidea, may perhaps
be regarded as solved already.
IIJ.—Note on tHe Discovery oF A VERY FINE EXAMPLE OF
PLEUROTOMA PRISCA, SOLANDER, SP. (1766), ar Barton, Hants.
By Henry Woopwarp, LL.D., F.R.S., V.P.Z.S., F.G.S.
N one of his recent visits to the Natural History Museum, Major
C. E. Beadnell kindly showed me a fine example of the well-
known shell Pleurotoma prisca, which had been obtained some years
ago by his son, Mr. Hugh J. L. Beadnell, F.G.S. (now of the
Geological Survey of Egypt), when collecting specimens from the
Barton Clay (Middle Eocene) in the historical cliffs at Barton,
Hampshire, whence, prior to 1766, Gustavus Brander, F.R.S., made
his famous collection, some of the specimens of which are still
preserved in the British Museum (Natural History).
On comparing this shell with the figures in F, E. Edwards’ &
S. V. Wood’s “Eocene Mollusca” (Pal. Soc. Mon.), tab. xxxiii,
figs. la—e, I was surprised to find Mr. Beadnell’s specimen greatly
exceeded the figured examples in altitude of the spire, as well as in
diameter. I therefore requested Major Beadnell to allow me to
figure it, to which he at once most obligingly consented.
The following is a transcript of Edwards’ & Searles Wood’s
description of Pleurotoma prisca,? Solander, sp. (1766).
“Shell elongated, fusiform, nearly smooth; the spire almost
conical, pointed and moderately elevated, being of equal length with
the aperture. The whorls are slightly ventricose; when young, the
whole surface is covered with moderately distant, concentric, raised
lines, in which state it resembles Pl. filosa, Lamk. ; these lines,
however, are lost on the fourth or fifth volution, and the whorls
afterwards become smooth and shining, except at the base and over
1 Figured and described by Dr. Solander in a work entitled ‘“‘ Fossilia Hantoniensia
Collecta, et in Museo Britannico de poRt: a Gustavo Brander, LTGae
2 Murex prisca, Brander’s Foss. Hant., 1766, p. 16, pl. i, fig. 25; pl. iil, fig. 44,
410 Dr. Henry Woodward—On Pleurotoma prisea.
the posterior margins, round the sutural edges of which last run
three or four fine, threadlike, raised lines, occasionally replaced by
two or three shallow, obscure furrows ; the last whorl is nearly
conical, obscurely sulcated at the base and deeply notched at the
extremity ; the anterior canal is wide, very short, and indistinct.
The aperture is narrow and of an oblong-oval form; the outer lip
wing-shaped, projecting towards the front, thin and sharp on the
edge, and smooth within; the sinus, which is in the very front of
the margin, is wide, moderately deep, somewhat triangular in form,
and widely rounded at the extremity ; the inner lip is much
thickened, and is produced and bent outwards in front, giving an
umbilicated appearance to the columella, which is slightly twisted
and prominently crested towards the base.”
Pleurotoma prisca, Solander, sp. Middle Eocene: Barton, Hants.
(Drawn of the natural size.)
There are five specimens figured in Edwards’ & Wood’s mono-
graph, on tab. xxxiii, figs. la-e; the largest, a and d, being from
Barton, and measuring 70 and 74mm. respectively in length, by
25 and 22 mm. in breadth.
Mr. Beadnell’s specimen measures 90mm. in length and 28 mm.
in breadth, and is therefore considerably larger than either of the
above examples. When, however, we turn to other Hocene species
of Pleurotoma, we find Pl. cochlis attaining to a length of 80mm.,
Professor Bonney—On Limburgite from Sasbach. 411
Pl. symmetrica to 95 mm., Pl. attenuata to 98 mm., and Pl. rostrata
from 80 to 100 mm.
Amongst recent Pleurotome there are more than a dozen species
which exceed Pl. prisca in length of shell, up to Pl. grandis from the
India and China seas, which attains to a length of 1385 mm.
Although Mr. Hugh Beadnell’s Pleurotoma prisca does not “ break
the record” for size amongst Eocene species, he may at least claim
to have unearthed one of the largest specimens of this genus ever
found at Barton.
IV.—On tHE LimpurGite FROM NEAR SASBAOH.
By Canon T. G. Bonney, D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S.
O much confusion has existed on the subject of limburgite, that,
although it has now been partly dissipated, a record of my own
investigations may be of use, at any rate to English petrologists.
The rock has been classed by some with the peridotites. From
these it is separated by Rosenbusch,' who in his latest work places it
in a subgroup with the augitites in proximity to the basalts. Zirkel
uses limburgite as a synonym for magma-basalt. IF. Graeff” implies
relationship with the nepheline-basalts. Harker’s* remarks suggest
similar conclusions, as do those of Cole,‘ though his opening words
are perhaps slightly misleading. All, however, lay so much stress
upon the absence of felspar, by giving such definitions as “ Limburgite
und Augitite sind die felspathfreien Entglieder der Gesteinreihe
Trachydolerit, Tephrit,” etc.,° or ‘Frei von Feldspar und Felspath-
oiden ist der Limburgit,”® and in some cases by reference to the
peridotites, that students may readily overlook the fact that this
rock is only free from felspar in the same sense as tachylite or many
pitchstones and obsidians.
A little consideration of the original analysis should have shown
that the rock could not possibly be placed in the same group as the
peridotites. This (to which I add a more recent one) gives :—
i) (2) §
$i O, hi ace ai 42°78 jae as 44°38
SCO aa me Ok Rao O28 at ered atti 0°29
Oe ree hae S660 eee 9°04
rows ADD eee Ave ase a 12°82
e S00 sae ABS >
MnO see aes ue 0°95 ats See 0°99
UO! cidcy yi cnt wf cca OOO, 04 ul ening acne
CaO ae AGE sate 12°29 mae ae 12°82
Wamp ie sie aes Si Vy eager 2°41
RAO Ge: te © Aan Ses O62 0 eit a wen 0-99
H,0 ay te sit 3°96 Sac ... (not given)
99°87 9 94°22
1 «¢ Blemente der Gesteinelehre,” p. 361. See also ‘* Mikroscop. Physiogr. der
massigen Gesteine,’’ p. 811. Ee
“© Mitt. der Grossher. Badischen Geol. Landesanstalt,’’ ii, p. 405.
‘¢ Petrology for Students,” 1895, p. 179.
“* Aids to Geology,’’ 1898, p. 262.
Rosenbusch: ‘‘ Klemente,”’ p. 361.
Graeff: loc. cit. 8 From a pamphlet by Professor Steinmann.
‘* Elemente,’’ p. 363. 9 Traces also of Cu and Ni.
2 2 oO er wD
412 Professor Bonney—On Limburgite from Sasbach.
In eight other analyses quoted by Rosenbusch as representing
limburgites we find that
The percentage of SiO, ranges from 40°20 to 44:54
%. Al, Os Af 8-66 ,, 14:89
i MgO ce 6°80 ,, 13°34
5 alkalies Rs 3°50 ,, 8:88!
But the analysis of a very typical peridotite (dunite) is:* SiQ,,
39°61; Al, O,, 1:68; FeO, 8:42; MgO, 42:29; Na,O, 0:01; K,O,
0:02; H,O, 5:89. Total, 97:92 (trace of CaO). Among the other
analyses of peridotites,®> we find that the percentage of Si O, is often
a little higher and that of MgO rather lower, the former rising to
about 45, the latter falling even as low as about 20, when, however,
the CaO and FeO usually increase, so as to bring the total of the
three protoxide bases above 40. The chemical composition of a rock
consisting mainly of olivine (i.e. a peridotite) obviously cannot differ
materially from that of an olivine; a slight rise in the silica per-
centage will indicate the incoming of enstatite, or, with addition of
Ca O, of a monoclinic pyroxene; when the percentage of Al, O, is very
low, that is probably present in a spinellid, but with a higher rise
(say above 4 per cent.) biotite* or white chlorite® or anorthite may
be expected. Thus, as I pointed out several years ago,° limburgite
must be much more closely related to the picrites than to the
peridotites, and I suggested that it should be regarded as a glassy
form of that group.’
None, however, of these authors name felspar or a felspathoid as
a constituent of limburgite, though some hint at the possibility of
their being present, so that it may be worth while to put on record
a demonstration of the fact which I obtained in the Summer of 1895.
I then collected two varieties of limburgite from a large heap by
the roadside, approaching the village of Sasbach, rather more than
amile from the southern quarry at Limburg. One was much less
vesicular (or amygdaloidal) than the other, and looked less likely to
have a vitreous groundmass, so that on my return to England I had
it sliced. Microscopic examination proved it to contain a considerable
quantity of felspar, and I should have published a description of it
at once had I obtained it from the quarry.? So I waited in the hope
1 Generally under 5:5.
2 Wadsworth: ‘‘ Lithological Studies,’’ p. xxiv.
These remarks do not apply to the list given by Professor Rosenbusch, wt supra,
p. 165, but from personal knowledge I must refuse to admit either the Schriesheim
picrite or kimberlite into the peridotites.
* As in the mica-peridotite of Kentucky.
° Asin the Rauenthal serpentines. Here the alumina only amounts to 1-35: see
C. A. Raisin, Q.J.G.8., 1897, pp. 251, 257.
® Pres. Add. Geol. Soc.: Q.J.G.S., 1885, p. 69.
’ This is virtually admitted by Rosenbusch (‘‘ Elemente,’ p. 361, and ‘‘ Mikro.
Phys.,’’ p. 818). Zirkel (iii, 76) will not allow even this, and uses limburgite as
‘a synonym for magma-basalt.
8 Professor Steinmann writes ‘ Limberg’ for the place.
° It is not my custom to be satisfied with specimens thus collected. But I had
been unable to get a carriage at Riegel (as I had been led to expect), and thus had
been obliged to go on foot. It was a hot afternoon, a long and fatiguing walk, and
my time was limited by trains, so that I had to turn back without reaching the hill.
ce
Professor Bonney—On Limburgite from Sasbach. 413
that I might either go there myself (it is now more easy of access)
or get a friend to ascertain the actual relation of this to the more
familiar variety of limburgite. Last Spring, Mr. P. Haas, B.Sc.,
one of my former students at University College, informed me that
he proposed attending lectures at the University of Freiburg, so
I asked him to visit Limburg. Early in the Summer he forwarded
to me a small box of specimens and a rough sketch of the quarry,
on which the position of each was marked, and of which I annex
acopy. This quarry, Mr. Haas informs me, is on the south side of
the hill marked by the ruined castle of Limburg, near the south-
eastern angle; the one from which Professor Rosenbusch obtained
and described specimens being on the north-west side, near the ruin
and overlooking the Rhine.
RirGeelts
Upper flow, limburgite (inaccessible).
Upper tuff.
Middle flow, limburgite.
Lower tuff, much foreshortened, with path on cliff edge. All this is covered by
slipped-down loess, but Mr. Haas saw the tuff at D and in two places near
D’, where also limburgite was exposed in two places (2 marking one of
them), and the relations of the lava and tuff appeared to be irregular here.
Lower flow, limburgite.
Loess, often slipped.
The numerals indicate the positions of the specimens described inj the text,
5 being the dark rock.
Den >
Es
It will save time to arrange the specimens for description
according to their structure rather than their situation in the mass.
The first (1) has a general resemblance to a specimen (purchased)
which has been in my collection for some five and twenty years,
except that its vesicles are a little smaller and more thinly lined
with (white) secondary minerals.' There is a slight but unimportant
difference in the tint of the groundmass, and the visible crystals of
augite are a little smaller. Microscopic examination proves the
larger crystals to be imbedded in a matrix consisting of small
elongated prisms of brownish augite, with a few rods of iron oxide,
1 T have a couple of slices of limburgite, bought nearly as long ago. They show
the usual minerals, imbedded in a rich brown glass, in which also are scattered a few
microliths, apparently a pyroxene.
414 Professor Bonney—On Limburgite from Sasbach.
and of an interstitial material, which sometimes is a brown glass,
sometimes a clear substance, more or less crowded with brown
granules. The latter not unfrequently acts on polarized light, and
in its clearer parts the outlines of a prismatic mineral, apparently
a felspar, may be detected.
(2) Base of the middle mass, right-hand side. The hand specimen
exhibits many crystals of black augite about the same size as in the
first specimen, and small light-rust-brown spots, indicating partly
decomposed olivine, in a chocolate-brown compact matrix. Vesicles
are far from numerous, generally not larger than a mustard-seed,
and usually filled with secondary white minerals. As the larger
minerals—augite, olivine, and iron oxide—as well as the secondary
minerals, zeolites and carbonates, in the vesicles, have been so fully
described by Rosenbusch in his classic memoir on this rock,’ I shall
content myself with referring the reader to its pages, for they are
practically identical. The olivines (hyalosiderite), I may remark,
are frequently, though not universally, idiomorphic, and the augites
generally show a slight pleochroism. This is more marked in
longitudinal sections, giving a distinctly yellowish tint with vibrations
parallel to the vertical axis, and puce-brown with those perpendicular
to it. As in the normal limburgite, the larger minerals, augite,
olivine, and iron oxide, are rather thickly scattered in a groundmass
composed of felted minute prisms of puce-brown augite, with specks
of opacite, flakelets of ferrite, and some colourless belonites,’ and
a clear interstitial material, which in parts is doubly refracting, but
mostly behaves as a glass. This sometimes (though less frequently)
is of a rusty-brown colour, and recalls the base of the typical
limburgite. These augite prisms do not exceed 005” in length,
and are commonly four or five times longer than broad. The ferrite
flakelets act on polarized light, as do some little prisms of the same
colour, but I suspect this material to be little more than a staining.
The groundmass, I may add, is not unlike one figured by Boricky.?
(3) “From the left-hand side of the middle mass of limburgite,”
and (4) ‘From the central part of the pit, a few feet above the floor.”
Both these specimens hardly differ megascopically from No. 2,
except perhaps in being a shade less vesicular; but this is not true
of their groundmass, which, however, is so similar in both, that one
description may serve. No. 8 contains numerous transparent lath-
shaped microliths, up to about -015” long, though in one case double
of this, and the clear material between these and other microliths
(augite, etc.) is doubly refracting, affording low polarization tints,
and resembling an indefinitely crystalline mass of felspar. The
microliths show the characteristic twinning of plagioclase, and
measurements of extinction angles incline me to refer them to
labradorite. The small prisms of augite are much less numerous
than in No. 2, but generally a little larger. The opacite and ferrite
are more or less inclined to cluster in rod-like patterns, and the
1 Neues Jahrbuch, 1872, p. 33.
2 T defer the description of these.
3 «« Petr. Stud. an den Gesteinen Bohmens,”’ pl. ii, fig. 8, and pl. iii, fig. 3.
Professor Bonney—On Limburgite from Sasbach. 415
groundmass is rather variable, being in some parts fairly clear, in
others a sort of micro-ophite or micropegmatite, composed of ferrite
(or some rust-brown mineral) and felspar. The colourless belonites,
mentioned already, are rather abundant. Evidently they con-
solidated at a very early stage, for they are often numerous in the
felspar ; they have a higher refractive index than the felspar, and
the general aspect of fibrolite, but rather low polarization tints and
oblique extinction. This prevents me from referring them to that
mineral, which otherwise they resemble.
(5) Comes from the bottom of the pit (about the middle),
representing the lowest rock exposed. This apparently differs much
from the others. Its colour is greenish-black, slightly mottled in
places with a paler green, so that the augite crystals are less
conspicuous. Cavities are very few, small, and filled with a pale
grey-green mineral. Had I been asked to name the specimen
without knowing whence it had come, I should have replied,
“probably a picrite.” But the microscope shows the differences
to be only varietal, the colour being due to the absence of the rust-
brown iron oxides so common in the others, and the substitution of
a green alteration product in the olivines,’ as is commonly seen in
dark-green serpentines. The groundmass of this specimen is also
a little variable, some parts exhibiting the intercrystallization of
a basic material and felspar described above, while the latter mineral
more commonly forms a clear groundmass of fair-sized crystals, in
which the others are scattered ; it is, in fact, still more nearly
a normal holocrystalline rock than any of the preceding specimens.
The specimen which I collected in 1895 is megascopically very
like Nos. 2, 3, and 4, but under the microscope presents a close
resemblance to Nos. 3 and 4, as well as (allowing for the absence of
the green mineral) to No. 5, with one or two varietal differences.
The elongated little prisms of brown augite are more numerous than
in the latter three; the micropegmatitic structure is much rarer,
for it occurs only as an outgrowth from two or three of the large
augites ; the minerals, large and small (including numerous colour-
less belonites), being imbedded in a clear material, which (as in parts
of those specimens) is a mass of crystallized felspar (without any
separate microliths of the same) often showing the characteristic
twinning of plagioclase.
When engaged in putting together these notes I learnt from Miss
Raisin that she had visited the north-west quarry at Limburg. She
has kindly allowed me to examine her specimens, and slices from three
of them. The resemblance between these rocks from the original
locality and those described above is so close, that a very brief descrip-
tion will suffice. The minerals occurring porphyritically are the same
in all. As regards the groundmass: that of a moderately vesicular
specimen from about the middle part of the crag is much darkened
with opacite and augite microliths, but the clear interstitial material
(not abundant) appears to bea glass. Here and there dark belonites
(? a pyroxene encrusted with a brownish iron-oxide) occur, arranged
1 It affects only the exterior, or penetrates into some of the cracks.
416 Professor Bonney—On Limburgite from Sasbach.
in a sort of ‘fern-leaf’ pattern. The groundmass of a second
specimen (almost free from vesicles) taken not far from the bottom
of the cliff, very closely resembles those I obtained in 1895. The
smaller augite microliths are not numerous, and all the other
constituents are embedded in a clear crystalline groundmass of
plagioclase felspar. In a third specimen, generally similar in
structure, taken from the base of the cliff, aggregated granules of
augite occur locally in a similar groundmass, in which I think
a little nepheline is also present. Thus, felspar is abundant in
much of the rock at both ends of the hill, of which the original
limburgite, with the base of brown glass, is only a local condition.’
According to a section of the Limburg Hill from north-west to
south-east, published by Professor Steinmann in a pamphlet (for
Fie. 2.
Upper flow, limburgite (spheroidal).
Upper tuff.
Middle flow, nepheline-basalt.
Lower tuff (with wood, etc.).
Lower flow, black limburgite.
Upper flow, limburgite (without olivine).
Upper tuff.
Middle flow, limburgite (with phillipsite, etc.).
Lower tuff.
10. Lower flow, ? limburgite or nepheline-basalt.
11. Loess.
From the top of the hill to the bottom of the southern quarry is about 200 feet.
a copy of which I am indebted to Mr. Haas), three flows, parted by
tuffs, are exposed in each quarry. He speaks of the top one in the
northern quarry as limburgite, the middle as nepheline-basalt, the
lower as black limburgite.? In the southern quarry, from which
the specimens described in this paper are taken, the upper is
limburgite without olivine, the middle limburgite, the lower
limburgite or nepheline-basalt. Of the specimens here described,
Nos. 1, 2, and 3 are from the ‘ middle limburgite,’ Nos. 4 and 5
from the ‘lower stream.’ I may say that during my examination of
these rocks (before I read Professor Steinmann’s notes) I was on the
look-out for nepheline. Most of the groundmass is indubitably
felspar, but one or two small crystals included in that, and a little
interstitial mineral (neither very well preserved), are very suggestive
of that mineral, which the analysis would lead us to expect.
These notes, I hope, will make it clear to English readers that the
typical limburgite (like tachylite) is only a local glassy condition
0 SONI? Guy 99 1D
1 Miss Raisin informs me that the specific gravity of a compact specimen is 37058.
2 Herr F. Graeff (loc. cit.) also gives a section, naming the top and bottom flows in
each limburgite and the middle one nepheline-basalt. He notices the different colour
of the mass at the bottom of the southern quarry, and says this has a different habit
from typical limburgite.
T. Mellard Reade—Keuper Maris at Great Crosby. 417
of a rock which elsewhere contains a considerable quantity of felspar,
the one passing into the other in the same quarry, and almost
certainly in the same mass. In a classification it must be completely
separated from the peridotites, for it is related by composition,
on the one hand to the picrites, on the other to the olivine-dolerites,
and so occupies, whether in its glassy or holocrystalline condition,
a transitional position. Thus, if limburgite be restricted to the
vitreous type, a new name must be coined for the other one. It is,
however, I think, worth considering whether it would not suffice to
speak in future of Limburg-tachylite, Limburg-basalt, ete.
V.—AnotHer Srotrion or Kervupsr Maris at Great Crossy,
. LANCASHIRE.
By T. Metuarp Reapg, C.E., F.G.S., F.R.I.B.A.
|‘ 1884 I described in the GrontocicaL Magazine a section of
Keuper Marls exposed by the excavation of the Boulder-clay
at Moorhey, Great Crosby.' This was our first knowledge of their
existence in the neighbourhood, the whole area being covered with
a thick mantle of Boulder-clay excepting where the Lower Keuper
Sandstone comes to the surface in the villages of Great and Little
Crosby.
The Great Crosby Machine Brickworks Company in extending
their operations in Cooks Lane have sunk a well at the bottom
of their brick-pit, proving the Boulder-clay to be 35 feet thick
from the surface at this point. It is of a remarkably homogeneous
constitution and plastic character throughout down to the very base,
there being only a vein of sand 1 foot thick at about 3 feet from
the bottom. ‘The most interesting result of the sinking is, however,
the discovery that it rests upon the Keuper Marls. These Marls
are of a bright blue colour and micaceous. From a personal
examination of the well I found that here the Boulder-clay rested
upon a well-defined surface of the marls which do not appear to be
worked up and mixed with the clay. The well had penetrated
5 feet of the Marls, which fail to show very regular bedding, but
appear to have a general dip to the south-east. A bed of more
gritty material was to be seen on one side of the well, which is
5 feet in diameter, but it became pinched out on the other side.
At a distance of about 440 yards, in a direction 32° south-east,
the Lower Keuper Sandstone crops out near the Police Station,
so that there must exist between the two places a considerable
fault to which may be due the disturbed appearance of the Marls.
It is the intention of Mr. Peters, the managing director of the
Company, to ultimately clear out the whole of the Boulder-clay
to the full depth over most of the area. It was in this Boulder-clay
that the celebrated “‘Gypsum Boulder of Great Crosby,” weighing
18 tons, now erected in the village, was discovered at a depth of
about 20 feet from the surface.’
' Dec. III, Vol. I, pp. 445-7. See also Q.J.G.S., 1885, vol. xli, p. 464.
2 See ‘The Gypsum Boulder of Great Crosby’: Proc. Liverpool Geol. Soc.,
Sess. 1898-99, pp. 347-356.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. IX. 27
418 Notices of Memoirs.
Moorhey, the only other locality where the Keuper Marls have
been proved, is about 7 furlongs to the south-east of the Crosby
Brickworks, and the Lower Keuper Sandstone of the village
intervenes. The Marls at Moorhey, I should say, are somewhat
lower down in the series than those just described. If the whole
area of the pit is bottomed many interesting facts may come to light.
INO tke S] © Ves EVE@is= =
+
I.—Le Dosstrr Hypronocique du régime aquifére en terrains
calcaires, et le réle de la Géologie dans les recherches et études des
travaux d’eaux alimentaires. (Bull. Soc. Belge géol., 1901, x, pt. 5.) —
In a paper of some 180 pages Mr. Van den Broeck replies to the
note of Mr. Thomas Verstraeten entitled ‘‘ Hydrologie des roches,
necessité de préciser les situations et les termes.” The bulk of the
paper is of a controversial nature, but Mr. Van den Broeck has
brought together a great deal of valuable matter relative to the
subject. With a courteous consideration for his readers the author
has provided a detailed table of contents, which occupies 12 pages, and
from this we gather that the paper deals with the following items :—
Hydrology of the Carboniferous rocks; Hydrology of the Chalk ;
of the district round Han-Rochefort, of Bocq and Hoyoux, and of
Remouchamps; the réle of geology in the search for water and in
the application of hydrology, especially in the study of the
aquiferous resources of the Carboniferous System; Hydrology of
Condroz, and of the horizontal beds of Tournai. The author
concludes his paper by saying that it is thanks to the progress
of Geology and Spelzology that these practical questions of applied
hydrology can be easily solved to the great benefit of human
populations.
I].—Maryianp GzoLocicaL Survey: Eocene. (Baltimore, 1901,
pp. 332, 64 plates, map.)—The Eocene deposits of the State of
Maryland are described in this volume by William Bullock Clark
and George Curtis Martin. The description is prefaced with an
excellent map and a bibliography. The deposits are divided into
two formations, the Nanjemoy above and the Aquia below. Both
are rich in fossils, full lists of which are given. The systematic
paleontology begins on p. 93, and is treated of by various specialists.
The Vertebrata are few in number and consist of four crocodiles
and two tortoises, beside the usual tertiary rays and sharks; there
are also remains of Xiphias and Phyllodus. The Crustacea include
some interesting Ostracods described by Ulrich. The Foraminifera,
of the usual Hocene types, are described by R. M. Bagg, who is doing
careful work on these Protozoa, in an area where they have been for
some reason much neglected. The Mollusca by Clark and Martin,
the Coelenterata by Vaughan, and the Bryozoa by Ulrich are all well
illustrated, and will be of great use for comparison. Two small
Carpolithi are described and figured by Arthur Hollick.
Notices of Memoirs. 419
IlJl.—Tue Hontertan Oration, Fepruary 14, 1901. By N. C.
Macnamara, F.R.C.S. 8vo. London, 1901.—This Oration, to which
no title is given, seems to deal with the labours of Hunter and
others on the subject of craniology and the light which it is capable
of throwing on the prehistoric inhabitants of Western Europe, and
of the evolution of the race of men to which we belong. Mr.
Macnamara points out that the inhabitants of Western Europe in
the later Tertiary and early Quaternary period, as regards the
ossification and form, especially of the frontal region, of their
skulls, more closely resembled that of the chimpanzee than the
race of men now inhabiting Europe. Our search for knowledge
is still hampered by the limited supply of the remains of man, but
a good deal of general evidence has been obtained from the stone
implements so common when properly searched for. Mr. Macnamara
believes that the evidence collected proves the existence of man in
Tertiary times. With regard to the skull of Pithecanthropus, he
concurs with the conclusion arrived at by Professor Schwalbe, that
taking both its form and capacity into consideration, ‘‘ it is on the
border line between that of man and anthropoid apes”; it is more
nearly allied to the skulls of the Neanderthal group of men than it
is to the crania of the higher apes; but it is much nearer in
anatomical characters to the skull of the chimpanzee than it is to
the cranium of the average adult European of the present day. The
fact that the inferior gyri of the frontal lobes of the brain are well
marked, and that the superficies of this convolution of the brain is
double that possessed by the largest known anthropoid ape, suggests
that the Java man had in some slight degree the faculty of speech,
and that his intellectual capacity was higher than that of any
anthropoid ape we are acquainted with.
Mr. Macnamara also points out that it should be clearly understood
that up to the present no bona fide human remains belonging to the
early Palzolitic period have been discovered in Western Europe
which are not of the same type as those of the Neanderthal group of
men, whose fore and hind limbs indicate that they were a short ape-
like and powerful race of beings whose average stature did not
exceed five feet. The skulls of men found in geological formations
of the Post-Glacial period have the same physical type as those of the
strictly early Paleolithic epoch of Western Europe, but with increased
brain capacity. These skulls, in the opinion of the author, indicate
a gradual transition in form from the ape-like characters of the
previous period to a higher standard, and certainly to a much
greater skull capacity, especially in the frontal region. Mr.
Macnamara remarks on. the fact that in the recent elections held
in this country, when the question at issue was one in which the
whole of the people of Great Britain were deeply interested, a large
proportion of the inhabitants of England and Scotland, mainly of
Anglo-Saxon origin, voted together on the subject; whereas
a contrary opinion regarding the same question was held by the
greater proportion of the people of Ireland, and to a large extent
by the Welsh, most of whom are derived from Ibero-Mongolian
420 Notices of Memoirs.
ancestors. It is difficult, he says, to account for this diversity in
the sentiments of the people, unless we consider it due to their
racial mental qualities.
The Oration is illustrated with an excellent chart of skulls
belonging to the Paleolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, and existing races
of men.
IV. — Geonocican Lirerature aDDED TO THE GEOLOGICAL
Society’s Lisrary DuRInG THE YEAR ENDED DecempBer 31, 1900.
(London, Geological Society, price 2s.)—This, the seventh annual
record of publications received by the Society, contains 12 pages of
titles of serials and academies, of which parts have been added to
the library during the past year; 109 pages of titles of papers
published in those parts and other separate publications received ;
and 80 pages of treble-entry, double-column index, analytic of the
titles recorded. The work, which is compiled by the librarian,
Mr. Rupert Jones, and edited by the Secretary, Mr. Belinfante,
deserves to be more widely known than to the Fellows themselves,
especially as it is published at so cheap a rate. It provides the best
general annual list of geological literature, the index being of
especial value, and might be made a really first-class record, if the
Society would spend a little more money upon it and include all
publications of a geological nature whether received by the Society
or not. This system of recording—an alphabetical list, properly
indexed—is far and away the most convenient form, and its handy
size can be favourably contrasted with those clumsy quartos which
are the bugbear of the ordinary man’s library.
V.—Buiminz anp Casstpuninz.—No more useful work is done
than that of monographing particular groups. Carlo Fornasini,
most active of the students of the Foraminifera, has just published
a paper on the Italian forms of these genera (Boll. Soc. Geol.
Ital., xx), which he divides into 75 species. He has also published
a paper on the Adriatic forms of the genus Bulimina (Mem. Ac. Sci.
Ist. Bologna, ix). Taking the two papers together they form
a valuable contribution to the subject, one of the most interesting
points being the publication of some of d’Orbigny’s original drawings
of the species founded by him in 1826, and which have since re-
mained difficult of absolute identification. Fornasini has put a note
in the Riv. Ital. Paleont., vii, on the dates of O. G. Costa’s works on
the Foraminifera, dates unknown to Sherborn when he published
his Bibliography in 1888.
VI.—Orner Foramintrerat Pusrications to which the attention
of the student may be profitably directed are: Brown’s list and digest
of the papers published during 1899 (Zool. Record) ; Chapman’s
Foraminifera from the Lagoon at Funafuti (J. Linn. Soc. Zool.,
XXvili), which gives us for the first time a correct account of the
distribution of these organisms across a lagoon, from side to side of
the reef; Adalbert Liebus’ Foraminiferenfauna des Bryozoenhori-
zontes von Priabona (N. Jahrb., i, 1901) ; and Silvestri’s Nodosarine
del Neogene Italiano (Atti Ac. Pont. N. Lincei, liv).
Notices of Memoirs. 421
VII.—Distrisution or VERTEBRATE ANIMALS IN INDIA, CeyLON,
AND Burmaun.—Dr. Blanford, writing in the Proc. Roy. Soc., lxvii,
considers that whilst it is quite possible that other explanations may
be found, it is evident that the peculiarities of the Indian fauna may
have been due to the Glacial epoch. During the coldest portion of
the Glacial epoch a large part of the higher mountains must have
been covered by snow and ice, and the tropical Oriental fauna which
occupied the Himalayas, and which may have resembled that of the
Indian Peninsula more than is the case at present, must have been
driven to the base of the mountains or exterminated. When the
country became warmer, the Transgangetic fauna appears to have
poured into the Himalayas from the eastward. Dr. Blanford, after
discussing the whole matter, says the theory is only put forward as
a possible explanation of some remarkable features in the distribution
of Indian vertebrates. At the same time it does not serve to account
for several anomalies of which some solution is necessary. If thus
accepted, it will add to the evidence, now considerable, in favour of
the Glacial epoch having affected the whole world, and not having
been a partial phenomenon induced by special conditions, such as
local elevation.
VIII.—Spumricat Conoretions oF Grapuite.—The spherical
concretions of graphite in the Granite of the Il/menj were first
noticed by Auerbach in 1856, and afterwards described by Rose in
1872. Messrs. Vernadsky and Schklarevsky now show (Bull. Soe.
Imp. Nat. Moscou, 1900, No. 8) that the inclusions in these con-
cretions consist of crystals of the minerals characteristic of the
Granite—orthoclase, muscovite, biotite, and quartz. The result of
their investigations also show that this form of graphite cannot have
had a pseudomorphic origin, as considered by Rose, but ought to be
considered as a concretion in a granitic magma, analogous to other
cases of large spheroidal inclusions in granite.
IX.— Gxrotoey or Scortanp.—The Geological Society of Glasgow
has recently distributed vol. xi, pt. 2, of their Transactions for
1897-99, but has dated it 1900. We had hoped that this
reprehensible practice had been discontinued in this country, and
hope that on the next occasion the Society issues publications it will
date them accurately. There is a great deal of interesting matter,
of which the following is the chief. The late Dr. Heddle’s paper
on the structure of Agates occupies twenty pages, and is well
illustrated ; it may be termed a systematic treatment of the subject.
Each form is described in detail, and the whole are grouped in
a convenient arrangement according to structure. William Gunn
gives a detailed description of the old volcanic rocks of Arran, with
notes on the sedimentary rocks associated with them, and an
account of the faunz of those beds. Robert Craig writes of the
Greenhill quarries, Kilmaurs, Ayrshire, now closed, and gives an
historical sketch of the various discoveries made in them. Peter
Macnair treats of the physical geology and paleontology of the
Giffnock sandstones, and their bearings on the origin of sandstone
422 Notices of Memoirs.
rock generally. This is illustrated. He refutes the view that they
were of fresh-water origin, and supposes that the contained organic
remains have been destroyed, with the exception of the annelid
burrows, which he points out are invariably the last things to
disappear from percolated sandstones. John Smith has a paper on
the Barite veins of south-west Scotland, which mineral he regards
as probably an exfiltration product, leached out of the rocks by
water, and afterwards re-deposited by the same agent in the veins,
but he cannot yet say which of the rocks it was originally derived
from. ‘The same writer has a note on the ‘China-clay’ mine and
the Water-of-Ayr stone bed at Troon, and gives some details of
localities for radiolarian cherts in Scotland. ‘Two other papers from
his pen are ‘“ The Permian outlier of the Snar Valley, Lanarkshire ”
and “Spango Granite,” the boulders of which latter he considers
were weathered into shape and ready for transport long before the
Glacial Epoch. The other original papers, which are all in abstract
only, are: Goodchild, the Dolerite of Aberdour; Macnair, the
problem of the marginal Highlands ; Smith, detached microliths
from the Pitchstone Sill at Corriegills (in full, with a plate) ;
Ballantyne, a Bute post - Glacial shell - bed; Cowie, Glacial
phenomena of Loch Ranza Glen, Arran; and Horne, the Silurian
Volcanic rocks of the southern uplands of Scotland.
X.—Gerotocy 1n Norrorx.—There are only two papers on
Norfolk Geology in the Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich
Naturalists’ Society, vol. vii, pt. 2, 1901. The first, by F. D. Longe,
is on the formation of flints in chalk. The second, by Professor
Newton, records the occurrence of bones of the common Crane, from
peat, obtained so long ago as 1867-69, while excavating the
Alexandra Dock at Kings Lynn. These bones show a remarkable
variation in size of the tibiz. In the course of his examination of
the Woodwardian Museum collections for purposes of comparison,
Professor Newton found a right tarso-metatarsus of the Pelican,
which further confirms his own and Dr. C. W. Andrews’ statement
that the Pelican was once a native of the Fens in this country.
XI.—TueE Grotogicat Distrizution oF Extinct British Non-
Marine Moztvusca.—R. Bullen Newton contributes a valuable
paper on this subject to the Journal of Conchology. He shows at
a glance the geological range of every recorded species of terrestrial
and fluviatile shells, excluding only those with manuscript names, or
any forms insufficiently described, from the strata of the British
Islands. In his list, as no synonymy is attempted, he has introduced
the original generic name under which the shell was described, and
gives a bibliography of the subject. From a note appended to his
paper, we learn that this list was lent to another person for
incorporation in a recent publication, but on reference to that
publication we find that Mr. Newton’s generosity has been studiously
ignored by the author in his preface, though the list has apparently
been extensively used.
Notices of Memoirs. 423
XII.—Gerotocy or Avustro-Huncary.— Part iii of the new
geological map of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy has just
appeared. It contains two maps, those of the Oberdrauberg-
Mauthen and the Kistanje-Dernis districts, with their accompanying
descriptive pamphlets by Geyer and v. Kerner. In these pamphlets
a full bibliography precedes the descriptive text.
XJ.—Laccorirus or Montana.—Messrs. Weed and Pirsson deal
with the geology of the Shonkin Sag and Palisade Butte Laccoliths
in the Highwood Mountains of Montana in the American Journal of
Science for July, 1901. These laccoliths occur in Cretaceous beds,
and show a central mass of syenite, surrounded by transition rock,
which is in its turn surrounded by shonkinite, the whole having
a rind of leucite basalt porphyry. ‘The authors say that these three
laccoliths form a transitional group; the Shonkin Sag is the flattest,
and also the lowest, and therefore the one most protected from erosion.
Its top, in fact, is just beginning to emerge, and from its laccolitic
character would not be so evident if it were not for the trenching
in it by the former river action which has given such good cross
sections. Square Butte stands much higher and has been exposed
to much greater denudation ; its cover, save in small areas around
the base, has been stripped off, and a considerable part of the
igneous rock removed. Palisade Butte, standing at the same level
as Square Butte, has suffered from the same amount of erosive
agencies, but being smaller in size the relative effect has been
greater and the cover has entirely disappeared, as well as a large
part of the laccolith, so that around it the floor is exposed and only
the central portion of the mass remains. From their observations
the authors have been enabled to provide us with an excellent
account of these interesting structures, which they have illustrated
in a clear and exact manner.
XIV.—Birumen 1n Cusa.—S. F. Peckham shows in the same
Journal that extensive deposits of solid asphaltum exist near the
north coast of Cuba, while springs and wells give indications of the
existence of liquid bitumens of varying density beneath the surface,
over an area of some 4,500 square miles. He is, however, doubtful
if, in view of the enormous production which recent developments
in Texas and Indiana promise, that there is at present any
encouragement fer even experimental drilling in Cuba.
XV.—Gerotocy or Lonpon.—As President of the Geologists’
Association of London, Mr. Whitaker in his annual address to that
energetic body dealt with a subject which he has made peculiarly
his own. The result is a valuable summary of the papers which
have been written on London Geology (to the base of the Drift)
since 1888. No less than fifty-nine papers are summarized, and
thus rendered easily accessible to general readers. Mr. Whitaker
regrets that tendency to over-division of the beds of the Drift so
bewildering, as he says, to “simple-minded people like himself.”
He has also some pertinent remarks on gravels and their ages.
424 Correspondence—J. Adam Watson.
XVI.—Suorter Nortces.—A Geological Map and Report on
the Tarcoola District, by H. Y. L. Brown, has just reached us. It
is part of the Records of the Mines of South Australia, and deals
mainly with gold supply.
Tue Carnegie Museum at Pittsburgh, which was opened in 1895,
is described in the Popular Science Monthly for May, 1901, by
Dr. J. W. Holland, the Director. Professor Hatcher is making full
use of Mr. Carnegie’s special fund for research in paleontology, and
it is interesting to read that the most perfect specimen of Diplodocus
longus, six imperfect skeletons of Brontosaurus, and the largest
known Mastodon are in the Museum.
Mr. J. C. Manset-Pieypext has published in the Proceedings
of the Dorset Field Club for 1900 a paper on the Influence of
Climatic and Geological Changes upon the British Flora. His
annual address for 1900 dealt with the geological history of Pisces.
That for 1901, still to be published, dealt with the geological history
of the Amphibia and Reptilia.
CORRESPONDENCE.
A SUGGESTED LINK IN THE ‘BREAK’ BETWEEN PALAOLITHIC
AND NEOLITHIC MAN.
S1tr,—In the very interesting paper by Sir Henry Howorth in the
August number of your Magazine, we find that to him the great
gap between Paleolithic and Neolithic Man means a great
catastrophe. In the present attitude of geological opinion, such
a statement appears somewhat startling. But if we restrict the
meaning of the word ‘catastrophe,’ as used by Sir Henry, to the
occurrence in ancient times of climatic and physical changes of
similar nature to those taking place around us at the present day,
though of very much greater intensity, probably no geologist is now
so rigidly uniformitarian in his views as to refuse to accept it.
The facts before us are these:—During some portion of the
Pleistocene Period, probably owing to the co-operation of astro-
nomical and geographical causes, climatic and physical changes, of
an intensity which it is difficult for us to realize, were brought about.
One of the results of these changes was the distribution of the
Drift. There can be little doubt that when this took place man
had already made his appearance upon earth. Indeed, Sir Henry is
satisfied with such evidence as we possess that his existence dates
back even into the previous Pliocene Period. However that may
be, and whether we hold that earliest man was Holithic or
Paleolithic, all physical traces of him disappear, with the exception
of his imperishable flint implements and a few doubtful bones; and
when he next appears on the scene, he has undergone the very
considerable advance in development indicated by his entrance on
the Neolithic stage. Sir Henry holds that the great gap between
Paleolithic and Neolithic man is coincident and in all probability
connected with the distribution of the Drift.
Correspondence—J. Adam Watson. 425
However catastrophic in its occurrence the distribution of the
Drift may have been, it is obvious that the progress made by man
in his passage from the Paleothic to the Neolithic stage was not
characterized by that suddenness which is ordinarily associated with
the term. Of the history of that progress, of the place of man’s
abode during it, we know nothing. ‘There is a true ‘gap’ or ‘break.’
In geology and archeology these two words simply imply that
our knowledge as to the periods of time concerned is imperfect, and
we always expect to find certain of the missing links of the chain
of evidence come to light, which they sometimes do in unexpected
places.
Is there any link to be found, however remote, to help to bridge
over that extraordinary gap between Paleolithic man and his
Neolithic successors? I believe there is one, and that it is to be
found in the almost universal tradition of a ‘deluge’—a tradition
which appears to me to have been handed down from our Paleolithic
ancestors through the Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages of their
successors, and to have reached us as a dim and misty conception of
their ideas of the—let us call it very bad weather—of the Pleistocene
Period. That the story as conveyed to us from Asiatic sources is
very different from that written on the page of the rocks in Northern
Europe, is not surprising. All tradition undergoes a process of
corruption as it is handed down from age to age, and the particular
form in which the deluge tradition has reached us is obviously no
exception to the rule. Unfortunately, when such a theory is
advanced, it is usually seized upon as a confirmation of the
miraculous inspiration of Scripture. It is no such thing.
I cannot claim originality for the theory, because I find in
Mr. Tiddeman’s “Work and Problems of the Victoria Cave Ex-
ploration,” 1875, the following passage :—“ As similar evidences of
a submergence late in the glacial period have been observed over
large areas in the Old and the New World, and in both hemispheres,
in mean latitudes, it may be that the traditions so common to many
races and religions of a great deluge are but lingering memories of
this great event. It matters not that these myths all differ in their
surroundings. The central core still has the solid ring of truth,
albeit masked and disfigured by the rust of time.”
I venture to suggest that the theory that the deluge tradition
is the one and only link which bridges over the gap between
Paleolithic man and ourselves, his descendants, is one which is
worthy of more attention than it has hitherto received.
J. Apam Watson.
‘“s Hay Tor,’’ Denntneton Park Roap, Hampsteap.
August 18, 1901.
EOLITHIC MAN.
Srr,—It is remarkable that in a quasi-geological paper by a well-
known writer should have been allowed to pass current such
a statement as that at p. 340 (Geor. Maa., August issue), to the
effect that “Huxley caused McEnery’s now famous memoir to be
426 Correspondence—T. Rupert Jones.
locked up at the Royal Society for years after his death.” The
Rev. McHEnery’s reports on Kents Cavern were finished about 1826,
and Professor Huxley having been born in 1825 must have been
always under age and without influence in the Royal Society whilst
McEnery’s paper was supposed to be ‘lost,’ but really kept
in the background by influence of the Rev. Dean Buckland, who
ascribed the occurrence of anything like human implements to
burials of late date, as I myself have heard him affirm at a meeting
of the Geological Society.
The reference to Professor Huxley in the paper alluded to above
is probably only one of the evidences of the hasty character of
the paper; but at first sight it appears, not only uncalled for, but
unkind.
Some of his friends, like the writer of this critique, will regret
Sir H. Howorth’s inability to recognize the actual classification of
eoliths as practically established by Prestwich, and illustrated in
his own and B. Harrison’s collections, as well as in the Museum
of the Geological Survey, Royal College of Science, the British
Museum (Natural History Branch), and elsewhere. Also, it is
lamentable that he cannot appreciate Prestwich’s lucid explanation
of the geological history and settlement of the eolithic gravel of the
Chalk Downs, as reproduced in Mr. Bullen’s pamphlet, to which he
alludes as having read.
To other shortcomings we need not refer; it is a pity that there
should be any, for the author is doubtless an industrious gatherer
of facts and notions, evidently so when he seems to have searched
one set of about twenty volumes, “1829-50” (!), for the history of
Ami Boué’s discovery of bones near the Lahr (p. 339).
T. Rupert Jones.
EOLITHIC IMPLEMENTS.
Srr,—Sir H. H. Howorth, F.R.S., has done me the honour of
mentioning in the GxoLnocicaL Magazine for August my little
paper on the above subject.
Like Balaam, having set himself to curse Israel, he has instead
blessed them altogether. On p. 342 he says (assuming their identity
with paleoliths), ‘Such remains are claimed to have been found
at that horizon [the Forest Bed] in Norfolk by Mr. Abbott and
Mr. Savin, in Dorsetshire by Dr. Blackmore, and they have been
also reported from the same horizon at St. Prest in France and
in the Val d’Arno, north of Italy, in each case the remains of
human workmanship being accompanied by those of EH. meridionalis.
I believe these finds are quite genuine.” (Italics mine.) The im-
plements referred to as Dr. Blackmore’s, pl. iii in my paper, have,
as a matter of fact, an eolithic facies, and Sir H. H. Howorth’s
admission concedes all that for which Sir Joseph Prestwich’s followers
contend. “I thank thee, Roderick, for that word !”
Sir Henry mentions five men as upholding eoliths, including their
original discoverer, Mr. Benjamin Harrison, and that paladin of
Correspondence—R. Ashington Bullen. 427
geologists, Sir Joseph Prestwich, who first employed his vast
geological learning in their defence; but the list may be largely
extended, especially among the rising generation of geologists and
anthropologists, not omitting, of course, Professor Rupert Jones and
the late acute and careful observer Dr. H. Hicks.
Let the following extract from M. A. Rutot’s letter serve as
a sample of the encouraging letters received since my paper has
been issued. He says: “ En Belgique, il n’y a pas beaucoup a com-
battre pour faire admettre les eolithes comme industrie humaine.
Depuis plus de 15 ans, nous sommes habitués & Vindustrie Me-
svinienne, et la connaissance de cette industrie nous a facilité la
comprehension des industries plus primitives, eutel-mesvinienne
et Reutelienne, et aussi celle des eolithes d’Angleterre et des silex
tertiaires. . . . . Dans la question des eolithes vous pouvez
étre certain d’étre vigoureusement soutenu en Belgique.”
[‘*In Belguim, there is not much opposition to overcome in causing eoliths to be
accepted as of human workmanship. For more than 145 years we have been used
to the work of the Mesvinian period []’iudustrie Mesvinienne], and our acquaintance
_with this has rendered easier the understanding of more primitive types of work-
manship, e.g., Reutel-mesvinian and Reutelian, as well as that ot the English
eoliths and of flints of the Tertiary period [des silex tertiares] :
With regard to the question of the eoliths you can be sure of 1 vigorous support in
Belgium. 2
The time is approaching when there will be few or no sceptics
on the authenticity of eoliths, and I thank Sir Henry for having,
though unconsciously, ranged himself on their side. By the way,
“W. J. Lewis,” Grot. Mac., p. 342, must be a slip for W. J.
Lewis Abbott, F.G.S. The late ardent collector of palzoliths was
Henry Lewis. R. Asnineton Buen.
‘‘THE EARLIEST TRACES OF MAN.”
Sir,—In this article the author (Sir Henry Howorth, K.C.1.E.,
F.R.S., F.G.S.) taxes the upholders of EHolithic man with an
insistence on their views both ‘‘in season and out of season.”
This charge comes rather strangely from the author of the “ Glacial
Nightmare,” etc., and one is at a loss to see either the force or
even the meaning of it. All true workers in any science should
gladly welcome from others any fresh views, even if they do
conflict with previously accepted ones; and had these tended to
strengthen those of Sir Henry, they no doubt would have been
eagerly accepted by him, and would always have been in season
even if forced.
Sir Henry admits to an obstinacy which he says has been stiffened
and his scepticism increased by those so-called Holiths. Now we
all welcome honest scepticism, but surely obstinacy is out of place,
or should be, in the truly scientific mind. Obstinacy, too, is
generally the outcome of prejudice, and this seems to be the case
in this Holithic question.
He speaks as if the uses of all the Paleolithic implements were
well known—we can only guess at most of them—and expects to find
in the Eoliths forms parallel with them, and hence by inference
428 Correspondence—F. D. Bennett—A. R. Hunt.
a race of men of similar habits and modes of life, and because
such is not the case dismisses them with a sarcasm. All hairy
animals do scratch a great deal, and even Job scraped himself, and
so we may infer that scraping with a kind of ‘scraper’ was
common in his by no means very early period. He expects man
to have sprung at one bound over the vast period that separates
him from the mere animal to that of the comparatively highly
specialized being he was in the Paleolithic period. He thus ignores
the fact that the rudest existing savage, who lives mostly on roots,
and so needs very few tools of any kind, was far surpassed by
Paleolithic man, the hunter of the Mammoth, etc.
In reference to the implements from the Forest Bed we regard
them as Koliths, and even Sir John Evans would hardly class them
as Paleoliths. Also Holiths do occur with the Paleoliths both on
the plateau and in the valley gravels. Again, as to M. Boucher
de Perthes, an exact parallelism exists between his case and that
of Mr. Harrison, and one has only to substitute the one name
for the other in Sir Henry’s account; yet Sir Henry evidently
cannot see the identity of position; one wonders much if he
would have been on the side of M. Boucher de Perthes. We
maintain, too, that Mr. Harrison’s case is the stronger, as he has
had all the past experience of others to aid him, coupled with the
extensive knowledge he has gained since. Sir Henry speaks of
thousands of shapeless stones with no classification; let him call
and see Mr. Harrison’s collection with an open mind. Is it likely
that the men who find and bring these stones to those who collect
them—and they do not bring them by cartloads—could do so unless
they perceived that these objects had a distinctive type of their own.
But I must now leave Sir Henry to those whom he has directly
attacked by name; they will no doubt answer him in greater detail
and more conclusively. F. D. Brnyert.
West Malling.
THE LATE REV. J. McENERY.
Str,—Referring to Sir Henry Howorth’s suggestion that Professor
Huxley was instrumental in suppressing McEnery’s Kents Cavern
evidence,’ it is important to bear in mind that McEnery died in
1841, when Huxley was 16 years of age; that McHEnery’s
MSS. were left in an incomplete state; that they are in the
possession of the Torquay Natural History Society ; and that they
were never in the custody of the Royal Society. The suppression
of the Kents Cavern and Brixham Cave evidence is a very long
story, and one long subsequent to McHnery’s death. The late
Edward Vivian, in 1859, in his “Cavern Researches” published
the pith of McEHnery’s investigations, and subsequently Pengelly
published McHnery’s MSS. in their entirety, so far as they have
been preserved, verbatim et literatim. A. R. Hunt.
Southwood, Torquay.
August 10, 1901.
1 Grou. Mac., August, 1901, p. 340.
Obituary—Baron Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskiold. 429
RECENT DENUDATION IN NANT FFRANCON.
Str,—When examining the scene of the flood described in this
Magazine last February I could not satisfy myself as to whether
any channels had previously existed at the same place. My friend
Mr. Dakyns informed me, however, that destruction of culverts is
mentioned in a description of the damage done to the road. It is
clear, therefore, that former channels did exist, and that the whole
of the excavation cannot be ascribed to the flood of last August.
I think, though, that the old channels must have been small, for if
deposition be a measure of denudation, the recent excavating work
done must have been very great.
I should like to take this opportunity to again suggest how
valuable some regular record would be of denudation observed at the
present time. Epwarp GREENLEY.
@ 3 OA rea
————
BARON NILS ADOLF ERIK NORDENSKIOLD,
Pu.D., For. Meme. Grou. Soo. Lonp., Naruratisr anp ARcTIC
EXPLoRER.
Born Novemper 18, 1832. Diep Aveust 13, 1901.
Wirt deep regret, we have to record the sudden death near
Stockholm of Professor Baron Nordenskidld, the eminent Naturalist
and Arctic Explorer. Of a Swedish family long settled in Finland,
Nordenskiéld was born in Helsingfors, the capital of that country,
his father, Dr. Nils Gustaf Nordenskidld, the eminent mineralogist,
who died in 1866,' being at that time Director of Mines for Finland.
Naturally, therefore, his ardent sympathies were always enlisted in
favour of the land of his birth.
His family had long been eminent in science, and his inherent
tastes were fostered and developed by the surroundings of his home
at Frugard, which contained extensive collections of minerals and
natural history specimens, and by his journeys with his father. On
entering the University of Helsingfors in 1849 he devoted himself
almost entirely to scientific studies, spending his vacations in
excursions to the rich mineral localities of Finland. In 1855 he
took his degree as licentiate, and was immediately appointed a mining
official of the Government. From this post, however, he was
dismissed in the same year for having indulged in pleasantries at
the expense of the Russian Government at a private students’ feast.
A temporary absence being deemed advisable, he continued his
studies at Berlin, but in 1857 returned to take his doctor’s degree at
Helsingfors. As ill-luck would have it, however, a deputation from
the Swedish Universities was then entertained at Helsingfors, and the
young doctor in an after-dinner speech again showed his sympathies
1 See Gror. Maa., 1866, Vol. III, p. 288.
430 Obituary—Baron Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskiold.
too plainly. The affair might have been smoothed over, but
Nordenskidéld refused to apologise, and was banished the country.
As may be supposed, the viking philosopher was received with
open arms by the Swedes, and after little more than a year was
appointed Professor and Keeper of the Mineralogical collections at the
Vetenskaps-Akademi in succession to Mosander. Earlier in the same
year (1858) he had entered on his Arctic travels by accompanying
Torell to Spitzbergen, and in 1861 the two geologists undertook
a more complete exploration of the island. Three years later
Nordenskiold headed an expedition, which mapped the southern
part of Spitzbergen, and started the great work of measuring an
arc of the meridian in those regions. The explorers met with some
shipwrecked walrus hunters, however, and were obliged to return,
their provisions being inadequate to maintain so large an addition
to the party. Nordenskiold now had higher ambitions, but money
was lacking, and turning for help to the rich merchants of Gothenburg
he initiated the long alliance with Oskar Dickson, productive of so
much good to Arctic exploration. The steamer Sofia, which carried
the winter post to Gotland, was obtained, and in 1868 Nordenskiold,
with the present cabinet minister, Baron F. W. von Otter, as
navigating officer, managed to attain the high latitude of 81 deg.
42 min.—a latitude previously exceeded only by Parry, who in
1827, going with sledges from the Hecla in the same direction,
reached 82° 45’N. Subsequently this attainment has been surpassed
more than once, as by Charles Hall, who in 1871 reached 82° 16’,
Payer in 1874 (82° 5’), A. Markham in 1875-6 (88° 20’), Lockwood
of the Greely Expedition in 1884 (83° 24’), while the exploits of
Nansen (86° 14’) and the Duke of Abruzzi, 22 miles further north,
will be fresh in the memory of our readers.
In 1870 Nordenskidld set out on a short visit to Greenland to
ascertain if possible whether Esquimaux dogs would be suitable
for sledge-journeys to the pole. During his stay in Greenland he
made an expedition into the interior over the inland ice-sheet and
examined the Tertiary plant deposits at Atanekerdluk, where he
discovered erect bituminized tree-trunks of Tertiary age in siti,
proving that they had grown upon the spot (some were 2 feet in
diameter), associated with beds of lignite and layers of dicotyle-
donous leaves. He also made important observations upon the
inland ice-sheet and the glaciers on the coast, and discovered the
great blocks of so-called meteoric iron at Ovifak, the largest of
which weighed about 19 tons, the next 8 tons, and the third 6 tons.
(See Prof. Nordenskiéld’s account of his voyage, Guo. Maa., 1872,
Vol. IX, pp. 289, 355, 409, 449, 516, and 88.) These masses are
now shown to be of telluric origin and to have been ejected
probably in Miocene Tertiary times, with the deep-seated basaltic
flows through which metallic iron, of a similar character, is found
to be disseminated. His belief in their cosmic origin, however, was
fortunate in so far as it led Nordenskidld to the further study of
meteorites, while his observations on the surface of the Arctic
ice-fields led to the well-known speculations on the falling of
cosmic dust.
Obituary—Baron Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskiold. 431
Nordenskiéld felt convinced that he could reach a much higher
latitude by wintering in Spitzbergen and_ utilizing sledges.
Accordingly he sailed thither in 1872 in the Polhem, accompanied
by two tenders. Unfavourable conditions of the ice rendered the
geographical results less important than he hoped; but he discovered
fossil plants of great importance to the history of climatology during
former geological epochs. Moreover, with Lieutenant Palander,
now the Swedish Minister of Marine, he successfully surveyed part
of North-East Land, and in the following July the vessels were
extricated from their winter quarters at Mossel Bay, on the north
coast of Spitzbergen, and returned home richly laden with important
scientific collections.
Nordenskiéld now turned his attention to the exploration of
Siberian waters, and in 1875, following the pioneers Carlsen (1869)
and Wiggins (1874), he sailed through the Kara Sea to the Yenissei,
and ascended the river in a small boat, returning home overland.
In the following year, after a flying visit to the Philadelphia
Exhibition, he introduced merchandise by sea to Siberia, returning
in the autumn with his steamer by way of the Kara Sea and
Matotschkim Sound. These experiences gave Nordenskisld a
reasonable hope of accomplishing the North-East Passage, and
the King of Sweden, Mr. Oskar Dickson, and Mr. Sibiriakoff at
once lent their aid to the project.
In July, 1878, Nordenskidld, with Palander as navigator, started
in the Vega, accompanied by two smaller ships. She was the first
vessel to double the most northern point of the Old World—Cape
Tchelyuskin. She wintered near Behring’s Straits, and once more
free in July, 1879, reached Japan on September 2. After a triumphal
passage home around Asia and Europe, Nordenskidld was enthu-
siastically welcomed at Stockholm on April 24, 1880, and laden
with honours, being created Baron and appointed a Commander of
the “ Nordstjerne Orden” (Order of the North Star). In 1883
Nordenskiodld made his second voyage to Greenland, where he
investigated the inland ice, and succeeded in penetrating with a ship
through the dangerous ice-barrier along the east coast of that country
south of the Polar circle, a feat in vain attempted during three
hundred years by different Arctic expeditions.
Thus, at the age of 51, he brought to a close a career of
exploration comparable in the magnitude of its results with that
of a Vasco di Gama or a Maghelhaéns. But his intellectual activity
was by no means ended. His own explorations furnished material
for numerous books and memoirs, such as the account of his first
visit to Greenland in 1870 (see Grou. Maa., loc. cit.), “The
Voyage of the Vega round Asia” (1881), and the ‘Second Swedish
Expedition to Greenland” (1885). His professional work as Keeper
of the Mineralogical Division of the State Museum in Stockholm
led him to contribute many valuable papers to the publications of
the Academy of Science and various technical journals, as those in
which he described the new minerals Crookesite, Laxmannite,
Thaumasite, and Cleveite. Combined with his love of active
432 Obituary—Baron Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskiold.
exploration was a deep interest in the history of past geographical
discovery and the development of cartography, This gave rise to
the preparation of his great “ Facsimile Atlas to the Early History
of Cartography” (1889), translated by Ekel6éf and Sir Clements.
Markham, and to the equally large complementary work, illustrated
with numerous facsimile reproductions of ancient manuscript maps
and portolani, and issued in 1897 under the title “ Periplus: an
essay on the early history of Charts and sailing directions,” the
English translation being by F. A. Bather. Nordenskidld, indeed,
was half a bookworm, and thus it is that when the Vega reached
Japan, he employed his stay there in buying up every book and
manuscript he could lay hands on, thus forming the finest collection
of Japanese books in Hurope. A catalogue of it, by Professor
Léon de Rosny, was published at Paris in 1883.
A feature of Nordenskidld’s work, even in its most active
manifestations, was always the underlying philosophy, sometimes
appearing to the public very remote and speculative, sometimes
fantastical if not absolutely erroneous, but leading as a rule to
success and to results of practical value. Thus his views on the
origin of cracks in igneous rock, originally sketched out thirty-three
years ago in a paper on the geology of Spitzbergen, led ultimately
to numerous deep borings for water in the gneiss and granite of
Sweden and Finland; some account of these was published in.
Natural Science for September, 1895. Nordenskiold also busied
himself with a project for an expedition to the Antarctic, which,
however, came to nothing at the time. It is interesting, however,
to note that his nephew Otto Nordenskiold has been appointed to
take command of the Swedish Antarctic expedition.
At various periods from 1869 onwards Nordenskiold added to
his other duties those of politician, sitting in the Swedish Parliament,.
first as Liberal member for Stockholm, and subsequently in the
Upper House. It is not long since he took part in the deputation
that journeyed in vain to St. Petersburg to lay before the Tsar
a petition on behalf of the Finnish nation.
Baron Nordenskiold leaves a widow, a married daughter, and
a son, whose mourning is shared by the whole Swedish nation, and
by people of culture throughout the world. The son, Hrland, is now
on an exploring expedition in Patagonia; his elder brother, Gustaf
Hrik Adolf, died in 1895, at the age of 27, thus cutting short
a career that promised to be one of excellence both as geologist
and archeologist.—F. A. B.
Errata.—Mr. J. P. Johnson asks us to make the following
corrections in his article ‘‘Some Sections in the Cretaceous Rocks
around Glynde,” which appeared in the June number: p. 249,
last line of text, and p. 250, line 11 from bottom, for Cuvieri read
Brongniarti.—In Mr. F. R. Cowper Reed’s article, August number,
page 358, for Pleurotomaria reniformis, Salter, read Pleurotomaria
uniformis, Salter.
THE
GHOLOGICAL MAGAZINE.
NEW SERIESU7 (DECADE IV." VOL. VINK
No. X—OCTOBER, 1901.
OBRELGENAL AR TrLChaesS-
—S—s
J.—On some CARBoNIFEROUS SHALE FROM SIBERIA.
By Professor T. Rupert Jonzs, F.R.S., F.G.S., etc.
(PLATE XVI.)
Introduction.
N December last M. J. Tolmatschow, Conservator of Geology in
the Museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Peters-
burg, sent for my examination a quantity of two fossiliferous shales
from the (Upper?) Coal- measures in the Basin of Kousnetzk,
thinking that specimens of Estheria might be found in them.
Both the shales came from sections on the Upper Ters River,
a right affluent of the Tan River. From one locality (on the
Toostooérr River) most of the shale, like that from the other locality
(Boogtasch Mountain), is very flaky and friable; but some beds of
the former constitute a hard and thick Posidonomya-shale.
Both shales are dark in colour, here and there somewhat bitu-
minous, and accompanied by a film of coal in one specimen. The
surfaces of the shale bear crowds of flattened valves of Anthracomye
and Posidonomye, often much distorted by pressure, rarely keeping
the shell, and usually presenting only a black shiny film.
Description of Specimens. (Plate XVI.)
No. I (Figs. 1-4).—This is a right valve, flattened and lengthened
by pressure ; obliquely ovate, nearly straight above, elliptically
rounded below; higher behind than in front; extremities rounded ;
the posterior more produced than the anterior end, at an angle of
25°-30° with the superior border (hinge-line). Concentric lines
thin and numerous.
These features seem to agree with some of Dr. W. Hind’s figures
of Anthracomya minima (Ludwig), as published in his Mon. Pal.
Soc., 1895, pt. ii, p. 116, pl. xvi, figs. 21, 22, 24-30. Fig. 23 is
referred (perhaps wrongly) to a variety of A. levis, Dawson, but has
much of the appearance of 4. minima.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. X. 28
434 Prof. T. Rupert Jones—Carboniferous Shale from Siberia.
Posidonomya membranacea, McCoy (Synop. Carb. Foss., p. 78,
pl. xiii, fig. 14), is an elongate form with delicate concentric lines;
but it is larger, and differs in shape from Fig. 1; it also has some
longitudinal lines crossing the others. P. lateralis, Sowerby &
Phillips, is also one of the obliquely elongate species, but it is much
larger, and it has coarse concentric wrinkles.
No. II (Figs. 6 and 7).—This right valve is evidently allied to
the foregoing, but has proportionately less length, a fuller convexity
of the postero-inferior margin, and a greater obliquity, at an angle
of 40° with the hinge-line. This may probably belong to Anthra-
comya levis, Dawson.
No. III (Fig. 5).—This is a left valve, having features similar to
those of Figs. 6 and 7, but much more pronounced. The obliquity
is 65° instead of 40°. The hinge-line is short, and the postero-
inferior margin is elongate - elliptical, The concentric lines are
not so neat. This is possibly a variety of A. levis, modified by
pressure.
No. IV (Figs. 16, 17).—This left valve has a much more truly
rounded inferior margin than that of Fig. 5, and approximates
to a semicircle; its obliquity to the hinge-margin is greater (75°).
It may be compared with some of the figures of Anthracomya
Valenciensis, R. Ktheridge, jun., given by Dr. W. Hind (Mon. Pal.
Soc., 1895, p. 113, pl. xvi, figs. 44-48).
No. V.—Figs. 8-15 are subovate Posidonomye (P. subovata), having
the umbo either more or less excentric or just in the middle of the
hinge-line. They have a nearly semicircular inferior margin, and
numerous concentric lines, ridgelets, or rugule. Fig. 10 has the
umbo near the middle of the upper margin ; and is very similar in
shape to Posidonomya punctaiella, Jones, from a Lower Carboniferous
shale in Western Scotland. It measures 8mm. transversely, by
6mm. in height. Many larger valves, found in the same shales,
having a similar shape, but with fewer and stronger concentric
ridges, have been regarded as adult individuals, measuring 32 x 22,
30 x 18, 29 x 22, 28 x 20, 20 x 11, as I was informed by my old
friend the late Dr. J. Young, of Glasgow, who sent me many
sketches of them, with strong concentric ridges and nearly semi-
circular valves. These shales, especially at Dalry in Ayrshire and
Thornliebank near Glasgow, bear crowds of Posidonomye, con-
centrically ribbed, oblong-ovate in shape, mostly equilateral, with
more or less median umbo and semicircular inferior margin. Among
them, at Linn Spout,’ Dalry, and at Arden quarry, Thornliebank,
occurred the P. punctatella, Jones,” once regarded as an /stheria
(1869), but afterwards proved to be a Posidonomya (1890), and it is
1 For a section of the Upper Linn limestone and Posidonomya bed of the Lower
Carboniferous Series at Linn Spout, see the Mon. Brit. Pal. Phyll., Paleont.
Soc., 1899, pt. iv, p. 208.
2 Trans. Geol. Soc. Glasgow, 1867, vol. ii, p. 71, pl. i, fig. 5; 1890, vol. ix,
pp. 85-87, pl. v, fig. 7.
\
Prof. T. Rupert Jones—Carboniferous Shale from Siberia. 435
well-matched in shape by our Fig. 10; but the latter is destitute
of the punctate ornament, and the former may be the young form
of a different species (P. subovata, nov.).
The shell-structure in our specimens is not pitted nor clearly
prismatic, but is full of delicate lines of fissure, parallel with the
thick, radiating breakages, corrugations, or pressure-folds; and
causing the shell to come away in subquadrangular pieces, which
are variously modified by decomposition before they are quite
removed from the internal cast. The straightness of the micro-
scopic fissures, and the regular edges of the separated pieces of
the shell, may be due to the presence of a crystalline or quasi-
prismatic structure not otherwise indicated.
In Figs. 8-15, as also in Figs. 5-7, the vertical markings crossing
the concentric lines and riblets are due to pressure reducing the
convexity of the original shell.
P. corrugata, R. Etheridge, jun. (Gon. Mae., 1894, p. 304,
PL XIU, Figs. 4-6), occurring in the same shale at Linn Spout,}
has a distant relationship with P. punctatella and subovata. Its
concentric lines, however, are crossed by rough crumplings; and
in its shape it differs from the other. Its variable and coarse
radial lines are evidently regarded by the author as congenital,
like the vertical ribs in P. costata, McCoy (Synop. Carb. Foss., p. 78,
pl. xiii, fig. 15), and, if the figures which he gives are of the
natural size, P. corrugata is much larger than Figs. 8-15.
No. VI. Fig. 18 (Postdonomya concinna, nov.).—This is part of
a larger Posidonomya, with numerous, distinct, narrow, concentric
ridges, with smaller parallel lines between. There are more perfect
specimens of this rotundo-ovate form in the collection, measuring
18 mm. vertically and 20 mm. transversely.
This is characteristically abundant in some of the more solid shale
at the Toostooérr River, accompanied by small Posidonomye and
numerous obscure organic fragments.
No. VII (Beyrichia Kirkbyana, nov.).—Scattered throughout the
shales, especially those from the Boogtasch Mountain, are numerous
specimens of a small Beyrichia, about 1 mm. long.
It is characterized by the two moieties of the valve being always
swollen, and separated by a dorso-medial sulcus, within and on one
side of which is a little tubercle; and the whole surface is neatly
reticulate.
This little Entomostracon is related to other Carboniferous
Beyrichig, such as B. impressa (McCoy) and 2B. cratigera (G. S.
Brady).
I propose to dedicate it to my lately deceased friend and fellow-
worker James Walker Kirkby, for whose work among the minute
fossils of the Carboniferous and Permian Series geologists owe great
thanks.
1 Catal. West. Scot. Fossils, 1876, p. 52.
436 Dr. C. W. Andrews—Extinct Egyptian Vertebrates.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE XVI.
Fic. 1.—Anthracomya minima (Ludwig), Hind. Right valve. Natural size,
10 by 5mm.—Fig. 2, magnified.
», 8.—A. minima (Ludwig), Hind. Rightvalve. Natural size, 13 by 8 mm.—
Fig. 4, magnified.
», 5.—A. levis, Dawson. Variety. Left valve, magnified. Natural size,
8 by 6mm.
» 6.—A. levis, Dawson. Right valve. Natural size,7 by 5mm.—Fig. 7,
magnified.
», 8.—Posidonomya subovata, sp. nov. Left valve. Natural size, 7 by 5mm.—
Fig. 9, magnified.
», 10.—P. subovata, nov. Right valve, magnified. Natural size, 8 by 6 mm.
», 11.—P. subovata, nov. Left valve. Natural size, 44 by 3mm.—Fig. 12,
magnified.
», 18.—P. subovata, nov. Left valve. Natural size (of Fig. 15), 6 by 44 mm.
», 14.—P. subovata, nov. Left valve, showing the interior; magnified. Natural
size, 8 by 6mm. This is not the magnified view of Fig. 13.
», 15.—P. subovata, nov. Magnified view of Fig. 13.
5, 16.—Anthracomya Valenciensis, Etheridge. Left valve. Natural size,
7 by 7mm.—Fig. 17, magnified.
5, 18.—Posidonomya concinna, nov. Fragment. Size of the original shell,
20 by 18 mm.
The enlarged Figures are magnified about three times.
I].—Pretiminary Note on some Recentty DiscovereD Hxtinct
VERTEBRATES FROM Heypr. (Parr II.)
By Cuas. W. Anprews, D.Sc., F.G.S., British Museum (Nat. Hist.).
Mammatta (continued).
Kotherium egyptiacum, Owen.
N the lower beds remains of a Sirenian are very common, and
several more or less complete skulls associated with some portions
of the skeleton were found. The skull in most respects resembles
that of Halitherium. The snout is strongly deflected and bears
_ a pair of downwardly directed incisor tusks. There are about seven
cheek-teeth, resembling in pattern those of Halitherium. The roof
of the skull between the temporal fossz is flat. A cast of the brain-
case has been made, and in most respects it resembles that described
by Owen’ as the type of Hotherium egyptiacum, from the Mokattam
of Cairo. Since this seems to have come from nearly the same
horizon as our specimens, I believe that there is the highest
probability that they are referable to this same species, in spite of
some differences between the shape of the natural cast described by
Owen and that artificially made from one of our specimens.
The mandible has a sharply deflected symphysis, which is much
thickened below, and it appears that teeth occurred along nearly
its whole length. The vertebra, scapula, and os innominatum are
almost exactly as in Halitherium. It is, in fact, very remarkable
that in a form so old as this (possibly Mid-Hocene, see below)
there is no trace of a more generalized structure than in the later
Halitherium, and we are apparently no nearer the primitive mam-
malian stock from which the Sirenians sprang.
1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxxi (1875), p. 100.
Geol Mag 1901. Decade IVVoLVIIEPL XVI.
GMWoodward del. etlith. West,Newmanimp.
Siberian Anthracomye &c.
Dr. OC. W. Andrews—Extinct Egyptian Vertebrates. 437
Zeuglodon Osiris, Dames.’
Zeuglodon remains are not uncommon, and we obtained many
vertebra, a fine mandible, and a large part of two skulls, from one
of which it will be possible to get a cast of the brain-case. There
are two forms, a large and a small, as described by Dames. The
smaller is certainly the Zeuglodon Osiris of that author, who con-
siders that the differences between the larger and smaller species
are merely sexual. Of this there seems to be much doubt, but
for the present, until further information is available, it will be
convenient to accept this view.
REprTILIA.
The reptilian remains collected were very numerous and include
some forms of great interest. In many cases the bones were in
a wonderfully perfect state of preservation and had been almost
completely freed from the matrix. Some of the more important
new forms only will be noticed here; these include two species of
snakes, three Chelonians, and a Crocodilian.
Fic. 1.—Vertebre of Gigantophis. Two-thirds naturalsize. (A) Three articulated
vertebre from above; (B) vertebra from front; (C) vertebra from side.
a.z. anterior zygapophysis ; hyp. hypapophysis; .s. neural spine ;
p.z. posterior zygapophysis ; 7. articular facet for rib ; zyg. zygosphene.
Ophidia.
The fossil remains of snakes are, as a rule, very rare, but in the
lower beds in which our collections were made Ophidian vertebra
1 Palaeont. Abhand., neue Folge, Bd. i (1894), p. 189.
438 Dr. C. W. Andrews—Extinct Egyptian Vertebrates.
were very common. They belong to two types, one an extremely
large Python-like form, and the other a smaller, though still large
snake, the chief characteristic of which is the great height of the
neural spines. These two types are briefly described below.
Gigantophis Garstini, gen. et sp. nov. (Fig. 1.)
The large vertebre of this species occur very commonly in the
lower beds associated with remains of Meritherium, Zeuglodonts,
and Sirenians. In one case a series of about twenty vertebree
were found in their natural relations to one another and beautifully
weathered out of the matrix by the action of sand-drift (Fig. 1a).
The form of these vertebree (Fig. 1) approaches most nearly
to that seen in Python, to which genus it seems probable that this
species was nearly related. The articular region of a mandible
lends support to this view.
In the vertebra the anterior cup of the centrum is transversely
oval, and the corresponding posterior convexity is similar in shape
and looks somewhat upwards. The neural spine (n.s.) is short and
stout, and has a flat truncated extremity; the neural canal is
relatively much smaller than in the recent type, but has the same
somewhat trilobate form. The articular surfaces of the anterior
zygapophyses (a.z.) are slightly above the level of the floor of the
neural canal. The form of the zygosphene (zyg.) and zygantrum are
as in Python. The transverse processes form massive protuberances,
bearing on their outer ends articular surfaces (r.) for the ribs, and are
of similar form to those seen in Python. The hypapophysis (hyp.)
in most of the vertebra is small, and consists mainly of a small
tuberosity near the hinder end of the centrum.
These vertebra are all of large size, much larger than in any
existing Ophidian. If the proportions of this snake were the same
a A the existing Python sebe it probably reached a length of about
eet.
-The dimensions of one of these vertebrae are as follows :—
mm.
Greatest height (from top of neural spine to end of hypapophysis) ... 57°5
Greatest width (between the ends of the transverse processes) . 63
Width of zygosphene ... as 600 San 369 es ona 2g)
Width of articular cup of centrum... us ia ae Bho 23
Height of articular cup of centrum... Oss BS abe snay
Width of articular ball of centrum... ie wee ap .. 23
Extreme length of centrum... Ses 300 one aie ean 4.0
Width of neural canal ... ae as we sive (approx.) 12
To this form the generic name Gigantophis, referring to its large
size, may be given, the specific name being Gigantophis Garstini,
in honour of Sir William Garstin, K.C.M.G., the Under Secretary
of State for Public Works in Egypt.
Meeriophis Schweinfurthi, gen. et sp. nov. (Fig. 2.)
| Perhaps the commonest fossils in the lower beds are the vertebrae
of a large snake, which in the main points agree with those upon
which Owen founded the genus Palzophis. Owen’s specimens are
Dr. C. W. Andrews—Extinct Egyptian Vertebrates. 489
from the Eocene (Lower and Middle) of Sheppey and Bracklesham,
and it is very interesting to find a similar form occurring in the
Lower Tertiary deposits of Egypt. Some shells which occur asso-
ciated with these remains have lately been described by Cossmann
from almost the same locality; they are referred by him to the
Middle Eocene (Nummulitic), so probably it may turn out that
the beds in which Meritherium, Bradytherium, and the reptiles
described in this paper are found, are somewhat older than stated
in Part I, and are in fact Middle Eocene. This question will no
doubt be settled by Mr. Beadnell in the section relating to the
stratigraphy of the district.
Fic. 2.—Vertebra of Meriophis. Two-thirds natural size. (A) From side;
(B) from front. .z. anterior zygapophysis ; hyp. hypapophysis ; ”. process
on back of neural arch; x.s. neural spine; y.z. posterior zygapophysis ;
ry. facet for rib; zyg.s. zygosphene.
The chief characteristic of these vertebra is the great height of
the neural spine (Fig. 2, n.s.), and with this seems to be correlated
the relative narrowness of the centrum in proportion to its length
and the ventral and downwardly directed position of the transverse
processes (r.). All these characters occur to a less degree in
Palgophis. Another point of similarity is the presence on either
side of the posterior part of the neural arch of a large backwardly
and upwardly projecting process (Fig. 2, n.), from the tip of which
a ridge runs downward and forward to the base of the anterior
zygapophysis. This process is more developed here than in
Pal@ophis, to which, according to Owen, it is almost peculiar,
only a trace being found in other Ophidian vertebra.
The transverse processes project downward below the level of
the centrum, and their lower ends may even be slightly bent in
1 Cossmann: ‘‘ Additions 4 la Faune Nummulitique d’Egypte’’ (Institut Egyptien,
Cairo, 1901).
440 Dr. C. W. Andrews—Extinct Egyptian Vertebrates.
towards the middle line. The hypapophysis (hyp.) consists of two
processes, one near the middle of the centrum, the other close to
its anterior border; the latter, together with the transverse pro-
cesses, is strongly inclined forward.
The whole form of the vertebra seems to me to indicate that the
body was deep and laterally compressed, as in some water-snakes,
and to point strongly to the conclusion that this animal was aquatic
in its habits. Its association with the remains of Zeuglodonts,
Sirenians, and marine turtles seems to support this.
This snake is no doubt a close ally of Palgophis, and must
be referred to the same family; but the greater height and
narrowness of the vertebre, the more ventral position of the trans-
verse processes, and of their surfaces for articulation with the
ribs (7.), as well as several points in the structure of the neural
arch and its articulations, justify the generic separation of this type.
I propose for it the name Meriophis, referring to the locality in
which it was found, and its specific name will be M. Schweinfurthi,
after Dr. G. Schweinfurth, who has done so much to add to our
knowledge of Egypt in so many directions, and who seems to have
been the first to collect vertebrate remains in the Fayim.
The dimensions of one of these vertebra are as follows :—
mm
Greatest height (from top of neural spine to end of ELSE L) .. 85
Greatest width (between ends of transverse processes) .. Ss,
Width of zygosphene _... 606 ane sate nae ee
Width of articular cup of centrum ae 00 366 200 cco le
Height of articular cup of centrum 300 200 000 a0 coo
Extreme length of centrum 550 ee 30 500 p00 oon
Width of neural canal... 356 St6 200 a: 260 say aaedl
Chelonia.
Chelonian remains are fairly common in the lower beds in which
Meritherium and Gigantophis occur, and some nearly complete skulls
and carapaces were collected. The latter are not in very good
condition for the determination of their characters, being, as a rule,
traversed in all directions by cracks and coated with gypsum, so
that the sutures cannot be clearly made out.
The Chelonians collected include representatives of the three
chief groups, viz., the Athece, Pleurodira, and Cryptodira.
Psephophorus eocenus, sp. nov.
The Athece are represented by a humerus and possibly some
masses of scutes. ute
The humerus (Fig. 3) differs widely from that of all land and
fresh-water tortoises and of all the marine turtles, except Sphargis..
In fact, it belongs to the most specialized type of swimming humerus
found among the pelagic Chelonia (parathalassic type of Wieland,
Am. Journ. Sci., ser. tv, vol. ix, 1900, p. 420). Among the forms
of Athecate Chelonia of which the humerus is known, the present
species (Fig. 3) seems to approach most nearly to Psephophorus,
the chief points of difference being that the ulnar crest (a) is more
Dr. O. W. Andrews—Extinct Egyptian Vertebrates. 441
prominent and rises farther above the head (b), and the form of
the proximal portion of the radial process (c) is different in several
respects. For the present, until further remains are collected, it
will be best to refer this form to Psephophorus. The specific name
will be P. eocenus.
Dimensions oF HuMERUs.
Total length ... ... 190mm.
Width of shaft immediately below radial proces aot 42°,
Width of head . Ne: 40 ,,
Thalassochelys libyea, Sp. Nov.
Another Chelonian, represented in the collection by several more
or less crushed skulls, is a Cryptodiran with roofed temporal fossz,
apparently closely allied to Chelone. In two cases the skulls are
greatly crushed from above downward, giving them a quite mis-
leading appearance of being low and flattened, but another specimen,
including the back of the skull as far forward as the epipterygoid
(columella), is quite uncrushed, and is here referred to.
Fic. 8.—Dorsal and ventral views of left humerus of Psephophorus eocenus,
Andrews. One-fifth naturalsize. (a) Ulnarcrest; (4) head; (c) radial crest ;
(d) entocondyle.
The form of the tympanic ring, which is incomplete posteriorly,
resembles that seen in Chelone, showing that this species is not
a Pleurodiran. The presence of the columella shows that it is not
one of the Athecate group, as from the occurrence of the humerus
above described seemed not impossible. The roofing of the temporal
fossa, as far as can be seen, is the same as in the Chelonida, and it
may be referred provisionally to that family. The occipital condyle
is trilobate, the basi-occipital extending up to the foramen magnum.
The basi-sphenoidal platform is much less prominent than in Chelone,
and there is no deep fossa beneath its hinder border as in that genus.
442. Dr. C. W. Andrews—Extinet Egyptian Vertebrates.
In this region the skull resembles that of Thalassochelys very nearly.
There are some differences, however, the most notable of which
being the greater length of the quadrate in the fossil. Nevertheless,
I prefer at present to refer this species provisionally to Thalassochelys,
with the specific name T. libyca.
Stereogenys Cromeri, gen. et sp. nov.
The most interesting of the Chelonian remains are several more
or less complete skulls of a Pleurodiran tortoise, which presents
a number of peculiar features. The Pleurodiran nature of this
species is shown by (1) the completeness of the quadrate ring for
the tympanum ; (2) the form of the articular surface of the quadrate.
The temporal fossa is roofed as in Podocnemis alone among living
Pleurodira. In the Mesozoic Rhinochelys also the temporal fossa is
roofed in, but in quite a different manner from that occurring in
Podocnemis and our fossil. So far as I can determine, this species
approaches Podocnemis more nearly than any other Chelonian, but on
the other hand there are some very important differences. The most
important of these are found in the structure of the palate (Fig. 4),
Fie. 4.—Skull and mandible of Stereogenys Cromeri. One-half natural size..
(A) Palatal surface of skull; (B) upper surface of mandible. The pre-
maxille are restored from another specimen. 6.0. basi-occipital ; ma. maxilla ;
na. internal nares; p.mz. premaxille; pal. palatines; pt. pterygoids;
g. quadrate ; s.occ. supra-occipital ; sq. squamosal.
in which the palatine bones (pal.) are much longer than in
Podocnemis, and are produced inward towards the middle line,
where in some specimens they seem to have united in a median
suture, in others to have remained separated by a narrow cleft,
which in life was no doubt closed by membrane, so that in either
case the opening of the internal nares (na.) was carried far back
to the level of the ectopterygoid wings. This arrangement of the
palatines seems to be unique among Chelonia. There is a small
anterior vacuity between the hinder ends of the palatal portions of
the premaxillee (p.ma.) and the maxillee (mx.). The pterygoids (pt.)
Dr. C. W. Andrews—Extinct Egyptian Vertebrates. 4438
are short and broad, and have a very small extension on the palate
compared to that seen in Podocnemis, and they seem to have been
nearly excluded from the middle line by the backward prolongation
of the palatines.
Four or five more or less complete skulls of this type were
collected, and it will be possible from them to give a detailed
account of the cranial characters.
The symphysis of the mandible (Fig. 48) is very long, and the
symphyseal region forms a broad pentagonal plate, the two anterior
sides of which form the labial borders, while the two lateral bear
the high pointed coronoid processes. The posterior side is slightly
concave. The dorsal surface of the symphyseal surface was probably
covered by a strong horny plate, which, judging from the large size
and anterior position of the coronoid process and the depth of the
muscle impressions, must have formed a powerful crushing apparatus.
The backward position of the internal nares seems to be correlated
with the existence of this arrangement, the union of the palatines
extending just far enough backwards to bring the opening behind
the level of the symphysis. Probably the anterior part of the palate
in front of the narial opening was also covered with a horny plate.
To this new form I propose to apply the generic name Stereogenys,
the species being called S. Cromert, after the Earl of Cromer, the
British Agent and Consul-General at Cairo.
The dimensions of the figured skull and mandible are :—
SKULL.
Extreme length as figured ... “Bn 30h see “on 96 mm.
Extreme width ! Ld ia ne oF set at 98 ,,
Width between ends of ectopterygoid wings ie as 635 ,,
Width between outer ends of articular surtace of quadrates (Coe
Width of articular surface of quadrate_.... ons 50 ates
MANDIBLE.
Total length ... a0 36 ab Sod ae 568 71mm.
Length of symphysis 306 aa: S00 50 aoe sO;
Width at coronoid ... oe ae ee he ee 55.555
Width at articulation for quadrate ... Ay ae F Gai.
Several carapaces and plastra were collected which probably belong
to this form. Their Pleurodiran character is shown by the fusion of
the lower ends of the pubes and ischia with the plastron. As a rule
the mode of preservation is such that it is extremely difficult to
make out the position of the sutures, even in specimens otherwise
in excellent preservation. In one plastron, however, it seems fairly
clear that there were small lateral mesoplastrals and that a large
intergular plate was present.
Crocodilia.
Tomistoma africanum, sp. nov.
Remains of Crocodilians are very common in the lower beds in
some localities, and in some cases attain a very large size. Vertebras
and scutes, either isolated or in groups, most commonly occur,
but occasionally a large part of the skeleton was seen. When
1 This specimen is somewhat crushed, so that the width is slightly exaggerated.
444. Dr. C. W. Andrews—Extinet Egyptian Vertebrates.
the material is fully examined it is probable that two or three
species will be found. At present it will only be necessary to
mention one, to which the finest specimens collected are referable.
These include an almost perfect mandible and the anterior portion
(about 34cm. in length) of a snout, with the upper and lower jaws
in their natural positions with regard to one another.
In the mandible the symphysis is very long and Gavial-like, but
in this region there are only 14 teeth on each side, the total number
in each ramus being 19-20. The splenial enters largely into the
formation of the symphysis. The first and second teeth are large,
the third smaller, the fourth large again, then the remainder some-
what smaller, and of nearly the same size throughout except a few
-of the hindermost.
There are four premaxillary teeth, of which the second and third
are the largest; the fourth is small, and behind it there is
a diastema into which the large fourth lower tooth bites. Only the
first four of the maxillary teeth are preserved. The teeth are nearly
circular in section. The premaxillary region is very slightly
flattened and expanded, and the nasal opening is heart-shaped, with
the point directed backwards: the relations of the premaxillaries
and nasals to it cannot be made out, none of the sutures being
visible.
Comparison of this Crocodile with other types shows that without
doubt it is referable to the genus Tomistoma, the only living species
of which occurs in the rivers of the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, and
the neighbouring islands, while fossil representatives, or very closely
allied types, occur in the Miocene of Malta and Eggenburg.
This species differs from the recent form in the slightly greater
expansion of the premaxillary region and the somewhat greater
length and slenderness of the articular process of the mandible.
Apart from these and some other peculiarities, the difference in the
horizon and locality of this form entitles it to specific distinctness ;
it may be called Tomistoma africanum.
The dimensions of the mandible are :—
em.
Total length... ath ee ah a6 560 coo LOS
Length of symphysis 660 300 es wae 0 49°
Width of jaw at symphysis... a6 906 666 ee alte?
Width of articular surface for quadrate ... ae Hes 6°8
Depth of ramus at symphysis 900 000 (approx.) 4-2
In another specimen of the front of the snout the premaxillary
expansion is nearly 8 cm. wide, while the somewhat contracted region
immediately behind the premaxillary teeth is only 5 cm. in width.
Piscrs.
Fish remains were collected in considerable quantity, but have not
yet been examined in detail; they seem to be mostly portions of the
skeleton of large Siluroids, but remains of a Saw-fish (? Propristis
Schweinfurthi, Dames) are not uncommon, one complete rostrum
being obtained.
W. Ackroyd—The Circulation of Salt. 445
III.—On tHe Creovunation oF SALT IN 1Ts RenatIons TO GEOLOGY.
By Wituram Ackroyp, F.I.C., F.C.S., Public Analyst for Halifax.
SEA-BREEZE is salt-laden in varying degree. On a fine
dry day it may contain as much as 22 milligrams of salt
per cubic metre of air (Armand Gautier, Bull. Soc. Chim., 1899
[iii], 21, 391-392). This invisible salt is washed out of the
atmosphere by rains, and finds its way back to the sea.
Salt circulation is more evident in times of storm, when the
amount carried on to the land from the sea may be enormous.
Thus, during the storm of January 6th and 7th, 1839, newspaper
records make it apparent that tons of salt per acre were spread over
Lancashire and Yorkshire, which had been brought by the gales
from the Irish Sea; right away over the Pennine hills the trees
were white with salt.
The phenomenon has been entirely ignored in our physiographic
literature, and credit is due to Professor Joly for having made an
allowance of 10 per cent. for such transported salt in his calculation
of the age of the Earth. I have attempted to give the subject of salt
circulation its due importance in a paper read before the Yorkshire
Geological and Polytechnic Society, which will duly appear with
Addenda in the Society’s Proceedings. A preliminary report
appeared in the Chemical News for June 7th, 1901. In the course
of the paper I venture the opinion that 99 per cent. ought to be
allowed for cyclic sea-salt in employing soluble river contents as
a measure of time; to this Professor Joly replied on June 28th,
and my rejoinder in the same journal will be found on August 2nd.
I am here concerned with his article in the August number of this
Magazine.
On the Origin of the Saltness of Salt Lakes.—Many determinations
of chlorine in rain-water are on record, but a fulness of information
is decidedly wanting. The chlorine fluctuates widely, and the laws
determining the variations have yet to be experimentally worked
out. A six months’ study of one locality will be found in my paper
“On the Origin of Combined Chlorine” (Journ. Chem. Soc., 1901,
vol. lxxix, pp. 673 and 674), where records of the fluctuations of
chlorine in the rain-gauge and reservoir of Widdop on the Lanc.-
Yorks. border are given. It is necessary to say here, a point which
will again be referred to, that it is customary among chemists to make
chlorine a measure of sodium by calculating the chlorine in rainfall into
sodium chloride. Employing this convention, Bellucci calculates that
37°8 lbs. of common salt per acre is deposited every year at Perugia,
some 75 miles from the sea-coast, and I may add that I find in the
Pennine hills the deposit calculates out to 172 lbs. per acre per year.
Such facts, taken in conjunction with observations like Gautier’s,
make it probable that wherever sea-winds reach to carry moisture
there the falling rains bring down chlorides, and the general disposition
of iso-chlors proves this. It is justifiable, then, to suppose that an
inland lake may owe much of its salt to this source. I have shown
by calculations that the Pennine reservoir already referred to with
446 W. Ackroyd—The Circulation of Salt.
a capacity of 640:5 millions of gallons has in it some 55 tons of salt,
and as the water is being continually drawn off for municipal use, and
as continually being replenished by rains falling on a saltless area
of Millstone Grit, it follows that its chlorides must be derived from
the sea. The available data show further that if it had no outlet
and the inflow were balanced by the effects of evaporation it would
become salter than the Dead Sea in a period of time less than one-
seventh of that usually assigned to the Pleistocene Age. The mind
naturally turns from such considerations to a case like that of the
Dead Sea, for it is little further removed from the Mediterranean
than Widdop is from the Irish Sea; there is a rainfall in Palestine
higher than that of the Pennine hills, and in the past there has been
an intensity of meteorological conditions of which we at the present
day can form but an inadequate conception (Tristram, “The Land
of Israel,” p. 320). All the conditions are present, but what of the
results? The various points of similarity and of dissimilarity are
in favour of such a hypothesis; it will be convenient to deal with
them after the next paragraph.
Indiscriminate comparisons of salt-lake analyses lead to confusion.
This is illustrated by Professor Joly’s remarks on p. 346 of this
Magazine for August. A principle is here overlooked which may
be thus briefly stated :—Where a solution of mixed salts, among
them being magnesium chloride and sodium chloride, undergoes
concentration, as the more soluble magnesium chloride increases in
amount the common salt is precipitated. The only reference on
which I can lay my hands at the moment is to the work of Precht
and Wittjen in 1881 (Journ. Chem. Soc., November, 1881, p. 978),
who show that a 20 per cent. solution of magnesium chloride at
20° C. dissolves only 5:1 per cent. of potassium chloride and 5:8 per
cent. of sodium chloride. Now in this strong light let us examine
the waters of the Elton Lake of the Kirghis Steppe as they vary
with the season :—
In Sprine | In Summer | In AuTUMN
(Gobel). (Erdmann). (Rose).
Sodium chloride, Na Cl ate ee 13:1 74 3°8
Magnesium chloride, Mg Cl, ... 10°5 16°3 G7
Potassium chloride, K Cl 0:2 — 0-2
Calcium chloride, Ca Cl, ae an — = =
Potassium sulphate, K,8 O, ... — 0-04 =
Magnesium sulphate, Mg S O, 1-6 2°20 5°3
Water ... oe aad a 74:4 73°50 70°8
99°8 99-44 99°8
On Professor Joly’s line of argument the first and last analyses
ought not to belong to the same lake, but they are beautifully in
keeping with the principle I have enunciated. Nor does it at all
seem strange that in the case of the Great Salt Lake, where there is
so little magnesium chloride there should be so much common salt.
W. Ackroyd—The Circulation of Salt. 447
To return now to the Dead Sea. It will be at once recognized
that the large percentage of magnesium chloride present, arising
from ages of concentration, is favourable to precipitation of common
salt, which in the southern parts of the Jake forms quite a paste
(Tristram). The ratio of chlorine to bromine in the surface
waters of the Dead Sea and of the Mediterranean are nearly alike
(100 : 2-1), and the only divergence one looks for is in the increase
of the bromine figure for the Dead Sea as its sodium chloride is
precipitated, and this one finds to be the case. It is also to be
noted here that all attempts to find traces of bromine in the springs
and rivers of Palestine have hitherto failed (Watts’ Dictionary of
Chemistry, vol. v, p. 183). All these points are compatible with
the Dead Sea having derived the greater part of its salts from the
Mediterranean. As one recognizes, however, that solvent denudation
must play an important part in adding to the soluble contents of
inland lakes, it is to its extensive limestone gathering-ground that
the Dead Sea must owe its calcareous character, and the contrast
in this respect with the Mediterranean is increased by the latter
possessing and the former being without a lime-secreting fauna.
On the Proportion of Chlorides supplied by Solvent Denudation.—
It was of interest and of importance to know approximately what in
a river water was due to solvent denudation and what to atmospheric
transportation. To find the proportion of chlorides due to solvent
denudation the following line of reasoning suggested itself to me.
A sample of Malham Cove water in Craven had a hardness of 10°,
ie. it contained 10 grains of calcium carbonate per gallon or its
equivalent of dolomitic compound. Analysis showed the limestone
to have in it ‘01 per cent. of combined chlorine. The 10 grains
therefore contained ‘001 grain of chlorine. Now the whole gallon
of water gave ‘7 grain of chlorine, whence it follows that only
a fifth of 1 per cent. of all the combined chlorine in the water was
due to solvent denudation, or of the load of salt carried to the sea
approximately 99:8 per cent. was sea-salt. Professor Joly, in his
criticism in the Chemical News, does not appreciate this result; in
the Gronocioan Magazine he ignores it altogether. It is capable
of wide application. Thus, in some 40 full analyses of limestones
and dolomites published by the United States Geological Survey
(Bull., 148, pp. 254-274), 31 samples show no trace of chlorine,
2 only traces, and 9 samples from ‘01 up to ‘14 per cent. The
average quantity of chlorine in the last 9 samples is -06 per cent.,
and in the whole 40 samples ‘01 per cent. Limestone is one of the
most soluble of all rocks, and will probably furnish the largest
share of chlorine to the rivers, and these figures demonstrate that
so far as the North American continent is concerned its limestones
are not likely to supply any greater proportion of this element than
the limestones of Yorkshire. Reference to other facts confirm this
view of things. Before proceeding farther let me give the atomic
proportions of sodium and chlorine in some of the bodies we have to
deal with, premising for the benefit of the non-chemical reader that
448 W. Ackroyd—The Circulation of Sait.
a molecule of common salt or sodium chloride contains two atoms,
one of chlorine and one of sodium.
Atomic PROPORTIONS.
Sodium. Chlorine.
ae ea
1. In common salt Bs eae le
2. In the solids dissolved i in "sea water ahh a Te eas LOL?
8. In Pierre’s rain Tea AS 3 9 LCR
4. In the solids dissolved in average river- -water
(from Sir J. Murray’s data) ane il “3 2) 103340
5. In the older crust of the earth (from Professor
F. W. Clarke’s data) ... bd ins 1 :. 0°0024
Compare 4 and 5. In the earth’s crust there is only one atom
of chlorine to 417 atoms of sodium, while in river-water to each
atom of chlorine we have three atoms of sodium. Therefore
average river-water contains a proportion of over 140 times more
chlorine atoms than the earth’s crust could supply it with. Where
does it get them from if transported sea-salt does not enter into the
composition of the so-called average river-water? This difficulty
presented itself in another form to the Rev. Osmond Fisher when he
asked: ‘‘ Whence came the chlorine? The amount of 0:01 per cent.
stated to occur in crystalline rocks seems insufficient” (Guon. Mac.,
March, 1900, p. 129).
The Age of the Earth.—Now come we to the knotty question of the
bearing of the foregoing facts on the rate of solvent denudation used
as a measure of time. Here I have to point out the important fact
that in estimating the numerator all the sodium of the sea has been
calculated from sodium chloride. This involves the tacit assumption
that all the sodium going into the sea throughout the ages has either
gone there allied with chlorine or has finally taken the form of
sodium chloride. In either case the chemist’s convention of taking
chlorine as a measure of sodium in rain- and river-water is serviceable,
and cannot involve more final error in connection with this problem
than that indicated by the ratio of these elements in sea-water.
Our estimate of 99 per cent. for cyclic sea-salt therefore still
stands, and, being applied to Professor Joly’s calculation, brings
the age of the Harth to over 8,000 millions of years; and even if
we were inclined to be prodigal in this respect and only deduct
so little as 80 per cent. for cyclic salt the age of the Harth would
still come to over 400 millions of years !
I will not go further into this matter here than to point out that
Professor Joly’s grounds for making an allowance of 10 per cent.
for cyclic sea-salt is not convincing reading. We are invited to
contrast the chlorine content of average river-water, put at -3 part
per 100,000, with the chlorine content of rainfall at Ootacamund in
India, which is given as -04 part per 100,000. It would have been
more conducive to progress in this discussion if relevant particulars
had been given of the Ootacamund region. Knowing as I do that
chlorine content and amount of rainfall bear an inverse relation to
each other, and that in some parts of India the rainfall is prodigious
in amount, any isolated fact concerning the chlorine content of
a sample of rain does not add to our enlightenment, because for
R. D. Oldham—The Periodicity of Earthquakes. 449
anything we know to the contrary the nearest river-water may give
no higher figure; the Mahanuddy, emptying itself into the Bay of
Bengal, has only a chlorine content of -17 per 100,000 after passing
over 440 miles of its course (Nicholson, Journ. Chem. Soc., 1873,
p. 229).
IV.—Tue Prriopiciry or HArTHQuakEs.
By R. D. Oxpuam, Superintendent of the Geological Survey of India.
N ANY are the attempts that have been made to discern some law
in the occurrence of earthquakes, and to trace the influence
of the sun, the moon, or even of the planets as a cause, if partial,
of their origin. Many patient investigators have discovered, or
thought they have discovered, periods of fluctuating seismic activity,
varying in length from semi-diurnal to annual or even longer,
but so conflicting have been their conclusions that little weight
can be, or has been, attached to the results of their calculations ;
and one of the most industrious of all these investigators, the
Commandante de Montessus de Ballore, has declared his conviction
that no periodicity can be detected, and that the causes of earth-
quakes are purely terrestrial and in no way affected by any celestial
body. Yet, in spite of this, the attempts and the calculations go
on, and one of the most recent of these is a discussion by Herr M.
Becke of some three hundred earthquakes recorded in the region
round Karlsbad between 24th October and 25th November, 1897."
Tabulating these, according to the hour of occurrence, he finds
that there are two well-defined maxima at about three hours on
either side of midnight, while the minimum is at midday with
a minor one at midnight. He rightly observes that if this be due
to the influence of the sun a similar but much more marked relation
should be observed in the case of the moon, and after dividing
each lunar day into twenty-four hours and tabulating the earth-
quakes according to this lunar time he finds that the curve of
frequency so obtained does not correspond to that deduced from
solar times. From this he concludes that the apparent maxima
do not represent real maxima of occurrence of earthquakes, but
merely maxima of record, due to the fact that slight earthquakes,
which would be noticed and recorded in the morning and evening
hours of repose, would be overlooked in the active prosecution of
daily avocations, or in the slumber of the night. To this the obvious
objection may be raised, that persons who are asleep by midnight
are not likely to be awake at 3 o’clock in the morning.
Apart from this, there seems to be a more serious flaw in the
argument. Herr Becke appears to have expected that the curve
of frequency by lunar time should show maxima at about three
hours on either side of the time of lower meridian passage of the
moon. This again depends on the assumption, tacitly made by
every calculator with whose work I am acquainted, that the
frequency may be expected to be a function of the hour angle.
1 M. Becke, ‘‘ Bericht iiber das Graslitzer Erdbeben, 24 October bis 25 November,
1897’: Sitzber. k. Akad. Wiss. Wien, 1898, cvii, Abth. 1, pp. 789-959.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. X, 29
450 R. D. Oldham—The Periodicity of Earthquakes.
This would be true if the frequency were such a function of the
zenith distance of the sun or moon that the one might be expected
to increase or decrease continuously with the other. This is,
however, by no means necessarily, or even probably, the case, for
if the attraction of the sun or the moon have any effect it is probably
through the strains set up by the tide-producing forces.
Now these have three separate maxima distributed in two points
and three circles: at the extremities of the diameter pointing to the
sun or moon, as the case may be, the upward vertical tide-producing
force is at its maximum; the maximum of the downward tide-
producing force lies along the great circle at right angles to this
diameter ; while the maximum horizontal tide-producing force lies
along the small circles half-way between. If, then, external attraction
is in any way the cause of earthquakes, we may look for the frequency
to have some relation to the times of passage of one or other of these
points or circles over the place where the earthquakes originated.
I am at present engaged in a discussion of the records of the after-
shocks of the great earthquake of 1897, with a view to seeing
whether any such relation can be traced ; the discussion is not yet
far enough advanced to have yielded any results, and the matter
would not have been referred to but that in the paper quoted above
the records are tabulated in a form which makes it possible, without
lengthy calculation, to roughly test the hypothesis that the frequency
of earthquakes is influenced by the tide-producing force generated
in the earth by the sun and moon.
The three hundred earthquakes, recorded during a period of little
over a lunar month, are classified, according to time of occurrences,
and also with regard to the phases of the moon, as to whether the
earthquake occurred nearer to the syzygies or the quadratures. In
the table printed below the figure opposite to 0 is the total recorded
Sotar Times. Lunar TIMEs.
Hour.| Syz. | Quad.) Total.) Syz. | Quad. | Total.
0 vl 13 20 9 6 15
2 14 3l 45 4 9 13
4 16 17 30 9 13 22
6 16 16 32 13 11 24
8 4 14 18 12 17 29
10 4 4 8 18 12 30
12 3 8 il 8 21 29
14 9 9 18 14 15 29
16 15 6 21 13 14 27
18 18 12 30 17 11 28
20 19 17 36 12 20 32
22 14 13 27 10 ll 21
24 7 13 20 9 6 15
in the hour preceding and that following the lower culmination,
that opposite 2 being the total recorded between one and three
hours after the lower culmination, and so on.
R. D. Oldham—The Periodicity of Earthquakes. 451
Taking the solar times first, the sun’s declination was south, and
increasing slowly throughout the period of the record; the mean
value may be taken as 16° south and the mean latitude of the
origins of the earthquakes 50° north. Hence the sun was always
more than 60° from the zenith at its upper culmination, and the circle
of maximum horizontal tide-producing force nearest the sun never
reached the place of origin of the earthquakes. That furthest away
from the sun did, however, cross this, and an easy calculation shows
that, for a latitude of 50° north and a declination of 11° south, the
times of crossing would be about 24 hours before and after midnight.
The observed maxima accord very fairly well with the times of
passage of the circle of maximum horizontal tide-producing force
due to the attraction of the sun.
Turning to the moon, the problem is not so simple, for, instead
of preserving a fairly constant declination like the sun, the moon
ranged from its extreme northerly to its extreme southerly declina-
tion. Luckily, however, the syzygies happened to nearly coincide
with the extreme declinations, while the quadratures were as close
to the times when the moon crossed the equator. Now when on
the equator the circles of maximum horizontal tide-producing force
would never reach 50° north latitude, and only when the declination
increased to 5° would one of them touch it, at the upper or lower
culmination as the case might be. Moreover, as the rate of change
has probably more effect than the amount of the force, and as this
rate of change would be small in the case of such tangential passage
of the circle, we might expect the effect to be small, but so far as it
goes to show a slight tendency to maxima coincident with the upper
and lower culmination.
As a matter of fact, there is no marked sign of periodicity except
a small increase in frequency about the upper and a decrease at the
lower culmination which may be accidental.
At the syzygies the moon was near its maximum declination, and
for a declination of 25° one circle of maximum horizontal tide-
producing force would aever touch latitude 50° north, while the
other would cross the place of origin at five hours before and after
the upper or lower culmination, according as the moon’s declination
was north or south. As the declination decreased this interval
would decrease, but would not fall much below three hours before
the moon passed the half-way point between the syzygies and
quadratures; and as the declination was north during half the
period of record and south during the other half, the result is
that we should expect to find no well-defined maxima, but a greater
number of earthquakes occurring more than three hours from the
culminations and fewer occurring within three hours of them.
Such is practically the case, and the accordance is as close as could
reasonably be expected from so limited a record.
So far, then, from the tabulated results showing no indication of
any influence of the sun and the moon, they distinctly support the
hypothesis of a maximum frequency at the time of passage of the
circle of maximum horizontal tide-producing force. They are far
452 British Association—J. Horne, F.R.S., ete.—
from sufficient to establish this hypothesis, but as it has been clearly
shown that there is no relation between hours and frequency which
holds good for all times and places, it is in this direction that
investigation must now be turned before we can finally say that
the attraction of the sun and moon has or has not an effect on the
occurrence of earthquakes. If it be found that there is no diurnal
periodicity corresponding to the tidal forces produced by them, it
may safely be said that any periodicity of longer period, which may
appear to correspond with the movements of these or any other
heavenly bodies, cannot be due to their attraction; and, unless we
assume a hyperphysical or astrological influence of the sun and
planets, we must finally conclude that earthquakes are as purely
terrestrial in their cause as in their effect.
NSi@ sea @ ae SS) Oe eV aa VEO ee
—_—<_<_—_
J.— British ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.
Guascow, SEPTEMBER 127TH, 1901.
AppREss To THE GEOLOGICAL SEcTion, BY JoHN Horne, F.R.S.L. &E.,
F.G.S., President of the Section.
Recent Advances in Scottish Geology.
ae return of the British Association after the lapse of a quarter of
a century to the second city of the empire, which since 1876 has
undergone remarkable development, due in no small measure to the
mineral wealth of the surrounding district, suggests the question, Has
Scottish geology made important advances during this interval of time ?
Have we now more definite knowledge of the geological systems
represented in Scotland, of their structural relations, of the principles of
mountain-building, of the zonal distribution of organic remains, of the
volcanic, plutonic, and metamorphic rocks so largely developed within its
borders? It is true that many problems still await solution, but anyone
acquainted with the history of geological research must answer these
questions without hesitation in the affirmative. In the three great
divisions of geological investigation —in stratigraphical geology, in
paleontology, in petrology—the progress has indeed been remarkable.
The belt of Archean gneisses and schists, which may be said to form
the foundation-stones of Scotland, have been mapped in great detail by
the Geological Survey since 1883 along the western part of the mainland
in the counties of Sutherland and Ross. In that region they occupy
a well-defined position, being demonstrably older than the great
sedimentary formation of Torridon Sandstone and overlying Cambrian
strata. The mapping of this belt by the Survey staff and the detailed
study of the rocks both in the field and with the microscope by Mr. Teall
have revealed the complexity of the structural relations of these crystalline
masses, and have likewise thrown considerable light on their history.
These researches indicate that, in the North-West Highlands, the Lewisian
(Archean) gneiss may be resolved into (1) a fundamental complex,
composed mainly of gneisses that have affinities with plutonic igneous
products, and to a limited extent of crystalline schists which may
without doubt be regarded as of sedimentary origin ; (2) a great series of
Presidential Address to Geological Section. 453
igneous rocks intrusive in the fundamental complex in the form of dykes
and sills.!
The rocks of the fundamental complex which have affinities with
plutonic igneous products occupy the greater part of the tract between
Cape Wrath and Skye. Mr. Teall has shown that they are essentially
composed of minerals that enter into the composition of peridotites,
gabbros, diorites, and granites ; as, for example, olivine, hypersthene,
augite (including dialiage), hornblende, biotite, plagioclase, orthoclase,
microcline, and quartz. In 1894 he advanced a classification of these
rocks, based mainly on their mineralogical composition and partly on
their structure, which has the great merit of being clear, comprehensive,
and independent of theoretical views as to the history of the rock-masses,
Stated broadly, the principle forming the basis of classification of three
of the groups is the nature of the dominant ferro-magnesian constituent,
viz., pyroxene, hornblende, or biotite, while the members of the fourth
group are composed of ferro-magnesian minerals without felspar or quartz.?
The detailed mapping of the region has shown that these rock-groups have
a more or less definite geographical distribution. Hence the belt of
Lewisian gneiss has been divided into three districts, the first extending
from Cape Wrath to Loch Laxford, the second from near Scourie to
beyond Lochinver, and the third from Gruinard Bay to the island of
Raasay. In the central area (Scourie to Lochinver) pyroxene gneisses and
ultrabasic rocks (pyroxenites and hornblendites) are specially developed,
while the granular hornblende rocks (hornblende gneiss proper) and the
biotite gneisses are characteristic of the northern and southern tracts.
These are the facts, whatever theory be adopted to explain them.
In those areas where the original structures of the Lewisian gneiss have
not been effaced by later mechanical stresses it is possible to trace knots,
bands, and lenticles of unfoliated, ultrabasic, and basic rocks, to note the
imperfect separation of the ferro-magnesian from the quartzo-felspathic
constituents, to observe the gradual development of mineral banding and
the net-like ramification of acid veins in the massive gneisses. Many of
these rocks cannot be appropriately described as gneiss. Indeed,
Mr. Teall has called attention to the close analogy between these
structures and those of plutonic masses of younger date.
In the Report on Survey Work in the North-West Highlands published
in 1888, the parallel banding, or first foliation, as it was then termed, of
these original gneisses was ascribed to mechanical movement.* But the
paper on ‘‘ Banded Structure of Tertiary Gabbros in Skye,” by Sir
A. Geikie and Mr. Teall,‘ throws fresh light on this question. In that
region the gabbro displays the alternation of acid and basic folia, the
crumpling and folding of the bands like the massive gneisses of the
Lewisian complex. Obviously in the Skye gabbro the structures cannot
be due to subsequent earth-movements and deformation, The authors
maintain that they are original structures of the molten magma, and,
consequently, that much of the mineral banding of the Lewisian gneisses,
as distinguished from foliation, may be due to the conditions under which
the igneous magma was erupted and consolidated. Whatever theory be
adopted to explain the original mineral banding of the Lewisian gneisses,
1 Report on the Recent Work of the Geological Survey in the North-West
Highlands of Scotland, based on the field-notes and maps of Messrs. B. N. Peach,
J. Horne, W. Gunn, C. T. Clough, L. W. Hinxman, and H. M. Cadell: Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xliv, p. 887; and Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv., 1894, p. 280, and
1895, p. 17.
2 Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv., 1894, p. 280.
3 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xliv, p. 400.
4 Ibid., vol. u, p. 640.
454 British Association—J. Horne, F.R.S., etc.—
it is certain that they possessed this banding, and were thrown into gentle
folds before the uprise of the later intrusive dykes.
The crystalline schists that have affinities with rocks of sedimentary
origin occupy limited areas north of Loch Maree and near Gairloch. The
prominent members of this series are quartz schists, mica schists,
graphitic schists, limestones and dolomites with tremolite, garnet and
epidote.1_ They are there associated with a massive sill of epidiorite and
hornblende schist. The relations which these altered sediments bear to
the gneisses that have affinities with plutonic igneous products have not
been satisfactorily determined. But the detailed mapping has proved
that north of Loch Maree they rest on a platform of Lewisian gneiss, and
are visibly overlain by gneiss with basic dykes (Meall Riabhach), and
that both the gneiss complex and altered sediments have been afiected
by a common system of folds. In the field, bands of mylonized rock
have been traced near the base of the overlying cake of gneiss, and the
microscopic examination of the latter by Mr. Teall has revealed cataclastic
structures due to dynamic movement. It is obvious, therefore, that,
whatever may have been the original relations of the altered sediments
to the gneiss complex, these have been obscured by subsequent earth-
stresses.
The great series of later igneous rocks which pierce the fundamental
complex in the form of dykes and sills is one of the remarkable features
in the history of the Lewisian gneiss. In 1895 Mr. Teall advanced
a classification of them,” but his recent researches show that they are
of a much more varied character. For our present purpose we may omit
the dykes of peculiar composition and refer to the dominant types. These
comprise ; (1) ultrabasic rocks (peridotite), (2) basic (dolerite and epidiorite,
and (3) acid (granite and pegmatite). ‘The evidence in the field points
to the conclusion that the ultrabasic rocks cut the basic, and that the
granite dykes were intruded into the gneisses after the eruption of the
basic dykes. The greater number of these dykes consists of basic
‘materials. It is important to nete that the basic rocks best preserve
their normal dyke-like features in the central tract between Scourie and
Lochinver, where they traverse the pyroxene gneisses. But southwards
and northwards of that tract, in districts where they have been subjected
to great dynamic movement, they appear as bands of hornblende schist,
which are difficult to separate from the fundamental complex. The acid
intrusions are largely developed in the northern tract between Laxford
and Durness ; indeed, at certain localities in that region the massive and
foliated granite and pegmatite are as conspicuous as the biotite gneisses
and hornblende gneisses with which they are associated.
After the eruption of the various intrusive dykes the whole area was
subjected to enormous terrestrial stresses, which profoundly affected the
fundamental complex and the dykes which traverse it. These lines of
movement traverse the Lewisian plateau in various directions, producing
planes of disruption, molecular rearrangement of the minerals, and the
development of foliation. It seems to be a general law that the new
planes of foliation both in the gneiss and dykes are more or less parallel
with the planes of movement or disruption. If the latter be vertical or
nearly horizontal the inclination of the foliation planes is found to vary
accordingly.
Close to the well-defined disruption planes, like those between Scourie
and Kylesku, the gneiss loses its low angle, and is thrown into sharp folds,
the axes of which are parallel with the planes of movement. The folia
1 Ann. Rep. Geol. Sury., 1895, p. 17.
2 Ibid., p. 18.
Presidential Address to Geological Section. 455
are attenuated, there is a molecular rearrangement of the minerals, and
the resultant rock is a granulitic gneiss. Indeed, the evidence in the
field, which has been confirmed by the microscopic examination of the
rocks by Mr. Teall, seems to show that granulitic biotite and hornblende
gneisses are characteristic of the zones of secondary shear. <A further
result of these earth-stresses is the plication of the original gneisses in
sharp folds, trending N.W. and S.E, and E. and W., and the partial
or complete recrystallization of the rocks along the old planes of mineral
banding.
In like manner, when the basic dykes are obliquely traversed by lines
of disruption, they are deflected, attenuated, and within the shear zones
appear frequently as phacoidal masses amid the reconstructed gneiss.
These phenomena are accompanied by the recrystallization of the rock
and its metamorphosis into hornblende schist. Similar results are
observable when the lines of movement are parallel with the course of
the dykes. All the stages of change from the massive to the schistose
rock can be traced—the replacement of the pyroxene by hornblende, the
conversion of the felspar, and the development of granulitic structure with
foliation. Here we have an example of the phenomena developed on
a larger scale by the Post-Cambrian movements, viz., the production of
common planes of schistosity in rocks separated by a vast interval of time,
quite irrespective of their original relations. For both gneiss and dykes
have common planes of foliation, resulting from earth-stresses in Pre-
Torridonian time.
It is important to note also that linear foliation is developed in the
basic dykes where there has been differential movement of the constituents
in folded areas. In the case of the anticline mapped by Mr. Clough, near
Poolewe in Ross-shire, he has shown that the linear foliation is parallel
with the pitch of the folds. All these phenomena tend to confirm the
conclusions arrived at by Mr. Teall, and published in his well-known paper
“ On the Metamorphosis of Dolerite into Hornblende Schist.” !
The ultrabasic and acid rocks likewise occur in the schistose form, for
the peridotites pass into talcose schists and the granite becomes gneissose.
In connection with the development of schistosity in these later
intrusive rocks it is interesting to observe that where the basic dykes
merge completely into hornblende schist, and seem to become an integral
part of the fundamental complex, biotite gneisses and granular hornblende
gneisses prevail. Whatever be the explanation the relationship is
suggestive.
The unconformability between the Lewisian gneiss and the overlying
Torridon Sandstone, which was noted by Macculloch and confirmed by
later observers, must represent a vast lapse of time. When tracing this
base-line southwards through the counties of Sutherland and Ross, striking
evidence was obtained by the Geological Survey of the denudation of that
old land surface. In the mountainous region between Loch Maree and
Loch Broom it has been carved into a series of deep narrow valleys with
mountains rising to a height of 2,000 feet. In that region it is possible
to trace the orientation of that buried mountain chain and the direction
of some of the old river courses. This remnant of Archean topography
must be regarded as one of the remarkable features of that interesting
region.
if 1893 the various divisions of the Torridon Sandstone, as developed
between Cape Wrath and Skye, were tabulated by the Geological Survey,
and may here be briefly summarized. They form three groups : a lower,
composed of epidotic grits and conglomerates, dark and grey shales
1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xli, p. 133.
456 fei Association—J. Horne, F.R.S., etc.—
with calcareous bands, red sandstones, and grits ; a middle, consisting
of a great succession of false-bedded grits and sandstones ; an upper,
comprising chocolate-coloured sandstone, micaceous flags with dark
shales and calcareous bands. The total thickness of this great pile of
sedimentary deposits must be upwards of 10,000 feet, and if Mr. Clough’s
estimate of the development of the lower group in Skye be correct, this
amount must be considerably increased. Of special interest is the
evidence bearing on the stratigraphical variation of the Torridon Sand-
stone when traced southwards across the counties of Sutherland and Ross.
The lower group is not represented in the northern area, but southwards,
in Ross-shire, it appears, and between Loch Maree and Sleat varies from
500 to several thousand feet in thickness. These divisions of the Torridon
Sandstone are of importance in view of the correlation of certain sediments
in Islay with the middle and lower Torridonian groups which there rest
unconformably on a platform of Lewisian gneiss.
In continuation of the researches of Dr. Hicks, published in his paper
“On Pre-Cambrian Rocks occurring as Fragments in the Cambrian Con-
glomerates in Britain,”! Mr. Teall has specially investigated the pebbles
found in the Torridon Sandstone. The local basement breccias of that
formation have doubtless been derived from the platform of Lewisian
gneiss on which they rest, but the pebbles found in the coarse arkose tell
a different story.2 He has found that they comprise quartzites showing
contact alteration, black and yellow cherts, jaspers with spherulitic
structures which indicate that they have been formed by the silicification
of liparites of the ‘Lea-rock’ type and spherulitic felsites that bear
a striking resemblance to those of Uriconian age in Shropshire. These
interesting relics have been derived from formations which do not now
occur anywhere in the western part of the counties of Sutherland and
Ross, and they furnish impressive testimony of the denudation of the
Archean plateau in Pre-Torridonian time.
These Torridonian sediments, like the sandstones of younger date,
contain lines of heavy minerals, such as magnetite, ilmenite, zircon, and
rutile.s The dominant felspar of the arkose group is microcline, that of
the basal group oligoclase. In the calcareous sediments of the upper and
lower groups fossils might naturally be expected, but the search so far has
not been very successful. Certain phosphatic nodules have been found in
dark micaceous shales of the upper group which have been examined by
Mr. Teall. From their chemical composition these nodules might be
regarded as of organic origin ; but he has found that they contain spherical
cells with brown-coloured fibres, which appear to be débris of organisms.*
Early in last century the Torridonian deposits were referred by Mac-
culloch® and Hay Cunningham * to the ‘ Primary Red Sandstone, and by
Murchison,’ Sedgwick, and Hugh Miller to the Old Red Sandstone. The
structural relations of the Torridon Sandstone to the overlying series of
quartzites and limestones were first clearly shown by Professor Nicol,®
who traced the unconformability that separates them for 100 miles across
the counties of Sutherland and Ross. When Salter pointed out the
Silurian facies of the fossils found in the Durness Limestone by Mr. Charles
Peach, the Torridonian formation was correlated with the Cambrian rocks
' Geox. Maa., Dec. III, Vol. VII (1890), p. 516.
Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv., 1895, p. 20.
* Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv., 1893, p. 263.
4 Ibid., 1899, p. 185.
i et Geol. Soc., ser. 1, vol. ii, p. 450; ‘‘The Western Isles of Scotland,”’
vol. u, p. 89.
° Trans. Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, vol. xiii (1839).
7 Trans. Geol. Soc., ser. 11, vol. iii, p. 155.
® Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xiii, p. 17.
~
Presidential Address to Geological Section. 457
of Wales by Murchison.!_ The discovery of the Olexellus fauna, indicating
the lowest division of the Cambrian system, in the quartzite-limestone
series by the Geological Survey in 1891? demonstrated the Pre-Cambrian
age of the Torridon Sandstone. In view of that discovery, which proves
the great antiquity of the Torridonian sediments, it is impossible to climb
those picturesque mountains in Assynt or Applecross without being
impressed with the unaltered character of these deposits. Yet it can be
shown that under the influence of Post-Cambrian movements they approach
the type of crystalline schists.
Before proceeding to the consideration of the Durness series of quartzites
and limestones and their relations to the Eastern Schists, brief reference
must be made to the controversy between Murchison and Nicol regarding
the sequence of the strata.
The detailed mapping of the belt between Eriboll and Skye by the
Geological Survey has completely confirmed Nicol’s conclusions (1) that
the limestone is the highest member of the Durness series ; (2) that the
so-called ‘ Upper Quartzite’ and ‘ Upper Limestone’ of Murchison’s sections
are merely the repetition of the lower quartzite and limestone due to faults
or folds ; (3) that there is no conformable sequence from the quartzites
and limestones into the overlying schists and gneiss ; (4) that the line of
junction is a line of fault indicated by proofs of fracture and contortion of
the strata. It is true that in the course of his investigations Nicol’s views
underwent a process of evolution, and that even in the form in which he
ultimately presented them he did not grasp the whole truth. We now
know that he was in error when he regarded portions of the Archean
gneiss, occurring in the displaced masses, as igneous rocks intruded during
the earth-movements, and that he failed to realize the evidence bearing on
dynamic metamorphism resulting from these movements. But I do not
doubt that the verdict of the impartial historian will be that Nicol dis-
played the qualities of a great stratigraphist in grappling with the tectonics
of one of the most complicated mountain chains in Europe.
The period now under review embraces the reopening of that controversy
in 1878 by Dr. Hicks, and its close in 1884 after the publication of the
“Report on the Geology of the North-West of Sutherland” by the Geo-
logical Survey.? The Survey work has confirmed Professor Bonney’s
identification of the Lewisian gneiss and Torridon Sandstone in Glen
Logan, Kinlochewe,! brought into that position by a reversed fault ; and
Dr. Callaway’s conclusions regarding overthrust faulting at Loch Broom,
in Assynt and in Glencoul.> Special reference must be made to the
remarkable series of papers by Professor Lapworth on “The Secret of the
Highlands,” in which he demonstrated the accuracy of Nicol’s main con-
clusions, and pointed out that the stratigraphical phenomena are but the
counterpart of those in the Alps as described by Heim.® His researches,
moreover, led him to a departure from Professor Nicol’s views regarding
the age, composition, and mode of formation of the Eastern Schists, for in
the paper which he communicated to the Geologists’ Association in 1884
he announced that their present foliated and mineralogical characters had
been developed by the crust-movements which operated in that region
since the time of the Durness quartzites and limestones.’ Allusion must
1 Tbid., vol. xv, p. 353.
2 Ibid., vol. xlviii, p. 227.
3 Nature, vol. xxxi, p. 29, November, 1884.
4 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxxvi, p. 93.
5 Ibid., vol. xxxix, p. 416.
6 Grou. Maa., Dec. II, Vol. X (1883), pp. 120, 193, 337.
7 Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. viii, p. 438; Gzox. Maa., Dec. III, Vol. II (1885),
p- 97.
458 British Association—J. Horne, F.R.S., etc.—
be made also to his great paper ‘‘On the Discovery of the Olenellus Fauna
in the Lower Cambrian Rocks of Britain,” in which he not only chronicled
the finding of this fauna at the top of the basal quartzite in Shropshire,
but suggested the correlation of the Durness quartzites and limestones
with the Cambrian rocks elsewhere.1 That suggestion was strikingly
confirmed within three years afterwards by the discovery of the Olenellus
fauna in Ross-shire.
The detailed mapping of the belt of Cambrian strata has proved the
striking uniformity of the rock sequence. There is little variation in the
lithological characters or thicknesses of the various zones. Basal quartzites,
pipe-rock, Fucoid-beds, Serpulite (Salterella) grit, limestone, and dolomite:
form the invariable sequence, for a distance of a hundred miles, to the west
of the line of earth-movements. This feature is also characteristic of the
fossiliferous zones, for the sub-zones of the pipe-rock, the Olenellus fauna in
the Fucoid-beds, and the Sadterella limestone have been traced from Eriboll
to Skye. Owing to the interruption of the sequence by reversed faults or
thrusts, the higher fossiliferous limestone zones are never met with between
Eriboll and Kishorn, but they occur in Skye, where they were first detected
by Sir A. Geikie.?
Regarding the paleontological divisions of the system, my colleague,
Mr. Peach, concludes ‘‘that the presence of three species of Olenellus in
the Fucoid-beds and Serpulite grit of the North-West Highlands, nearly
allied to the American form Olenellws Thomsoni—the type species of the
genus—together with Hyolithes, Salterella, and other organisms found with
it, prove that these beds represent the Georgian terrane of America, which,
as shown by Walcott, underlies the Paradoides zone.” Hence he infers
that there can be no doubt of the Lower Cambrian age of the beds yielding
the Olenellus fauna in the North-West Highlands. Mr. Peach further
confirms Salter’s opinion as to the American facies of the fossils obtained
from the higher fossiliferous zones of the Durness dolomite and limestone.
He states that ‘the latter fauna is so similar to, if not identical with, that
occurring in Newfoundland, Mingan Islands, and Point Levis, beneath
strata yielding the Phyllograptus fauna of Arenig age, that the beds must be
regarded as belonging to the higher divisions of the Cambrian formation.”
The intrusive igneous rocks of the Assynt region, of later date than
Cambrian time, and yet older than the Post-Cambrian movements, have
been specially studied by Mr. Teall, who has obtained results of special
importance from a petrological point of view. This petrographical province
embraces the plutonic complex of Cnoc na Sroine and Loch Borolan, and
the numerous sills and dykes that traverse the Cambrian and Torridonian
sediments, and even the underlying platform of Lewisian gneiss. He
infers that the plutonic rocks have been formed by the consolidation of
alkaline magmas rich in soda. -At the one end of the series is the quartz-
syenite of Cnoc na Sroine, and at the other the basic augite-syenite,.
nepheline -syenite, and borolanite. The basic varieties occur on the
margin, and the acid varieties in the centre. The sills and dykes comprise
two well-marked types, camptonites or vogesites, and felsites with alkali
felspar and egirine, which he believes to represent the dyke form of the
magmas that gave rise to the plutonic mass.®
The striking feature in the geology of the North-West Highlands is the
evidence relating to those terrestrial movements that affected that region
in Post-Cambrian times, which are without a parallel in Britain. The
geological structures produced by these displacements are extremely com-
plicated, but the vast amount of evidence obtained in the course of the
1 Grou. Mac., Dec. III, Vol. V (1888), pp. 484-487.
2 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xliv, p. 62.
3 Grou. Mac., Dec. IV, Vol. VII (1900), p. 385.
Presidential Address to Geological Section. 459
survey of that belt clearly proves that, though the sections vary indefinitely
along the line of complication, they have certain features in common which
throw much light on the tectonics of that mountain chain. Some of these
features may thus be briefly summarized :—
1. By means of lateral compression or earth-creep the strata are thrown
into a series of inverted folds which culminate in reversed faults or thrusts.
2. Without incipient folding, the strata are repeated by a series of minor
thrusts or reversed faults which lie at an oblique angle to the major thrust-
nae and dip in the direction from which the pressure came, that is, from
the east.
3. By means of major thrusts of varying magnitude the following
structures are produced: (a) the piled-up Cambrian strata are driven
westwards along planes formed by the underlying undisturbed materials ;
(6) masses of Lewisian gneiss, Torridon Sandstone, and Cambrian rocks
are made to override the underlying piled-up strata; (c) the Eastern
Schists are driven westwards and, in some cases, overlap all major and
minor thrusts till they rest directly on the undisturbed Cambrian strata.
When to these features are added the effects of normal faulting and
prolonged denudation, it is possible to form some conception of the
evolution of those extraordinary structures which are met with in that
region. Some of the features just described occur in other mountain
chains affected by terrestrial movement, as in the Alps and in Provence ;
but there is one which appears to be peculiar to the North-West Highlands.
It is the remarkable overlap of the Moine Thrust-plane—the most easterly
of the great lines of displacement. Along the southern confines of the wild
and complicated region of Assynt, that plane can be traced westwards for
a distance of six miles to the Knockan cliff, where the micaceous flagstones
rest on the Cambrian Limestone. In Durness we find an outlier of the
Eastern Schists reposing on Cambrian Limestone, there preserved by
normal faults, at a distance of about ten miles from the mass of similar
schists east of Loch Eriboll, with which it was originally continuous.
Though many of these structures appear incredible at first, it is worthy
of note that some have been reproduced experimentally by Mr. Cadell.’
He took layers of sand, loam, clay, and plaster of Paris, and after the:
materials had set into hard brittle lamine, in imitation of sedimentary
strata, he applied horizontal pressure under varying conditions. The
results, some of which may here be given, were remarkable.
1. The compressed mass tends to find relief along a series of gently
sits thrust-planes, which dip towards the side from which pressure is:
exerted.
2. After a certain amount of heaping up along a series of minor thrust-
planes, the heaped-up mass tends to rise and ride forward bodily along
major thrust-planes.
3. The front portion of a mass being pushed along a thrust-plane tends
to bend over and curve under the back portion.
4, A thrust-plane below may pass into an anticline above ; and a major
thrust-plane above may and probably always does originate in a fold below.
Now these important experiments confirm the conclusion reached by
the Geological Survey from a study of the phenomena in the field, viz., that
under the influence of horizontal compression or earth-creep the rocks in
that region behaved like brittle rigid bodies which snapped across, were
piled up, and driven westwards in successive slices. But, further, these
displacements were accompanied by differential movement of the materials
which resulted in the development of new structures. These phenomena
culminate along the belt of rocks in immediate association with the Moine
1 Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, vol. xxxv, p. 337.
460 British Association—J. Horne, F.R.S., e¢tc.—
Thrust, where the outcrop of that thrust lies to the east of a broad belt of
displaced materials. There, Lewisian gneiss, Torridon Sandstone, and
Cambrian quartzite are sheared and rolled out, presenting new divisional
planes parallel with that of the Moine Thrust. The Lewisian gneiss
shades into flaser gneiss and schist, and ultimately passes into a banded
rock like a platy schist. The pegmatites show fluxion structure with
felspar ‘eyes’ like that of the rhyolites. At intervals in these zones of
highly sheared rocks, phacoidal masses of Lewisian gneiss appear, in
which the Pre-Torridonian structures are not wholly effaced. The sills of
camptonite and felsite intrusive in the Cambrian rocks become schistose,
and together with the sediments in which they occur appear in a lenticular
form. All these mylonized rocks show a characteristic striping on the
divisional planes, due to orientation of the constituents in the direction of
movement.
Still more important evidence in relation to the question of regional
metamorphism is furnished by the Torridon Sandstone. In the case of
the basal conglomerate the pebbles have been flattened and elongated, and
a fine wavy structure has been developed in the matrix. In the district of
Ben More, Assynt, planes of schistosity, more or less parallel with the
planes of the Ben More Thrust, pass downwards from the Torridon con-
glomerate into the underlying gneiss. Both have a common foliation
irrespective of the unconformability between them. Again, along the
great inversion south of Stromeferry, foliation has been developed in the
Torridon conglomerate and overlying Lewisian gneiss, parallel to the plane
of the Moine Thrust. The Torridon grits and sandstones south of Kin-
lochewe and between Kishorn and Loch Alsh are similarly affected by the
Post-Cambrian movements. Mr. Teall has shown that the quartz grains
have been drawn out into lenticles and into thin folia that wind round
‘eyes’ of felspar. A secondary crypto-crystalline material has been
produced, sericitic mica appears in the divisional planes, and in some
instances biotite is developed. In short, he concludes that in these
deformed Torridonian sediments there is an approximation to the
crystalline schists of the Moine type. The stratigraphical horizon of these
rocks can be clearly proved. The subdivisions of the Torridon Sandstone
have been recognized in those displaced masses which lie to the east of the
Kishorn Thrust and to the west of the Moine Thrust. It is worthy of
note also that in the belt of highly sheared gneiss south of Stromeferry
that comes between the Torridonian inversion in the west and the Moine
Thrust on the east Mr. Peach has found folded and faulted inliers of the
basal division of the Torridon Sandstone that have a striking resemblance
to typical Moine schists.
Regarding the age of these Post-Cambrian movements, it is obvious that
they must be later than the Cambrian Limestone and older than the Old
Red Sandstone, for the basal conglomerates of the latter rest unconformably
on the Eastern Schists, and contain pebbles of basal quartzite, pipe-rock,
limestone, and dolomite derived from the Cambrian rocks of the North-
West Highlands.
East of the Moine Thrust or great line of displacement extending from
Eriboll to Skye, we enter the wide domain of the metamorphic rocks of
the Highlands, a region now under investigation, and which presents
difficult problems for solution. Two prominent types of crystalline schists
(Caledonian series, Callaway, and Moine schists of the Geological Survey)
have been traced over wide areas in the counties of Sutherland, Ross, and
Inverness, and across the Great Glen to the northern slopes of the
Grampians. Consisting of granulitic quartzose schists and muscovite-
biotite schist or gneiss, they appear to be of sedimentary origin, though
crystalline. They are associated with recognizable masses of Lewisian
Presidential Address to Geological Section. 461
gneiss covering many square miles of ground and presenting many of the
structures so characteristic of that complex in the undisturbed areas
already described. Within the belt of Lewisian gneiss at Glenelg
Mr. Clough has mapped a series of rocks presumably of sedimentary
origin, including graphitic schists, mica schists, and limestones, but the
gneiss with which they are associated possesses granulitic structure like
that of the adjoining Moine schists.!_ Further, in the east of Sutherland,
and also in the county of Ross, foliated and massive granites appear
which are interleaved in the adjoining Moine schists, forming injection
gneisses and producing contact metamorphism.’
In the Eastern Highlands the Moine series disappears and is replaced
by a broad development of schists, admittedly of sedimentary origin,
which have been termed the Dalradian series by Sir A. Geikie. Within
recent years it has been divided into certain rock-groups which have been
traced by the Geological Survey from the counties of Banff and Aberdeen
to Kintyre. It has been found that, though highly crystalline in certain
areas, they pass along the strike into comparatively unaltered sediments,
as proved by Mr. Hill in the neighbourhood of Loch Awe.’ Before the
planes of schistosity were developed in these Dalradian schists they were
pierced by sills of basic rock (gabbro and epidiorite) and acid material
(granite), both of which must have shared in the movements that affected
the schists, as they merge respectively into hornblende schists and foliated
granite or biotite gneiss. Both seem to have developed contact meta-
morphism ; indeed, Mr. Barrow‘ contends that the regional metamorphism
so prominent in the South-East Highlands is mainly, if not wholly, due
to the intrusion of an early granite magma, now exposed at the surface
in the form of local bosses of granite and isolated veins of pegmatite.
The age of the Dalradian schists has not been determined. Though
there seems to be an apparent order of superposition, in this series it is
still uncertain whether that implies the original sequence of deposition.
Since Sir A. Geikie applied the term Dalradian to the Eastern Highland
schists in 1891,5 evidence has been obtained ° that suggests the correlation
of certain rocks along the Highland border with the Arenig and younger
Silurian strata of the Southern Uplands. Consisting of epidiorite, chlorite
schist, radiolarian cherts, black shales, grits, and limestone, they have
been traced at intervals from Arran to Kincardineshire. In the latter
region Mr. Barrow contends that they are separated by a line of dis-
ruption from the Highland schists to the north ; but no such discordance
has been detected in the Callander district or in Arran. Though these
- rocks of the Highland border have been much deformed, yet their occurrence
in the same order of succession in that region and in the Southern Uplands
is presumptive evidence for their correlation.
In view of this evidence it is not improbable that the Dalradian series
may contain rock-groups belonging to different geological systems. Indeed,
the result of recent Survey work in Islay tends to support this view.
For in the south-west part of that island there is a mass of Lewisian
gneiss overlaid unconformably by sedimentary strata which have been
correlated with the lower and middle divisions of the Torridon Sandstone.
Unfortunately the sequence ends here, as both the gneiss and overlying
1 Summary of Progress Geol. Sury. 1897, p. 37.
2 « On Foliated Granites and their Relations to the Crystalline Schists in Eastern
Sutherland ’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. lii, p. 633.
3 Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv., 1893, p. 265.
4 « Tntrusion of Muscoyite-biotite Gneiss in the South-East Highlands and its
accompanying Metamorphism’’: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xlix, p. 330.
5 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xlvii, p. 72.
6 Ann. Rep. Geol. Sury., 1893, p. 266; 1895, p. 25; 1896, p. 27.
462 British Association—J. Horne, F.R.S., etc.—
sediments are separated by a line of disruption or thrust-plane from the
strata in the eastern part of the island. And yet, notwithstanding this
break, the evidence obtained in the latter district is remarkable, whatever
theory be adopted to explain it. There the Islay limestone and black
slates appear to be covered unconformably by the Islay quartzite con-
taining Annelid tubes and followed in ascending sequence by Fucoidal
shales and dolomites, suggestive of the Cambrian succession in Sutherland
and Ross. The Islay quartzite passes into Jura, thence to the mainland,
and it may eventually prove to be the Perthshire quartzite, while the
Islay limestone and black slate are supposed to be the prolongations of
the limestone and slate of the Loch Awe series in Argyllshire.'
From the foregoing data it will be seen that much uncertainty prevails
regarding the age and structural relations of the metamorphic rocks of
the Highlands, but the difficulties that here confront the observer are
common to all areas affected by regional metamorphism.
A prominent feature in the geology of the Eastern Highlands is the
great development of later plutonic rocks chiefly in the form of granite
ranging along the Grampian chain from Aberdeenshire to Argyllshire.
In connection with one of these masses a remarkable paper appeared in
1892 which in my opinion has profoundly influenced petrological inquiry
in Scotland from the light which it threw on the relations of a connected
series of petrographical types in a plutonic complex. I refer to the paper
on the “Plutonic Rocks of Garabal Hill and Meall Breac,” by Mr. Teall
and Mr. Dakyns.?
The authors showed that this plutonic mass comprises granite, tonalite,
augite-diorite, picrites, serpentine, and other compounds. Mr. Teall
regards the members of this sequence as products of one original magma
by a process of differentiation, the peridotites being the oldest rocks,
because the minerals of which they are composed are the first to form in
a plutonic magma. As the process of consolidation advances, rocks of
a varied composition arise, in the order of increasing acidity, viz., diorites,
tonalites, and granites. The most acid rock consists of quartz and
orthoclase, which may represent the mother liquor after the other con-
stituents had separated out. Mr. Teall concludes that progressive
consolidation of one reservoir gives rise to the formation of magmas of
increasing acidity, and hence that basic rocks should precede the acid
rocks. This theory of magmatic differentiation—so strenuously advocated
by Brégger, Vogt, Rosenbusch, Iddings, Teall, and others—was first applied
to the interpretation of varied types of plutonic masses in Scotland by
Mr. Teall in the paper referred to. Since then he has extended its
application to the granite masses in the Silurian tableland of the south
of Scotland, which include rocks ranging from hyperites at the one end
to granitite with microcline and aplite veins at the other.» Many of
the phenomena presented by the newer granite masses of the Eastern
Highlands seem to lend support to this theory. These views, indeed,
have permeated the petrological descriptions of the granitic protrusions
in the counties of Aberdeen and Argyll which have been given by Messrs.
Barrow, Hill, Kynaston, and Craig * in recent years.
One of the remarkable advances in Scottish geology during the period
ander review is the solution of the order of succession and tectonic
1 Summary of Progress Geol. Surv. 1899, p. 66.
2 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xlviii, p. 104.
3 Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv., 1896, p. 40; see also “‘ The Silurian Rocks of Scotland,”’
Geol. Surv. Memoir, 1899, p. 607.
4 Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv., 1897, p. 87; 1898, pp. 25-28. See also paper on
‘¢ Kentallenite and its Relations to other Igneous Rocks in Argyllshire’’: Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soe., vol. lvi, p. 581.
Presidential Address to Geological Section. 463
relations of the Silurian rocks of the south of Scotland by Professor
Lapworth. The history of research relating to that tableland, and of all
his contributions to the problems connected with it, has been given in
detail in the recent volume of the Geological Survey on that formation.
At present it will be sufficient to refer to his three classic papers, which,
in my opinion, record one of the great achievements in British geology.
The first, on ‘‘The Moffat Series,’ ! demonstrated, by means of the
vertical distribution of the graptolites, the order of succession in those
fine deposits (black shales and mudstones), which were laid down near the
verge of sedimentation, and are now exposed in anticlinal folds in the
central belt. The second, on ‘‘The Girvan Succession,” * showed how
certain graptolite zones of the Moffat shales are interleaved, in the Girvan
region, with conglomerates, grits, sandstones, flagstones, mudstones,
shales, and limestones, charged with all the varied forms of life found in
shallow seas or near shore. In the third, on “The Ballantrae Rocks of
the South of Scotland and their Place in the Upland Sequence,” he
indicated the distribution and variation of the Moffat terrane (Upper
Llandeilo to Upper Llandovery) and of the Gala terrane (Tarannon), which
form the greater part of the uplands. He further pointed out how the
rocks and the fossils vary across the uplands according to the conditions
of deposition. Finally, he proved that the complicated tectonics of the
Silurian tableland, its endless overfolds, its endoclinal and exoclinal
structures, can be unravelled by means of the graptolite zones. These
researches disposed of the order of succession based on Barrande’s doctrine
of Colonies, and established the zonal value of graptolites as an index of
stratigraphical horizons. So complete was the zonal method of mapping
adopted by Professor Lapworth, and so accurate were his generalizations,
that few modifications have been made in his work.
In the course of the re-examination of the Silurian tableland by the
Geological Survey some important additions were made to our knowledge
of the Silurian system as there developed. Underlying all the sediments
of the uplands there is a series of volcanic and plutonic rocks of Arenig
age, the largest development of which occurs at Ballantrae in Ayrshire,
where their igneous character was recognized by Professor Bonney. But
they appear in the cores of numerous anticlines over an area of about
1,500 square miles, forming one of the most extensive volcanic areas
of Paleeozoic age in the British Isles. These volcanic rocks are overlain
by a band of cherts and mudstones, succeeded by black shales yielding
Glenkiln graptolites of Upper Llandeilo age. The cherts, which are
abundantly charged with Radiolaria, implying oceanic conditions of
deposition, are about 70 feet thick, and have been traced over an
area of about 2,000 square miles. The deposition of the Radiolarian
ooze must have occupied a long lapse of time. Indeed, the cherts and
mudstones represent the strata which, in other regions, form the Upper
Arenig and Lower Llandeilo divisions of the Silurian system. They
furnish interesting evidence of the oceanic conditions which here
prevailed in early Silurian time, and form a natural sequel to Professor
Lapworth’s researches bearing on the graptolitic deposits of the Upper
Llandeilo period, which must have been laid down on the sea-floor near
the limit of the land-derived sediment.
Of special interest is the new fish fauna found by the Geological Survey
in the Ludlow and Downtonian rocks between Lesmahagow and
Muirkirk, which the researches of Dr. Traquair have shown to be of
great biological and paleontological value. This discovery has enabled
1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxxiv, p. 240.
2 Tbid., vol. xxxviii, p. 537.
3 Gro. Mac., Dec. III, Vol. VI (1889), p. 20.
4 Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinb., vol. xxxix, p. 827.
464 British Association—J. Horne, F.R.S., ete.—
him to give a new classification of the Ostracodermi, and to enlarge the
order of the Heterostraci, which now includes four families, instead of the
Pteraspide alone. He has further shown that the Ccelolepide were not
Cestraciont sharks to which the Onchus spines belonged, but Heterostraci,
though probably of Elasmobranch origin, judging from the shagreen-like
scales. The Ceelolepide are common fishes in the Ludlow and
Downtonian rocks of Lanarkshire. The genus Vhelodus, first described
by Agassiz from detached scales in the Ludlow bone-bed, and subsequently
figured and described by Pander and Rohon from scales in the Upper
Silurian rocks of Oesel, is here represented for the first time by nearly
complete forms. But it is remarkable that no Onchus spines, nor any
Pteraspide, nor Cephalaspidee have been found in the Lanarkshire strata,
the nearest related genus to Cephalaspis being Ateleaspis, which, however,
represents a distinct family.
The group of sandstones, conglomerates, shales, and mudstones that
form the passage-beds between the Ludlow rocks and the Lower Old Red
Sandstone in Lanarkshire are now regarded as the equivalents of the
Downtonian strata in Shropshire, and are linked with the Silurian
system. The mudstones of this group, containing the new fish fauna,
likewise yield ostracods, phyllocarid crustaceans, and eurypterids—forms
which connect these beds with the underlying Ludlow rocks. The band
of greywacke-conglomerate, that extends from the Pentland Hills into
Ayrshire, composed largely of pebbles derived from the Silurian tableland,
is now taken as the base-line of the Lower Old Red Sandstone on the
south side of the great midland valley of Scotland.
The period under review has been marked by important additions to.
our knowledge of the Old Red Sandstone formation. In 1878 appeared
a valuable monograph by Sir Archibald Geikie on “The Old Red Sand-
stone of Western Europe,”! by far the most important treatise on this
subject since the publication of Hugh Miller’s classic work in 1841.
Following up the view maintained by Fleming, Godwin-Austen, and
Ramsay, that the deposits of this formation were laid down in lakes
or inland seas, he defined the geographical areas of the various basins in
the British area, giving to each a local name. He gave an outline of
the development of the rocks north of the Grampians in Caithness,
Orkney, and Shetland. He advanced an ingenious argument in favour of
correlating the Caithness flagstone series (middle division, Murchison)
with the Lower Old Red Sandstone south of the Grampians. He
contended that “the admitted paleontological distinctions between
the two areas are probably not greater than the striking lithological
differences between the strata would account for, or than the contrast
between the ichthyic faunas of adjacent but disconnected water basins at
the present time.” Sir A. Geikie further gave a table showing the vertical
range of the known fossils of the Caithness series from data partly
supplied by the late Mr. C. Peach.
During the last quarter of a century Dr. Traquair has made a special
study of the ichthyology of the Old Red Sandstone and Carboniferous
strata of Scotland, which has enabled him to throw much light on the
distribution of fossil fishes in these rocks and on their value for the
purpose of cerrelation. His researches show that the fish fauna of the
formation south of the Grampians resembles that of the Lower Old Red
Sandstone of the West of England and adjoining part of Wales in the
abundance of specimens of Cephalaspis, the common species in Forfarshire
(C. Lyelli, Ag.) being also indistinguishable from that in the Herefordshire
beds. Péeraspis occurs in both regions, though of different species. Of
Acanthodians Parexus recurvus, Ag., occurs in both, together with
1 Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinb., vol. xxviii, p. 346.
Presidential Address to Geological Section. 465
Climatius (C. ornatus, Ag.). The abundance of Cephalaspis (C. Campbell-
tonensis, Whit., OC. Jexvi, Traq.) and of Climatius spines is characteristic
of the Lower Devonian rocks of Canada.
The Old Red Sandstone of Lorne has recently yielded organic remains,
akin to those found in Forfarshire, south of the Grampians, viz.
Cephalaspis Lornensis (Traq.), and two species of myriapods (Campecaris
Forfarensis and a species of Archidesmus).'
In the deposits of Lake Orcadie, north of the Grampians, quite
a different fish fauna from that of Forfarshire appears. Dr. Traquair has
noted that there are no species common to the two areas, and only two
genera, viz. Mesacanthus and Cephalaspis. The latter genus is, however,
represented in Caithness only by a single specimen of a species
(C. magnifica, Traq.) different from any found elsewhere. It might here
be observed that Cephalaspis is represented also in the Upper Devonian
rocks of Canada by a single specimen of a peculiar species (C. laticeps,
Traq.), and hence Dr. Traquair has shown that, though Cephalaspis is
most abundant in the Lower Devonian, it extends also into the upper
division of that system. It further appears that Osteolepide (Osteolepis,
Diplopterus), Rhizodontide (Zristichopterus, Gyroptychius), Holoptychiide
(Glyptolepis), Asterolepidee (Pterichthys, Microbrachius), Ctenodontide
(Dipterus) are abundant in the Orcadian fauna, none of which has occurred
in the Lower Old Red Sandstone of Forfarshire, the West of England, or in
the Lower Devonian rocks of Canada. Dr. Traquair recognized, however,
the identity of the fishes from the well-known fish band in the basin of the
Moray Firth with those brought from the west part of Orkney, though
these forms did not quite agree with the fossils from the Thurso district.
He subsequently found that the fish fauna from the Orcadian beds in the
Moray Firth basin is represented in Caithness by that of Achanarras ;
and, further, that two other faunas occur in the Caithness area—that of
Thurso and that of John o’ Groats, as given below :—
( Tristichopterus alatus, Egert.
\ Mierobrachius Dicki, Traq.
Coccosteus minor, H. Miller.
John 9’ Groats
Thursius pholidotus, Traq.
Osteolepis microlepidotus, Pander.
Pterichthys, three species.
Thurso
Cheirolepis Trailli, Ag.
Osteolepis macrolepidotus, Ag.
In 1898 appeared an important paper by Dr. Flett on ‘‘The Old Red
Sandstone of the Orkneys,”? in which he described the results of his
detailed examination of the islands. He proved the existence there of
three fish faunas, and their correspondence with those identified in Caith-
ness by Dr. Traquair. - From the evidence in the field he adopted the
following order of succession and correlation of the strata :—
3. Eday Sandstones and John o’ Groats beds.
2. Rousay and Thurso beds.
1. Stromness, Achanarras, and Cromarty beds.
A further important result of Dr. Flett’s researches in the Old Red
Sandstone of these northern isles was communicated to the Royal
Society of Edinburgh this year. He has found in the Shetland beds,
which had previously yielded no fossils save plants, fragments, identified
by Dr. Traquair as Holonema, a fish new to Britain, but occurring in the
Chemung group of North America, the subdivision of the Upper Devonian
that immediately underlies the Catskill red sandstones, with remains of
1 Summary of Progress Geol. Surv. 1897, p. 83.
2 Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinb., vol. xxxix, p. 383.
Achanarras
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. X. 30
466 British Association—J. Horne, F.R.S., etc.—
Holoptychius. Dr. Traquair has also recognized in Dr. Flett’s collection
fragments of Asterolepis, a genus characteristic of the Upper Old Red
Sandstone, and which, as proved by Dr. Flett, occurs in the ‘ Thurso beds’
of the Orkneys. The interest attaching to this discovery is very great, for
Dr. Flett contends that it indicates a fourth life-zone in the Orcadian
series, and, further, that it tends to span the break between the Orcadian
division and Upper Old Red Sandstone.
In the Upper Old Red Sandstone on the south side of the Moray Firth,
Dr. Traquair recognized two life-zones, and subsequently, with the assist-
ance of Mr. Taylor, Lhanbryde, a third; in the following order. The
lowest is that of the Nairn sandstones with Asterolepis maxima (Ag.) ; the
second, that of Alves and Scaat Craig with Bothriolepis major (Ag.),
Psammosteus Taylori (Traq.); and the highest, that of Rosebrae, the fauna
of which, according to Dr. Traquair, has a striking resemblance to the
assemblage in the Dura Den Sandstones in Fife.
Before 1876 all the Carboniferous areas in the great midland valley of
Scotland had been mapped by the Geological Survey. The extent and
structural relations of the various coalfields were determined according to
the information then available, and shown in the published maps. But
the rapid development of certain fields in the east of Scotland necessitated
a revision of them, which has lately been done. The Fife Coalfield has
been re-examined by Sir A. Geikie, Mr. Peach, and Mr. Wilson, and the
oil-shale fields in the Lothians have been mapped by Mr. Cadell. An
important memoir by Sir A. Geikie on “The Geology of Central and
Western Fife and Kinross” has just been issued by the Geological Survey,
in which the structure of these coalfields is described. Mr. Cadell lately
gave an account of the geological structure of the oil-shale fields in his
presidential address to the Edinburgh Geological Society.
Within the period under review detailed researches of great importance
on the fossil flora of British Carboniferous rocks have been carried out by
Mr. Kidston, to which reference ought to be made. The results are of the
highest value for correlating the strata in different areas.!_ By means of
the plants he arranges the Carboniferous rocks of Scotland in two great
divisions : a lower, comprising the Calciferous Sandstone and Carboniferous
Limestone series; and an upper, including the Millstone Grit and the
Coal-measures, there being a marked paleontological break at the base of
the Millstone Grit. He shows that the upper and lower divisions of the
system, not only in Scotland but in Britain, are characterized by a different
series of plants, not one species passing from the lower division, save in
the case of Stigmaria, into the upper. From his researches it appears
that, among ferns, Veuropteris is all but unknown in the lower division,
whereas in the upper it is very abundant. The Sphenopterids are pro-
portionately common in both divisions ; but those of the lower are usually
characterized by cuneate segments, while those of the upper have generally
rounded pinnules. Alethopteris, so common throughout the whole of the
upper series, is entirely absent from the lower. The genus Calamites,
which is extremely plentiful in the upper, is almost entirely absent from
the lower division, where its place is taken by Asterocalamites. ‘The
Cordaitee are also rare below the Millstone Grit, though very plentiful
above that horizon. Sigillaria, so rare in the Lower Carboniferous rocks,
is extremely abundant in the upper division, and particularly in the middle
Coal-measures. In short, Mr. Kidston concludes that the floras of the two
main divisions of the Carboniferous system, though belonging to the same
types, are absolutely distinct in species and in the relative importance of
the genera.
* “© On the various Divisions of British Carboniferous Rocks as determined by
their Fossil Flora’’: Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc. Edinb., vol. xii (1893), p. 183.
Presidential Address to Geological Section. 467
By means of the fossil plants Mr. Kidston correlates the Coal-measures
of Scotland underlying the red sandstones with the lower division of the
Coal-measures of England, and the overlying red sandstones of Fife with
the middle division of the English Coal-measures.
It is remarkable that the evidence supplied by the fossil fishes has led
Dr. Traquair independently to a similar conclusion. He holds that fossil
ichthyology proves the existence of only two great life-zones in the
Carboniferous rocks of Central Scotland—an upper and a lower—the
boundary-line between the two being drawn at the base of the Millstone
Grit. The Scottish Carboniferous rocks, being mostly estuarine, give an
opportunity of comparing the estuarine fishes of both divisions. He
finds the Coal-measure fishes of Scotland to be the same as those in the
English Coal-measures, while those occurring below the Millstone Grit in
Scotland are mostly different in species, and often, too, in genera, from the
forms above that horizon.
Of special interest, as bearing on the former extension of this system in
Scotland, is the discovery made by Professor Judd! in 1877 of a patch
of Carboniferous sandstones and shales, with well-preserved plant remains
in Morven. Another small outlier of this formation has recently been
found in the Pass of Brander by the Geological Survey.?
The reptiles from the Elgin sandstones, recently described by Mr. E. T.
Newton,’ add fresh interest to the study of these rocks. The structural
relations of these sandstones have been fully treated by Professor Judd in
his great paper on the Secondary Rocks on the East of Scotland,* and
again in his presidential address to this Section at Aberdeen,® who con-
firmed Huxley’s well-known correlation of these beds with the Trias, The
Dicynodont skull, identified by Professor Judd and Dr. Traquair at the
Aberdeen meeting of the British Association in 1885, and other remains
found in the reptilian sandstones in Cutties Hillock Quarry, where they
rest on Upper Old Red Sandstone with Holoptychius, have been described
by Mr. Newton. He confirmed their affinity with Dicynodonts, though
they were referred to the genera Gordonia and Geikia. But the most
remarkable specimen was the skull named by Mr. Newton Elginia mirabilis.
This extraordinary creature, with a pair of horns projecting like those of
a short-horned ox, and with smaller spines and bosses, numbering thirty-
nine, is related to the great Pareiasawrus from the Karoo beds of South
Africa. Two other reptiles are described by Mr. Newton from this quarry,
namely, a small crocodiie-like animal, Hrpetosuchus Granti, apparently
nearly allied to Stagonolepis, and Ornithosuchus Woodwardi, which is
probably a small Dinosaurian.
Mr. Newton has raised an interesting point in connection with his
researches. He calls attention to the fact that the reptilian remains from
the Cutties Hillock Quarry differ from those found at other localities in
the Elgin district. For example, the Lossiemouth sandstones have
yielded Stagonolepis, Hyperodapedon, and Telerpeton; and the Cutties
Hillock sandstones, the Dicynodonts (Gordonia and Geikia), the horned
reptile (Hlginia), the small crocodile-like Erpetosuchus, and the little
Dinosaurian Ornithosuchus. Does this distribution indicate different
stratigraphical horizons? is virtually the point raised by Mr, Newton.
In connection with this inquiry he cites the evidence obtained in other
countries. Thus, in the Gondwana beds of India, the series of reptiles
similar to those of Elgin occur at different localities and on different
1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxxiv, p. 686.
* Summary of Progress Geol. Surv. 1898, p. 129.
Phil. Trans., vol. clxxxiv (1893), p. 431; ibid., vol. clxxxv (1894), p. 578.
4 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxix, p. 98.
Rep. Brit. Assoc., 1885, p. 994.
wo
oe
468 British Association—J. Horne, F.R.S., etc.—
stratigraphical horizons Dicynodonts and Labyrinthodonts being found
in the lower Panchetr ocks, while Hyperodapedon and Parasuchus (allied
to Stagonolepis) are met with in the higher Kota-Maleri beds. Again, in
the Karoo beds of South Africa the Dicynodonts and the great Pareia-
saurus—the latter being the nearest known ally of the horned reptile
(Elginia mirabilis) from Cutties Hillock, Elgin—occur low down in that
formation. Further light is thrown on the question by the interesting
discoveries of Amalitzky in Northern Russia, where a number of reptilian
remains have been found closely allied to Pareiasaurus, Hlginia, and
Dicynodon, in beds which are referred to the Permian formation, and
accompanied by plants and mollusca which seemingly confirm this
reference. !
In view of these foreign discoveries Mr. Newton concludes that the
Elgin sandstones may probably represent more than one reptilian
horizon, and that we are confronted with the possibility of their being
of Permian age.
The difficulty of drawing a boundary-line between the Trias and the
Upper Old Red Sandstone of Elgin, which impressed the mind of the late
Dr. Gordon, has had to be faced elsewhere in Scotland. In Arran, my
colleague Mr. Gunn has shown that the Trias there rests on the Upper Old
Red Sandstone, both formations having a similar inclination. Even he,
with his ripe experience, has had great difficulty in drawing a boundary
between them on the west side of the island ; but when the base-line of
the Trias is traced eastwards to Brodick it passes transgressively on to
Carboniferous rocks.
Of special importance is the recent discovery in Arran of the fossils of
the Avicula contorta zone* by Mr. Macconochie, of the Geological Survey,
to whose skill as a fossil collector Scottish geology owes much. With
these occur Lower Liassic fossils, in sediments which are not now found
in place in the island. These fossiliferous patches are associated with
fragmental volcanic materials filling a great vent, the age of which will be
referred to presently. This discovery has fixed the Triassic age of the
red sandstones and marls in the south of Arran. The detailed mapping
of the island by Mr. Gunn has demonstrated that the Triassic sandstones
rest partly on the Old Red Sandstone, partly on the Carboniferous Lime-
stone Series, and partly on the Coal-measures.
In 1878 appeared the third of Professor Judd’s great papers on the
Secondary Rocks of Scotland, wherein he unravelled the history of these
strata as developed in the east of Scotland and in the West Highlands.
His admirable researches, in continuation of the work done by Bryce,
Tate, and others, embraced the identification of the life-zones, their
correlation with those of other regions, the history of the physical con-
ditions which prevailed in Scotland during Mesozoic time, and the working
out of the structural relations of the strata.* He showed that their
preservation on the east of Scotland was due to the existence of great
faults, and those in the West Highlands to the copious outpouring of the
Tertiary lavas. He was the first to detect the occurrence of Cretaceous
rocks in the West Highlands, and to show the marked unconformability
which separates them from the Jurassic strata. His main life-zones and
his main conclusions regarding the Secondary Rocks of Scotland have so
far been confirmed by the detailed mapping of the Geological Survey. An
interesting addition to our knowledge of these rocks was made by my
colleague Mr. Horace B. Woodward, in the course of his field-work, who
1 Y. Amalitzky: ‘‘Sur les fouilles de 1899 de débris de vertébrés dans les dépdts
Permiens de la Russie du nord,’’ Varsovie, 1900.
2 Summary of Progress Geol. Surv. 1899, p. 133.
3 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxix, p. 97; vol. xxxiv, p. 660.
Presidential Address to Geological Section. 469
found the oolitic iron-ore in the Middle Lias of Raasay, the position of
which corresponds approximately with that of the Cleveland ironstone.!
The extensive plateau of Tertiary volcanic rocks in the Inner Hebrides
has been a favourite field of research ever since the time of Macculloch,
the great pioneer in West Highland geology. During the period under
review much work has been done in that domain. According to Professor
Judd, that region contains the relics of five great extinct volcanoes and
several minor cones, indicating three periods of igneous activity. The
first was characterized by the discharge of acid lavas and ashes, the molten
material consolidating down below as granite; the second by the outburst
of basic lavas, now forming the basaltic plateau, connected with deep-
seated masses that appear now as gabbro and dolerite ; the third by the
appearance of sporadic cones, from which issued minor streams of lava.?
In 1888 Sir A. Geikie communicated his elaborate monograph on the
history of Tertiary volcanic action in Britain to the Royal Society of
Edinburgh,’ which has been incorporated, with fuller details, in his recent
work on ‘The Ancient Volcanoes of Great Britain.” His main conclusions
may thus be briefly stated : (1) The great basaltic plateaux did not emanate
from central volcanoes, but are probably due to fissure eruptions ; (2) the
basaltic lavas were subsequently pierced by laccolitic masses of gabbro,
which produced a certain amount of contact alteration on the previously
erupted lavas ; (3) the protrusion of masses of granophyre and other acid
materials by means of which the basic rocks were disrupted.
During the last six years Mr. Harker has been engaged in mapping the
central part of the Isle of Skye and in the petrographical study of the
rocks, the results of which have been summarized in the annual reports
of the Geological Survey. As regards the basaltic lavas, he finds that
while they have been of vast extent the individual flows have been of
feeble volume, and show no evident relation to definite centres of eruption.
There were two local episodes, however, which took the form of central
eruptions : one represented by a number of explosive outbursts at certain
points ; the other, in the basalt succession, gave rise to rhyolitic rocks.
Mr. Harker further finds that the succeeding plutonic phase of activity,
confined in Skye to what is now the central mountain tract, is represented
by three groups of plutonic intrusions, in the following order : peridotites,
gabbros, and granites. The metamorphism set up in the basaltic lavas
near the large plutonic masses presents points of interest, especially
the widespread formation of new lime-soda-felspars from the zeolites in
the lavas.
After the intrusion of the granite of the Red Hills, Mr. Harker finds
that igneous activity took the form of intrusions of smaller volume, but
in some cases of wide distribution. The great group of dolerite sills
belongs to this period. An enormous number of acid and basic dykes
followed, of several distinct epochs, A set of minor basic intrusions
of quite late date is found in the gabbro district of the Cuillins, the
most interesting of which takes the form of sheets of dolerite, parallel at
any given locality, but always dipping towards the centre of the gabbro
area. Mr. Harker considers that this remarkable system of injections
presents a new problem in the mechanics of igneous intrusion. The latest
phase of vulcanicity in the Cuillin district is a radial group of peridotite
dykes. As regards the local group of rock in Central Skye Mr. Harker
finds that the order of increasing acidity which ruled in the plutonic
phase was reversed for the minor intrusions which followed.
In connection with the great development of volcanic activity in the
1 Grou. Mac., Dec. III, Vol. X (1893), p. 4938.
2 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxx, p. 220.
3 Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinb., vol. xxxy, pt. 2, p. 23.
470 Notices of Memoirs.
West of Scotland in Tertiary time reference must be made to the remark-
able volcanic vent in Arran, the recognition of which is due to the
suggestion of my friend Mr. Peach. This volcanic centre covers an area
of about eight square miles, and lies to the south of the granite area of
the island. The vent is now filled with volcanic agglomerate and large
masses of sedimentary material, some of which have yielded the Rheetic
and Lower Lias fossils already referred to, the whole being pierced by
acid and basic igneous rocks. One of the interesting features connected
with it is the occurrence of fragments of limestone with the agglomerate,
which has yielded fossils of the age of the Chalk, thus proving that the
vent is post-Cretaceous. There is thus strong evidence for referring
the granite mass in the north of the island and most of the intrusive,
acid, and basic igneous rocks to the Tertiary period. It furnishes remark-
able proof of the Tertiary age of the Arran granite suggested by Sir A.
Geikie in 1873.2, The story unfolded by this discovery is like a geological
romance. The former extension of Rhatic and Lower Lias strata and
of the Chalk in the basin of the Clyde, and the evidence of extensive
denudation in the south of Scotland, appeal vividly to the imagination.
This outline of the researches in the solid geology of Scotland would be
incomplete without reference to the publication of Sir A. Geikie’s great
work on “The Ancient Volcanoes of Great Britain” (1897), in which the
history is given of volcanic action in Scotland from the earliest geological
periods down to Tertiary time. To investigators it has proved invaluable
for reference. Nor can I omit to mention the new edition of his volume
on “The Scenery of Scotland,” wherein he depicts the evolution of the
topography of the country with increasing force and fascination. In this.
domain it may be said of the author, “ Nihil quod tetigit sed ornavit.”
I].—Eeyrtian Grotogy.—We have much pleasure in noticing
“Geological Survey Report, 1899, Part III, Farafra Oasis; its
topography and geology, by Hugh J. L. Beadnell,” issued in July,
1901, by the Survey Department, Public Works Ministry at Cairo.
This, the second report issued, follows closely on Part II, and consists.
of 39 pp., 4 maps, and many sections. The report is divided into
Introduction; Topography, with notes on the Wells, Population,
etc.; Geology; the Desert between Farafra and Dakhla; and
Geological Summary. The geological summary shows that in the
district under notice the lowest rocks met with are correlated with
the Danian of Europe. These consist of, from below up, clays and
sandstones of Ain el Wadi, with plant remains and silicified wood ;
hard blue-grey limestones and White Chalk with brachiopods,
lamellibranchs, annelids, etc. Above these come shales, occasionally
present, with an abundance of fossils, beds probably representing
locally the upper part of the White Chalk. ‘The Eocene is repre-
sented in its lower part only by limestones of the plateau with
numerous echinids, lamellibranchs, and many foraminifera (Libyan
series) at the top, while below come the Hsna Shales, in part
fossiliferous and with Operculina limestone occasionally at the base.
The recent deposits are seen in the soils and clays of springs with
recent fresh-water shells, blown sand, and local and unfossiliferous.
marls and clays. The report will be of the highest value, and like
1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. lvii (1901), p. 226.
2 Trans. Geol. Soc. Edinb., vol. ii, p. 305.
Notices of Memoirs. 471
its predecessor is exceedingly well got up; we await the future
parts with the greatest interest. One thing we would ask of the
Director-General, Captain Lyons, and that is, to allow the word
‘Keypt’ to appear somewhere on the title-page.
III.—Evconomio Guotocy.—Messrs. John C. Branner and John
F. Newsom have issued a second edition of their “Syllabus of
a course of Lectures on Hconomic Geology,” 1900, in a volume
printed on one side of the paper only, of 368 pp. One of the
most important things a student of economic geology needs to learn
is where to find and how to use information that has been published.
The authors have therefore given references, first, to works on the
general subject ; second, to periodicals in which articles are to be
looked for upon various economic subjects; third, to papers and
reports on special subjects. Naturally in a book issued by the
Professors of the Leland Stanford junior University, more space
is given to the economic geology of the United States than to that
of other countries. The book has a good index, and is illustrated
by a number of charts and sections. The compositions of minerals
are mainly taken from Dana.
TV.—Canap1an Grotoey. Sessional Paper No. 26, 64 Victoria,
Summary Report of the Geological Survey Department, for the
year 1900, is an octavo of 203 pages and forms an important and
interesting document. It has, moreover, a melancholy interest in
that it is the last report from the pen of the late G. M. Dawson.
In this report especial prominence is given to the results of field-
work, “thus affording an early publication of a preliminary kind
for any new facts obtained,” an object that entitles this report to
especial attention. During the year 1900 twelve new maps were
completed and finished, and eighteen others were either in the
engraver’s hands or in the press. Mr. James White has completed
his Altitudes in the Dominion of Canada, and this will shortly be
issued. Attention is again drawn to the inadequate safety of the
present Museum and offices. It is a penny-wise-and-pound-foolish
policy to allow such precious and costly records to continue exposed
to the danger of fire. After a series of reports on economic minerals,
a good account is given of the exhibit sent by Canada to the Paris
Exhibition, and the report proper opens on p. 387 with a detailed
account of the Yukon district. The areas explored are those of the
Stewart and Yukon rivers, the coals and lignites of the Klondike
river, and the copper deposits of White Horse. From p. 52 work
accomplished in British Columbia is detailed, and a map of the
Atlin Goldfields is appended, the geology of which is provided by
Mr. J. C. Gwillim. Mr. J. M. Bull reviews the explorations carried
out in the Mackenzie district, after which the report deals with
Canada proper, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. As regards
zoology, the chief item of interest is the announcement that Professor
H. F. Osborn is at work upon the vertebrate remains collected from
the Cretaceous rocks of the Red Deer River, and drawings have
already been prepared for the report which it is hoped will soon
A472 Notices of Memoirs.
be issued. Lambe’s ‘ Revision of the Genera and Species of the
Madreporaria Aporosa and Madreporaria Rugosa” has been pub-
lished, and Whiteaves’ fourth part of Mesozoic Fossils was issued in
November, 1900.
V.—Canapian Patmozorc Corats. — Lawrence M. Lambe has
issued part ii of his Revision of the Genera and Species of Canadian
Paleozoic Corals, as Contributions to Canadian Paleontology, vol. iv,
pt. 2. This part deals with the Madreporaria Aporosa and the
Madreporaria Rugosa, and consists of 200 pages and 13 plates. The
work is of considerable value and seems to have been prepared with
much care; there is little new in it, but that perhaps shows more
exactly the attention which the author has paid to his predecessors.
Perhaps Nicholson’s work might have been more carefully studied.
We do not grasp the author’s reasons for rejecting the genus Helio-
phyllum and placing the species under Cyathophyllum, or for using
Arachnophyllum in the place of Strombodes. The monograph is
a valuable addition to the literature of the Paleozoic Madreporaria,
and we hope the author will be encouraged to continue it.
VI.—Patzozo1co Crustacza.—In the 54th annual report of the
New York State Museum, 1900 (1901), J. M. Clarke has some notes
on new Crustacea. One of these, the peculiar, eyeless, semi-trilobitic
merostome, called Pseudoniscus by Nieszkowski in 1859, has been
found in the Hurypterus dolomites of Litchfield, Herkimer County,
and is described under the name of P. Roosevelti. Some of the
American specimens are perfect, and Mr. Clarke has been enabled
to add a good deal to our knowledge of the animal. The other new
Crustacea described in his paper are Ceratiocaris precedens, Emme-
lezoe decora, and Estheria Ortoni; the latter is a Coal-measure form
and was found at Carrollton.
VII.—Nerew Gzrorocicat Map or tHE Mont Branco Massrr.—
Professors Dupare and Mrazec have issued the map to accompany
their memoir on Mont Blanc, published in 1898 by the Société
Physique et d’Histoire Naturelle de Genéve. They had the col-
laboration of Dr. Pearce for the Val Ferret region and for the
Courmayeur synclinal. The map is based on that of Albert Barbey,
but includes Mont Catogne; its scale is 1:50,000, and it is clearly
printed and lightly tinted in colour. The publisher is Comptoir
Minéralogique et Géologique Suisse, Minod, 6, Rue St. Léger,
Geneva. Price not quoted. The publishers also announce the
completion of collections of rocks referred to in Professors Dupare
and Mrazec’s memoir, 49 specimens for 180 francs.
VITI.—Gxrotoey or THz Pairippine Isuanps.—The United States
Geological Survey has included in its twenty-first annual volume
a report on the Geology of the Philippine Islands. The work was
entrusted to George F. Becker, who has produced an admirable
resumé of the work of all who have gone before, and has added to
that observations of his own, taken at considerable disadvantage
owing to the unsettled state of the Islands. The report is rather an
attempt to bring together all that is known than to provide a new
and complete account of the geology of the Philippines. Becker lists
Reviews—Permo-Carboniferous Fauna, Bohemia. 473
some 100 papers on the subject, and has provided a translation of
Martin’s paper on the Tertiary Fossils which was published in 1895.
He also gives two excellent maps of the Islands, drawn by the
Jesuit Fathers, and has utilized a sketch of the mineral resources
compiled for him from the archives of the Inspeccion de Minas by
Luis Espina. Becker accompanied General Otis to Manila, and
remained in the Islands fourteen months, but could accomplish little
original work because of the attitude of the natives. The paper will
be very useful to all subsequent workers, and this seems to be its
real purpose.
IX.—New Braonropopa, erc.—(1) Suppl. zu d. Beschreibung der
Silurischen Craniaden der Ostseelainder. Frrepricn HoynineGEn
Hvuens. K. Russ. Mineralog. Gesellsch. zu St. Petersburg, 1900,
Ser. 11, Bd. xxxviii, No.1, with 3 plates. (2) Ueber Aulacomerella,
ein neues Brachiopodengeschlecht. Idem, with plate. (8) Beitrage
zur Beurtheilung der Brachiopoden. F. H. Hurng. Centralblatt
fiir Mineralogie, etc., 1901, woodcut. (4) Cambrian Brachiopoda :
Obolella, subgenus Glyptias; Bicia; Obolus, subgenus Westonia ;
with Descriptions of New Species.. C. D. Watcorr. Proc. U.S.
National Museum, 1901, vol. il.
The first of these four pamphlets contains figures and descrip-
tions of species belonging to different genera of Silurian Craniade,
illustrations of the shell-structure of two genera, Pseudocrania and
Pseudometopoma, geographic-geologic tables, and other important
matter. In the second contribution two species of a new genus,
Aulacomerella, are described and figured. The genus is said to show
senile characters; and also to be a homeomorph of Aulacorhynchus,
a fact referable, the author suggests, to ‘repetition of develop-
ment.” The third paper is a later contribution by the same author.
It discusses the bearing of certain facts upon studies of Brachiopods,
dealing especially with some important anatomical results of
¥. Blochmann. The author also calls attention to the great confusion
in the nomenclature of the shell muscles, pleading for a uniform
Latin system. The last paper is a forerunner of a monograph.
A new genus, two new subgenera, and several new species are
described ; but there are no figures. We much regret to find so
eminent a paleontologist as Dr. Walcott countenancing so very
undesirable a practice.
9Sy SDH Wes JES) WA Se
I.— Fauna DER GASKOHLE UND DER KALKSTEINE DER PERM-
FORMATION, Bounrems. By Dr. Anton Frirscu. Vols. i-iv:
pp- 552, 394 text-figures and 165 chromolithographic plates.
FTER devoting thirty years of almost continuous work to its
study and elucidation, the author, Dr. Anton Fritsch, has
completed the illustration and description of the Permian Fauna of
Bohemia, the marvellous richness of which has surprised all students
of paleontology ; and we congratulate our distinguished fellow-
worker upon having lived to achieve so important an undertaking.
474 Reviews—Permo- Carboniferous Fauna, Bohemia.
In 1860 only thirteen species of vertebrates were known from
these formations in Bohemia ; now 123 species have been recorded,
and 66 of invertebrates, making together 189 species, all figured
and described.
In monographing and carefully drawing more than sixty species
of Stegocephalia, the author has been cautious not to advance any
phylogenetic speculations, seeing that the group does not lend much
help in explaining the evolution of amphibians, and we are led to
the conclusion that a long series of unknown vertebrates must have
existed before these formations were deposited—the ancestors, in
fact, of these Permian forms.
The osteological details given in this work will certainly prove
of great value in future comparative anatomical investigations.
The beautifully preserved remains of Dipnoi, including even an
entire specimen, demonstrate how little that group has changed
from the Carboniferous Ctenodus to the living Ceratodus of Australia..
In the order Selachii the author has adduced important evidence as
to the structure of the fins in Plewracanthus (Xenacanthus), and his
Opinion that they have been developed from a series of parallel rays.
has only a short time subsequently been confirmed by the discovery
of the fin of Cladoselache in the Upper Devonian of Ohio. Many
figures from this work have been reproduced by Wiedersheim and
other authors who have written lately on the fins of recent Selachii.
The tribe of Acanthodians has been augmented by two new and
important genera—Traquairia and Protacanthodes, which latter is
a predecessor of the true Acanthodians of later times. The notes.
on Silurian Acanthodians are very interesting and most valuable.
Amongst the Palzoniscide, the new genus Trissolepis, with three
kinds of scales, is most remarkable, showing the gradual development
of the ganoid scales beginning near the tail.
In the fourth volume, which is devoted to the Invertebrata,.
evidence is brought forward to show that insects with complete
metamorphosis were already represented in Paleozoic times by the
Trichopteroid genus Phryanea and by the larva of a beetle (Archi-
carabides pater). The myriopods, of which thirty-five species have
been recorded, are treated with especial care, being represented in
Permian times by a greater number of distinct families than at the
present day. The discovery that they possessed three simple thoracic
segments is very important. The Arachnida were represented by
Tetrapneumonous spiders, and the Merostomata by Prelimulus Wood-
wardi, a Limulus with simple extremities toitslegs. The Hntomostraca.
have long been determined with the valuable assistance of Professor
T. Rupert Jones, and the plates show that in some specimens the
soft parts and internal structures of the animal have been preserved
within the test, and even embryos. To the systematic worker in
the Malacostraca the restored figure of Gampsonyx from Lebach will
be of the greatest interest, as it shows that this Crustacean was not
provided with bifurcated appendages, like Mysis, but with simple
ones. A new genus of Crustaceans, Gasocaris (a rather barbarous
name), has also seven equal pairs of simple legs, and forms with
Reviews—Geology of the Transvaal, South Africa. 475
Gampsonyx and the American genus Acanthotelson a new suborder—
Simplicipoda.
In a supplement, Dr. Anton Fritsch introduces the figure of a true
reptile, Naosaurus, which, like the American species from the Permian
of Texas, possessed lateral spines attached to the long neurapophyses
of the vertebral column. Amongst the new Stegocephalia is a very
fine skeleton of the remarkable genus Ptyonius.
It is not too much to say that during the past century no single
worker has produced a monograph on Paleozoic paleontology of
equal importance. We are glad to be able to record that the value
of Dr. Fritsch’s labours has been recognized by the Council of the
Geological Society of London, who awarded him the Lyell
Geological Fund in 1881, on the issue of the author’s first volume ;
whilst the Paris Academy presented Dr. Fritsch with the Cuvier
Prize on the completion of his great work. We feel sure that all
paleontologists will rejoice to see the completion of this important
monograph, and will join with us in complimenting its author on
the successful termination of his arduous labours.
I].—GeroLtoey or THE Sourn ArricaN RepusLic oF THE TRANS-
vaaL. By G. A. F. Moneneraar. Bull. Soc. Géol. de France
(4), 1901, i, pp. 18-92, 19 text-figures and 2 plates. Pl. 1:
Geological Sketch at 1: 1,500,000. Pl. ii: Geological Sections.
HE geological researches in the Transvaal are considerably
favoured by the dry and mild climate and the scarce vegetation,
as well as by the simplicity of the structure of the country. The
greatest drawback is the absence of determinable fossils in the
sedimentary formations, with the exception of the Upper Karroo.
The geological map must therefore be considered as a mere diagram-
matical sketch.
Viewed in the abstract, after passing the Jurassic, Cretaceous, and
more recent formations near the littoral, the chief rocks of the
Transvaal are as follows, in descending order :—
III. The Karroo System.
II. The Cape System.
I. The Primary South African System.
This classification had already been adopted by Bain for the Cape:
Colony and by Schenk for the whole of South Africa.
I. Prrmary Sourn Arrican SYSTEM.
The Primary South African System is composed of stratified
deposits associated with numerous intrusive massifs of granite; the
structure of the former has been subjected to contact-metamorphism
produced by the intrusion of the latter.
The gold-mines are chiefly in the Primary System and in the
neighbourhood of Barberton; the series of the famous Wit-
watersrand has been calculated by De Launay at 7,500 metres.
The gold is mostly found in the conglomerates, there being much
less in the quartzites.
The age of the Primary South African system is unknown. In
the Cape Colony, however, an undoubtedly Devonian formation
476 Reviews—Geology of the Transvaal, South Africa.
overlies unconformably the Malmesbury Series and the massifs of
granite by which it is traversed. The Malmesbury Series being
part of the Primary South African System, this last must be
Pre-Devonian, viz. either Silurian or Pre-Cambrian.
II. Care System.
The Cape System is composed of the following divisions,
enumerated from above downwards :—
5. Series of the Waterberg Sandstone.
4. Plutonic Series of the Boschveld.
3. Pretoria Series.
2. Series of the Dolomites.
1. Series of the Black-reef.
The Bokkeveld strata of Cape Colony, corresponding to the
Dolomites of the Transvaal, are the only deposits anterior to the
Karroo System in which fossils—marine organisms of the Lower
Devonian—have been found.
The physical features of the deposits where the Dolomites pre-
dominate offer a great resemblance to the Austrian Karst. Caves are
frequent, many of them being ossiferous; the organic remains have
not, up to the present, been studied. In many places rivulets,
penetrating through fissures at the surface, form subterranean
watercourses and lakes, and reappear again in the form of
numerous and voluminous watercourses, which scarcely diminish
during the dry season. ‘To these remarkable constant sources of
supply almost all the perennial rivers of the Western Transvaal
owe their existence.
II]. Karroo SystEm.
In the Transvaal the Karroo System rests unconformably on the
before - mentioned older formations, and generally in a horizontal
position. Two primary subdivisions are to be distinguished, the
Lower and the Upper Karroo.
1. Lower Karroo.
Generally speaking, the strata of the Lower Karroo are
horizontal, although following more or less the undulations of the
ground. In the whole of South Africa geologists have adopted
the subdivision of the Lower Karroo into two étages, viz. the
Dwyka Conglomerate and the Lcca strata.
The author adheres to the opinion of those geologists (Sutherland,
Griesbach, Stow, Schenk, etc.) who consider these two ééages as
deposits of undoubtedly glacial origin, probably of the Permian
period. We must be prepared to find all the phenomena of a pro-
longed glacial action in much larger and more imposing proportions
than the diluvium of the Northern Hemisphere.
The problem of the glaciation of South Africa, during the Permo-
Carboniferous period, presents more than a local interest. The
geological researches in India and Australia have shown that in
these countries formations exist of striking analogy. In India the
Gondwana System may be identified with the system of the Karroo.
Reviews— Geology of the Transvaal, South Africa. 477
At its base are found the Talchir Conglomerates, absolutely comparable
with the Dwyka Conglomerate. The older underlying rocks ( Vindhyan
limestones) have been found to be polished and striated in various
localities, e.g. near Chanda in the Central Provinces of India. The
Talchir shales are associated with this conglomerate ; they offer all
the characters of the Heca strata, and like the latter they are almost
everywhere devoid of fossils. On these glacial deposits rest sand-
stones comparable to the sandstone of the Upper Karroo, and in
which has been found a Glossopteris flora, very similar to that of
the Karroo.
In Australia the traces of an ancient glaciation are not less
evident, and the glacial deposits which there also, as in the Salt
Range of India, are associated with sediments containing marine
fossils, show that the glaciation of these two continents was con-
temporaneous and took place during the last period of the Palaeozoic
era. Moreover, the general affinities between the Karroo and the
Gondwana System are so evident that we must admit the con-
temporaneity of the Permian glacial deposits in South Africa,
India, and Australia.
2. Upper Karroo.
The strata of the Upper Karroo are almost everywhere found in
a normal and horizontal position; they are composed of sand-
stones, argillites, arenaceous argillites, Carboniferous clays, and
Carboniferous strata.
Horizon of the Coal.—In the Upper Karroo of the Transvaal,
provisionally called by the author the Hoogeveld formation, are
found the Carboniferous strata which, on account of the continual
increase of the Witwatersrand mining industry, must prove a great
wealth to the country. The deposits are immense: the coal-mines
of the Transvaal will certainly supply the demands of the whole of
Africa for at least a hundred years.
The Carboniferous strata of the Transvaal seem to be vegetable
alluvia, deposited by the action of torrents. Fragments of trunks
of Sigillaria, and trunks, branches, and leaves of several species of
Glossopteris, largely compose these coal-beds.
The mode of formation of the Upper Karroo may be imagined
to have taken place in the following manner. After the retreat of
the glaciers the paysage morainique predominated in this region,
where the Dwyka Conglomerate was in a great measure covered,
and on all sides surrounded, by the Kcca strata. Erosion soon
began to exercise its destructive action, and the Lower Karroo
deposits were doubtless, in places, completely remaniés; at the
same time a series of sediments, constituting the Upper Karroo,
were being deposited. These fresh-water deposits were accumulated
partly in the watercourses, partly in the lakes; they were made up
of obliquely stratified sandstones and clays, and sometimes also of
strata of plant-remains, transported by the torrents; the latter
strata have become the present Carboniferous beds. Only a small
portion of the enormously developed Karroo System has been
478 Correspondence—S. S. Buckman.
preserved, the remainder having been destroyed during the period of
denudation following its formation ; this period continues at the
present day.
As to the age of these deposits, the researches of Seward and.
Zeiller on the plant-remains have shown that the lower étage of the
Upper Karroo of the Transvaal is of Permo-Carboniferous age.
The wording of the title of the paper here reviewed is somewhat
surprising. We remember that the author figured as delegate of the
“South African Republic” at last year’s International Geological
Congress. But then the Congress was somehow connected with
the Exhibition. In the present instance we are sorry to state that
a scientific society does not refrain from imparting a political bias
to a purely scientific paper, which, coupled with the expressions of
the President of the French Geological Society when welcoming the
author (p. 9), seems hardly friendly towards this country.
CORRHSPON DENCE.
JURASSIC BRACHIOPODA.
Sir,—May I beg a little of your valuable space to make a cor-
rection in my paper “ Homceomorphy among Jurassic Brachiopoda ”
(Proc. Cotteswold Nat. F.C., vol. xii). Therein I have figured and
described a new species as Zeilleria subcornuta, the specific name
being the same as was used between Dr. Davidson and myself
twenty years ago in correspondence about the same shell. But
there is already a subcornuta used by Quenstedt, and it would also
be Zeilleria subcornuta. Wherefore I desire to change the name of
my species to Zeilleria cornutiformis. I would take this opportunity
to thank you for your kindly notice of this paper, but may I ask if
your reviewer has quite separated ‘‘time-table ” from a table of strata
when he surmises that perhaps I claim no more than a local value
for my “elaborate time-table.” Certainly I made no definite claim ;
but I own to thinking that a time-table, as such, is of worldwide
application. There is no local limit to time, and there can be no
local limit to a time-table. Whether the records of the rocks in
distant localities may be sufficiently perfect to enable their dates
to be stated with as great exactitude as in my time-table, is another
matter. But the table of strata which I have given in connection
with this time-table shows that from Yorkshire to Dorset, from
Dorset to Wiirtemberg, the time-table is a means of exactly dating
Jurassic events; therefore it has much more than a local value.
But in that table I gave the results of only my own work, and
refrained, except in one or two striking instances, from quoting
literature. Had I done so, it would have shown even more clearly
that the time-table is a means whereby Jurassic events over a large
part of Hurope can be exactly dated now; and there is good reason
to think that the same may be said of a far wider field in the future.
8. S. Buoxman.
Obituary—John Storrie, A.L.S. 479
FOSSILS AND GARNETS.
Srz,—On p. 165 of the current volume of this Magazine we
read that to the writer of the article there printed “it is very
difficult to understand how such a fossil as a belemnite could have
retained its characteristic form while molecular changes of such
importance were taking place in the matrix of the rock ‘
The results of contact- metamorphism most nearly resemble the
crystalline schists. In them, so far as my [the writer’s] experience
goes, garnet, and still more staurolite, are not formed until the
materials of the rock have undergone such great molecular changes
as to obliterate all traces of a sedimentary origin’
On p.' 140 of “ Etudes Synthetiques de Géologie expérimentale
par A. Daubrée,” dated 1879, we read statements which when
translated into English are to the following effect :—
“Tt is well known that the crystallization that is brought about
by the proximity of eruptive rocks has not always effaced the traces
of the fossils. There still remain very distinct vestiges of them in
the middle of rocks crowded with crystalline silicates. One need
only recall the fossiliferous Silurian limestone of Norway, which
contains at Brevig paranthine and garnet, and at Gjellebeck
amphibole and epidote . . . . and lastly, in the Vosges the
amphibole rock of Rothau, in which the corals have been replaced,
without being deformed, by crystals of amphibole, garnet, and
axinite. In some places the rock now consists entirely of a mixture
of lamellar pyroxene, epidote, and compact garnet, with flecks of
galena. In the middle of this rock, composed entirely of silicates
of this nature, I have recognized perfectly preserved impressions
of numerous corals (more especially of Calamopora spongites, Goldf.)
and Flustras . . . . More than this, the very cavities left by
the partial disappearance of the calcareous matter of these corals
are lined with crystals of the same minerals as form the bulk of
the rock :
“Now it is the same thing in the case of the crystalline masses
we are considering . . . . MM. Lardy and Strider have found
in the neighbourhood of St. Gotthard belemnites in the middle of
micaceous schists with garnets.” Versum Sap.
(@ SOs £40 ly ae
JOHN STORRIE, A.L.S.
Born 1844. Disp May 2, 1991.
_Joun Srorriz, for many years Curator of the Cardiff Museum,
and an earnest worker at the natural history of Glamorganshire,
was born at Muiryett, in Lanarkshire. His early years were spent
at Glasgow, where he was apprenticed to the printing-trade, and
about the year 1872 he found employment in the Western Mail
printing works at Cardiff. The writings of David Page had given
to Storrie an interest in geology, and he pursued the subject with
zeal when he came to reside in South Wales. The Silurian rocks of
480 Obituary—J. W. Kirkby, Prof. Claypole, M. F. Woodward.
Rumney and the Rhetic beds of Penarth attracted his special
attention. He obtained a new Silurian alga which was named
Nematophycus Storrei, and he found in Triassic strata a new species
of Mastodonsaurus. His researches on these subjects, and many
important articles on local botany and archeology, were published
in the Transactions of the Cardiff Naturalists’ Society. He was
awarded the proceeds of the Barlow-Jameson Fund in 1896 by the
Geological Society of London. An interesting account of his life
and labours, accompanied by a portrait, appeared in the “ Public
Library Journal” of Cardiff for June, 1901.
JAMES WALKER KIRKBY, F.G.S. Epine.
Born Aprit 10, 1884.. Diep Jury 30, 1901.
Tuts well-known geologist of Leven, Fife, was author of many
good papers on the strata and fossils, Permian and Carboniferous,
of Durham and Fifeshire. One paper, in 1882, was written in
company with E. W. Binney, for whom he managed the Pirnie
Coal-mine. His first paper was published in 1858, and the two last
appeared in the Transactions of the Edinburgh Geological Society,
1901, vol. viii, pt. 1. From 1859 onwards numerous papers on the
Upper Paleozoic Ostracoda were produced by Messrs. J. W. Kirkby
and T. Rupert Jones, as joint authors, having worked together in
determining and describing these microzoa.
He was an invalid for years, yet his persistent energy enabled
him to throw much light on the succession and characters of the
long series of Carboniferous and Permian strata, by his personal
research, and largely by the aid of his exact knowledge of the
Ostracoda and their associated fossils. The Murchison Geological
Fund was awarded him in 1879 by the Geological Society of London.
Having a retiring and modest disposition and very poor health,
Mr. Kirkby did not move much beyond the circle of home
neighbours and loving friends, but he had many admirers abroad
who knew and appreciated his work.
Wz have to record the death from apoplexy of Professor H>warp
Waturr Crayporr, D.Sc. Lond., B.A., F.G.S., of Throop Polytechnic
Institute, Pasadena, California, U.S.A., one of the founders and for
many years editor of the American Geologist.
Martin Fountain Woopwarp, Demonstrator in Biology, Royal
College of Science, South Kensington, and Secretary of the Malaco-
logical Society of London, was unfortunately drowned on the night
of September 15th by the capsizing of a boat in a squall at Moyard,
near Letterfrack, co. Galway, Ireland, whilst in charge of the Marine
Biological Laboratory of the Joint Committee of the Department of
Agriculture (Fisheries Branch) and the Royal Dublin Society, at
Ballinakill, during the Summer vacation. He was a naturalist of
great promise and author of several important papers on the dentition
of the Mammalia, on Pleurotomaria and other Mollusca, ete. He was
the second son of the Editor of the GzonocicaL MaGazine.
THE
GHOLOGICAL MAGAZINE.
NEW: SERIES: | DECADE, 1V; VOLK.) VIL:
No. XI—NOVEMBER, 1901.
ORIGINAL ARTICLES.
J. — On tue Bonu-Beps oF Pikermi, ATTICA, AND ON SIMILAR
Deposits 1n NortHern Husaa.
By A. Smita Woopwarp, LL.D., F.R.S.
T the suggestion of the British Minister at Athens, Sir Edwin
H. Egerton, K.C.B., the Trustees of the British Museum
recently undertook a series of excavations in the well-known bone-
beds of Pikermi, in Attica, and I was honoured by being entrusted
with the supervision of the work. The owner of the estate,
Mr. Alexander Skousés, former Minister of War, most cordially
assented, and gave every possible facility for the undertaking;
while Sir Edwin Egerton’s unflagging interest and zeal combined to
ensure the greatest success. My wife and I went into residence at
the farm of Pikermi early in April, and we continued to occupy the
simple but comfortable room which Mr. Skousés had kindly placed
at our disposal, until the cessation of digging in the middle of July.
During much of the time we were accompanied by Dr. Theodore
Skouphos, Conservator of the Geological Museum in the University
of Athens, which claims some share of the results of all such
excavations made in Greece. We have to thank him for much
help in dealing with the workmen, who spoke only a language with
which I was at first unfamiliar.
The bones are occasionally exposed by the small stream in the
ravine of Pikermi, and they seem to have been first observed by
the English archeologist George Finlay, who presented some to
the Athens Museum in 1855. Three years later a Bavarian soldier
took a few specimens to Munich, where Pikermi and its fossils
were first brought to the notice of the scientific world by Professor
Andreas Wagner. Within the next decade, more bones were sent
to Munich by Lindermayer and described by Wagner; while during
the Winter of 1852-58 the young Bavarian naturalist Roth made
the great collection which was described by himself and Wagner
in 1854, and still constitutes one of the chief treasures of the
Munich Old Academy. About the same time Choeretis presented
a few specimens to the Paris Museum; while the late Professor
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. XI, Sl
482 Dr. A. Smith Woodward—The Bone-beds of Pikermi.
Mitzopoulos, uncle of the present distinguished Rector of the
University of Athens, made a valuable and extensive collection
for the Athens Museum, which seems to have remained unnoticed
until 1888, when the late Professor Dames, of Berlin, studied it,
and wrote a brief account of some unique specimens contained in it.!
By far the most important excavations hitherto made at Pikermi,
however, are those which were undertaken by Professor Albert
Gaudry, under the auspices of the Paris Academy of Sciences,
between 1855 and 1860. These researches made known nearly all
the essential facts concerning the extinct mammalian fauna entombed
in the Pikermi formation, and led to several brilliant generalizations
first published in Professor Gaudry’s well-known work on the
geology and fossils of Attica in 1862.2 During the last 40 years
only insignificant diggings have been attempted, among them being
those of the late Professors Neumayr, of Vienna, and Dames, of
Berlin.
Owing to the permanent mark left by former excavations it was
easy to choose sites for the new explorations of the British Museum.
Three pits dug in continuation of former workings soon yielded
bones, and eventually furnished a very extensive collection. Two
trial pits at other points and in slightly different horizons produced
nothing except two decayed bone-fragments. Water still occurs
even in dry weather a little beneath the bed of the stream; but the
difficulties from this source are now much less than formerly, owing
to Mr. Skousés’ system of irrigation, by which the flowing stream
of the ravine is usually diverted at a point high up in its course.
The Pikermi formation has already been well described by
Professor Gaudry. It consists chiefly of red marl, varied with
lenticular masses of rounded pebbles and occasional yellowish sandy
layers. Some of the pebble-beds are cemented into hard con-
glomerate. The materials are such as might have been derived
from the mountain mass of Pentelicon which forms the neighbouring
high ground, the marl itself being apparently the detritus of marble
or other calcareous rock. The formation is of great extent in Attica,
and has only attracted special notice at Pikermi because a stream
happens to have cut a deep ravine through it and exposed fine
sections of the beds.
As already observed by Professor Gaudry, the bones at Pikermi
occur on two definite horizons, those in the lower bed being less
fragile and better preserved than those in the upper bed.* In two
of our new pits where the upper horizon is well exposed, it is
subdivided into two distinct layers by a nearly barren deposit of
marl from 30 to 45cm. in thickness. The rotten nature of the bones
is partly due to their having once been close to or at the surface,
1 W. Dames, ‘‘ Hirsche und Mause von Pikermi in Attika’’: Zeitschr. deutsch.
geol. Ges., 1883, p. 92, pl. v.
2 A. Gaudry: ‘‘ Animaux Fossiles et Géologie de |’ Attique,’’ Paris, 1862. This
work contains references to previous literature.
3 A. Gaudry, ‘‘ Résultats des Recherches faites 4 Pikermi (Attique), sous les
Auspices de I’ Académie’: Comptes Rendus, vol. xlii (1856), p. 291.
Dr. A. Smith Woodward—The Bone-beds of Pikermi. 483
and eroded by the present stream before being covered with the
three or four metres of superficial gravel which now preserves them.
The bones are also broken by the penetrating rootlets of trees.
The lower horizon is at a depth varying from one to two metres
below the upper horizon, and thus secure from destruction by surface
agencies. Like each of the two upper bone-beds, it is rarely more
than 30cm. in thickness; while the marl above and below it is
almost destitute of bones, rarely yielding more than rotten fragments,
but quite prolific in scattered land and fresh-water shells. The
deepest excavations beneath the lower bone-bed descended for about
three and a half metres, and furnished the bone-fragments and shells
throughout. No traces of vegetable matter were observed in any layer.
So far as can be judged at present from the new excavations, the
three bone-beds of Pikermi are all of the same nature and contain
the same mammalian remains. The bones are massed together in
inextricable confusion, and are often mixed with a few pebbles.
Large and smal! bones, whole specimens and splintered fragments,
all occur together; but the small bones are usually most numerous
at the bottom of the layer. Several specimens of approximately the
same shape and size are often met with in groups, as if they had
been sorted by water in motion. On one occasion, for example, the
scattered remains of many gazelles were found together; in another
spot there were several skulls of T’ragoceras in one mass; in other
cases nearly all the bones belonged to limbs of Hipparion; while
one area was specially characterized by pieces of vertebral columns
of Ruminants and Hipparion. The elongated bones and elongated
groups, however, were never observed to trend in one definite
direction, but were always disposed quite irregularly ; thus
indicating that in the region where the bones eventually
accumulated, the water by which they had been transported either
became still or moved only in gentle eddies.
Very few nearly complete skeletons occur, and even when chains
of vertebrae are preserved most of the ribs are lacking. The only
approximately complete skeletons observed during the recent
excavations were those of some Carnivora (Ictitherium, Metarctos, and
Macherodus). It is, however, obvious that many of the bones were
still held together by ligaments at the time when they were buried ;
for numerous complete feet and nearly complete limbs are found
with all the bones in their natural position. It is also to be noted
that in most cases these limbs are sharply bent so that the two or
three segments are almost parallel, as if they had retained the
contraction assumed at death. Some decomposition of the soft parts
had already taken place even in these instances; for a few of the
phalanges of the hipparions and ruminants are often wanting when
the other bones of the limb are still in their natural association,
while the phalanges of the rhinoceros feet seem to be always lost,
though the three associated metapodials are quite common.
Similarly, the loosely articulated mandible of the Ungulata is nearly
always removed from the skull; it is only commonly preserved in
place in the Carnivora and Quadrumana.
484 Dr. A. Smith Woodward—The Bone-beds of Pikermi.
The majority of the bones are quite isolated, and most of the
skulls of the antelopes are so much broken that only the frontlets
with horn-cores remain. A large proportion of the limb-bones are
also sharply fractured, some having completely lost both extremities ;
and small pointed splinters of bone, apparently most of Rhinoceros,
are often very numerous. Some of the breaking must have taken
place before the soft parts had entirely decayed, as is shown by
certain feet of Rhinoceros and many limbs of Hipparion and antelopes.
In a few cases I found the three associated metapodials of Rhinoceros
with the distal ends as sharply removed as if they had been cut off
with one blow of a hatchet. In several instances I carefully
extracted the nearly complete hind limbs of Hipparion from the
soft marl, and in all except one I found that the tibia ended
abruptly in a sharp, oblique fracture at its middle, with no trace
of the proximal end of this bone or of the femur. Moreover, nearly
all the isolated tibias of Hipparion were similarly fractured ; while
among about fifty examples of humerus of the same animal only
three complete specimens were found, all the others being sharply
broken at the weakest point of the shaft. It is therefore evident
that the limbs were often torn from the trunk by a sharp break at
the weakest point before the decomposition of the soft parts had
proceeded far enough to destroy the ligaments.
The new researches make scarcely any additions to the known
fauna of the Pikermi bone-beds, and confirm Professor Gaudry’s
statement that the smaller rodents, insectivores, and bats are absent.
The only striking discovery consists in fragmentary evidence of
a gigantic tortoise, at least as large as the largest hitherto found
in HKurope. Many specimens, however, afford important new in-
formation concerning the species already described. Notable among
these are a few portions of skull and a mandible of Pliohyrax,
a skull of Samotherium, a skull of Hystrix primigenia, and the greater
part of a skeleton of Metarcios. Remains of Hipparion are the
most abundant fossils, and the new series of specimens illustrates
variations and growth-stages more satisfactorily than any collection
hitherto made. Isolated bones and skulls of Rhinoceros are also
common, and antelope remains occur everywhere in great profusion.
Limb-bones of Giraffidee are found abundantly in the lower bone-
bed. Mastodon is rarer, but two small skulls were obtained from
the new excavations, and several very large limb-bones were found.
Among Carnivora, Ictitherium is the commonest form ; but remains
of Hyana are not infrequent, and evidence of four individuals of
Macherodus was discovered during the present diggings. Coprolites
of some bone-feeding Carnivore, probably Hyena, also occur. Skulls
and other portions of IMesopithecus are frequently met with. The
shells of the small Testudo marmorum are sometimes complete, but
always lack the skull and other bones of the skeleton. The
Chelonian shells themselves are, indeed, more frequently broken
and disintegrated, and a large proportion of the bone-fragments
discovered between and below the bone-beds are recognizable as
pieces of them. It is noteworthy that a good specimen of Testudo
Dr. A. Smith Woodward—The Bone-beds of Pikermi. 485
marmorum was found in the marl between the upper and lower bone-
beds in one pit; and a small undetermined snake was discovered in
a similar position in another pit.
While the excavation of these fossils was in progress at Pikermi,
Mr. Frank Noel, of Achmet Aga in Northern Eubcea, accompanied
Sir Edwin Egerton on one of his visits. He recognized that the
Pikermi marls were similar to some containing fossil bones on his
own estate.. He also perceived the identity of the remains of
Hipparion at Pikermi, with the commonest fossil bones with which
he was familiar at Achmet Aga. Many years ago he had sent some
of these bones to the Athens Museum; but they seemed to have
been lost and had never received any attention from the Greek
naturalists. He therefore invited the British Museum to examine
the discovery on his estate, and decide whether or not the extinct
Pikermi fauna was there represented.
A brief visit to the locality where the bones occur, near Achmet
Aga, sufficed to confirm Mr. Noel’s impressions. The interesting
spot is in a deep ravine on the steep slope just below the
village of Drazi, at an elevation of nearly 200 metres above the
sea-level. The torrent has cut through a thick deposit of red,
indurated marl, much like that of Pikermi: and bones are noticeable
in the section at many points. Three days’ digging at one place
revealed two bone-beds separated by a thin layer of marl. The
bones seem to be as abundant and varied as those at Pikermi,
and they exhibit exactly the same features. Hipparion is again
the commonest fossil, and mingled with the complete bones are
splintered fragments. Land and fresh-water shells also occur in
great abundance, especially a species of Planorbis.
Nearly all the bones discovered during this brief visit were too
rotten for preservation; but the weathered face of the section alone
was explored, and the fossils would doubtless be found in good con-
dition further inwards. Among them could be recognized, besides
the innumerable remains of Hipparion, parts of a skull and tibia of
Rhinoceros, a frontlet of Gazella brevicornis, jaws of a small ruminant,
a large ruminant metapodial (probably Samotherium), part of a skull
and mandible of Ictitherium, and some small carnivore vertebra.
There was also part of the skull of a small species of Orycteropus,
which I was able to preserve and bring for comparison with the
skull of the same genus from Samos now in the British Museum.
From these observations it is evident that the Pikermi bone-beds
are not merely a local accident, but are due to some widespread
phenomenon. The two localities described are about 60 miles
apart, and seem to be situated in two distinct Tertiary basins
separated by a barrier of Cretaceous limestones and earlier rocks.
Whatever the catastrophe may have been by which the animals
were suddenly destroyed, it clearly happened in both places at least
twice, if not three times, within a comparatively short period. The
1 For a brief account of the district see F. Teller, ‘‘ Der Geologische Bau der Insel
Euboea’’: Denk. k. Akad. Wiss., math.-naturw. Cl., vol. x] (1880), pp. 156-160.
486 Dr. Henry Woodward—Cretaceous Crustacea, Denmark.
powerful force which broke up and transported the bodies before
they had completely decomposed, was probably the same in each
case; while the final resting-place of the bones both at Pikermi
and Drazi must have been beneath comparatively tranquil water,
where they could be quickly buried in mud. ‘The absence of all
trace of vegetable matter is curious; but the most plausible
explanation of the broken limbs and torn portions of trunks seems
to be, that the bodies were hurried by torrential floods through
thickets or tree-obstructed watercourses, before they reached the
lakes in which they finally rested. Accompanying stones in rapid
motion may account for some of the bone-fragments.
II.—On some CrustackA coLLEcTED By Miss Caronine BiruEy
AnD Miss L. Cornanp From tHE Upper Creracrous or Faxes,
DENMARK.
By Henry Woopwarp, LL.D., F.R.S., V.P.Z.8., F.G.8.
(PLATE XII.)
T is, I regret to say, some long time since my friend Miss Caroline
Birley placed in my hands the series of Crustacea which she
had, with the assistance of Miss L. Copland, collected from the
Upper Cretaceous of Faxe, Denmark.
As in the interval, K. O. Segerberg has figured and described
many of these species in Sweden,’ I propose to give a translation
of his descriptions of such species as I find to be identical with
those in Miss Birley’s collection, it being obviously needless to
describe them over again.
Miss Birley has favoured me with the following note on the
Upper Cretaceous quarry of Faxe, Denmark :—
‘‘Dr. Henry Woodward, having kindly undertaken to report on
the Crustacea obtained by Miss L. Copland and myself on two
visits to the Upper Cretaceous (Danian) beds of Faxe, Denmark,
has asked for a note on the locality, known to English geologists
far better by repute than from actual experience.
“Situated in the south-east of the island of Zealand or Seeland,
where, though the land is rich and fertile, the scenery is merely
pretty with beech-woods and grass meadows, Faxe offers little to
the ordinary tourist, and when we were there only three trains
daily connected it with Copenhagen, the journey occupying from
23 hours to 63. There were then three stations with the name of
Faxe—Faxe, Faxe Strand (now Stubberup), and Faxe Laderplads—
and Faxe being an inland hill, and not an island, as the usual
misspelling of the name indicates, we dismounted at the first,
and saw opposite, a little hostel, the only visible building. Here
a genial couple made us so comfortable, in homely Danish fashion,
that I can only add the fact that there is a more orthodox-looking
inn in Faxe village, a mile or so away. From either end, the quarry
is reached in a few minutes walk. Danish is the only language
1 Geol. Féren. Stockholm, 1900.
Dr. Henry Woodward—Cretaceous Crustacea, Denmark. 487
spoken, but a little of it goes a long way with the intelligent and
friendly people.
“ Approaching the quarry from the north, the low green hill rises
before one like a high railway embankment, and on entering by an
upland path, or through the cutting for the transport railway, one
finds that a large portion of the hill has already been excavated, in
a shape between the letter L and a high boot narrowed at the top.
The greatest length, about half a mile, is from east to west, and the
cliffs or walls which practically surround the quarry, rise to heights
varying from 60 to 80 feet. The character of the rock ranges from
@ compact creamy or pale yellow limestone, used for building
purposes, to ordinary white chalk, coral occurring in large masses
in this ancient coral-reef. Unfortunately I have no notes of the
sequence of the beds, and probably the zones have not yet been
worked out. The fossils of most frequent occurrence are the coral
Cladocora dichotoma, carapaces of Dromiopsis rugosa, and casts of
Nautilus (Hercoglossa) danicus and Trochus levis. Baculites Fawjusit,
always mentioned as characteristic of this deposit, must be more
frequent or better preserved in the ‘ Faxelaget’ of Stevns Klint and
the island of Moen. If we met with it at all in Faxe, it was rarely.
The prevalence of Gasteropods is a marked feature, and among the
more striking of our acquisitions are a Voluta allied to V. Lamberti
and a large Pleurotomaria. The shells almost always occur as casts.
“ Fallen boulders of pink granite may occasionally be noticed in
the quarry, and one at least was then in siti near its northern
entrance.”— C, Birley.
The youngest member of the Cretaceous formation of Scandinavia
is the Danian of Faxe (spelt incorrectly ‘Faxoe’ by Darwin,’
Prestwich, and others). This stage is wanting in England, but has
its equivalent in the Danian and Maestrichtian systems of Belgium
and Holland, and the Calcaire Pisolitique and Calcaire & Baculites
of France. According to Prestwich it is from 45 to 50 feet thick,
and consists almost entirely of fragments of corals and Polyzoans
(Bryozoa), with Nautilus Danicus, Belemnitella mucronata, Baculites
Fawasti, Cyprea bullaria, ete.?
K. O. Segerberg* writes: —‘“The lower layer of the Faxe
Chalk is composed of compact or hard tubular limestone, largely
composed of corals, hence called coral-chalk. Here and there one
finds a lighter and less compact bed almost wholly composed of
Bryozoa. Both the coral-chalk and the Bryozoa-chalk are very rich
in fossils, contrasting in this respect with the Saltholms Chalk,
which is a more homogeneous, and in its upper layer looser, chalk-
rock, formed under other conditions than the Faxe Chalk, which
is the remains of an old coral-reef.”
1 Charles Darwin described some remains of Cirripedia (Pollicipes striatus,
P. elegans) from Faxe (incorrectly spelt Faxoe), Denmark: Pal. Soc., 1851, pp. 70, 76.
It is, I regret, spelt ‘ Faxoe’ on the Plate « accompanying this p aper. —H. W.
2 Prestwich’s “ Geology,’’ 1888, vol. ii, pp. 7 and 302.
3 *¢ De Anomura och Brachyura Dekapoderna i inom Skandinaviens Yngre Krita”’
Geol. Foren. I Stockholm Férhandl., 1900, Bd. xxii, H. 6, p. 1.
488 Dr. Henry Woodward—Cretaceous Crustacea, Denmark.
In Miss Birley’s collection there is (in addition to various
portions) an entire carapace of Galathea which agrees best with
Galathea munidoides, K. O. Segerberg (Pl. XII, Fig.8). I have also
referred to this species the small detached chela (Pl. XII, Fig. 9).
I mentioned the carapace of Galathea in my second year’s
Anniversary Address to the Geological Society of London.
The subjoined descriptions have been most obligingly translated
for me by Mr. C. A. Ryman, from Mr. K. O. Segerberg’s paper
“De Anomura och Brachyura Dekapoderna inom Skandinaviens
Yngre Krita.” ?
MACROURA—ANOMALA.
Fam. GALATHEIDA, Dana.
1888. Galatheide, Henderson: Anomura, p. 116.
1894. Gaiathéidés, Milne-Kdwards et Bouvier: Galathéidés, p. 191.
1897. Galathéidés, Milne- Edwards et Bouvier: Dredging by ‘‘ Blake,’”’ xxxy.
One often finds both in the coral-chalk and the Bryozoan-chalk
fragments or casts of carapaces with those peculiar cross strize which
are characteristic of the different genera of this family. Steenstrup
had already noticed these, and created the species Galathea strigifera.
Lundgren was the first who attempted to describe and illustrate such
fragments. Along with these Crustacean remains are found small
claws, which from their size, flat form, and finely serrated edges
agree with the type peculiar to this family. Von Fischer-Benzon
was the first who noticed and identified these claws. This is all that
is mentioned about the fossil representatives of this group in the
earlier literature. In 1897 Moericke has contributed some valuable
information on the genus Galathea in “ Die Crustaceen der
Sternberger Schichten.” In this are recorded no less than four
species of this family from the youngest Jurassic formation, all,
however, of a type alien to the Danian. We may also refer to
Pelseneer (Decapod. du Maestricht, p. 166) and Ristori (Crost.
Pliocen, p. 36).
- When studying the collections from Faxe in the Mineralogical
Museum at Copenhagen, K. O. Segerberg says, ‘‘I was fortunate
enough to find amongst the matrix of Bryozoan-chalk several well-
preserved specimens with the rostrum in more or less good condition.
By means of this material I have also been able to give a complete
description of Galathea strigifera, Steenstrup.” [This species is
not represented in Miss Birley’s collection. |
GALATHEA STRIGIFERA, Steenstrup, sp.
P Galathea strigifera, Steenstrup, sp.
1866. ae e, Von Fischer-Benzon : Das Alter d. Faxekalkes, p. 28,
pl. v, figs. 4-6.
1867. 55 55 Lundgren: Faxekalken, p. 11.
1900. i 59 Segerberg: De Anomura och Brachyura Dekapoderna in.
Skandinav. Yngre Krita, pl. i, figs. 1, 2 ?
1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., February 21, 1896, vol. lii, p. cviii.
* Geol. Foren. I Stockholm Férhandl., 1900, Bd. xxii, H. 5, pp. 42, 3 plates.
Dr. Henry Woodward—Cretaceous Crustacea, Denmark. 489
Length (of the specimen in the diagram), 6mm. ; breadth, 4mm.
The greatest breadth is just behind the middle.
Rostrum triangular; its superior surface is concave, with three
or four sharp spines on each side, which are directed forwards
and diminish in size from before backwards. Anterior margin
narrow and a little elevated near the point. Lateral margin curved
somewhat outwards behind the centre, and provided anteriorly
with small pointed teeth which are directed forwards, and of which
the anterior one is a little larger than the rest. The occipital
sulcus and its branches are shallow. The surface of the carapace is
characterized by more or less well-marked cross-lines, of which the
two anterior ones are drawn out into a short point directed forwards
and the posterior ones run from side to side. Between these,
as well as on the rostrum, the surface is more or less granulated.
Cardiac region more or less prominent, and in some specimens pro-
vided with a sulcus in front.
This species varies in this respect, that the teeth on the rostrum
are sometimes fairly large, and sometimes are very minute, needle-
shaped, and nearly invisible.
Regarding the carapace, G. strigifera shows a great similarity
with G. strigosa (found in the North Sea), and is perhaps a precursor
of this form.
This species occurs abundantly both at Annetorp and Faxe.
The following species of Galathea is in Miss Birley’s collection :—
GALATHEA MuNIDoIDES, K. O. Segerberg. (Pl. XII, Figs. 8, 9.)
(Figures enlarged 4 times nat. size.)
K. O. Segerberg: Geol. Foren. I Stockholm Férhandl., 1900, Bd. xxii, H. 4,
Pir iy Hes Of
This species is represented by two rather incomplete specimens,
preserved as casts, both from Faxe. The length of the specimen
figured in Pl. XII, Fig. 8 is 7 mm., the breadth about 4:5 mm.
The rostrum is narrow aud triangular, its superior surface smooth
and slightly concave, the borders are smooth and provided on each
side of the base with a tooth directed forwards. The anterior margin
of the rostrum is fairly well raised; the iateral margin is curved
in front of and behind the antero-lateral branch of the occipital
furrow, but is otherwise straight with indistinct, blunt teeth. The
occipital furrow and its branches are well marked. The cross-lines
are elevated, and run posteriorly from side to side in a way peculiar
to this species. The cardiac region is not prominent. The gastric
region anteriorly is sharply distinguished from the frontal region,
which is situated on a lower level; in the centre it is provided
with a ridge which is continued on to the rostrum. On both sides of
this ridge, a little behind the front border, are four small prominences
arranged in a semicircle and diminishing in size outwards.
This species exhibits, particularly in the form of its rostrum,
an interesting transitional form between the genera Galathea and
Munida. The triangular form of the rostrum and its superior
490 Dr. Henry Woodward—Cretaceous Crustacea, Denmark.
surface being slightly concave show its relationship to Galathea,
and on the other hand the non-serrated ridges and the two teeth
situated at the base on either side are found in the Munida-type,
which is represented by Munida primeva, u.sp.
Several existing species are known which, as regards the formation
of the rostrum, are transitional forms between Galathea and Munida,
which, however, have been arranged as separate genera. Such are
the Pleuroncodes of Stimpson and the Grimothea of Dana. In both
these genera one finds a small, triangular, non-serrated rostrum,
provided with teeth on each side at the base,
Pleuroncodes} differs, however, both from Galathea and Iunida,
amongst other peculiarities, in its breadth. Recent authors” consider
Grimothea to belong to the genus Munida. Of the living species of
Galathea, G. pusilla, Henderson,’ is nearest to G. munidoides; but
its rostrum is provided with a small tooth on each side in front.
Mounipa primava, K. O. Segerberg.
K. O. Segerberg: Geol. Féren. I Stockholm Férhandl., 1900, Bd. xxii, H. 5, p. 8,
pl. i, fig. 6.
Only one specimen of this species has been found from Faxe,
preserved as a cast; still, the shell can be partially seen at the
sides, but the rostrum and lateral teeth are broken. The greatest
breadth at the centre of the carapace is 5 mm.; the length from the
base of the rostrum to the posterior margin is 6 mm. The rostrum
is narrow, spear-shaped, provided with a small tubercle on its
superior surface, from which runs a fine ridge along the middle line
as far as the occipital furrow ; at the base of the rostrum there is
on each side a pointed tooth. The anterior margin is well defined
on either side of the rostrum, and still more along the lateral
margin. The lateral margins are slightly but evenly curved, and
provided with small pointed teeth directed forwards; of these the
anterior one is much larger than the rest, and forms the demarcation
of the angle between the anterior margin and the lateral margin.
The occipital furrow and its branches are deep and distinct. The
regions on the border are well defined, and are thinly but sharply
granulated. Besides this the superior surface shows several ridges,
anteriorly alternately longer and shorter, and here and there are
small tubercles. The cardiac region is short and broad, with
a narrow, straight sulcus in front and behind; it is crossed by three
lines, the two anterior ones converging towards the sides. The
middle part in front of the occipital furrow forms an oval area
pointed towards the sides. On the gastric region, near the middle
line, in front, are two tubercles (on the carapace itself there have
probably been teeth corresponding to these); outside and below
these are smaller, more or less pointed ones (on both the cast and
1 Ortmann: Arthropoda, p. 1150.
? Milne Edwards: ‘‘ Crustacés du Cap Horn,’’ p. 32.
3 Henderson: Anomura, p. 121, pl. xii, fig. 1.
4 After the original specimen had been drawn it was being still further developed,.
and in this operation the rostrum was unhappily destroyed.—K. 0. S.
Dr. Henry Woodward—COretaceous Crustacea, Denmark. 491
the test). A similar form of rostrum, with lateral teeth placed
closely together at the base, is also found in recent species of
Munida, e.g. M. forceps, Milne-Kdw.'
Lundgren says, in the description of Galathea strigifera, “that
the lateral parts, defined by the above-mentioned curved lines, are
granulated, and that the middle one is most prominent.” This
shows probably that Lundgren, amongst his specimens of Galathea,
had also the above described species of Munida.
BRACHYURA—ANOMALA.
Fam. DROMIDZ, Stebbing.
Gen. Dromropsis, Reuss.
1859. Dromiopsis, Reuss: Fossil. Krabben, p. 18.
1866. Dromia, Von Fischer-Benzon: Alter d. Faxekalkes, p. 23.
1900. Dromiopsis, K. O. Segerberg: Geol. Féren. I Stockholm Forhandl.,
IBdS xxi Hos p09.
The carapace is circular or pentagonal, a little broader than long,
much arched in front, flatter behind. The rostrum is triangular
and bent downwards, with a shallow sulcus or furrow along the
DriaGRAM OF REGIONS AND Divisions oF CARAPACE IN A BRACHYURAN DEcAPOD
CRUSTACEAN.
Se- Wy
YY
Yih
Sl -- Wy, .
es Ws ait
Mn
Upper Surface. Under Surface.
Sf. frontal furrow. Ge. . epigastric lobe.
Tif rostrum. Gm. mesogastric lobe.
0. orbits. Gp. _ protogastric lobe.
Mila. antero-lateral margin. Gu. urogastric lobe.
Mip. postero-lateral margin. H. hepatic region.
Mp. posterior margin. C. cardiac region.
Se. cervical or occipital furrow. Ba. antero-branchial lobe.
Si. lateral furrow. Bp. postero-branchial lobe.
Sbre. branchio-cardiac furrow. ie pterygostomial region.
middle line; its borders are even and raised; the orbits are rather
small, somewhat close together, and are open internally towards the
rostrum, from which they are only separated by a small ridge of
the posterior wall. The inferior orbital border is provided with
1 Milne-Edwards et Bouvier: Dredging of SS. ‘‘ Blake,”’ p. 28, pl. ii, fig. 8.
492 Dr. Henry Woodward—Cretaceous Crustacea, Denmark.
two teeth, of which the external one is the larger. The antero-
lateral margins (Mla.) are long, much curved, and provided with
teeth varying in number and often confluent. The postero-lateral
margins (Mpl.) are shorter, nearly straight, and curving inwards;
they are provided in front with one or two more or less indistinctly
marked teeth. The posterior margin (Mp.) is generally short and
somewhat incurved. The superior surface of the carapace is
divided transversely into three areas by two sulci (or furrows),
the anterior of which is named the cervical furrow (Sc.) (called
also the occipital furrow), and the posterior the branchio-cardiac
furrow (Sbre.) or lateral furrow (SI.). The branchio-cardiac
furrow is more or less bent backwards, and often takes a sharp
curve forwards, and, having received a smaller sulcus from the
part in front, it continues on to the arched margin of the carapace
forming the lateral furrow (SI.). This sulcus, which marks the
middle of the superior surface of the carapace, is indicated only
by a notch on the lateral margin over which it passes, and is
continued forwards upon the inferior orbital border of the pterygo-
stomial region (P.). -
Of the different regions observed on the carapace the epigastric
(Ge.) and the mesogastric lobes (Gm.) appear in front of the occipital
furrow (also called the cervical furrow) (Sc.). The two epigastric
lobes (Ge.) are nearly always well marked, and are separated by the
frontal furrow (Sf.). The mesogastric lobe (Gm.) is prolonged in
front into a narrow point, and divided behind into two parts by
a sulcus running lengthwise, and in decorticated specimens, from
which the shell has been dissolved away, this furrow is always well
defined by two well-marked raised surfaces (these marks being due
to the insertion of muscles on the interior of the carapace). Behind
the occipital furrow (also called the cervical furrow), in the front
part of the centre of the carapace, is the broad urogastric lobe (@u.)
(not always well defined). This is separated from the next region
by a narrow, plane or concave surface. The cardiac region (C.) is
pentagonal, with the pointed portion directed backwards, and on
decorticated specimens nearly always marked by three tubercles,
forming a triangle; on each side, behind the occipital furrow, are
the two large branchial regions (Ba. and Bp.). The anterior
branchial regions (Ba.), situated in front of the lateral sulcus or
furrow, possess on decorticated specimens, in the centre, a pointed
elevation. The posterior branchial regions (Bp.) are of a more
or less marked rhomboidal form. Two tubercles can always be
seen in decorticated specimens in the middle of the occipital furrow.
The pterygostomial region (P.) is very narrow. On this, behind
the lower border of the orbit, is a transverse furrow or sulcus,
which is often sharply marked, particularly on the inner part,
where the region behind is more or less pointed.
The superior surface is granulated or smooth, the curved part
nearly always smooth. In the collections both from Annetorp and
Faxe there are isolated well-preserved claws, which in their short,
stout form and the direction of the index and pollex resemble the
Dr. Henry Woodward—Cretaceous Crustacea, Denmark. 493
Dromia-type, but which are devoid of the denticulations peculiar
to Dromia. These claws belong, no doubt, to representatives of the
genus Dromiopsis, which is so stated in one case (cf. D. levior) ;
among others of the figured species one is granulated in the same
way as the shell of D. rugosa, and belongs probably to that species.
Of the genus Dromiopsis four species are already described, all
belonging to the newer Chalk formation, and all except D. elegans
known only from the Faxe Chalk. Dromiopsis gibbosus, Schliit.,’
from the Belemnites mucronatus Chalk formation of Westphalia, does
not belong to this family, but ought probably to be referred to the
family Homolopsis of Bell.
Dromiopsis resembles in many respects Dromia, and Von Fischer-
Benzon considered these two to be identical. Lundgren is also
of the same opinion. This is easily explained, as the genus Dromia
formerly comprised many more types than are now included with our
present knowledge of the genus. (Ortmann, “ Arthropoda,” p. 114.)
“ After examining recent specimens in the Zoological Museum
of Copenhagen I have been able to show distinct generic differences
between Dromia and the genus Dromiopsis as proposed by Reuss.
Dromia differs very distinctly from Dromiopsis by its three-toothed
rostrum, and also by its long, nearly straight posterior border, much
larger pterygostomial region, and its very peculiarly serrated claws.
The genus Dromiopsis ought thus to be maintained and to be
considered as a precursor of Dromia. This last-mentioned genus
appears first in the Tertiary period, from which Bittner? has
described several types all with the rostrum three-toothed. But
as regards the pterygostomian region these Tertiary species of
Dromia resemble Dromiopsis (cf. Bittner, ‘Brachyuren v. Vicenza,
Neue Beitriige,’ p. 307).”
“The genus Dromilites of Milne-Edwards,? belonging to the
Tertiary formation, with which Dromiopsis has also been considered
as identical, ought necessarily to be revised. The species belonging to
this genus differ more or less from Dromiopsis by the denticulations
on the lateral borders, by more distinct regions, and by the shape
of the branchial regions. Zittel’s * diagnosis of the relationship both
of Dromiopsis and Dromia is now inapplicable.”
Dromiopsis RuGosA, Schlotheim, sp. (P]. XII, Figs. 8a, b, and 4a-c.)
1820. Brachyurites rugosus, Schlotheim: Petrefactenkunde, p. 36, pl. i, fig. 2.
1851. Brachywrites rugosus, Quenstedt : Petrefactenkunde, p. 401, pl. xxxi, fig. 11.
1859. Dromiopsis rugosa, Reuss: Fossil. Krabben, p. 10, pl. ui, figs. 2, 3;
pl. v, fig. 6.
1866. Dromia rugosit, Von Fischer-Benzon: Alter d. Faxekalkes, p. 24, pl. iii,
figs. 1-3.
1867. Dromia rugosa, Lundgren: Faxekalken, p. 10.
1900. Dromiopsis rugosa, Schlotheim, sp.: K.O. Segerberg, Geol. Foren. I Stock-
holm Foérhandl., Bd. xxii, H. 5.
1 Schliiter: Krebse d. nérdl. Deutschl., p. 610.
2 Bittner: Brachyuren vy. Vicenza, Neue Beitrage, p. 306, pl. i, fig, 5; Decapoden
d. pannon. Tertiar, pp. 21, 25, pl. ii, figs. 5, 6
5 Bell: ‘‘ Crust of London Clay,’’ p. 27, pl. v, figs. 1-9; pl. vi.
* Zittel: Palaeont., ii, p. 703.
494. Dr. Henry Woodward—Cretaceous Crustacea, Denmark.
The carapace in outline is of a rounded pentagonal form, with its
greatest breadth a little anterior to the middle; of nearly the same
length as breadth (1 : 1:1); very convex, particularly anteriorly, the
posterior part being flatter and often having a depression in the centre.
In size it varies from a breadth of a few millimetres up to 40 mm. ;
generally it is from 20 to 25mm. The rostrum (R.) is strongly
depressed; the orbits (O.) are deep; their inferior border forms
a blunt process with two teeth. The antero-lateral margin
commences with a sharp tooth somewhat below the inferior orbital
border; in other respects the lateral margins agree generically.
The posterior margin is sometimes short and much curved, in
others long and less curved; this is probably due to difference
in sex. The occipital and lateral sulci or furrows are deep and
sharply defined; somewhat broader on the superior surface than on
the curved part. On the inner half of the anterior branchial regions
there runs parallel to these a much shallower middle sulcus, which
forms a right angle externally and ends in the lateral furrow (on
some specimens there are traces of such a curved furrow going off
anteriorly towards the occipital or cervical furrow). The epigastric
lobes form two pointed eminences. The mesogastric lobe is well
defined, and elevated posteriorly. The protogastric lobes are not
so well defined in this type. The urogastric lobe is characterized
by irregular eminences. Between this and the cardiac region there
is a saddle-like depression, the anterior part of which, towards the
sides, blends with the above described middle sulcus. The centre
of the cardiac region is more or less elevated, and anteriorly it is
externally defined by the branchio-cardiac furrow, which on some
specimens is shallower, and runs forwards and outwards and unites
with the occipital or cervical furrow. The superior surface is
ornamented with granules varying in size, which become less
posteriorly and are not so well defined (except on the nearly smooth
sulci). The inferior surface has granules only on its anterior part.
The above described details are readily seen on all decorticated
specimens and are present on even very small specimens; on larger
and older examples they have often been more or less obliterated.
Specimens with the surface of the shell well preserved are not rare ;
the granules in these are very distinct, and do not diminish in size
posteriorly, and are seen also on the arched part of the carapace.
Dromiopsis rugosa is not only without doubt one of the most
common decapods of the Faxe Chalk, but also generally one of its
most common fossils.
Of this little varying type Segerberg records having found the
following different forms (see Pl. XII, Figs. 4a—c, x 2 nat. size).
(a) Korma inflata, small, more strongly and more uniformly arched,
with the regions less markedly distinguished ; several specimens.
(Segerberg, op. cit., 1900, pl. i, fig. 10.)
(8) Forma angusta, small, strongly arched from side to side;
somewhat longer than broad, quickly tapering behind the occipital
furrow towards the very short posterior margin. The posterior
part of the mesogastric lobe separated by a well-marked sulcus from
Dr. Henry Woodward—Cretaceous Crustacea, Denmark. 495
the protogastric lobes, which are pointed downwards and inwards.
This is probably a variety of D. rugosa. (Segerberg, op. cit., 1900,
pl. i, fig. 2.)
(y) Forma nodosa, large, with its middle lobes much accentuated
and elevated (particularly the posterior part of the mesogastric lobe
and the inner half of the antero-branchial regions) ; the protogastric
lobes on the antero-lateral border are also elevated. (K. O. Segerberg,
op. cit., 1900, pl. i, fig. 12.)
Dromiopsis minor, Von Fischer-Benzon, sp.
1866. Dromia minor, Yon Fischer-Benzon: Alter d. Faxekalkes, p. 26, pl. ii,
figs. 4-6.
1867. 5 », Lundgren: Faxekalken, p. 11.
1900. 9 53 K. O. Segerberg: Geol. Féren. I Stockholm Forhandl.,
Bd. xxii, H. 5, pl. i, fig. 14.
Circumference nearly round; the breadth is to the length as
16:15; the arching is fairly uniform all over, but a little flatter
posteriorly. The size varies from 15 to 27mm. in breadth. The
rostrum is broad, triangular, and not so much depressed as in
D.rugosa. The lateral margins are evenly curved ; the antero-lateral
margin begins close to and on the same level as the inferior orbital
border, and has 5-6 short conical teeth, generally well separated.
The postero-lateral margin anteriorly is marked by a tooth. The
posterior margin is longer and less curved than in D. rugosa.
The occipital furrow is fairly deep, forming an angular bend on the
pterygostomial region. Lateral furrow shallow. The different
regions much less prominent than in the preceding species. The
cardiac region is defined anteriorly by a fine straight line.
The superior surface sparsely provided with small, mostly pointed
tubercles, forming a row on each side of the lateral furrow. The
cardiac region and the postero-branchial lobes are provided with
much fewer tubercles, or they are absent altogether. In other
respects it corresponds with D. rugosa.
This species, described by Von Fischer-Benzon, was by him
supposed to be identical with D. minuta of Reuss.' The description
by Reuss, however, is very vague, differing little from D. elegans as
this species is described and illustrated by Reuss* himself, and
it is therefore probably only a form of this very variable species
from which he has formed his description. DD. minuta, Reuss,
ought thus to be abolished.
D. minor appears rarely both at Annetorp and at Faxe.
Dromiopsis ELEGANS, Steenstr. et Forchh., sp.
by Dromilites elegans (elegantulus), Steenstr. et Forchh. MS.
1859. Dromiopsis elegans, Reuss: Fossil. Krabben, p. 15, pl. iv, figs. 1, 2.
1859. Dromiopsis minuta (?), Reuss: Fossil. Krabben, p. 13, pl. iv, fig. 3.
1866. Dromia elegans, Von Fischer-Benzon: Alter d. Faxekalkes, p. 26, pl. iv,
fig. a
1867. 5p a Lunderen : Faxekalken, p. 11.
1900. as aes aK 0. Segerberg: Geol. Foren. I Stockholm Férhandl.,
Bd. xxii, H. 5, pl. i, figs. 16, 18, 19.
1 Reuss: Fossil. Krabben, p. 13, pl. iv, fig. 3.
2 Op: cit. p. 15, pl. iv, figs, 1, 2.
496 Dr. Henry Woodward—Cretaceous Crustacea, Denmark.
This species is very variable in form, but the following characters
seem to be fairly constant :—
The circumference is more or less elliptical; the ratio between the
length and the breadth is generally as 1 : 1:2; the arching often
less than in the preceding species, particularly across the posterior
part. The size varies from 5 to 20mm. in breadth. The lateral
margins are provided with small, often indistinct teeth, 7-8 in
number. The lateral furrow is shallow, but distinct, being defined
behind by a small raised border which is generally noticeable even
behind the cardiac region. The posterior part of the mesogastric
region and the epigastric lobes is well marked and elevated; the
last-mentioned are elliptical and situated transversely. The limit
anteriorly being often indistinct. On some specimens the anterior
angle seems to run out into a fine line, which ends in a small
tubercle.
Of this species two types can be distinguished. One of these
particularly is more arched posteriorly, and a little broader than
long, with the largest breadth a little in front of the middle of the
carapace. The posterior margin is short, strongly curved, and
nearly smooth. The second type is broader, with its greatest
breadth over the middle. The posterior margin is long and
faintly curved; it is more or less granulated, the granules being
small, thinly and irregularly scattered. Both types, however,
pass by many intermediate forms into each other, and seem to
appear just as frequently, and thus it is impossible to distinguish
between a typical specimen and its variety.
D. elegans is fairly common at Faxe, and still more so at
Annetorp. This species appears also in Maestrichtien supérieur at
Mont de Saint-Pierre and at Ciply.’
Dromiopsis L&vior, Steenstr. et Forchh., sp.
P Dromiopsis levior, Steenstr. et Forchh. MS.
1859. », Reuss: Fossil. Krabben, p. 16, pl. iii, figs. 4-6.
1866. Dromia levior, Von Fischer-Benzon : Alter d. Faxekalkes, p. 27, pl. iv,
fig. 1.
1900. Dromiopsis levior, Steenstrup: K. O. Segerberg, Geol. Féren. I Stockholm
Foérhandl., Bd. xxii, H. 5, pl. i, fig. 15.
Larger, more strongly and evenly arched than the preceding
species. Circumference rounded. The size varies between 25 and
42mm. The rostrum is broad, triangular, with its borders strongly
raised. The orbits are deep. The external angle of the orbit is
interrupted by a broad incision which runs outwards into a wide
sulcus. The external tooth of the inferior orbital border is
considerably larger than the inner one. The antero-lateral margin
begins a little below the inferior orbital border, and its teeth are
generally confluent, forming a sharp ridge which is divided by the
occipital furrow ; both serrations are pointed anteriorly and blunt
posteriorly. The posterior margin is somewhat curved inwards.
Both the occipital furrow and the lateral furrow are shallow; the
last-mentioned is broad, defined behind by a sharp crest, which is
1 Pelseneer: Decapod. du Maestricht, p. 172.
Dr. Henry Woodward— Cretaceous Crustacea, Denmark. 497
pointed at the lateral margin, and is continued on to the inferior
surface. The epigastric lobes are placed transversely and provided
with small prominences. Between these and the antero-lateral
margin there are some elevated tubercles, arranged ina row. From
an area in the middle of the anterior lateral region, which is full
of small depressions and nearly circular in shape, another row of
similar tubercles runs in a curve backwards and inwards. The
mesogastric lobe is only distinct posteriorly by its conspicuously
raised surface. The middle area of the antero-branchial lobes is well
marked by the dotted elevation already referred to in the description
of the genus. Otherwise the surface of the carapace in the cast is
quite smooth, and this is also the case when the shell is preserved.
_Of this species one specimen appears with the claw belonging to
it, although this is incompletely preserved.! The shell of this
species is smooth, except a few granules on the shortest side; the
cast is more or less reticulated. The claw referred to in Segerberg’s
paper, p. 17, pl. ii, fig. 2 belongs probably to this species. Only
rarely met with at Annetorp and Faxe.
Dromtiorsis? pEprEssa, K. O. Segerberg, 1900.
1900. Droimiopsis? depressa, K. O. Segerberg: Geol. Féren. I Stockholm Férhandl.,
Bd. xxii, H. 5, p. 18, pl. ii, figs. 3, 4?
Of this species only one specimen was obtained from Annetorp.
The rostrum is not preserved. The specimen is decorticated. The
form of the carapace is nearly pentagonal; breadth 26mm. The
distance from the superior orbital border to the posterior margin is
24mm. In front of the lateral furrow the carapace is strongly
arched ; behind the same it becomes narrower, with the lateral parts
depressed. ‘The orbits are small, narrow, and transverse. The two
teeth on the inferior orbital border are of nearly equal size. The
antero-lateral margins commence in a line with the inferior orbital
border ; in front of the occipital furrow the margin is marked by
a prominence and is curved; behind the same it is prolonged
forwards into a tooth or point, but otherwise (as on the postero-
lateral margins) it is only faintly marked, and curved inwards. The
posterior margin is long and slightly curved. The occipital furrow
is very indistinct, particularly in its inner course. The lateral
furrow (SI.), on the other hand, is distinct, but very shallow, with-
out any well-defined margin. Behind the cardiac region there is
a transverse depression. Otherwise the details of the carapace are
fairly similar to the preceding species.
This species is in some respects very similar to Dromia lator,
a recent form from the West Indies.” But as only one specimen of
the former has been found without a rostrum, and as on the whole
it is nearly related to D. levior, I have (with some doubt) referred
it to the genus Dromiopsis.
In the collections from Faxe, K. O. Segerberg has figured a very
incomplete specimen, which he thinks is probably a younger form
of this species.
1 K. O. Segerberg : op. cit., pl. ii, figs. 1, 2.
2 Loe. cit., fig. 5.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. XI. 32
498 Dr. Henry Woodward—Cretaceous Crustacea, Denmark.
Dgomiorsis Brrtevm, H. Woodw., sp. nov. (PI. XII, Figs. 1a, 6.)
Derscription.—Carapace broader than deep (16 mm. broad and
12mm. deep); antero-lateral border slightly concave ; frontal
margin prominent, with a central depression. Lateral margins
rounded ; postero-lateral margin sloping inwards; posterior margin
(8 mm.) broad and nearly straight; surface sparsely granulated, but
generally smooth ; with the exception of the epigastric prominences,
and the posterior margin of the mesogastric region, the lobes of the
carapace are generally very obscurely defined; the cervical furrow
(Sc.) is most distinct and is very slightly curved; the lateral furrow
(SI) is faintly rugose, but less distinct than the cervical furrow ;
at the base of the mesogastric lobe is a short granulated band in
front of the cervical furrow, and two small pointed prominences
(divided by the median furrow), the points directed backwards, each
being marked by a minute tubercle; the cardiac region is depressed
and only faintly outlined, its surface being marked by three small
equidistant tubercles, two in front and one behind; four small
tubercles mark the border of the antero-branchial lobe, and three
the antero-lateral border. The two rounded prominences near the
anterior border of the epigastric lobes are very distinct. The
rostrum, which is rounded, is bent downwards between the orbits,
and is deeply indented by the frontal furrow. The orbits are
elongated transversely, and are open internally towards the rostrum.
Remarxs.— Two apparently full-sized specimens of this well-
marked species (16 x 12mm.) are in Miss Birley’s collection, also
one young specimen measuring 9 mm. in breadth by 6 mm. in depth ;
all three are preserved in hard compact limestone, which contains
also traces of the limbs. The species is distinguished by its well-
marked form, being broader in proportion to its depth than D. rugosa,
although specifically they are no doubt nearly related. The rostral
and frontal border is less prominent in D. Birleye, and the posterior
margin is wider and straighter than in D. rugosa. All three
examples have been decorticated.
I dedicate this species to my friend Miss Caroline Birley, who
has given so much time and attention to the study of geology and
palzontology both at home and abroad, and whose private collection
bears testimony to her devotion to science.
Formation anp Locariry.— Hard Upper Cretaceous Limestone
(Danian) of Faxe: coll. Miss Birley.
Dromtorsis Coptanpz, H. Woodw., sp.nov. (PI. XII, Figs. 2a, b.)
Desoription.—Carapace slightly broader than deep (9 X 7mm.) ;
anterior border semicircular; frontal region broad, depressed ;
orbits large, prominent, visible from above, and placed somewhat
diagonally ; enclosed externally, but open towards rostrum ; postero-
lateral margins contracting rapidly towards the posterior margin,
which is narrow, only 3 mm. wide, and emarginate. Cervical furrow
distinct; lateral furrow faint, but more strongly marked on the
margin of carapace ; antero-lateral margin very bluntly dentated or
undulated ; mesogastric and epigastric lobes slightly prominent ;
carapace generally smoothly rounded and lobes obscure.
Dr. Henry Woodward—Cretaceous Crustacea, Denmark. 499
Remarxs.—This is a very well-marked glabrous form and quite
distinct in outline from any of the other species; the sides being
narrower and contracting posteriorly, and more rounded and
depressed in front; with the orbits visible from above, which is
not the case in any other species of Dromiopsis.
Among the smaller specimens of Dromiopsis I have detected
a minute, very round, smooth form; the carapace is 6mm. broad
and 5mm. deep; it agrees generally with the larger example
(Figs. 2a, 6). The cardiac region in this small specimen is more
clearly defined, and has three equidistant tubercles on its surface ;
the orbits are large and prominent, and the outline of the back is
very globular; this latter character is probably due to its being
a young individual.
I dedicate this species to Miss Copland, who participated with
Miss Birley in her geological labours and collected many of the
specimens with her own bands at Faxe.
Formation and Locatrry.— Uppermost Cretaceous (Bryozoa
Chalk), Faxe: original specimens in Miss Birley’s collection.
Homo.orsis TRANSIENS, K. O. Segerberg.
1900. Homolopsis transiens, K.O. Segerberg: Geol. Féren. I Stockholm Forhandl.,
Bd. xxii, H. 4, pl. ii, figs. 6-8.
K. O. Segerberg obtained several specimens of this species both
from Annetorp and Faxe, preserved as casts, nearly all, curiously
enough, without frontal or lateral margins being preserved (cf.
Carter, Decapod. Crust., p. 22).
Anteriorly depressed, otherwise nearly even; the length about
22mm. (on the larger, figured specimen). Rostrum narrow,
triangular, and depressed, provided with a small tubercle on each
side. Lateral and posterior margins long, straight, elevated into
aridge. Occipital furrow deep and broad at the sides, narrower
between the mesogastric and the urogastric lobes, and having two
pointed elevations in the centre. Lateral furrow narrow, faintly
defined ; nearly straight on each side of the middle line; directed
outwards and forwards. The different regions are all very
conspicuous and limited by deep sulci. The epigastric lobes are
marked by two distinct tubercles. One sees three other similar
tubercles on the protogastric lobes. The mesogastric lobe is well
defined on all sides. The urogastric lobe is pointed at the sides.
The cardiac region is pentagonal and elevated. The antero-
branchial lobes are divided on the inner side into two parts, of which
the superior one is the shorter. ‘The postero-branchial regions are
triangular and large; there is a tubercle on the inner posterior part.
The superior surface is more or less thinly and irregularly granulated.
On a younger specimen (op. cit., pl. ii, fig. 7) similar granules can
be seen, particularly on the mesogastric and cardiac lobes. On an
older one (op. cit., pl. ii, fig. 6) one sees these granules both on the
cardiac and postero-branchial lobes arranged transversely in short
rows; on account of this arrangement the casts have a somewhat
ridged appearance. Another old specimen, on the contrary (pl. ii,
fig. 8), has the posterior part nearly smooth, and the tubercles on
500 Dr. Henry Woodward—Cretaceous Crustacea, Denmark.
the protogastric lobes are but little conspicuous. (This is also the
case with a single specimen preserved in Miss Birley’s collection.)
This species is in many respects very similar to H. Edwardsii,
Bell,’ from the Gault and Greensand of England, a very peculiar
form, to a knowledge of which the late Mr. James Carter*® has
made some very valuable contributions. In regard to the granulation
on the postero-branchial lobes the species from the Uppermost Chalk
(here described by Segerberg) is very similar to the Tertiary genus
Drowmilites,> which is also closely related to Homolopsis, and seems
thus to be a transitional form between these two genera.
A single, very imperfect carapace is preserved in Miss Birley’s
collection from the Danian of Faxe.
CARPILIOPSIS.
CaRPILIOPsIS ORNATA, Von Fischer-Benzon, sp. (Pl. XII, Figs. 5a, b.)
1867. Carpiliopsis ornata, vor Bere ee sp.: Alter d. Faxekalkes, p. 28,
. li, figs. 1-3.
a x10. Segerberg : Geol. Foren. I Stockholm Férhandl.,
Bd. xxii, H. 5, p. 28, pl. iii, figs. 15, 17, 18 ?
Desoription.—The carapace is sub-elliptical, equally convex
longitudinally ; the lateral margins are acute ; the antero-lateral
margins are short, rounded, and curved backwards. The postero-
lateral margins are longer and are curved inwards. The orbits are
oval, and when seen from above marked by emarginations on either
side (Pl. XII, Fig. 5a) of a broad, bluntly rounded, and slightly
notched rostrum (Pl. XII, Fig. 5b). The posterior margin is narrow
and emarginate. The upper surface of carapace is punctate, and
ornamented by raised lines and tubercles peculiar to the species ;
the general surface is very minutely ornamented with microscopic
granules.
The mesogastric lobe is marked by two minute tubercles and
a small, short, raised line behind, probably affording the only
evidence of the presence of the cervical furrow ; there is a slight
trace of a median ridge and furrow, and a rather larger tubercle
marks the centre of each epigastric lobe. One tubercle on either
side and a few minute granules scattered over the protogastric and
hepatic regions are the only interruption to the otherwise smooth
anterior surface of the carapace. ‘The cardiac region bears three
minute tubercles, and is enclosed on either side by a lyre-shaped
ridge and furrow, which bending back upon itself forms the short
lateral furrow.
_ Remarxs.— This well-marked form is represented by two
examples in Miss Birley’s collection, the larger measuring 12 mm.
in breadth by 7mm. in depth, the lesser example being 9mm. broad
and 6mm. in depth. Both are from the uppermost Cretaceous
formation of Faxe, Denmark.
The following is a list of the species of Crustacea from Faxe
recorded by K. O. Segerberg and H. Woodward :—
4 1 Bell, Crust. of Gault and Greensand: Mon. Pal. Soc., 1862, p. 23, pl. vy,
8.1, 2.
2 Carter: Decapod. Crust., 1898, p. 21.
> Bell: Crust. of London Clay, p. 27.
1900. A
Geol Mag 1901. Decade IVVelVIITPI XI.
emivee gyre del.etlith. West,N ewman imp.
Cretaceous Crustacea from Faxoe.
Dr, Henry Woodward—Cretaceous Crustacea, Denmark. 501
GALATHEID®.
Galathea strigifera, Steenstr. Danian: Annetorp and Faxe.
*
Mu
», munidoides, K.O. 8. Danian: Faxe.
nida primeva, K.O.8. Danian: Faxe.
DROMIACEA.
*Dromiopsis rugosa, Schiliit., sp. Danian: Faxe.
* minor, Von Fischer-Benzon, sp. Danian: Annetorp and Faxe.
op elegans, Steenstr. et Forchh., sp. Danian: Annetorp and Faxe.
rn levior, Steenstr. et Forchh., sp. Danian: Annetorp and Faxe.
Ns depressa, K.O.S. Annetorp and Faxe.
op Birleye, H. Woodw., sp. nov. Danian: Faxe.
*
Coplande, H. Woodw., sp. nov. Danian: Faxe.
* ”
Plagiophthalmus pentagonalis, K.O. 8. Faxe.
* Homolopsis transiens, K. O. 8. Annetorp and Faxe.
RANINOIDEA.
Raninella Baltica, K. 0.8. Faxe.
OXYSTOMATA.
Necrocarcinus senonensis, Schlit., sp. Annetorp and Faxe.
5 insignis, K. O. 8. Annetorp.
x6 bispinosus, K. O. S. Saltholm’s Chalk; Limhamn.
CYCLOMETOPA.
Titanocarcinus, sp. Annetorp.
*Oarpiliopsis ornata, Von Fischer-Benzon, sp. Annetorp and Faxe.
Xanthilites cretaceus, K.O.S. Annetorp.
Panopeus faxensis, Vou Fischer-Benzon, sp. Annetorp and Faxe.
”?
subellipticus, K.O.S. Faxe.
incertus, K. O. 8. Annetorp and Faxe.
Nors.—Those marked by a * are represented in Miss C. Birley’s collection.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE XII.
CRUSTACEA FROM THE Uppermost Cuatk (‘Dantan’) or Faxe, DENMARK.
Fic. 1.—Dromiopsis Birleye, H. Woodward, sp. nov. x 2 times nat. size.
a, dorsal aspect of carapace or cephalo-thorax.
b, frontal aspect of carapace, showing orbits and rostrum.
2.—Dromiopsis Coplande, H. Woodward, sp. noy. x 3 times nat. size.
a, dorsal aspect of carapace.
b, frontal aspect of carapace, showing orbits and depressed rostrum.
3.—Dromiopsis rugosa, Schlotheim, sp. Small, round, much granulated
variety. x 2 times nat. size.
a, dorsal aspect of carapace.
b, frontal aspect of carapace, showing arched form of carapace and
depressed rostrum.
4.—Dromiopsis rugosa, Schlotheim, sp. Typical, most abundant form. x 2
times nat. size.
a, dorsal aspect of carapace.
b, frontal aspect of carapace, showing rounded form of back.
c, side view, showing inflated form of frontal region and strongly
marked, transverse cervical and lateral furrows.
5.—Carpiliopsis ornata, Von Fischer-Benzon, sp. x 3 times nat. size.
a, dorsal aspect of carapace, showing the peculiar lyre-shaped markings
on the centre enclosing the cardiac region.
b, frontal aspect of carapace, showing the broad blunt rostrum which
widely separates the small orbits.
6.—Portion of a chela. x 3 times nat. size.
7.—Portion of a chela. x 2 times nat. size.
8.—Galathea munidoides, K. O. Segerberg. Dorsai aspect of cephalo-thorax.
x 4 times nat. size.
9.—Galathea munidoides, K. O. Segerberg. Penultimate joints of chela.
x 4 times nat. size.
502 Professor W. J. Sollas—Underground Temperature.
II].—On rue Rate or Increase oF UnprrGRoUND TEMPERATURE.
By Professor W. J. Sottas, LL.D., D.Se., F.R.S.
N the 22nd Report of the Committee appointed to investigate the
rate of increase of underground temperature, read this year
before the British Association in Glasgow, some remarks previously
made by me are animadverted upon; and as the Secretary, Professor
Everett, has invited me to discuss the matter with him, I take the
opportunity of entering somewhat more fully into the question of
conductivity than has hitherto seemed necessary. We read in the
Report “. . . . in view of the fact that the President of
Section C last year characterised the variation in the British Isles
‘from 1° in 384 feet to 1° in 92 feet’ as ‘a surprising divergence
of extremes from the mean,’ it is well to emphasise the connection
between gradient and conductivity. If there is anything like
uniformity in the annual escape of heat from the earth at different
places, there must necessarily be large differences in geothermic
gradients, since the rate of escape is jointly proportional to the
gradient and the conductivity.”
So well known a fact as the statement in the last sentence seems
to me scarcely to require emphasis, since it must assuredly be
present in the mind of everyone capable of discussing the question :
but it is not sufficient to make general statements of this kind; it
must also be shown, if the argument is to be of any real value, that
the known divergences of extremes from the mean may be definitely
connected with known differences in conductivity. Hitherto this
has not been attempted, and in the Address to Section © last
year it was expressly stated that ‘many cases exist which cannot
be explained in such a manner, but are suggestive of some
deep-seated cause, such as the distribution of molten matter below
the ground.” Before proceeding to enter into calculations which
may illustrate this statement, it may be worth while to observe
that we have no evidence to suggest, much less to prove, that
“there is anything like uniformity in the annual escape of heat
from the earth at different places’; the indications are altogether
to the contrary: the mere existence of volcanos obviously invalidates
the statement as an absolute affirmative, and ancient laccolites show
that in past time at least concealed sources of heat have existed not
very remote from the surface.
If, then, there is not uniformity in the annual escape of heat from
the earth at different places it may be thought unnecessary to labour
the question in greater detail, yet in view of the importance of the
subject to geological inquiry it may be worth while to consider
some special cases. If we turn to the ‘Summary of the Resulis
in the first 15 Reports by Professor Everett” (1882) we shall find
a table of mean conductivities from several kinds of rocks given in
C.G.S. measure, from determinations made by Professor Herschel,
but these, following the direction of Professor Hverett, must be
multiplied by a correcting factor 1:4 for use in calculation. For
our purpose we select the following :—
Professor W. J. Sollas—Underground Temperature. 503
Rock-salt —... eis 0113 Clays Sa. we 0025
Sandstone... das 0060 Shale... 60 0019
Flagstone... ate 0046 Coal tte AA? 0008
Rock-salt heads the list, and consequently in borings made through
this mineral the thermometric gradient should be lower than the
average. If, now, we turn to the results given on p. 88 of the
British Association Report for i882 we find that the deep Sperenberg
boring, which passed chiefly through rock-salt, shows a temperature
increase of 1° for 514 feet, and this result is regarded by the
Committee as so remarkably accurate that the effect of quadrupling
it when calculating a mean rate is thought worthy of consideration.
On p. 84 we read, ‘“‘ The Sperenberg bore, near Berlin, in rock salt,
with a depth of 8,492 English feet . . . . gave an average of
1° in 51°5 feet. This result is entitled to special weight, not only
on account of the great depth, but also on account of the powerful
means employed to exclude convection.” The mean result for all
observations given in the same Report is 1° for 64 feet, which was
corrected in a later Report to 1° for 60 feet.
Thus, the gradient of the Sperenberg bore, so far from being below
the average, such as the conductivity of rock-salt would have led
a believer in the uniform rate of loss of heat to expect, actually rises
above it. The average rate at which heat escapes through the earth
is given in the Report (1882) as 41:4 gramme degrees annually
through each square centimetre of a horizontal section of the earth’s
substance. There is an error in this number, no doubt typographical ;
it should read 51:4.
Let us calculate from the data afforded by Sperenberg the average
flow of heat through the rock-salt of that district. The gradient of
1° in 51:5 feet reduces to 0:0008537 of a degree Centigrade per
centimetre. The conductivity of rock-salt, according to the Report,
is -0113 x 14=-:01582 and 0-00035387 x 01582 = 55955 x 10-™,
which is the flow of heat in gramme degrees per second across one
square centimetre, or 55955 X 3815 x 10-*= 176-2 gramme degrees
per year per square centimetre. In other words, if the influence of
conductivity be fairly considered, it leads to the conclusion that the rate
of escape of heat at Sperenberg is more than thrice as great as that of
the mean (51°4). The data at our disposal in the case of coal-mines
do not appear to be sufficient for the purposes of discussion ; all that
can be said is, that while the sinkings were made in similar rocks
the temperature gradients obtained differ widely among themselves.
Without detailed information of the thickness and nature of the
various beds passed through in the several cases from which the
average is reduced, calculation is impossible.
A matter of extreme importance has, however, to be mentioned
in this connection. In the Report for this year we read (p. 6,
separate copy) : “In some condensed reports of Bergrath Kobrich’s
communication (but not in the full paper as given in ‘Gliickauf’),
the irregularities are attributed to chemical action in the coal seams,
causing in some cases a heating and in others a cooling; but in the
absence of more direct evidence this explanation seems rather
504 Professor J. Joly—Circulation of Salt.
forced.” Putting aside the possibility of cooling, the effect of
chemical action in evolving heat from coal-seams is well known,
and an important paper on the subject was read in 1899 by
Dr. Haldane and Mr. Meachem before the Society of Mining
Engineers. It was clearly shown by these investigators that the
heat resulting from the oxidation of marcasite in coal-seams is three
times as much as is required to account for the total rise in
temperature which the air of the ventilating current undergoes in
passing through the mines. Dr. Haldane, who has given great
attention to this subject, informs me that he considers the effect of
this chemical action has been too little considered, and that he has no
doubt it has led to an exaggerated estimate of the mean thermometric
gradient in coal borings. While recognizing the great value of the
Reports issued by the Committee of which Professor Everett is
Secretary, to whom all geologists must feel grateful for the
investigation of a question which is of the first importance to
their inquiries, I still consider that, owing to various disturbing
factors, the average rate of temperature increase with descent into
the crust may have been overestimated, and that divergence from
the mean may in some cases be connected with an irregular
distribution of molten matter below the ground.
TV.—Crrecunation oF Satt anp GronogicaL TIME.
By Professor J. Jouy, M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S.
ie the GrotocrcaL Macazine for August I gave the major limit
to the period of time we can assign to the geological age of
the Earth by the solvent-denudation method, when it is assumed
that all the chlorine of rivers is derived directly from the ocean,
and that all such chlorine (falling, as assumed, in rain) carries its
full complement of sodium from the ocean. The major limit with
these assumptions is 141 million years. A second estimate is given
on the more moderate assumption that one-third the amount of
chlorine in rivers is derived from the sea and brings with it its
full equivalent of sodium; this affords 105 millions of years as the
age. Finally, there is the original estimate based on a 10 per cent.
deduction from the chlorine of rivers as rain-borne, affording 96
millions of years.
Among such numbers we may take our choice. Outside the
upper limit we cannot go if we rely on the mean river analyses
of Sir John Murray, and of course accept the principle of uniformity
involved. It is a perfectly simple matter, which may be stated as
follows :—There is a large excess of sodium over chlorine appearing
in the mean analysis of 19 chief rivers of the world. The numbers
are 157 x 10° tons of sodium and 84 x 10® tons of chlorine carried
to the ocean per annum; or, dividing by the atomic weights, the
relative numbers of ions are as 68 sodium to 24 chlorine. The
consequence is that even if the whole of the chlorine be supposed
derived from the sea and none at all from denudation, and to reach
the rivers fully satisfied with marine sodium, there remains over such
an excess of sodium that the age cannot exceed 141 x 10° years.
Professor J. Joly—Circulation of Salt. 505
Now this was fully pointed out in my previous paper; it should
be perfectly well known to Mr. Ackroyd; but we find still that
Mr. Ackroyd maintains that ‘the chemist’s convention of taking
chlorine as a measure of sodium in rain- and river-water is service-
able, and cannot involve more final error in connection with this
problem than that indicated by the ratio of these elements in sea-
water.”
As regards the first part of this statement, we have seen that ‘the
chemist’s convention” would give hopelessly erroneous results if
applied to river analysis. As to the ratio of the chlorine and
sodium in sea-water, this has nothing to do with the matter beyond
indicating that as there is a large excess of chlorine over sodium in
the sea we may expect a similar excess to obtain in rain-water.
We may also observe that if “the chemist’s convention” were
applied to sea-water an entirely erroneous result would be obtained
on the other side; the sodium would be greatly overestimated.
On the strength of this convention, however, Mr. Ackroyd again
quotes his analyses of the Aire (a small coastal stream), and, preferring
it to the mean analysis of the large rivers, again arrives at some
thousands of millions of years. That, following similar reasoning,
a stream could be found giving an infinite age to the earth, goes
without saying. Why will Mr. Ackroyd not have the 19 rivers ?
The only objection I have heard urged against them (and it is one
of considerable weight) is that they are not numerous enough.
This is Professor Sollas’ criticism.
Coming now to the question of the origin of the salts of inland
seas, a question which Mr. Ackroyd has raised in connection with
the allowance proper for rain-borne sodium, | see in his last paper
in this Magazine that Mr. Ackroyd would explain the wide differences
in chemical composition of these waters by the effects arising from
concentration. The enormous amounts of precipitated salts required
by this hypothesis must, however, here be considered. Let it be
assumed, as he desires, that sea-water reaching closed lakes in rain-
water has concentrated until the balance between 20 per cent. of Mg Cl,
and 5 per cent. of NaCl is attained. In sea-water there is but 0°38
per cent. of MgCl,. There is, on the other hand, 2°75 per cent. of
NaCl. To reach the required percentage of Mg Cl, a concentration
of 538 times the original is necessary. This involves a concentration
of the NaCl amounting to 145 per cent. Deducting the 5 per cent.
that remains in solution, but remembering that NaCl will by no
means be the only salt precipitated, also allowing the small imported
amount of Mg SO, as a set-off against dolomitizing actions, we
finally arrive at the conclusion that the precipitated salts amount
to well over 14 times the entire mass of the existing inland sea.
This is the least quantity we must look for in such a case, for it
is the amount thrown down if the concentration had only just
attained the existing state.
I do not contend that the existence of such masses is out of com-
parison with known salt deposits ; but their absence in the particular
localities would constitute a fatal objection to supposing such extreme
506 Alfred Harker—Iagneous Rocks of Skye.
concentration. When it is remembered that the Dead Sea sinks to
depths of 400 metres we may realize that very great deposits must
be supposed existing immediately around and beneath its waters
if Mr. Ackroyd’s views are to be entertained. The fact quoted by
Mr. Ackroyd that “common salt in the southern parts of the lake
forms quite a paste” will evidently not suffice.
It is needless to quote here the views of geologists on this question.
The observations of Lartet (Bull. 8.G.F., [2] xxiii, p. 719) quoted
by De Lapparent show that “tous les sels contenus dans l’eau de
la mer Morte et celle du Jourdain sont également (a l’exception
peut-étre du brome) renfermés dans les eaux des sources chaudes du
méme bassin, notamment celles de Zara, de Callirhoé, et d’Emmaiis”
(vol. i, p. 488). The absence of iodine, so characteristic of sea-
water, the presence of bituminous and sulphurous odours, the very
local variations in composition, further lead M. de Lapparent to
the view that the intervention of sea-water cannot be looked for in
accounting for its composition; but that it represents a fresh-water
lake modified by volcanic agencies of comparatively recent date.
Having no leisure to discuss the matter further, I would close my
remarks by stating once more that the carriage of sea-salts into
many inland lakes is very certainly a fact. The difference between
Mr. Ackroyd’s and my own views on the matter is one of degree
only. If my own original estimate, that 10 per cent. of river
chlorine is from the ocean, were correct, this would involve con-
siderable importations of sea-salts in process of time into inland
waters.
V.—TueE SEQUENCE OF THE TERTIARY IGNEous Rocks oF SKYE.
By Atrrep Harker, M.A., F.G.S.
(Published by permission of the Director of the Geological Survey.)
HIS communication is the outcome of work carried out during
the years 1895-1901 in the service of the Geological Survey
of Scotland. Although this systematic work has been confined to
the Isle of Skye, information incidentally acquired, and the published
literature of the British Tertiary rocks, indicate for the conclusions
arrived at a much wider application. In this place the results must
be set down without the detailed observations upon which they
are based.
Here, as in numerous other areas and at various geological periods,
igneous activity has manifested itself successively under three
different phases, the Volcanic, the Plutonic, and the Phase of Minor
Intrusions (often called the Dyke Phase). There is further an
important distinction to be observed, neglecting which the whole
sequence is thrown into confusion. The various events recorded in
the succession fall into two distinct categories of very different orders,
which may be termed the Regional Series and the Local Series.
Those of the former class affected a very wide area—perhaps in
some cases the whole Brito-Icelandic Province, extending from the
Alfred Harker—Igneous Rocks of Skye. 507
British Isles to beyond the Arctic Circle. The episodes of the
Local Series, on the other hand, were closely related to certain
special foci of activity, declared at a very early epoch, one of
which was situated beneath what is now the mountain district of
Central Skye. While events of the two classes often alternated in
our area, and are integral parts of one complete record, they may
be regarded as in some degree independent and as bound up with
two distinct orders of crust-movements, viz. the continent-building
and the mountain-building respectively. Of the two parallel series
of eruptions, the Regional retained throughout a basic character,
while the Local developed wide petrographical differences among
the several groups. It follows that the successive episodes of the
Regional Series are much more difficult to separate and arrange in
order than those of the Local Series, and the following condensed
scheme is confessedly imperfect, especially as regards the basic lavas
and the basic dykes.
(0) Pre-Votcanic Puase: Locai Series—Here may be noticed
certain plutonic intrusions nowhere exposed at the surface and
known only from fragments in the volcanic agglomerates. They
are confined to the central mountain district, and include, in order,
(a) gabbro and (b) granite.
(1) Vorcanic Puase.—Regional activity almost continuous ; local
chiefly confined to two well-marked episodes.
Regional Series.—Fissure-eruptions of basic (with some sub-basic)
lavas throughout the region. Besides the prevalent olivine-basalts,
there are some hypersthene-basalts, augite-andesites, etc., but no
ordered sequence has been made out.
Local Series.—Central, not fissure-eruptions.
(a) Paroxysmal outbursts at certain centres, marked by great
accumulations of volcanic agglomerate; the large vents confined to
the mountain district. The chief masses of agglomerate underlie
all the lavas, and thus represent the earliest overt manifestation of
igneous activity.
(b) Eruptions, only in part paroxysmal, of intermediate and acid
rocks in one limited area on the northern border of the Cuillins.
Generalized sequence : (i) trachytes, (ii) rhyolitic tuffs and breccias,
(iii) rhyolites. This group is intercalated as a local episode in the
midst of the basic lavas.
(2) Puurontc Puase.—Regiona! activity in abeyance; local at
maximum of intensity and at the same time narrowly localized.
Local Series. — Plutonic intrusions in the forms of complex
laccolitic masses and bosses. Three groups, in order of increasing
acidity, with little or no intervals.
(a) Peridotites of the south-west Cuillins; viz., olivine-anorthite
rocks, picrites, and typical peridotites, including dunite.
(b) Gabbros of the Cuillins, ete.
(c) Granites and granophyres (plutonic) of the Red Hills.
(2 to 8) Transrrionat Puase, Local Series only.—The phase of
Minor Intrusions shows, as compared with the Plutonic, a reversal
of order among the groups of local intrusions. There seems to have
508 Alfred Harker—Igqneous Rocks of Skye.
been a certain critical epoch, at which in some places basic and acid
rocks were intruded almost simultaneously, the basic, however, being
slightly the earlier. Remarkable reactions resulted between the two
rocks so intimately associated. Here belong :—
Composite sills and dykes, composed of basic and acid rocks,
usually with triple symmetry ; occurring along a belt outside the
border of the Red Hills.
(3) Pas or Mrnor Inrrvusions in the form of sills, sheets, and
dykes. Resumption of regional activity in a new form (intrusive
instead of extrusive); local activity at certain epochs. Waning
intensity indicated during this phase by generally diminishing volume
of intrusions, both individually and as groups, and, at least in the
Local Series, by intervals of quiescence.
Regional Series.—Rocks still exclusively basic and (exceptionally)
sub-basic, so that no law of chemical variation in time can be laid down.
(a) Great group of basic sills. These are by far the most important
intrusive rocks in the whole suite, making up more than half of the
total thickness of the basaltic group over most of the area, besides
appearing in considerable force in the underlying Jurassic. Their
intrusion constituted the first episode of the Phase of Minor Intrusions.
They are here included in the Regional Series as having clearly no
relation to the special focus of Central Skye. They are most
developed in the north and west of the island, and die out towards
the mountains.
(b) Basic dykes, mostly with directions near N.W.—S.E., intruded
in vast numbers throughout the region at various epochs, the division
into successive groups being possible only in a very partial degree.
These basic dykes are to be regarded as self-constituted intrusions ;
others of earlier dates being merely the feeders of lava-flows and sills.
Local Series.—Three chief groups, having restricted areas of
distribution, each standing in relation with the corresponding
plutonic centre. Order of increasing basicity.
(a) Minor acid intrusions (dykes, irregular sills, etc.). Area of
distribution a roughly elliptic tract, centring in the granite of the
Red Hills but extending beyond, with long axis in the general
direction of the dykes (N.N.W.-S.S.E.).
(b) Minor basic intrusions. Area of distribution nearly coincident
with the gabbro of the Cuillins. The most remarkable set of
intrusions takes the form of numerous parallel sheets inclined
inwards, towards the centre of the area. In addition there is
a radiate set of dykes, partly feeders of the sheets, partly older;
also, much less perfectly developed, a tangential set of dykes.
(c) Minor ultrabasic intrusions, in the form of a radiate set
of dykes; distributed with reference to the Cuillins, or rather to
the south-western half of the Cuillin area, where the plutonic
peridotites occur.
Subsidiary Groups.—There remain certain groups of dykes, of small
importance as regards number and magnitude, concerning which more
data are needed. They belong in all cases to very late episodes, but
their precise places in the sequence have not been satisfactorily fixed.
Dr. H. Exton—Geology of Ladysmith. 509
(a) Trachyte and trachy-andesite dykes. Most of these, occurring
about Broadford and in the Sleat district, seem to belong to a group
which has its chief area of distribution farther south-east, on the
Scottish mainland, and these rocks therefore cannot be attached to
the local series of the Skye focus.
(6) Augite-andesite dykes, usually with glassy base, and others
of acid pitchstone. Dykes and sills of these two rocks are more
numerous in the Isle of Arran, where, as Professor Judd has
shown, the two types are closely associated, sometimes in composite
intrusions. In Skye the known occurrences of acid pitchstone all
lie on a narrow belt passing through the granitic tract and having
a direction corresponding with that of the dykes themselves. They
thus seem to connect themselves with the Local Series as a final and
feeble recrudescence of activity about the acid Red Hills centre.
The reversion in the closing stages to intermediate and finally to
acid types seems to suggest a new reversal of the order of eruptions,
and the composite intrusions (augite-andesite and acid pitchstone) of
Arran may perhaps be taken as pointing to a second critical epoch
during transitional conditions. These sporadic manifestations of an
igneous activity nearing its point of extinction do not, however,
afford any very firm ground for such deductions.
VI.—Gerorocicat Norres on THE NEIGHBOURHOOD oF LADYSMITH,
Natat. No. 1: On some Icneous Rocks.
By Dr. H. Exton, F.G.S.
(Communicated by Professor T. Rupert Jones, F.R.S., F.G.S.)
RITING from the Station Hospital at Ladysmith, Dr. Henry
Exton, F.G.S., has communicated his observations on the
geology of the country near Ladysmith, in the northern part of
Natal, in letters to Professor T. Rupert Jones. A very noticeable
geological feature is the prevalence of an igneous rock (intrusive
andesitic diabase) on all the hills from Umbulwana, four miles east
by south from Ladysmith, to the famed Spion Kop, sixteen miles
west from here.
This rock covers all the hills, in rounded, smooth, and almost
polished boulder-like blocks, of a rusty brown hue on the surface,
with a clean blue crystalline fracture, and giving out a ringing
sound when struck. It is called by the Dutch yzad-klip (iron-
stone). The hill-sides around about here can be ascended on foot
only where a military road has been cleared to the summit. The
slopes of the hills are so profusely strewn with the rounded iron-
stone blocks that riding along them is impossible, and even walking
is a tedious task. The surface of the boulders is generally so rounded
and smooth that one has to tread between them, not upon them,
as the foot is apt to slide off. Of course, on the summits, where
these rocks are in mass, the rounding of the edges is not so apparent,
but they are alike weathered to a rich brown colour, very different
from the blue crystalline surface of a recent fracture.
510 H. W. Monckton—Gravel-Flats of Surrey and Berks.
In Pearson’s “Story of Ladysmith,” p. 108, it is stated that in
ascending Gun Hill, to capture the Boer guns, the soldiers found
that the boulders, rounded and worn by the storms of ages, were
slippery to tread on, and occasionally the foot would become wedged
between them.
The photograph marked, No. 3, gives a general view of a ridge,
on the upper level, near the hospital, from which loose blocks have
fallen to the slopes below. The upper portion of the ridge consists
of a fine-grained sandstone ( ? Upper Karoo beds).
On the hill-tops of the district the igneous masses show some flat
surfaces, and a further effect of weathering is seen in numerous
shallow depressions more or less circular, with a diameter of an inch
and a half to two inches.
About half a mile in a north-westerly direction from this hospital
some military trenches have been cut across the summit of a low
hill. The stones there exposed are similar to the surface-rock of
the country (dolerite or diabase) elsewhere; but they vary in size
from a mere flake to a ton in weight, and are cemented together
by a yellow ferruginous sandy matrix, and each separate stone is
encrusted by a coating of the same firmly adherent. The pieces
have mostly fairly angular edges without any rounded or water-worn
aspect.
It is very probable that this red matrix in which the diabase is
imbedded is the result of decomposition. If so, these stones of hard
crystalline rock, thinning out to thin sheets (such as the specimens
sent), appear to have been either intrusive or overflowing lavas.
Mr. Fred. Chapman, A.L.S., who has kindly examined the
specimens sent home, states that the so-called diabase is an altered
augite-andesite (porphyrite). The specks of magnetite scattered
throughout have decomposed and given rise to the vivid orange-red
or brick-red exterior. The weathering action has, no doubt, been
accentuated by extremes of temperature.
VIL—On tHe Oricin oF THE GRaAveEL-FLATS oF SURREY AND
BERKSHIRE.!
By Horace Woottaston Monckton, F.L.S., V.P.G.S.
Ihe the south-east of England considerable tracts are covered by
sheets or patches of gravel. It is mainly composed of flints
from the Chalk, has a thickness of, say, from 6 to 20 feet, is
generally stratified, and rests upon an uneven surface of the older
strata. The top is nearly always flat and inclined at a low angle.
These sheets of gravel lie at various levels: thus, at Casar’s Camp,
Aldershot, there is a large gravel-covered flat the highest part of
which is 600 feet above the sea. A little to the north-east there
is another flat, named the Fox Hills, at a level of 3860-390 feet, and
a few miles to the north there are Hartford Bridge Flats, which lie
330 feet above the sea. (These are in Sheets 284 and 285 of the
new series one-inch ordnance map.)
* Read before the British Association, Section 0 (Geology), Glasgow, Sept., 1901.
H. W. Monckton—Gravel-Flats of Surrey and Berks. 511
On the side of the Fox Hills (Sheet 285) there is a sheet of gravel
south of Mitchet House, with a level of about 250 feet; and at
Eversley, Shinfield, and Hurst, in Sheet 268, there are flat expanses
of gravel almost flush with the alluvium of the rivers Blackwater
and Loddon, and at levels of 180 to 120 feet.
There are many other sheets of gravel in this neighbourhood, but
I have mentioned sufficient to show that there are here a series
at very various levels, from the high ground of Czsar’s Camp,
Aldershot, down to the level of the alluvium of the rivers which
drain the area.
If we continue our course down the Thames we find similar
gravel-fiats practically down to the present level of the sea.
I have said that these gravels consist mainly of chalk-flints, but
they also contain other stones, and a careful examination of these
convinced me that the gravels are of fluviatile origin, the nature
of their composition depending upon the geological structure of the
drainage area of different rivers.’
If, then, these sheets of gravel are, as I believe, river gravels, they
must all have been originally deposited at the bottom of a valley,
and where, as in several of the cases above mentioned, they are now
on plateaux or terraces, this position must be due to denudation,
which has destroyed the sides of the valleys since their deposition.
It is pretty clear that this is the case, for every stage may be found
between the gravel terrace in a valley and the gravel-capped plateau
with valleys all round it.
There is a good example at Maidenhead, where there are three
well-marked terraces of gravel, as shown in a sketch-map by
Mr. Whitaker.2 They are lying on the side of the Thames Valley,
but if we follow the highest terrace southwards we find that
between Bray Wick and Maidenhead the progress of denudation
has been sufficient to make the terrace into a plateau with valleys
all round it.
Now it has for some time seemed to me that these gravel-flats
may have something in common with the terraces which we see
in so many places on the coast and in the fjords of Norway. In the
first place there are several points of resemblance—
1. They are formed of gravel and sand.
2. They have a flat and somewhat sloping top.
3. Several flats occur one above the other.
4. Between the flats there is a steep slope.
5. They appear to be mainly the work of rivers.
Now the explanation of the Norwegian terraces which, I believe,
finds favour in Norway is as follows :—
The rivers carry with them sand, clay, and small stones, much of
which is deposited in the valleys. ‘The remainder sinks to the
bottom before the mouths of the rivers in the sea or fjords, and
is spread out as a slightly inclined plain where circumstances are
1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1892, vol. xlviii, p. 29; 1898, vol. liv, p. 184.
2 « Geology of London’’: Mem. Geol. Sury., 1889, vol. i, p. 391,
512 H. W. Monckton—Gravel-Flats of Surrey and Berks.
favourable. There is often, therefore, at the head of the fjords
a shallow which is called dr. It ends abruptly a little distance out
with a steep slope, where the water all at once becomes some
fathoms deep.
Suppose, now, that the land is raised up; we shall have a long,
slightly sloping plain of sand and clay, with an abrupt steep slope
where the deep water was. The river will at first throw itself over
the steep slope as a waterfall, but by degrees it will cut down into
the plain and begin to form a new shallow out of the materials.
The terraces are just such plains, with so gradual a slope up above
the floor of the valleys that they appear horizontal, and ending
outside with a steep precipice. At the mouths of most of the
valleys, one sees many such terraces rising staircase-like one above
the other. These terraces seem to show that the land has rapidly
risen many feet at a time, a rise for each terrace, and between them
have been long periods of repose, during which the ér were formed.
The above is roughly translated from a small Norwegian school
geology by Corneluissen, and seems to me to afford a good
explanation of the step-terraces of Norway; but does it not also
explain the gravel-flats of England? It seems to me that short,
rather rapid elevations, separated by long periods of repose, would
produce precisely the result which we see in Surrey, Berkshire, and
other parts of the country.
The flats are due partly to excavation and partly to deposition.
Assume that an elevation of the Thames Valley to an amount of
20 feet took place now. ‘The river would at once begin to cut
down its channel to the new level, and in our soft strata its progress
back from the sea would be very rapid. We should have a new
plain excavated, and the gravel now at the level of the river
alluvium would stand up as a terrace; part of it would, moreover,
be destroyed, and the materials spread out as a gravel sheet at
the lower level. In England, where the rock is soft and easily
eroded, the gravel-flats are wide-spread, but in many of the
Norwegian valleys the rock is very hard, and the terraces are
consequently of very limited extent.
The gravel-flats are best seen on the south of the Thames. North
of that river similar flats occur, but there drift questions are much
complicated by the presence of glacial beds ; indeed, the elevation of
the south of England and the deposition of most of the gravels
appears to have taken place whilst the north of the country was
under glacial conditions, and after they ceased the country seems to
have undergone but little further elevation. In Norway, on the other
hand, movements of elevation seem to have taken place from time to
time up toa much more recent date, and so we find the step-terraces,
which are post-Glacial and were formed after southern England
had entered upon a period of repose.
The gravel beds upon these flats differ materially from most or all
of the older geological deposits of this country. The fact that the
stones are to a large extent subangular, and but little water-worn,
distinguishes them from the Eocene pebble beds; nor do they resemble
Kendall & Muff—Giacier Lakes in the Cheviots. 513
the old breccias with which I am acquainted; but if the suggested
explanation be correct the gravels were formed during a period
of elevation of the land, whereas most or all of our older deposits
were formed during periods of slow subsidence. But, though the
explanation now suggested accounts for much of the problem
presented to us by the gravels near the Thames, it must be admitted
that there are certain facts which it does not explain. Thus, the
Corbicula fluminalis bed at Crayford and Grays bears so strong
a resemblance to deposits which have been clearly formed during
a long, slow depression of the surface, that I can only think that
at some time this particular part of the Thames Valley sank whilst
the remainder was either rising or, more probably, was lying
stationary during a period of repose.
The deep channel of drift in the valley of the Cam described by
Mr. Whitaker! also seems to me to point to an area of local
depression. .
The conclusions to which I have come are, therefore, four in
number :—
1. That the gravels of which I have spoken are river gravels,
formed since the country last rose above the sea.
2. That the process of elevation was not continuous, but that
short periods of rapid movement were separated by long periods
of repose.
3. That the gravel-flats are the work of rivers during the periods
of repose.
4. That the earth-movements did not affect the whole area
uniformly, and that local depression occurred.
VITI.—Evivences or ANcIENT GLACIER-DAMMED LAKES IN THE
CHEVIOTS.”
By Percy F. Kenpatu, F.G.8., and Herserr B. Murr, B.A., F.G.S.
T is uncertain whether Cheviot itself was overridden by extraneous
ice, but striae on Thirl Moor and Baker Crag, recorded by the
Geological Survey, probably indicate that that portion of the
watershed was overridden by ice from the Tweed Valley, and
Professor James Geikie mentions the occurrence of till and striated
stones on the tops of the Cheviot Hills at 1,500 feet. The transport
of erratics shows movement along both sides of the axis of the
range from S.W. to N.E. at some stage of the glaciation. Across
_ the northern end and for at least ten miles down the eastern side,
however, a distribution of erratics from the Tweed Valley, together
with other indications to be mentioned, points to an ice-flow veering
round through easterly to a north to south direction. Our
observations go to confirm the above conclusions with respect to
the area north and east of Cheviot.
During a few days spent in the district, we observed certain
features which throw much light on the later stages of the Ice Age
1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1890, vol. xlvi, p. 333.
2 Read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Glasgow, Sept., 1901.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. XI. 33
514 Kendall & Muff—Glacier Lakes in the Cheviots.
in this area. Mr. Clough mentions’ “ dry, steep-sided little valleys
crossing over watersheds, which do not appear to lie along lines of
weakness or the outcrops of soft beds. It is suggested that they
might have been formed by streams from glaciers.”
Some of the valleys observed by us run along the sides of hills or
occur as loops detaching portions of the walls of valleys, and the
general characters of similar valleys have been described by us
separately.” Their mode of occurrence, and the relations to the
relief of the country as well as to the position occupied by the
ancient ice-sheets, show that they can be ascribed only to the over-
flow of water from lakelets held up by an ice-barrier. In the
country between Yeavering Bell and Ingram we found that each of
the spurs separating the valleys which radiate from Cheviot was cut
across by one or more sharp gorge-like channels, draining, with one
significant exception, tothe south. The spur between Roddam Dean
and the Breamish River is cut, near Calder Farm, by a channel,
bounded on the east by the moraine, draining to the south, but
a higher portion of the same spur is traversed by a channel
draining in the opposite direction, i.e. to the north.
The highest member of a series across any given spur is usually
just above the boundary of the drift, containing extraneous boulders.
At the outlets of the valleys there are in several cases deltas,
represented by masses of gravel.
Conclusions.—The existence of the series of overflow channels
points clearly to the former presence of a chain of small lakes held
in the radial system of valleys of the Cheviots by a barrier of ice.
The ice-stream, by the boulders which it bore, may be inferred to
have swept round the end of the Cheviots out of the Tweed Valley.
The margin of the sheet at its maximum extension rose to about
1,000 feet along the arc from Yeavering Bell to Brands Hill, beyond
which it may have declined. Along the south-eastern slopes of the
Cheviots, another extraneous glacier swept in a north-east direction.
Where their confluence took place, or whether they were not in
succession rather than simultaneous, is not easy to decide, but
the Roddam Burn channel points very clearly to the preponderating
influence of the southern stream, while the Calder Farm overflow
lower down the same ridge shows by its southerly slope that the
northern ice later acquired the mastery. If the two glaciers were
confluent, then the overflowing waters of the lakes must have been
discharged either beneath the ice, as at present happens to the
overflow from a chain of ice-dammed lakes on the Malaspina glacier,
or over the top of the ice.
An important and unexpected result of our brief examination has
been the discovery that while ‘foreign’ ice was rising along the
flanks of the Cheviots to an altitude of 1,000 feet, not only were
the spurs free from any native ice-sheet, such as Cheviot or
1 «The Geology of the Cheviot Hills’’: Geol. Surv. Mem.
2 P. F. Kendall, ‘‘On Extra-morainic Drainage in East Yorkshire’’: Brit.
Assoc. Rep., 1899. A. Jowett & H. B. Muff, ‘‘ Preliminary Notes of the
Glaciation of the Bradford and Keighley District’’: ibid., 1900.
J. Nolan—Volcanie Rocks of Co. Armagh. 515
Hedgehope might have been expected to support, but even the
lower ends of the intervening valleys were occupied, not by great
native glaciers, but by lakes.
The conditions thus described may have some relation to the fact
that, while the porphyrites of the Cheviots have furnished the most
abundant types of erratics in the Drift of the Yorkshire Coast, the
granite, if present, which is not quite certain, is very rare.
TX.— Note on THE Voncantc AGGLOMERATE OF ForKILL,
Co. ARMAGH.
By Josrrn Notan, M.R.I.A., late Senior Geologist (retired), Geological Survey
of Ireland.
fe a paper by Messrs. J. R. Kilroe and A. M‘Henry, M.R.LA.,
which appeared in vol. lvii of the Q.J.G.S., published last
August. the following statement concerning the above rock is
made: “In parts they [the rock masses] consist of brecciated
slate or brecciated granite and felsite, the fragments being embedded
in a scanty andesitic matrix.” Now this description is quite
erroneous, the great and almost unique characteristic of the Forkill
agglomerate being that the greater portion is made up of non-
volcanic materials—in some places of granite pieces for the most
part, in a groundmass of finely comminuted material of the same
rock, and in others of Silurian slate fragments in a correspondingly
derivative base. This I have described long ago in the official
memoir to accompany Sheet 70 of the Geological Survey Map of
Ireland, as also in the following papers: “(On a Remarkable
Volcanic Agglomerate near Dundalk” (J.R.G.S., Ireland, new
series, vol. iv, pt. 4) and “On the Ancient Volcanic District of
Slieve Gallion ” (Guox. Mac., Dec. II, Vol. V, October, 1878).
Recently Sir Archibald Geikie, D.C.L., has examined this district,
and the results of his investigations are published in his book on
the “Ancient Volcanoes of Great Britain,” vol. ii, p. 423: “ The
Slieve Gallion District,” where he particularly comments on the
remarkable absence of volcanic fragments in the upper and greater
part of the mass, which, as already stated in my own essays, graduates
downwards into a rock with felsitic matrix and ultimately into the
underlying igneous rock.’
1 «The most remarkable features of this agglomerate, which has been well
described by Mr. Nolan, are the notable absence of truly volcanic stones in it, and
the derivation of its materials from the rocks around it. I found only one piece of
amygdaloid, but not a single lump of slag, no bombs, no broken fragments of lava
crusts, and no fine volcanic dust or enclosed lapilli. The rock may be said to consist
entirely of fragments of Silurian grits and shales where it lies among these strata,
and of granite where it comes through that rock. Blocks of these materials, of all
sizes up to two feet in breadth, are confusedly piled together in a matrix made of
comminuted débris of the same ingredients. . . . . ‘The essentially non-volcanic
material of the agglomerate shows, as Mr. Nolan pointed out, that it was produced
by eriform explosions, which blew out the Silurian strata and granite in fragments
and dust. These discharges probably took place either from a series of vents placed
along a line of fissure running in a north-westerly line, or directly from the open
516 Notices of Memoirs—British Association—
From the inseparable association with the igneous core there can
be no doubt that this peculiar agglomerate or breccia is due to
zriform explosions by which the pre-existing crust was broken up
while the volcanic energy ceased without any appearance of the
uprising lava.
NOTICES OF MEMOTRS.
UY eS Oe
J.— British Association FoR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SOIENOE.
Seventy-first Annual Meeting, held at Glasgow, Sept. 11-18, 1901.
List or Papers READ IN Section C (Groxoey).
Joun Hornz, F.R.S., President.
President’s Address. (See p. 452.)
W. Gunn.—Recent Discoveries in Arran Geology.
gee Sona? Variations in a certain Zone of the Eastern Highland
chists.
P. Macnair.—On the Crystalline Schists of the Southern Highlands,
their Physical Structure, and its probable manner of Development.
Professor J. Geikie, F.R.S., and Dr. J. S. Flett—The Granite of
Tulloch Burn, Ayrshire.
Dr. J. S. Flett.—On Crystals Dredged from the Clyde near
Helensburgh, with analyses by Dr. W. Pollard.
H. B. Woodward, F.R.S.—Note on a Phosphatic Layer at the Base
of the Inferior Oolite in Skye. (See p. 519.)
—— Further Note on the Westleton Beds.
Professor W. W. Watts.—Report of the Committee for the Collection
and Preservation of Geological Photographs.
Sir A. Gekie, D.C.L., F.R.S.— Time-intervals in the Volcanic
History of the Inner Hebrides.
A. Harker.—The Sequence of the Tertiary Igneous Rocks in Skye.
(See p. 506.)
A, M‘Henry and J. R. Kilroe.—On the Relation of the Old Red
Sandstone of N.W. Ireland to the adjacent Metamorphic Rocks,
and on its similarity to the Torridon Rocks of Sutherland.
J. R. Kilroe and A. M‘Henry.—On the Relation of the Silurian and
Ordovician Rocks of the North-West of Ireland to the great
Metamorphic Series.
G. H. Kinahan.—Notes on the Irish Primary Rocks with their
associated Granitic and Metamorphic Rocks.
— Some Laccolites in the Ivish Hills.
Dr. R. H. Traquair, F.R.S.—The Geological Distribution of Fishes
in the Carboniferous Rocks of Scotland.
On the Geological Distribution of Fishes in the Old Red
Sandstone of Scotland.
fissure itself. Possibly both of these channels of escape were in use, detached vents
appearing at the east end, and a more continuous discharge from the fissure further
west. After the earliest explosions had thrown out a large amount of granitic and
Silurian detritus, andesitic lava rose in the fissure, and, solidifying there, enclosed
a great deal of the loose fragmentary material that fell back into the chasm.”’
(‘* Ancient Volcanoes of Great Britain,’’ vol. ii, p. 423.)
Titles of Papers read at Glasgow. 517
Miss C. A. Raisin, D.Sc.—Perim Island, and its Relation to the Area
of the Red Sea.
R. L. Jack, LL.D.—The Artesian Water Supply in Queensland.
B. N. Peach, F.R.S.—The Cambrian Fossils of the N.W. Highlands.
Professor W. J. Sollas, F.R.S.—On a New Method in the Investiga-
tion of Fossil Remains. With illustrations, Monograptus, Ophiura,
Paleospondylus.
R. Kidston, F.R.S.E.—Notes on some Fossil Plants from Berwickshire.
Dr. Wheelton Hind.—Report of the Committee for studying Life-
zones in the British Carboniferous Rocks.
J. R. Kilroe.—Geology regarded in its Economic Applications to
Agriculture by means of Soil Maps.
A. M. Bell.—Plants and Coleoptera of Pleistocene Age from Wolver-
cote, Oxfordshire.
Vaughan Cornish, D.Sc.—Report of the Committee on Terrestrial
Surface Waves and Wave-like Surfaces.
Dr. R. F. Scharff.—Report of the Committee to Explore Irish Caves.
Professor P. F. Kendall and H. B. Muff.—Evidences of Ancient
Glacier-dammed Lakes in the Cheviots. (See p. 513.)
Professor P. F. Kendall.—Report of the Committee on the Distribution
of Erratic Blocks.
A. Smith Woodward, LL.D., F.R.S.—Report of the Committee for
considering the best methods for the Registration of all Type
Specimens of Fossils in the British Isles.
W. Barlow.—Report of the Committee upon the present state of our
knowledge of the Structure of Crystals.
J. G. Goodchild.—On the Scottish Ores of Copper in their Geological
relations.
——— A revised list of the Minerals known to occur in Scotland.
W. Mackie, M.D.—The occurrence of Barium Sulphate and Calcium
Fluoride as cementing substances in the Elgin Trias.
On the Pebble Band of the Elgin Trias and the Wind-worn
Pebbles.
On the occurrence of Covellite in association with Malachite
in the Sandstone of Kingsteps, Nairn.
J. M. Maclaren.—On the Source of the Alluvial Gold of the Kildonan
Field, Sutherlandshire.
Field Notes on the influence of Organic Matter on the
deposit of Gold in Veins.
W. H. Wheeler.—On the Sources of the Warp in the Humber.
_ G, Barrow.—On the Alterations of the Lias Shale by the Whin Dyke
of Great Ayton in Yorkshire.
E. H. Cunningham Craig.—On Cairngorms.
W. Ackroyd.—On the Circulation of Salt, and its Geological Bearings.
J. Rhodes.—Notes on the occurrence of Phosphatic Nodules and
Phosphate-bearing Rocks in the Upper Carboniferous Limestone
(Yoredale) Series of the West Riding of Yorkshire and the
Westmoreland border.
Note on a Silicified Plant Seam beneath the Millstone
Grit of Swarth Fell, West Riding of Yorkshire. (See p, 520.)
518 Notices of Memoirs—Papers read at British Association.
A. Smith Woodward, LL.D., F.R.S.—On the Bone-beds of Pikermi,
Attica, and on similar Deposits in Northern Euboea. (See p. 481.)
H. J. L. Beadnell.—The Fayum Depression. A preliminary notice of
the Geology of a district in Egypt containing a new Paleogene
Vertebrate Fauna.
Captain A. R. Dwerryhouse.—Report of the Committee on the Move-
ments of Underground Waters of N.W. Yorkshire.
Professor E. Hull, F.R.S.— Notes on the Physical History of the
Norwegian Fjords.
H. W. Monckiton.—On the Origin of the Gravel-Flats of Surrey and
Berkshire. (See p. 510.)
A. Somervail.—On the Occurrence of Diorite associated with Granite
at Assouan, Upper Egypt.
James Stirling.—On some Hornblende Porphyrites of Victoria.
Malcolm Laurie.—Note on some Arthropods from the Upper Silurian.
F. P. Mennell.—The Copper-bearing Rocks of 8. Australia. (p. 520.)
H. Bolton.—Report of the Committee on the Excavation of the
Ossiferous Caves at Uphill, near Weston-super-Mare.
Section A (MarHEmaticaL AnD PuystcaL ScrENcE).
Report of the Committee on Underground Temperature.
Report of the Seismological Committee.
F. N. Denison.—The Seismograph as a Sensitive Barometer.
Professor J. Milne, F.R.S.—On Meteorological Phenomena in relation
to Changes in the Vertical.
Section B (CHeEmistRyY).
W. Ackroyd.—Inverse Relation of Chlorine to Rainfall.
— The Distribution of Chlorine in Yorkshire.
Professor A. Michael.—On the Genesis of Matter.
Dr. E. F. Armstrong.—The Equilibrium Law as applied to Salt
Separation and to the formation of Oceanic Salt Deposits.
Section D (Zoonocy).
Coral Reefs of the Indian Region. (Report.)
J. Stanley Gardiner.—The Coral Islands of the Maldives.
Dr. Francisco P. Moreno.—Exhibition of Photographs of Fossils in
the La Plata Museum.
Section H (GuoGRAPHy).
Vaughan Cornish, D.Sc.—Report of Committee on Terrestrial Surface
Waves.
H. N. Dickson.—The Mean Temperature of the Atmosphere and the
Causes of Glacial Periods.
Dr. R. Bell, F.R.S.—The Topography and Physical Features of
Northern Ontario.
kh. T. Giinther.—Report of the Committee on Changes of the Land-
level of the Phlegrzan Fields.
Szotion F (Economic Scrence anp SrarisrTI0s).
R. W. Dron.—Some Notes on the Output of Coal from the Scottish
Coalfields.
Notices of Memoirs—H. B. Woodward—Oolite in Skye. 519
Sxotion G (ENGINEERING).
P. Bunau Varilla.—The Panama Canal.
J. Dillon.—Recording Soundings by Photography.
Vaughan Cornish.—Size of Waves observed at Sea.
Section H (AnrHRopoLoGy).
Miss Nina Layard.—Note on a Human Skull found in peat, in the
bed of the River Orwell, Ipswich.
W. Allen Sturge, M.D.—On the Chronology of the Stone Age of Man,
with especial reference to his coexistence with an Ice Age.
G. Coffey.—Naturally Chipped Flints for comparison with certain
forms of alleged artificial chipping.
Ebenezer Duncan, M.D., and T. H. Bryce, M.A., M.D.—Remains of
Prehistoric Man in the Island of Arran.
Miss Nina Layard.—An Early Paleolithic Flint Hatchet with
alleged Thong-marks.
F. D. Longe.—A piece of Yew from the Forest Bed on the Hast
Coast of England, alleged to have been cut by man.
G. Coffey.— Exhibit of Manufactured Objects from Irish Caves.
Szotron K (Borany).
Dr. H. Conwentz.—The Past History of the Yew in Great Britain
and Ireland.
W. N. Niven— On the Distribution of certain Forest Trees in Scotland,
as shown by the investigation of Post-Glacial deposits.
A. CO. Seward, F.R.S., and Sybille O. Ford.—The Anatomy of Zodea,
with notes on the Geological History of the Osmundacew.
E. N. Arber.—On the Clarke Collection of Fossil Plants from New
South Wales.
Professor H. Potonié.—Die Silur- und Culm-Flora des Harzes.
A. C. Seward, F.R.S.—A Chapter of Plant-evolution: Jurassic Floras.
The Structure and Origin of Jet.
I].—Nover on a Puospuatic Layer at THE Bask or THE INFERIOR
Oourre In Skye. By Horace B. Woopwarp, F.R.S., of the
Geological Survey.’
T the southern end of the great cliffs of Ben Tianavaig, south
of Portree, in Skye, the basement beds of the Inferior Oolite,
which contain large dogger-like masses of calcareous sandstone, rest
in a hollow of the Upper Lias Shales, owing to local and to a certain
extent contemporaneous erosion. Lining this hollow there is an
irregular and nodular band, two or three inches thick, of dark
brown oolitic and phosphatic rock; a fact of interest, as instances
of local erosion are often attended by the accumulation of phosphatic
matter in beds, nodules, and derived fossils.
Mr. George Barrow, who made a rough analysis of the rock,
estimated the amount of phosphate of lime at about 50 per cent. ;
and Mr. Teall, who examined a section under the microscope, noted,
1 Read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Glasgow, Sept., 1901,
and communicated by permission of the Director of the Geological Survey.
520 Notices of Memoirs—J. Rhodes—Silicified Plants.
in addition to the oolite grains, fragments of molluscan shells and
echinoderms, and foraminifera, in a finely granular matrix formed
of calcite. He observed that the central portions of some of the
oolite grains were formed of a nearly isotropic brown substance in
which the typical concentric structure of the oolite grains was well
preserved. ‘This substance was no doubt phosphatic.
III].—Notz on tHe Discovery or a Srniciriep Prant Seam
BENEATH THE Mitistonge Grit oF SwartH Fen, West Ripinc
oF YorRKSHIRE. By Joun Ruopss, of the Geological Survey.’
Y kind permission of the British Association Committee on
Carboniferous Zones I am enabled to record the discovery of
a silicified plant seam beneath the Millstone Grit at Swarth Fell,
and two miles north-west of Hawes Junction.
The exact geological position of the overlying strata is doubtful,
but apparently they occupy the horizon of the grindstone or ganister
of the district.
At this particular place, however, the grindstone or ganister is
absent, and its place is taken by flaggy silicious limestones with
marine shells and by a bed of highly silicious grit with plant remains,
the latter resting more or less directly on the silicified plant seam.
Chert occurs, probably as lenticles in the uneven surface of the
seam, and contains a mass of detached silicious sponge spicules,
apparently rod-like bodies, which may belong to the anchoring ropes
of hexactinellid sponges. In the same chert are included fragments
of silicified plant remains beautifully preserved.
In the plant seam included pebbles of silicious grit occur, which
contain a few spicules similar to those in the chert, and also
plant remains. The plant seam rests on a layer of silicified shale
containing a few fragmentary sponge spicules, mostly rod-like forms,
one piece belonging to an hexactinellid sponge. The beds below
are more or less rotted clay shales with ironstone nodules.
I am indebted to Dr. G. J. Hinde for notes on the sponge remains
directly associated with the plant seam. The plants have not been
determined, but have been placed in the hands of R. Kidston, Esq.,
F.R.S.E., F.G.S., Stirling.
IV.—Tue Copprr-searing Rocks or Sournw Auvustrauia. By
F. P. Menne.t.!
(ie author drew attention to the fact that the copper ores of
Yorke’s Peninsula in South Australia were the first metallic
minerals worked on the Australian continent. They occurred in
rocks of Archean age, which at Moonta and Wallaroo had been
subjected to crushing and shearing to such an extent that they
presented but few traces of their original structures, except in the
case of a diorite at Wallaroo, which was of a typically plutonic
character. Most of the rocks were mylonites, and in some instances
1 Read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Glasgow, Sept., 1901.
Notices of Memoirs—F. A. Bather—Pollicipes, ete. 521
they had been reduced to a compact flinty type in which none of the
minerals could be recognized with certainty. Where the original
constituents had survived they were of a fragmentary character.
Oligoclase seemed to have best resisted the crushing, and orthoclase
occasionally remained in lenticles, but the brittle quartz had been
invariably reduced to powder. Mr. Mennell thought that the
economic aspect of the examination was of considerable importance,
for the mines had been shut down several times when the ore had
thinned out owing to doubts as to its permanence. From the
character of the rocks it was, however, obvious that they occurred
in a true ‘fissure lode,’ and no doubts need be felt as to the con-
tinuance of the ore to the limit of workable depths.
V —Tue Gerotocic DistriButTion oF PoOLLicipES AND SCALPELLUM.!
By F. A. Batusr, D.Sc., F.G.8.
N a valuable memoir on the “ Hudson River Beds near Albany,
and their taxonomic equivalents,” published as Bulletin of the
New York State Museum, No. 42, April, 1901, Dr. Rudolph
Ruedemann describes a number of variously shaped valves found
in the Upper and Lower Utica Shale of Green Island and Mechanics-
ville, N.Y. (p. 578, pl. ii). These he believes to “find their
homologues in parts of the capitula of the pedunculate cirriped
genera Scalpellum and Pollicipes, notably of the latter. On this
account the various valves have been united under the caption
Pollicipes siluricus, in full consciousness of the enormous gap
existing between the appearance of this Lower Siluric type and
the next Upper Triassic (Rhetic) representatives of these genera.”
Confirmation of Dr. Ruedemann’s ascription may be derived from
the fact that ‘‘the enormous gap” does not exist. Harly in 1892
Dr. C. W. 8. Aurivillius* published the descriptions of Pollicipes
signatus from bed e (= Lower Ludlow), P. validus from bed ¢
(= Wenlock Shale), Scalpellum sulcatum, S. varium, S. granulatum,
S. strobiloides, S. procerum, S. cylindricum, and 8S. fragile, all from
bed c, of the island of Gotland. The species of Scalpellum are
founded on peduncles, Pollicipes validus is represented by a broken
scutum only, but P. signatus is based on an almost perfect specimen.
The occurrence of more. than one species of both these genera in
the Silurian lends significance to the diversity of form presented
by Dr. Ruedemann’s specimens. The ornament on his fig. 18
most nearly resembles that of PP. signatus, while the rostrum,
fig. 22, is also not unlike that species. Figs. 16, 17, and 19 may
belong to more than one other species, while 24 (with which pre-
sumably 25 is to be associated) may belong to a Scalpellum, as
Dr. Ruedemann seems to hint. In the circumstances it is specially
regrettable that Dr. Ruedemann has selected no one of these specimens
as the holotype of Pollicipes siluricus. If he does not do so soon,
confusion is pretty certain to arise.
1 Reprinted from Science, July 19th, 1901, p. 112 (N.s., vol. xiv, No, 342).
2 Bihang Sveska Vet.-Akad. Handl., xviii, Afd. iv, No. 3.
522 Notices of Memoirs—Caucasian Museum, Tiflis.
Figs. 18, 14, and 15 are referred to Turrilepas (?) filosus, n.sp.
A recent examination of the plates of that genus suggests to me
that the note of interrogation is fully justified.
Aurivillius considered that Pollicipes signatus showed a closer
approach to the Balanidz than any other of the Lepadidaw, but he
too, in ignorance of the Devonian Protobalanus, Whitf., discoursed
needlessly about the gap in the distribution. Now that the range
of the Lepadide has been extended to the Ordovician, we may look
confidently for further discoveries. We may also hope that the
time has now come when even the textbooks may awake to the
fact that the genera Pollicipes and Scalpellum existed in Paleozoic
times.
My apology for insisting on this is not merely that both
Dr. Aurivillius and Professor Lindstrém, who supplied him with
the material, have unhappily passed away, but that I had the good
fortune to be the discoverer of the beautiful specimen of Pollicipes
signatus, when developing a specimen of Gissocrinus verrucosus from
the Pterygotus bed of Wisby Waterfall, in May, 1891. The very
fragile specimen was subsequently licked into shape (no metaphor
is intended) by Mr. G. Liljevall, to whom the excellent drawing of
it is due.
VI.—Tue Cavoastan Museum, Tirtis, is publishing a complete
Catalogue of its Collections, in both the Russian and German
languages, the title in the latter tongue being: “ Die Sammlungen
des Kaukasischen Museums im Vereine mit Special Gelehrten
bearbeitet und herausgegeben von Dr. Gustav Radde, Direktor, etc.”
The catalogue is in the form of quarto volumes, in boards, measuring
31x 238cm. Volume III, which has been sent to us for review,
deals with the geological collections, and is by Professor N. I.
Lebedev. It consists of xii+322 pp. and 8 plates. The material
is arranged under the heads of the several collections, which are
classified quite roughly, apparently following the localities in the
order in which they were visited. Among the collections that of
Abich from Daghestan is one of the most famous; this is accompanied
by a descriptive catalogue which is in greater detail than the present
one and will be published in extenso in Mittheilungen des Kaukasischen
Museums. There are also donations by successive chiefs of the
Office of Mines; the collections of F. Bayern, chiefly of value for
the exactness of the localities given, and worked over by Arzruni,
Valentin, and Lebedev ; other collections that have afforded material
for the writings of these geologists, of Simonovitsch, and others.
The preceding are all local, but there are also collections serviceable
for comparison, especially those from the Crimea, Bessarabia, and
Transcaspian, as well as a fine series from various horizons and
localities in Western Europe, partly purchased and partly the gift
of Mr. J. de Morgan. The present catalogue does not profess to
be much more than a rough list, and, as is only natural in a work
produced under such disadvantageous conditions as regards literature
and the help of specialists, the determinations are clearly lacking
Notices of Memoirs. 523
in precision. The work will nevertheless be useful to two classes
of students ; those who are investigating the geology and physical
history of the Caucasus, and specialists in petrology or paleontology
who desire to see all the material available for their researches.
In his readiness to enter into relations with specialists Dr. Radde
pursues an enlightened and liberal policy, so that readers of the
catalogue need not imagine that because the specimens are in Tiflis
it is no use to trouble about them. The collotype plates illustrating
this volume afford a sample of the treasures within; two are of
rock-sections, one of undescribed species of Ammonites, and two
of species of Cardium, Congeria, Dreissenia, Rissoa, Neritina, and
Naitica ; one of the figures is labelled ‘‘ Cardium apscheronicum, n.sp.,”
but we can find no description.
VII.—Garonoay or Drvonsuire.—The main part of No. 3 of the
Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association of London is devoted to
an account of the excursion made by the members to the Start,
Prawle, and Bolt districts during Haster this year. The report is
written by W. A. E. Ussher, who gives in his introductory remarks,
as well as in his report, a good deal of interesting matter which
will be much appreciated by Devonians especially. In the report
are incorporated many notes by A. R. Hunt. The result enabled
those who enjoyed the excursion to realize the geological difficulties
of the region, and served to whet their appetites for the long-
expected memoir upon it.
VIII.—On a New Fosstt Lizarp From THE Bens oF THE LOWER
Cuatk Formation in THe Istanp or Lustna [Coast of Dalmatia] ;
by A. Kornuvuser.—‘ Ueber eine neue Fossile Hidechse aus den
Schichten der unteren Kreideformation auf der Insel Lesina.”
(Verhandlungen der k.k. geol. Reichsanstalt, 1901.) — In this
paper the author describes another of the remarkable reptilian
skeletons from the thinly bedded Lower Cretaceous limestones of
the island of Lesina. In this instance the skeleton is that of a
lizard about 1:4 metres long, apparently in its general structure
related to the Varanide, but in its dentition approaching the
Mosasauride. The specimen is made the type of a new genus,
Opetiosaurus, the specific name being O. Bucchichi.
IX. —Snortrer Norices.—Georera Bauxrre.—The most im-
portant article in the American Geologist for July is T. L. Watson’s
account of the Bauxite deposits of the Coosa Valley region of Georgia
and Alabama. Discovered in 1887, these fields now provide the
entire home consumption of the United States. After a sketch of
the geology of the area and the geological position of the mineral,
the author deals with the associated minerals, chemical composition,
origin, and age of the deposits. This latter is apparently the close
of the Kocene period.
Brace Srructurs.— Another article in the same Journal of
considerable interest is H. L. Fairchild’s “Beach Structure in
Medina Sandstone,” which is illustrated by five plates of repro-
ductions from photographs. The author describes the various
524 Notices of Memoirs.
appearances due to abrupt change of material, oblique bedding,
ripples, wave-lines, ridges, and troughs, and has come to the con-
clusion that this 1,075 feet of arenaceous shale is a typical sandy
beach deposit.
Cutt anp Arcrentina.—The long dispute over the boundary-
line between these two countries is further illustrated by Charles
Rabot in La Géographie, No. 4, 1901. As the frontier line
involves the watershed, the arbitration at present proceeding is of
vital importance to both countries. Rabot gives some excellent
reproductions from photographic views of the glacial phenomena of
the district, and a particularly clear map showing the differences
between the claims of the two countries.
Proressor O. HK. Brecuer gives an account in the Yale Scientific
Monthly for June, 1901, of the mounting of the complete skeleton
of the dinosaur Claosaurus annectens. This is the first complete
skeleton of a dinosaur yet set up, and came from the Laramie beds.
It belonged to the Marsh Collection, is 29 feet in length, and is
placed in the Yale University Museum. A plate accompanies the
notice.
“MaryLanpD AND ITs Naturat Resources” is the title of
a pamphlet which has been prepared by W. Bullock Clarke as
the official publication of the Maryland Commissioners at the Pan-
American Exposition.
Inpian Tertiary BeLemnites.—The announcement is made in
the Report of the work carried on by the Geological Survey of
India, 1900-1901, that Dr. F. Noetling has found great numbers
of true Belemnites in Lower Eocene beds near Jhirrak, in Sind.
Tut Typxoon, Luzon.—The typhoon which swept Luzon on the
8th September, 1900, forms the subject of a memoir by Padre José
Coronas, S.J., which was issued by the Observatorio di Manila, 1900.
Beyond generalities, however, it has little geological interest.
Woopwarp1an Museum, Campripce.—The additions made last
year comprised, among other things, the collections of the late
C. J. A. Meyer, the greater part of a skeleton of Zutra vulgaris from
the peat of Barwell, and part of the S. S. Buckman Collection of
Inferior Oolite Ammonites. Mr. Reed has been at work on the
British and Foreign Paleozoic fossils, Mr. Woods on the Cretaceous
fossils, and Mr. Asher on the fossil plants. The identification of
figured specimens continues to make satisfactory progress, and we
hope a revised catalogue of types will soon be attempted.
Proressor J. M. Cuarxe, State Paleontologist of New York,
announces in the 54th Annual Report of the New York State Museum
that a catalogue of the type fossils used throughout the history of
the “ Paleontology of New York” is in hand. Specimens of type
fossils, as they are identified and can be replaced by duplicates, are
removed to a fireproof building, in accordance with the vote of the
Regents in 1882. It would be a good plan to have casts made of
them, for inclusion in the general collection.
Correspondence—Professor T. G. Bonney. 525
Messrs. C. Davies SHersorn anp B. B. Woopwarp are issuing
a series of papers on the dates of publication of various French
Voyages which appeared between 1800 and 1900. The papers will
be found in the Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist. for April, August, and
October, and contain many notes on geological papers which have
heretofore presented difficulties as to date.
New Foraminirera.—R. J. Schubert has a paper on some Fora-
minifera from the Upper Chalk of East Galicia, in the Jahrb. k.k.
geol. Reichs., u (4), 1901. The chief novelty is a curious form to
which he gives the name of Karreria cretacea. J. Grzaybowski
writes on the Foraminifera of the Inoceramus beds of Gorlice. His
paper appears in the Bull. Internat. Ac. Sci. Cracovie for April, 1901.
Two plates, chiefly devoted to arenaceous forms, are given.
From tHE Report or Progress or THE MancuesterR Museum
we gather that the Geological Department has been enriched by
the Barnes Collection of Carboniferous invertebrates, and some
selections from the Jukes-Browne Collection. Fossil plants have
received a good deal of attention, the types and figured specimens
of Oolitic species, which were examined by Mr. Seward, having
been labelled and displayed. Mr. R. D. Darbishire has presented
the Museum with a specimen of the recent Pleurotomaria adansoniana
from Barbados, an important and valuable acquisition to any
collection.
New Jersey Grotocy.—The annual report of the State Geologist
of the Geological Survey of New Jersey for 1900 contains an
administrative report ; Report on the Palaeozoic Formations, by Stuart
Weller, consisting of Hardiston Quartzite, Kittatinny and Trenton
Limestones, and Hudson River Beds ; Report on the Portland Cement
Industry, by H. B. Kiimmel; Artesian Wells in New Jersey, by
Lewis Woolman; Mineralogical Notes, by A. C. Chester ; Chlorine
in the Natural Waters of the State, by W. S. Myers; and the Mining
Industry, by H. B. Kiimmel.
Portueurse Geotocy.—Paul Choffat has published in the Bull.
Soc. Belge Geol., xv, May, 1901, an important paper on the
“Limite entre le Jurassique et le Crétacique en Portugal.” From
a careful study of the different exposures and the fossils contained
in the beds, he comes to the conclusion that the limit between the
two systems in Portugal must be regarded as only a conventional
one. He finds that both the fauna and flora show an almost
imperceptible passage between the two formations in certain places.
CORRESPONDENCE.
FOSSILS AND GARNETS.
Sir,—If your correspondent “ Verbum Sap.” had signed his own
name I would have endeavoured to explain to him my reasons for
writing the paragraph which he quotes, though I knew that the
“traditions of the elders” might be cited against me by dealers
526 Correspondence—ZJ. R. Dakyns—T. E. Knightley.
in second-hand science. As it is, I content myself with remarking
that the maxim ‘“ Verbum sat sapienti” has only a very limited
application in scientific matters, for there a diet of words is both
innutritious and flatulent. But as he evidently loves “wise saws”
I will add another to his store, ‘“‘ Words are the counters of wise
men and the money of fools.” T. G. Bonney.
INTRUSIVE IGNEOUS ROCKS IN IRELAND.
Sir,—With reference to the interesting paper on “ Intrusive,
Tuff-like, Igneous Rocks and Breccias in Ireland,” by Messrs.
Kilroe and M‘Henry, published in the August number of the
Q.J.G.8., it is noteworthy that there are in the neighbourhood of
Snowdon several instances of intrusive rocks of so fragmentary
and brecciated a character as to resemble volcanic agglomerates.
Such is the case in part with the diabase occurring in Cwm Llan,
S.S.E. from the summit of Snowdon. Other instances of this
character that I have observed are a small boss of brecciated diabase
at the base of the felstone of Cribiau, near Bwlch Ehediad, and
another, also of a fragmentary character, amidst the felsitic rocks on
the south-east side of Llyn Gwynant. Somewhat similar too is the
greenstone on Glyder Fawr, which Ramsay in his memoir on North
Wales describes as a “ great vesicular, rubbly-looking patch.”
J. R. Daxryys.
Snowpon View, Nant GwyNnant, BEDDGELERT.
October 10, 1901.
EBBING AND FLOWING WELLS AND SPRINGS.
Str,—Some time back you were good enough to print a com-
munication from me on the ebbing and flowing well between
Buxton and Castleton in Derbyshire. In the Illustrazione Popolare
of August 18th of this year is a paper on a phenomenon of the
Lago di Garda of kindred character, of which I submit a substantial
translation.
“The Lago di Garda is one of the largest lakes in Italy, admired
for the fertility of the country that surrounds and for the beauty of
the gardens that adorn its shores. There happens in these days
a phenomenon that impresses the surrounding population; a flux
of thirty centimetres of height every forty minutes is observed,
according to the boatmen. Many newspaper readers wish to explain
it as a result of volcanic action.
‘‘The phenomenon may have a volcanic origin, since from the
beginning of 1800 Count Bettoni, a studious naturalist, had to
verify in the lake a species of flux and reflux, not perilous but
irregular and inconstant ; and not only is it in the Lago di Garda
observed, but in the lake of Geneva the water rises and falls in
a notable manner.
“The phenomenon cannot be attributed to the action of the sun
and moon, since the action of these two stars should produce a rise
and fall regularly as in the level of the sea.
Obituary—Edward Waller Claypole. 527
“« Some scientists were of opinion that the rise and fall were the
result of wind action, but how can the rise and fall be explained
when there is sometimes not a breath of wind? Others were of
opinion that the rise and fall might be due to unexpected melting
of the snow, and to the action of electric clouds, but if so, why not
a like action on all other Italian lakes ?
“The most probable cause of such uprising, according to the
hypothesis of the Engineer Pedrini, is found in the gases which,
arising from the bed of the lake and seeking a vent pass across
the water, produce undulations, and sudden upward movements of
like nature to those observed in the lake of Geneva by Lembari.
In the Lago di Garda emanate continuously an infinity of gas
bubbles, and thermal springs are observed.
“The action of the sun upon the Mediterranean raises the water
only eighteen inches, and if this attraction on so large a surface
is thus weak, the surface of the Lago di Garda is too small
comparatively to be at all affected.
‘In the bay of Peschiera, about a hundred steps from Sermione,
there are at three different points springs with an unpleasant odour,
manifesting the existence of sulphuretted hydrogen gas. Incrustations
from thermal waters are to be seen on the eastern side of the lake,
about one mile distant from the grotto of Catullus.
“The fishermen take particular care to extend their nets a distance
from these springs; if they happen to draw the nets over them,
they rot in a short time.” T. E. Kyiguriey.
106, Cannon SrrReet, E.C.
September 9, 1901.
©2 EP U ArmmY-
——
EDWARD WALLER CLAYPOLE.
Born June 1, 1835. Diep Aveust 17, 1901.
Proressor EK. W. Craypous, one of the many noted geologists
of the United States, was of English extraction, having been born
at Ross, Hereford, on 1st June, 1835. He was educated privately
and graduated at the London University, taking his B.A. in 1862
and becoming D.Sc. in 1888. In 1871 he emigrated to the United
States, and in 1873 became Professor of Natural Science at Antioch
College, Ohio, a post which he held until 1881. He was Paleon-
tologist to the ‘Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania” and
Professor of Natural Science at Buchtel College, Akron, Ohio, from
1888 to 1898, when he succeeded Professor A. J. McClatchie as
Instructor of Biology (to which Geology was afterwards added)
at the Throop Institute, Pasadena, California. This office he
retained until his sudden death from apoplexy at Long Beach,
California, 17th August, 1901. He was a genial and successful
teacher, much beloved of his pupils, while his varied attainments
find reflection in the scope of his numerous scientific papers, although
geology holds the principal place.
028 Miscellaneous.
His more important contributions to scientific literature were :—
On the oldest-known fossil tree (Glyptodendron Hatonense), from
the Upper Silurian of Eaton (Guot. Mac., 1878); papers on the
Migration of Animals and Plants between Europe and America,
published in 1880 and 1881; on the discovery of Pteraspidian
Fish in the Upper Silurian of North America (Quart. Journ.
Geol. Soe., vol. xli, 1885) ; The Lake Age in Ohio (8vo, 1888) ; on
the Head of Dinichthys (Amer. Geol., 1892) ; and on the Cladodont
Sharks of the Cleveland Shale (Amer. Geol., 1893). He was also
one of the Editors of and largely contributed to the American Geologist
from its foundation in 1888.
Professor Claypole was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society
of London in 1879, of that in Edinburgh in 1887, and was one of
the original members of the American Geological Society when it
was founded in 1888.
IVES Cate ke AwN Bes OgrsS
SORE,
BRACHYLEPAS ORETACEA.—Since the publication of my paper
(Grou. Mae., n.s., Dec. IV, Vol. VIII, April, 1901, p. 145) on the
interesting find of this new form of Cirriped from the mucronata-
zone of the White Chalk of Norwich, I have received from Dr. A. W.
Rowe, the finder, a second specimen. This latter comes from the
mucronata-zone, Whitway pit, South Dorset, and gives the fossil
an interesting geographical range. At present Brachylepas cretacea
has not yet been found outside the mucronata-zone, and it is possible
that Dr. Rowe has discovered yet another fossil of considerable
zonal value.—H. W.
GroLtocicaL Survey or Great Britain anv IreLanp. — The
following geologists have been appointed to fill vacancies in the
Staff of the Geological Survey, caused by the retirement of Sir A.
Geikie, Mr. R. G. Symes, Mr. J. Nolan, Mr. A. C. G. Cameron, and
Mr. A. J. Jukes-Browne, and by the deaths of Mr. F. W. Egan and
Mr. J. H. Blake: Dr. J. 8. Flett, M.A., M.B., to take charge of
Petrographical work; Mr. J. Allen Howe, B.Sc., and Mr. H. H.
Thomas, B.A., on the English Staff; Mr. H. B. Muff, B.A., on the
Scottish Staff; and Mr. W. B. Wright, B.A., on the Irish Staff.
A stxtH edition of Mr. Whitaker’s handy little “Guide to the
Geology of London” has just been issued by the Geological Survey.
It has been thoroughly revised by the author and many illustrations
have been added, including figures of Palzeolithic implements and
a few characteristic fossils. The first edition, published in 1875,
comprised 72:pages; the present edition reaches 102 pages. The
price remains 1s.
Erratum.—In the September part of the Grotocican Macazrne, 1901 (p. 408),
the name Bradytherium was employed for a genus of large Ungulates from the
Eocene of Egypt. This name seems to have been employed some months earlier by
G. Grandidier for a large extinct Edentate from Madagascar, and the designation of
the Egyptian genus is therefore amended to Barytheriwm (see ‘‘ Nature,’’ October 10th,
1901, p. 577).—C. W. AnpREWSs.
THE
GHOLOGICAL MAGAZINE.
NEW SERIES: —DECADE IV. . VOL.. VIII.
No. XII—DECEMBER, 1901.
ONRLGLINAL ARTICLES.
—»—__
I, — Devonian Fosstts rrom DervonsHIRE.
By the Rey. G. F. Wurprorne, M.A., F.G.S., V.P. Pal. Soc.
1. Coptenzian Fossits From Lynton.
(PLATE XVII.)
({\HE specimens described below were collected by my friend
Mr. J. G. Hamling, F.G.S., and kindly placed by him in my
hands for description. Being casts and often much obscured by
injury and distortion, their identification must be in a degree
problematical, but for the most part they seem to agree with
German species of the Upper Coblenzien age.
BELLEROPHON, sp.
A slab with several poor casts comes from the “Cliff path, W. of
Woodabay.” They appear high with rounded back.
PreRINEA FasoicuLaTA, Goldfuss, sp. (Pl. XVII, Figs. 1, 2.)
1834-40. Pterinea fasciculata, Goldfuss: Petref. Germ., vol. ii, p. 137, pl. exxix,
fig. 5.
1853. a6 A Sandberger : Verst. Rhein. Nassau, p. 293, pl. xxx,
fig. 7.
1885. a “ Follman: Devon Aviculacee, p. 187, pl. iii, fig. 3.
1889. of $4 Kayser : Abh. k.p. Geol. Landes., N.s., pt. i, p. 20,
pl. vii, fig. 11.
1891. 3 a Frech: Abh. Geol. Specialk. Preuss., vol. ix, pt. 3,
p. 84, pl. viii, fig. 1; pl. ix, fig. 1.
Left valve convex, somewhat produced at the postero-inferior
margin. Front wing large, rounded, not truncated in front. Hind
_ wing large, long, rather narrow, sigmoid behind. Surface having
on the body six or seven strong, high, nodulate, distant ribs, with flat
interspaces each of which bears five or six minute irregular minor
ribs; on the front wing, three or four closer and more confluent
ribs; and on the hind wing, ten or twelve small close ribs; the
whole being crossed by very numerous, minute, regular, crenulated
growth-lines. Hinge with four strong, irregularly horizontal teeth
in front of the umbo, below which is a small deep muscle-mark.
Hind teeth unseen in English specimens.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. XII. 34
580 Rev. G. F. Whidborne—Devonian Fossils, Devonshire.
Size: length 45 mm., height 30 mm.
Hight specimens from “ Woodabay, above Pier,” “ Quarry in road
above Crock Point, Woodabay,” and “Cutting under Railway N. of
Barhrick Mill, Lynton.”
Upper (and Lower) Coblenzien.
AOCTINOPTERIA, 8p.
From the “ East side of Lee Bay, Lynton,” are two very
fragmentary specimens of an oblique Avicula, with rather fine
alternating strie (in one finer than in the other). They are
exceedingly like some of the Actinopterie from the Barton Beds
and from the Upper Devonian of Germany, but they do not admit
of identification.
MopIoMoRPHA LAMELLOSA, Sandberger, sp. (PI. XVII, Figs. 3, 4.)
1895. Modiomorpha lamellosa, Beushausen: Abh. k.p. Geol. Landes., n.s., pt. Xvii,
p- 18, pl. i, figs. 19-21.
Cast very oblique, transverse, almond-shaped, obliquely depressed
down the centre. Umbo situate at about the anterior fifth of the
length. Anterior end narrow, rounded. Anterior muscle-mark
large, prominent, terminal. An oblique triangular tooth under the
umbo of the right valve, and two or three long transverse striations
on the arching hinge-line behind.
Size: about 60mm. long and 30 mm. high.
There are six specimens from the “Hast side of Lee Bay,
Lynton.” They seem chiefly to differ from Sandberger’s and
Beushausen’s figures in being rather narrower and more produced
at the anterior end, and are probably no more than a variety.
The internal arrangements agree exactly with Kayser’s figure of
Modiomorpha bilsteinensis, Beushausen (Jahrb. k.p. Geol. Landes.
fiir 1894, p. 127, pl. iii, figs. 4-6), a much shorter and more oval
species.
Upper Coblenzien.
Nucuzta Lopanensts, Beushausen. (Pl. XVII, Fig. 5.)
1895. Nueula Lodanensis, Beushausen: Abh.k.p. Geol. Landes., n.s., pt. xvii, p. 48,
pl. iv, figs. 6, 7; 14?
From the “Cutting under Railway N. of Barhrick Hill, Lynton,”
is the cast of a Nucula, which appears almost exactly to agree with
Beushausen’s species. Our figure does not give a very clear idea
of its real shape, the back of the cast having been sheared off,
and thus lessening its apparent height. It was evidently thick-
shelled and deep; there are signs of a few strong teeth; its umbo
is somewhat to the rear, and bends slightly forward; its posterior
end is rounded, its anterior end narrow and subangular, and its
lower margin decidedly curved; its posterior muscle-mark is large
and faint, and its anterior deep and occupying the upper half of the
anterior end.
Size: 14mm. long, 9mm. high.
This shell is larger and rounder than N. Krachte, F. A. Romer, to
Rev. G. F. Whidborne—Devonian Fossils, Devonshire. 531
which M’Coy appears to have referred it, and very much smaller
than Zima Neptuni, Giebel, which is referred to Nucula by Kayser.
Upper Coblenzien.
PaNENKA RIGIDA, F. A. Romer, sp.
1866. Cardium rigidum, F. A. Romer: Betr. Harzgeb., pt. v, p. 10, pl. iii, fig. 1.
1879. Cardiola? rigida, Kayser: Abh. Geol. Specialk. Preuss., vol. vi, pt. 1,
p- 122, pi. xviii, figs. 2, 3.
A specimen from “ Heddon’s Mouth (new road)” evidently belongs
to this magnificent species. It is a blurred cast in bluish micaceous
schistose grit, retaining the surface-ornament round the margins and
showing the inner line of the shell beneath the umbo. Its size and
marginal contour exactly agree with the German figures. Its ribs,
while slightly more numerous than those of the figured specimens,
are no more than the number mentioned in Kayser’s description.
Size: 80 mm. long, 67 mm. high.
Unter Wieder Schiefer (below Haupt Quarzit).
Sprrirera Daerpensis, Steininger. (Pl. XVII, Fig. 6.)
1840. Spirifera aperturata, Phillips: Pal. Foss., p. 77, pl. xxx, fig. 133.
1864. 5 canalifera, Davidson: Brit. Foss. Brach., vol. iii, p. 26.
1889. Ef Daleidensis, Kayser: Abh. k.p. Geol. Landes., n.s., vol. i,
pp- 27, 84, pl. i, figs. 5, 6; pl. x, fig. 11.
A dorsal valve from “East side of Lee Bay, Lynton,” appears
to agree with the species defined by Kayser, though it is so crushed
and defective that little of its character remains. It seems to have
been somewhat wider than long, with a strong elevated fold having
at least three ribs, which perhaps divaricate in front in the manner
of that species, and with nine strong ribs on each wing.
This is no doubt the same as Phillips’ shell, for which Davidson
had found a still earlier name than Schlotheim’s, but which Kayser
(1878, Abh. Geol. Specialk. Preuss., vol. ii, pt. 4, p. 174, note)
considered more probably to belong to S. Daleidensis than to the
species to which Phillips had referred it. Phillips’ figure shows
four ribs on the fold.
Upper Coblenzien.
SPIRIFERA PARADOXA, Schlotheim, sp. (PI. XVII, Fig. 7.)
1858. Spirifer paradoxus, Schnur : Paleontogr., vol. iii, p. 198, pl. xxxii 4, fig. 1.
1889. 53 35 Kayser: Abh. k.p. Geol. Landes., n.s., vol. i, p. 28,
pl. ii, figs. 6, 7.
Nine specimens from ‘“‘Quarry on road above Crock Point,
Woodabay,” appear to belong to an extremely transverse variety
of this species, being more like those quoted above than are most
of the numerous figures given of it by various authors. The central
fold is large and probably prominent, the flatness seen in our
figured specimen having been most likely caused by pressure. The
lateral ribs are small, visible almost to the angles, and almost
50 in number. The wings appear to be acute and alate at their
extremities,
Size : about 15 mm. long and 75 mm. wide.
Upper Coblenzien.
302 »=Rev. G. F. Whidborne—Devonian Fossils, Devonshire.
ORTHOTETES HIPPONYX, Schnur, sp. (Pl. XVII, Fig. 8.)
1878. Streptorhynchus Devonicus, Kayser: Abh. Geol. Specialk. Preuss., vol. ii,
pt. 4, p. 199, pl. xxix, figs. 3, 4.
1897. Orthotetes hipponyx, (hlert: Bull. Soc. Géol. Fr., ser. 11, vol. xxiv, p. 856,
pl. xxvii, figs. 9-11.
Numerous specimens of a shell akin to O. umbraculum come from
the ‘‘ Cutting under Railway N. of Barhrick Mil], Lynton.” They
appear to belong to a widespread Lower Devonian species, to which
(thlert, rejecting D’Orbigny’s name Devonicus, has applied the one
which Schnur had first adopted, but afterwards dropped upon wrongly
identifying his shell with Vanuxem’s.
(thlert gives various distinguishing characters which, even in the
imperfect condition of our shells, seem to hold good, except that ours
are not of so large a size. Our shells are remarkable for the very
great size and irregularity of the hinge-area of the ventral valve.
This sometimes appears triangular in shape and higher than its
length, and sometimes irregular in shape but still high. The rest
of the shell seems little affected by this contortion of the umbo.
The hinge-line, though sometimes auriculate, is not generally equal
to the greatest width of the valve. It seems also to differ from
O. umbraculum by being more circular, by the method of increase of
its ribs, by not being roughened by the existence of dense transverse
striations, and by other particulars.
It is rather curious that this irregular shape and great size of the
hinge-area should be so pronounced in a Lower Devonian form,
when it does not appear in higher Devonian zones, but becomes
again exceedingly noticeable in Carboniferous varieties of O. crenistria,
as witness Davidson’s plates.
Our figure, unfortunately, does not show the distinguishing
characters of the shell, which I did not realize until after it had
been drawn.
Coblenzien.
OrTHIS LonGIsuLCATA, Phillips. (Pl. XVII, Fig. 9.)
1840. Orthis longisulcata, Phillips: Pal. Foss., p. 62, pl. xxvi, fig. 105.
From the “ Cutting under Railway N. of Barhrick Mill, Lynton,”
and ‘“ Woodabay, above Pier,”’ are several specimens of a rather large
Orthis. It has a transversely oval form, rather elevated umbo and
short hinge-line, and is covered with very fine divaricating stria,
which arch outwards on the shoulders. Its muscular area is large.
This appears to be the species described by Phillips, though his
drawing is rather smaller. It was doubtfully united by Davidson to
O. arcuata, Ph., from Hoype’s Nose, from which, I think, it is really
quite distinct. It bears much resemblance to the shell figured by
Kayser and Cithlert as Orthis palliata, Barrande, but our shells
present no evidence of a double hinge-line.
PHYLLOPORA ASPERA, Ulrich ?
1890. Phyllopora aspera, Ulrich: Geol. Surv. Illin., vol. vii, p. 613, pl. xliv, fig. 5,
Specimens from the “Road Section above Watersmeet” and the
“Quarry in road above Crock Point, Woodabay,”’ show little to
Rev. G. F. Whidborne—Devonian Fossils, Devonshire. 533
separate them from this American species. Possibly the fenestrules
may be arranged in rather more regular lines and in some parts the
cells may be rather more numerous, but this seems only accidental.
Upper Helderberg Beds.
FENESTELLA, 8p.
Several fragmentary specimens come from the “ Quarry in road
above Crock Point, Woodabay,” but they are quite unrecognizable.
2. Lower Devontan Fossits rrom Torquay.
(PLATE XVIII.)
It is not often that a Museum can supply its shelves with
specimens dug from its actual site. Such, however, was the
case with the Torquay Natural History Society, when, in digging
the foundation of the “ Pengelly Memorial” Hall, which it added to
its Museum in 1894, a rich fossiliferous bed, 4 feet thick, was found
in the soft slates on which that building stands. Hundreds of
fossils were carefully collected from it by the Curator, the late
Mr. Else, and by the kindness of the Society I have been permitted
to attempt their description below. The fossils are entirely moulds
or casts, and have suffered very greatly from squeezing and
distortion, but in some cases minute structure is beautifully
preserved. It will be seen that they may on the whole be referred
to the Upper Coblenzien, or to a slightly higher horizon. The
richness of the band is in striking contrast to the general barrenness
of the adjoining strata.
Mr. A. Somervail, F.G.S., Secretary to the Society, thus writes
of the position of the slates :—“ A slight examination of the structure
of the Torwood Valley would at once reveal the relations of the
slates to the adjoining rocks. The valley runs in a nearly E.N.E.
and W.S.W. direction, lying between the long ridges of the
Lincombe and Warberry Hills. The valley at its commencement
on its S.W. side traverses limestones, and a little in its N.E.
course the slates at the Museum, which pass below the limestones.
Still further on in the same direction another series of slates and
grits, forming the Lincombe and Warberry ridges, in their turn
pass below the slates exposed at the Museum ; so that, as we ascend
the Torwood Valley from the Strand, we walk over rocks in
a descending sequence, the highest being the limestones, the
lowest the Lincombe and Warberry grits, the fossiliferous slates
at the Museum holding an intermediate position.”
Puacops ScHLoTHErMti, Bronn, sp. ?
1825. Calymene Schlotheimi, Bronn: Leonhard’s Zeitsch., pt. i, p. 319, pl. ii,
figs. 5-8.
1876. Phacops latifrons, F. Romer: Leth. Paleoz., pt. i, pl. xxxi, fig. 2.
1884. 5, Schlotheimi, Kayser: Jahrb. k.p. Geol. Landes., 1883, p. 35.
1897. ss Fy Kayser: Zeitsch. Deutsch. Geol. Gesell., p. 285.
The head of a small trilobite occurs, which is too much covered
with matrix for certain identification. What can be seen of it,
however, points to its belonging to the small common form from
904 Rev. G. F. Whidborne—Devonian Fossils, Devonshire.
the Hifel, which Bronn, and afterwards independently Kayser,
separated from Ph. latifrons. The eyes are large and level with the
top of the glabella, which overhangs the strong marginal rim of the
front. There are eight lenses in the vertical rows of the eye.
Though it is a cast, indications remain that the glabella was as
roughly tuberculate as in Romer’s figure, which Kayser refers to
this species.
Calceola-schists and Hifelkalk.
ORTHOCERAS, sp.
The cast, probably, but not certainly, of a body-chamber, shows
a central siphuncular opening. It is widely oval in section, but has
been somewhat squeezed. It might possibly belong to O. ellipticum,
Minster.
ORTHOCERAS HERCYNICUM, Kayser ?
1879. Orthoceras hereynicwm, Kayser: Abh. Geol. Specialk. Preuss., vol. ii, pt. 4,
Do (Ay ls 3x less 7/5 SH Til
Another cast appears to approach, or to belong to, this species.
Its section is oval, with diameters of 21mm. and 18 mm., and the
siphuncle is situated on the longer diameter, nearly half-way from
the centre. The chambers are about four times as wide as high,
and are very obliquely placed.
Haupt Quarzit.
Caputus priscus, Goldfuss? (Pl. XVII, Fig. 1.)
21878. Capulus priscus, Kayser: Abh. Geol. Specialk. Preuss., vol. ii, pt. 4, p. 94,
pl. xvi, fig. 5; pl. xx, figs. 11, 14, 16.
A flattened cast may perhaps belong to Goldfuss’s species, but
it does not retain sufficient character to admit of certainty. All that
can be said is that what remains of the fossil agrees with it, and
that the curvature of the apex and the rate of increase of the whorl
are the same. A few spots on the cast may perhaps indicate
the tubercles of that shell; but they are far too indistinct to be
relied on, and may be entirely accidental marks.
Upper Coblenzien and Wifelkalk.
Conocarpium cf. cunEatum, F. A. Romer, sp.
21895. Conocardiwm cuneatum, Beushausen: Abh. k.p. Geol. Landes., n.s., pt. xvii,
p. 407, pl. xxx, figs. 9-13.
A large species of Conocardium is represented by a specimen
crushed almost beyond recognition. It measured about 18mm.
across the valves, and its plaits were strong, squared, and close-set.
It appears not to have had any flattened central region. What
is seen of it suggests that it might be a small specimen of Romer’s
shell, which, however, often reaches much larger dimensions.
Passage beds of Lower Devonian to Calceola-schists.
ATHYRIS CONCENTRICA, von Buch, sp. (Pl. XVIII, Fig. 6.)
1895. Athyris concentrica, Kayser: Aun. Soc. Géol. Belg., vol. xxii, p. 207,
pl. iii, figs. 7, 8?, 9?
Rev. G. F. Whidborne—Devonian Fossils, Devonshire. 585
A few rather small and obscure specimens are referable to this
species. The fold, though pronounced, seems similar in character
to Davidson’s figures from Hope’s Nose, and is not subangular
as in A. undata, Defr. A mould of the closed valves shows the
characteristic strong concentric ridges.
Coblenzien of Belgium, but not in the Rhenish Lower Devonian
(Kayser).
SPrRIFeRA curvaTA, Schlotheim, sp. (Pl. XVIII, Figs. 2, 3, 3a.)
1853. Spirifer ewrvatus, Schnur: Paleontogr., vol. iii, p. 208, pl. xxxvi, figs. 3a, b.
Several specimens of a very large Spirifer occur, but all in
a fragmentary and distorted condition. They are apparently a good
deal wider than long, and are entirely without ribs. The fold
is elevated, rounded, and very much produced in front; and the
sinus is deep from near the umbo, and forms a very long tongue-
shaped projection in the front of the ventral valve. Some specimens
(Fig. 3a) preserve the surface-ornament, and show it to consist of
fine, regular, concentric, elevated lines, bearing minute punctations,
which are the endings of still more minute, discontinuous, radiating
lineations.
These shells seem to be like Schnur’s figure quoted above and
Davidson’s from Hope’s Nose, though probably they were wider.
I am not inclined to follow Beushausen in regarding the very
variable form of the Lummaton Beds as more than a variety of
this species.
Upper Coblenzien and higher beds.
SPIRIFERA PRIMZVA, Steininger.
1895. Spirifer primevus, Béclard: Bull. Soc. Belg. Géol., vol. ix, p. 137, pl. xi,
figs. i-vii, 1-12.
Several rather small casts and moulds appear to belong to this
species, exactly resembling S. Beaweani, Béclard, which that
author afterwards merged into Steininger’s shell. They are a good
deal wider than long, with rather rounded cardinal angles, a very
deep sinus, and (in the smallest specimen) five strong rounded ribs
on the wing. The surface is covered by very strong close-set
concentric ridges, becoming coarser in front, and united by strong
radiating lines. One specimen is 50 mm. wide.
Throughout Lower Devonian of Europe.
ATRYPA RETICULARIS, Linné, sp.
This shell seems rare, being represented by a single mould.
Upper Coblenzien and higher beds.
PEnTAMERUS GALEATUS, Dalman, sp. (PI. XVIII, Figs. 4, 5.)
1853. Pentamerus galeatus, Schnur: Paleontogr., vol. iii, p. 196, pl. xxix, fig. 2.
Cast large, globose. Umbo large, much recurved. Area wide,
undefined laterally. Dorsal valve smaller than the ventral and with
a deep, flattened, receding sinus, a corresponding fold being on the
ventral valve. Shell covered with strong ribs, reaching nearly
536 Rev. G. F. Whidborne—Devonian Fossils, Devonshire.
to the umbo; from three to five being on the fold and five or six on
each side.
Size: A specimen that has hardly been distorted is 40mm. in
length and width, and 20mm. in depth. A flattened specimen is
nearly 50 mm. long.
This species is the prevailing shell of the locality. Very large
numbers of specimens have been found, but always in the condition
of casts.
From Silurian to Middle Devonian (Kayser).
ORTHIS HYSTERITA, Gmelin.
1853. Orthis Beawmonti, Schnur: Paleontogr., vol. iii, p. 215, pl. xxxvii, fig. 9.
1889. », vularius, Barrois: Ann. Sci. Géol. Nord, vol. iii, p. 72.
1889. », Aysterita, Kayser: Abh. k.p. Geol. Landes., n.s., pt. i, p. 58, pl. v,
figs. 1, 7-9.
Some casts of the double valves, showing the internal arrange-
ments, appear to agree exactly with the shell by Schnur referred to
O. Beaumonti, De Vern., and by Gosselet and Barrois to O. vulvarius,
Schlot. ; the latter remarking that it is distinguished from O. striatula,
Schlot., by its long and stronger muscular impressions. Other
larger casts of single valves equally correspond to Kayser’s figures
of the same shell, for which, following Quenstedt, he adopts a still
earlier name.
The shape of these fossils is a transverse oval, the dorsal valve
is deeply convex, the ventral valve is concave laterally and has
a broadly arched sinus. The valves meet in a deep sweeping curve
in front. The muscular area reaches rather more than half-way
forwards in the smaller examples, and less than half-way in the
larger. Only marginal traces of the very fine ribs remain.
Size: about 30 mm. long by 45 mm. wide.
Throughout the Lower Devonian of Germany.
OrtHis, sp. (Pl. XVIII, Figs. 10a, 6.)
Cast longer than broad, tumid. Dorsal valve very convex,
larger than the other. Ventral valve apparently nearly flat, with
a wide shallow sinus in front and reflexed sides, and massive near
the umbo with a wide oblique hinge-area. Hinge-line as long as
the width of the shell. Cardinal angles gently rounded. Valves
meeting in front in a sweeping curve. Muscular impressions
extremely large and strong, reaching very nearly to the front margin
of the shell in both valves. Surface covered with very numerous
small rounded strive, which seem to divaricate close to the margins.
Shell-structure thick.
Size: about 20 mm. long, 15 mm. wide, and 11 mm. deep.
There is a cast of the closed valves and an exterior of the dorsal
valve, which retains the surface though much decayed. These
specimens, together, show a good deal of the character of the
species, which seems to me very distinctive. Internally, it appears
very like O. Monnieri, Roualt, from the Lower Devonian, but it
differs from it in shape and in the size of the hinge-area. I have
seen very similar specimens from the Lower Devonian of Cornwall.
Rev. G. F. Whidborne—Devonian Fossils, Devonshire. 537
ORTHOTETES UMBRACULUM, Schlotheim, sp. (Pl. XVII,
Figs. 7, Ta.)
1865. Streptorhynchus wnbraculum, Davidson: Brit. Foss. Brach., vol. ii, p. 76,
pl. xvi, fig. 6; pl. xviii, figs. 1-5.
A few moulds of this species occur, which are interesting from
their having well preserved the minute surface-ornament, which has
been described by Davidson, but is rarely, if ever, fully seen in
the numerous specimens from Lummaton and other higher beds.
A wax-cast shows this to consist of very numerous and regular
‘scale-like projections on the strie,” which are not only connected
in the interspaces by the corresponding growth-lines, but by a still
finer superficial series of elevated microscopic lineations, slightly
irregular and arching, and at the rate of about five to each growth-
line. This finer ornament is so minute that it can only be seen
by a strong lens, but it is extremely beautiful.
Lower and Upper Coblenzien and higher beds.
STROPHOMENA RHOMBOIDALIS, Wilckens.
This species is represented by a fine cast of the closed valves and
by an interior of the lower valve. The former appears to have
been a very deep shell, and shows much detail: its characteristic
ornament can be discerned on the covering mould.
Upper Coblenzien and higher beds.
STROPHEODONTA THNIOLATA, Sandberger, sp. (Pl. XVIII,
Figs. 8, 8a, 8b, 9, 9a, 9b.)
21842. Orthis Sedgwickii, D’ Arch. & De Vern.: Geol. Trans., ser. 11, vol. vi,
Pyogl. ple cexviyhion
1853. Strophomena teniolata, Sandberger: Verst. Rhein. Nassau, p. 360,
pl. xxxiv, fig. 11.
Shell apparently convex, somewhat deflexed in front, and about
as long as wide. Hinge-area narrow, as long as the width of the
shell, bearing numerous strong dentations. Ornament consisting
of multitudinous, fine, straight, regular striz, divided into groups
of five or six by somewhat stronger ribs, half of which only reach
half-way to the umbo.
Size : about 20mm. long by 25 mm. wide.
This species is not very rare in these beds, but the specimens are
very much squeezed and fragmentary, probably from its being
a delicate shell. Its ornamentation was evidently very beautiful.
It appears exactly to agree with the shell figured by Sandberger,
who quotes O. Sedgwickit as a synonym. If that be so, of course
this latter name would have priority ; but I am by no means sure
of its identity with that shell, whether as described by De Verneuil
or by Schnur, and am more inclined to believe it to be the species
attributed by Schnur and by Barrois to Leptena interstrialis, Phillips,
which itself is certainly distinct from it.
Spiriferen-sandstein of Daleiden (Sandberger).
FENESTELLA ToRWOODENSIS, n.Sp.
Some specimens, apparently of a frondose habit, have been found.
Their branches are slight (being much narrower than the fenestrules),
588 Rev. G. F. Whidborne—Devonian Fossils, Devonshire.
appear to divaricate about once to seven or eight fenestrules, and
bear a very much elevated, blade-like keel within. The fenestrules
are long flattened ovals, about 6 to 10mm. in length and 13 to
10mm. across. There are four or five cells to a fenestrule.
This probably belongs to the species figured by Phillips as
F. antiqua, var. a, from Lynton; but it also comes extremely close
to the Hope’s Nose fossil, which I have referred to his F. arthritica,
differing from it in probably branching more rapidly and in
certainly having the cell-mouths and keel on the outside face.
HALLIA QUADRIPARTITA, Frech.
1886. Hallia quadripartita, Frech: Paleont. Abhandl., vol. iii, pt. 3, p. 83,
pl. viii, figs. 20, 21.
Simple, cornute, oval in section; axis excentric. Cup deep.
Major septa 28. Septal fossula deep, extending to centre and
containing the principal septum, which does not reach the centre.
Opposed and lateral septa reaching centre. Septa of each principal
quadrant 5, pinnate against the septal fossula; and those of each
opposed quadrant 7, pinnate against its lateral septum. Minor
septa 28, long.
Size: about 23 mm. wide.
There is one specimen from this locality, but the above description
has been completed from an example from near “‘ Walls Hill,”
which is in better preservation and contains forty-six septa. It
seems perfectly to correspond with Frech’s German species.
Lower ? Siringocephalus Beds of Gerolstein.
AMPLEXUS, Sp.
Conical. Cup very deep (about 25mm. deep by 25 mm. wide),
flattened at the base. Major septa 28, reaching half-way to the
centre. Minor septa rudimentary. Tabulee (as seen at the base of
the cup) irregularly flat, extending to the sides, and marginally
deflexed. Septal fossula very deep, marginal, not extending half-
way to the centre, and containing a short septum, while the adjoining
septa arch round its sides. No dissepiments.
The specimen, being only the distorted cast of the cup, is not easy
to decipher, but belongs, I think, clearly to this genus. As far
as can be seen, it approaches somewhat nearly to the Carboniferous
A. cornu-bovis, Hdwards & Haime.
MerrioPHyLtuM Esti, n.sp.
Small, apparently elongate, sub-conical, about 10mm. wide.
Major septa 16, reaching to the centre, where they are slightly
deflexed. Minor septa16, long. Signs of a large pseudo-columella,
which appears to be formed by the invagination of the centre of the
arching tabulee.
This form seems the commonest true coral of the zone, though
rather rare. It is so similar in style and structure to Metriophyllum
gracile, Schliiter, that it is doubtless congeneric; but it differs
from it specifically in the central twisting of the septa, the probably
looser structure of the columella, and other points.
AE Re eee ee be ee
WGntern Bros imp.
5
i
4
-
el
| W)
| 13)
oO
fy
rc)
a
<)
io}
5
o
A
= cf
S a
e, in
‘a0 i}
8 a
Ss a
= ‘J
9 4
fap) Pe abe
Rev. G. F. Whidborne—Devonian Fossils, Devonshire. 539
Cuapocuonus cf. Scuivreri, Holzapfel. (Pl. XVIII. Fig. 11.)
Cf. 1895. Cladochonus Schliiteri, Holzapfel: Abh. k.p. Geol. Landes., n.s., pt. xvi,
p- 305, pl. xi, figs. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7.
Two specimens of Cladochonus come very near to Holzapfel’s
species, which Schliiter had before referred to Cl. alternans,
F. A. Romer, sp. They differ from each other considerably in
size, suggesting that our species was very variable. Nor do they
agree very well with Holzapfel’s coral as against Romer’s; for,
while they have the habit of the former, they are more like the
latter in the stoutness of the stems. Our material is, however,
insufficient to define them properly.
PLEvRODICTYUM? PACHYPOROIDES, n.sp. (Pl. XVIII, Figs. 12, 12a.)
Corallum forming masses, which often become very elongate and
ramose. Base and epitheca unknown. Oorallites large, short,
polygonal, obliquely radiating, with thick walls, which are pierced
by a few irregularly placed, straight, horizontal canals; a few
corallites being much smaller than the rest.
Size of corallites: 2 or even 3mm. in diameter; about 5 or 6, or
rarely 9 or 10 mm. long.
This abundant species is very perplexing. It appears to have
the structure of Pleurodictyum, but the habit of Pachypora. In one
instance a specimen appears attached to the mould of a crinoid-
stem, and has in one place all the appearance of an ordinary
Pleurodictyum, radiating from a centre. In this case the epitheca
may have been destroyed, the crinoid-marks being obliterated
from the mould, which is covered by minute longitudinal lines.
Occurring only as casts, the connecting-rods are very noticeable.
They are sometimes nearly 1mm. long. They are placed on the
flat sides, and have sometimes an irregularly vertical arrangement.
The state of preservation is such as to allow no signs of septal strias
or tabule. ‘The corallites are very much larger and shorter than
those of Pachypora cervicornis, De Blain.
EXPLANATION TO PLATE XVII.
Devonian Fosstts rrom Lynton.
The specimens are in Mr. J. G. Hamling’s collection, and are drawn natural size.
Fic. 1.—Pterinea fasciculata, Goldfuss. Left valve, restored from the mould and
east. Woodabay.
Fic. 2.—The same, cast of anterior end. This has been accidentally drawn with the
anterior end upward, and should be turned through a quarter circle for
examination.
Fic. 3.—Modiomorpha lamellosa, Sandberger, sp. Cast of right valve, showing
part of hinge, defective in front. Lee Bay.
Fic. 4.—The same, cast of both valves, showing the anterior muscle-mark (8).
Lee Bay.
Fic. 5.—Nucula Lodanensis, Beushausen. Cast of right valve, imperfect on the back.
Barhrick Mill.
Fic. 6.—Spirifera Daleidensis, Steininger. Distorted cast of dorsal valve. Lee Bay.
Fic. 7.—Spirifera paradoxa, Schlotheim, sp. Dorsal valve, restored from a cast
and mould. Woodabay.
Fic. 8.—Orthotetes hipponyx, Schuur, sp. Dorsal valve of a young specimen, one
side of which is irregularly alate.
Fic. 9.—Orthis longisulcata, Phillips. Cast of ventral valve. Barhrick Mill.
540 Hugh J. L. Beadnelti—The Faytim Depression.
EXPLANATION TO PLATE XVIII.
DeEvoniIAN Fosstuts From Torquay.
The specimens belong to the Torquay Natural History Society, and were obtained
from the foundations of its Museum. ‘They are drawn to natural size.
Fie. 1.—Capulus priscus, Goldfuss ?
Fic. 2.—Spirifera curvata, Schlotheim, sp. Portion of ventral valve.
Fie. 3.—The same. Central part of the front of dorsal valve, showing the fold.
Fig. 3a, portion of surface magnified.
Fic. 4.—Pentamerus galeatus, Dalman, sp.
Fic. 5.—The same.
Fie. 6.—Athyris concentrica, von Buch, sp. A small dorsal valve.
Fic. 7.—Orthotetes umbraculum, Schlotheim, sp. Mould showing the minute
ornamentation. Fig. 7a, portion of the mould magnified. :
Fie. 8.—Stropheodonta teniolata, Sandberger, sp. Lower valve and hinge-line.
Fig. 8a, portion of hinge-line magnified. Fig. 8b, portion of front of
the valve magnified, showing the double series of striz.
Fie. 9.—The same. Lower valve showing internal arrangements. Fig. 9a, portion
of hinge-line magnified. Fig. 90, portion of ovarian area, showing its
pitted surface.
Fia. 10.—Orthis, sp. Fig. 10a, cast of dorsal aspect. Fig. 103, cast of ventral
aspect.
Fie. TeV ie eee ef. Schliteri, Holzapfel. Mould of the part of a specimen.
Fie. 12.— Plewrodictyum ? pachyporoides, n.sp. Portion of a ramose cast. Fig. 12a
portion of one of the corallites magnified, showing the arrangement of
the rods.
I].—Tue Faytm Depression: A Prenimtnary Notion oF THE
GroLoGy oF A District In EGypt CONTAINING A NEW PaLmo-
GENE VERTEBRATE F'auna.!
By Hvuen J. L. Beapnett, F.G.S., F.R.G.S., of the Geological Survey of Egypt.
HE Faytim, one of the largest depressions of the Libyan
Desert, is situated some 50 miles south-west of Cairo. It is
cut out in rocks of Eocene and Oligocene age, while still younger
deposits of Pliocene and Post-Pliocene date are found within the
hollow. The depression owes its origin to the action of the ordinary
suberial denuding agents, which I have shown in previous papers
were capable of producing the oases-depressions of Baharia, Farafra,
Dakhla, etc. Faulting, which has played so important a part in the
formation of the Nile Valley, appears to have had little or nothing
to do with the production of the Fayim and other depressions of
the Libyan Desert.
During my survey of the Faytim in 1898 I found that certain
strata of the Middle Eocene were veritable ‘ bone-beds,’ being
crowded at many points with vertebrate remains, such as the ribs
of cetaceans, crocodile vertebra, fish-bones, and coprolites. Up to
that time the only vertebrate fossils which had been obtained from
the district were remains of Zeuglodon and some fragments of
a mandible thought to belong to Cheropotamus; these had been
collected by Schweinfurth and noticed by him in 1886.
* Communicated in abstract to the British Association at Glasgow, 1901, by
permission of Sir William Garstin, K.C.M.G., Under-Secretary of State, and
Capt. H. G. Lyons, Director-General of the Survey Department, Cairo.
Geol.Mag.1901. PIecvile
Mintern Bros imp.
Devonian fossils ; Torquay.
Hugh J. L. Beadnell—The Fayiim Depression. 541
In the early part of 1901 I spent a short time in the Fayaim
exploring the borders of the Birket el Qurun lake, on which occasion
Dr. C. W. Andrews, of the British Museum, who happened to be in
Egypt at the time, accompanied me. On our return journey to
Cairo we visited some of the localities I had found to be bone-
bearing in 1898, and on our last day’s march were most fortunate
in crossing the Hocene escarpments at a point where a number of
well-preserved marine and terrestrial vertebrate remains lay exposed
on the surface of the outcrop of the bone-beds. On reporting,
Capt. H. G. Lyons, Director-General of the Survey Department, at
once organized a special collecting expedition; Dr. Andrews again
accompanied me, and together we succeeded in obtaining a unique
collection of almost entirely new mammals and reptiles. A brief
description of these is now being published by my companion in
the GronocicaL MaGazine (see September and October issues),
and the object of the present paper is to give a preliminary account
of the geology of the district from which these interesting remains
were obtained.
GENERAL SUCCESSION.
The oldest beds found in the depression are the clays, marls,
and limestones, with Nummulites gizehensis, of Middle Hocene age.
These are succeeded by a group of white marly limestones and
gypseous clays, which largely underlie the cultivated land of the
Fayiim. They are followed by a series consisting of clays, sand-
stones, and calcareous grits, some beds of which are characterized
by the abundance of Operculina. The latter series is followed by
the uppermost marine Eocene beds (Carolia beds), an alternating
group of clays, sandstones, and limestones, characterized by an
abundant vertebrate and invertebrate fauna, and equivalent to the
Upper Mokattam beds of Cairo. Above the ‘Carolia beds,’ and
well marked off from them, both lithologically and palzontologically,
is found a great thickness of variegated sands and sandstones, clays,
and marls, divided near the summit by one or more thick intercalated
lava sheets. These variegated beds are largely of fluvio-marine origin
and are of Upper Eocene — Lower Oligocene age. No Miocene
deposits have been recognized within the area, but further north,
as at Mogara, Lower Miocene beds occur, and it is probable that
a continuous conformable series of lithologically similar deposits
extends from the summit of the Faytim escarpment (Lower Oligocene)
to the Mogara Miocene beds.
The Pliocene is probably represented by the great masses of
gravel, or raised beaches, which form such a marked feature in
the geology of the district. Fossiliferous Pliocene deposits have
also been recorded from the south part of the area by Schweinfurth.
Of Post-Pliocene age we may mention the ancient high-level
lacustrine clays, the cultivated alluvial loams, and the desert
sand-dunes.
The following table shows the sequence of strata known in the
Fayiim and the classification adopted by the writer :—
542 Hugh J. L. Beadnell—The Fayiim Depression.
RECENT AND ea soil, blown sand, and high-level lacustrine sands
PLEISTOCENE. and clays.
Shell- Bonne on exposed rocks.
Fossiliferous deposits of Sidmant.
Gravel terraces.
PLIOCENE.
Lower CaCO)
AND 5. Fluvio-marine Series (Gebel el Qatrani beds).
Upper Eocene. )
. Qasr el Sara Series (Carolia beds).
. Birket el Qurun Series (Operculina-Nummulite beds).
. Ravine Beds (fish-scale marls).
. Wadi Rayan Series (Nemmutlites gizehensis beds).
MInDDLE
KocrEne.
bo co
1. Want Rayan SeEprizs.
The wadis of Rayan and Mouailla, on the southern side of the
Faytm depression, are cut out in the clays and limestones of this
group, equivalent to part of the Lower Mokattam of the Nile Valley.
The uppermost bed of limestone, characterized by the profusion of
the large foraminifer Nwmmulites gizehensis, forms a considerable
part of the floor of the depression west of the Fayim cultivation,
stretching from Gebel Rayan northwards to the foot of Gar el
Gehannem, 28 kilometres west of the western extremity of the
Birket el Qurun.
2. Ravine Beps.
This series, estimated at 25 metres thick, consists of gypseous
clays and white marly limestones, and is met with bordering the
cultivated land on the east, west, and north sides. The same beds
are frequently exposed in the deep ravines of EH] Butts and Hl Wadi
which intersect the cultivation. The beds yield shell-impressions
of Leda, Tellina, etc., with fish-teeth and numerous scales. No
vertebrate remains have as yet been obtained from this or the
underlying series. Beds of this group form the base of the isiand
‘Geziret el Qorn’ and the lower part of the northern shore of the
Birket el Qurun.
3. BIRKET EL QuRUN SERIES.
The beds of this group, some 60 metres thick, form the main
part of the escarpment immediately overlooking the north shore of
the lake. The series appears to be the equivalent of the upper
part of the white beds (limestones) of Gebel Mokattam, although
lithologically there is considerable difference. Certain beds of the
series are characterized by the abundance of two foraminifera,
Nummulites Fraasi and Operculina discoidea. A well-marked
molluscan fauna is also present, and cetacean and fish remains
are not uncommon. ‘The series is well seen in the desert separating
the Faytim and Nile Valley, along the northern boundary of the
cultivation and of the lake, and westwards in the cliffs to the
outlying hill-mass of Gar el Gehannem.
In the northern part of the Faytim the series is divisible by
a very constant well-marked bed of hard sandstone, which almost
invariably weathers out into a number of huge globular masses.
The lower beds are seen in the island of Geziret el Qorn, and from
Hugh J. L. Beadnell—The Fayim Depression. 543
them Schweinfurth first collected cetacean remains. The mollusca
from these beds were described by Mayer-Eymar (Zittel, Palgonto-
graphica, N.F., X, 3 (xxx)) as having on the whole a Bartonian
aspect, but his determination seems much open to doubt, as they
underlie the Upper Mokattam (Qasr el Sara series), the Parisian
age of which appears to be well established. The cetacean remains
were described by Dames, who compared them with the American
Zeuglodon macrospondylus and Z. brachyspondylus, but did not con-
sider them to represent a new species. The same author, however,
subsequently described similar but more complete remains (also
collected by Schweinfurth, from beds belonging to my Qasr el
Sara series) as a new species, Z. Osiris. The upper division of the
Birket el Qurun series is lithologically rather similar, consisting of
alternating clays and sandstones. The beds, however, are generally
much richer in organic remains. In the uppermost beds very large
cetacean vertebrae occur, and these probably represent a second
species of Zeuglodon, as although Dames considered the difference
in size of the bones of separate individuals to be sexual, the
apparently much greater upward range of the smaller type suggests
the existence of two species.
4, Qasr EL Sara SERIES.
The exact junction between this and the last-described series is
purely arbitrary, some of the commonest fossils passing from one
to the other. The name of the series is taken from an ancient
ruined temple near which the beds are well developed. The Qasr
el Sara series (or Carolia beds) is perhaps the most important and
best marked division of the Faytim succession; it forms a bold
escarpment of great length and height, consisting of a series of
very fossiliferous clays and limestones, with sands and sandstones
in the upper part of a total thickness of 175 metres. The ‘Carolia
beds’ closely correspond to the Upper Mokattam division of the
Eocene at Cairo, but are much more fully developed in the Fayim,
where they occupy a large part of the northern desert. In the
cliffs about 8 kilometres north of the Birket el Qurun the beds
form a steep double escarpment, running nearly parallel to the
northern shore of the lake.
Vertebrate remains may be found in places in most of the beds of
this division, but the most prolific horizon is the ‘ bone-beds’ proper,
a double band of clay separated by two layers of limestone, and
occurring about midway in the series. In this bed groups of
skeletons, or portions of skeletons, are occasionally met with, sug-
gesting that they were carried out to sea by a strong river current
and deposited at the tail-end of the latter. That the Qasr el Sara
series was deposited in fairly shallow water at no great distance
from land seems certain, no less from the common occurrence of
terrestrial animal remains than from the general lithological character
of the beds. The clays abound with impressions of plants, much
lignitic matter occurs, current-bedding is well seen in many of the
more sandy beds, while the thin interbedded bands of limestone
544 Hugh J. L. Beadnell—The Faytim Depression.
are more or less impure and do not indicate conditions of any
great depth.
The commonest and perhaps the most important mammal from
these beds is Meritheritum Lyonsi, Andr., which Dr. Andrews con-
siders to be a generalized forerunner of the Mastodon type of
Proboscidean ; a second species may also be present. The mandible
and upper teeth, together with some of the limb bones of a large
heavily built ungulate, somewhat resembling Dinotherium, have also
been described as Barythertum grave. Sirenian remains are not at
all rare and may belong to Hotherium egyptiacum, Owen, the type
of which was a natural brain-cast from the Mokattam beds of Cairo.
It is possible, however, that the Faytim animal may yet prove to be
distinct from Hotherium. Cetacean remains are remarkably common
in these beds, and all appear to belong to Zeuglodon Osiris; the
larger cetacean bones, mentioned as occurring in the underlying
beds, have not here been detected. Reptiles are represented by two
new genera of snakes, the larger of which, Gigantophis Garstini,
Andr., was a python-like type, and probably attained a length of
30 feet. The remains of the smaller Meriophis Schweinfurthi, Andr.,
in the shape of well-preserved vertebra, are remarkably abundant.
Two new species and one new genus of chelonians were obtained
from this series and have been described as Psephophorus eocenus,
Thalassochelys libyca, and Stereogenys Cromert. Crocodilian remains
abound, the most important new species being Tomistoma africanum,
Andr. Fish-remains occur throughout the series, one of the
commonest forms being a large, and probably new, species of
Siluroid. Fragments of the Saw-fish, Propristis Schweinfurthi, are
also frequently met with.
5. FLUVIO-MARINE SERIES.
In the north of the Fayiim, the Qasr el Sara series is always
conformably overlain by a unique series of variegated sands and
sandstones, with alternating clayey and marly bands. The often
repeated bands of limestone of the underlying division are now only
represented by an occasional bed of calcareous grit or impure lime-
stone. Near the top of the series occurs a horizontal sheet of basalt,
in all probability contemporaneously interbedded. For the most
part the series is barren of organic remains, but certain bands in the
upper part yield numerous individuals of Unio, Spatha, Mutela,
Ampullaria, Turritella, Cerithium, Melania, and Potamides. From
such a facies, we may without doubt conclude that the conditions
of deposition of these sediments were estuarine or fluvio-marine.
Moreover, the enormous quantities of silicified wood, in the shape
of hundreds of trees of great length and girth, associated with the
remains of terrestrial animals (Palgomastodon, etc.), show that rivers
of considerable size emerged from the land to the south, the coast-
line of which was probably not very far distant.
The series attains a maximum thickness of about 250 metres.
With regard to age, I have already stated’ that the lower part of
1 Beadnell: ‘* Recent Geological Discoveries in the Nile Valley and Libyan
Desert ’’ ; London, 1901.
Hugh J. L. Beadneli—The Fayiim Depression. 545
the series may be regarded as Upper Eocene, while the higher beds
above the interbedded basalt marks the base of the Lower Oligocene.
It seems probable that this age-determination will hold good,
although whether it will ever be possible to draw a precise junction
between the Eocene and Oligocene is more than doubtful. The
series is quite continuous in the field, and the passage from the
one to the other formation appears to be perfectly gradual, both
lithologically and paleeontologically.
Occasional fragments of bone may be observed in many parts
of the series, but, so far, the only remains of value obtained were
unearthed from the lowest bed, and are thus certainly of Upper
Eocene (Bartonian) age. The most important terrestrial animal
is Paleomastodon Beadnelli, Andr., a small generalized form of
proboscidean, and probably a direct descendant of Merithium Lyonst
of the Qasr el Sara series below. Part of the mandible of another
and different ungulate was also obtained, but has not yet been
determined. In addition, remains of crocodiles and turtles are not
uncommon in the basal beds of the ‘ Fluvio-marine Series.’ The
post-basalt portion of the series forms the highest part of the
escarpment on the north of the Fayiim depression. These beds
cover the desert to the north, stretching to beyond the latitude of
Cairo. To the north-west, however, they appear to pass gradually
up into younger deposits, as at Mogara Lower Miocene rocks occur.
Space does not permit of any details being given here of the
younger Tertiary and Post-Tertiary Faytim deposits.
GENERAL REMARKS.
The Eocene rocks of the Faytim are of special importance, owing
to the presence in them of a new and highly interesting succession
of vertebrate remains, enabling us to gain some insight into the
nature of the fauna at that time inhabiting the great African land-
mass to the south. In the region to the west of the Nile Valley,
comparatively shallow water existed from probably the beginning of
the Middle Eocene, and numerous rivers entered the sea in this
neighbourhood, bringing quantities of forest trees and floating
carcases of animals from the south. To the east deeper water must
have existed, as limestones continued to be accumulated until the
latter part of the Middle Eocene period, and even then the amount
of land sediment deposited was much less than in the Fayim.
Later, in Upper Eocene times, while the Fayiim appears to have
been the site of an enormous delta, no deposits of the same age
at all appear to have been laid down to the east of the present
Nile Valley, as there the top beds of the Middle Eocene (Upper
Mokattam) are unconformably overlain by the Oligocene deposits
of Gebel Ahwar, etc.
It is to be hoped that further exploration in the Fayim and
surrounding desert regions may in time lead to paleontological
discoveries of the highest importance. Some of the primitive
ancestors of the proboscidea have already been discovered, and it is
not improbable that in the still lower Rayan series earlier and still
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. XII. 39
546 E. A. N. Arber—Fossil Plants from India.
more generalized forms may eventually be unearthed. Up to the
present time it has been maintained, by some authors at least, that
at the close of the Pliocene or commencement of the Pleistocene
period a great immigration of the Europasian ungulates took place
into Africa ; whereas the recent discoveries in Egypt show this theory
to be untenable, as it was in the ancient African Continent itself
that the elephants, and possibly some other groups, were evolved.
TII.—Notrs on Roytz’s Tyres or Fosstn Puants From INDIA.
By E. A. Newett Arser, B.A.,
Trinity College, Cambridge ; University Demonstrator in Palzobotany.
N his Illustrations of the Botany of the Himalayan Mountains,
published in 1839, Royle! figures several important fossil
plants from the Burdwan Coalfield of India. These are of especial
interest, not only as being the first mention of several of the best
known fossil types from the Lower Gondwanas of India, but also
as among the earliest descriptions of members of the Glossopteris
flora.
Royle’s types are now in the Geological Department of the British
Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road. The object of this
notice is to call attention to the whereabouts of these types, and to
some of the more important morphological features which they
present. A full account of the literature, in which reference is
made to these fossils, will be found in Feistmantel’s? Flora of the
Lower Gondwanas of India, and need not be recapitulated here.
The horizon in the Lower Gondwanas, from which these plants were
obtained, is the Raniganj group of the Damuda Series.
SPHENOPHYLLUM SPECIosuUM (Royle). [V. 4,190.] °
1837. Trizygia speciosa, Royle: ibid., p. xxix*, pl. ii, fig. 8.
1881. Ws ap Feistmantel: ibid., p. 69, pls. xia, xiia, figs. 1, 2.
The type figured by Royle under the name Trizygia speciosa is
a very interesting one. It is a fine specimen, 6 inches long and
24 inches across, and showing nine whorls of leaves. The stem is
slender, 31s—74s inch across. The internodes have two fairly
prominent longitudinal ridges, but the preservation is not sufficiently
good to show that these ridges are continuous at the node. Hach node
bears a whorl of three pairs of leaves, unequal in size, and con-
sisting of four elongate-ovate, entire, and spreading leaves, 14 inch
long by 3 inch broad, and a smaller pair, 2 inch by 2 inch, ovate
and reflexed. The successive whorls are superposed.
In the arrangement and unequal size of the leaves, S. speciosum
differs from the majority of European Sphenophyllums, to which,
1 Royle: ‘Illustrations of the Botany and other branches of Natural History of
the Himalayan Mountains, and of the Flora of Cashmere’; London, 1839.
* Feistmantel, “‘ The Fossil Flora of the Gondwana System’’?: Mem. Geol.
Surv. India, 1881, ser. xm, vol. iii. (The Flora of the Damuda and Panchet
Divisions, 1880.)
* Registered number of specimen in the Geological Department, British Museum.
E. A. N. Arber—Fossil Plants from India. 547
however, it is in other respects nearly related. Feistmantel,’ for
these, and for other reasons which M. Zeiller and Mr. Seward?
have since shown to be untrustworthy, supported Royle in assigning
the Indian plant to a separate genus, Trizygia. But M. Zeiller* has
further shown that the unequal size and arrangement of the leaves
in such specimens is not a constant feature of either generic or
specific value, and that it sometimes occurs among such European
species as S. oblongifolium and S. filiculme, from the Upper Coal-
measures and Permian. M. Zeiller therefore rejects the genus
Trizygia, a view which Mr. Seward‘ has supported in his textbook
on Fossil Plants.
The occurrence of such a typical Coal-measure genus as Spheno-
phyllum, in association with members of the Glossopteris flora in the
Lower Gondwanas of India, is a point of special interest, as showing
that in India, as in similar beds in South Africa, and in South
America, there occur plants which are typical of the flora of Europe
and North America in Permo-Carboniferous times.
VERTEBRARIA INDICA, Royle. [V. 4,189. ]
1839. Vertebraria indica, Royle: ibid., p. xxix*, pl. ii, figs. 1-3, 5-7.
1881. +3 », Feistmantel: ibid., pl. xiia, figs. 10, 11; pls. xia,
xiv a, fig. 11; pl. xiva bis, fig. 3.
Royle says “the shales of Ranigunj and Chinnakooree contain
abundant vegetable remains of the Ranigunj Reed, Vertebraria
indica, and Vertebraria radiata.” It is now known that both these
species represent different views of the rhizome of Glossopteris ;°
V. radiata, the transverse section, and V. indica, the surface view.
Three specimens of each of these are figured by Royle. I have
only been able to identify one large specimen ° figured as V. indica.
This is 5% inches long, and # inch across. It is composed of two
regular longitudinal rows of small square (3 x 2inch), or slightly
oblong (+ x % inch) areas.
As seen in transverse section, judging by Royle’s figures, the
structure of Vertebraria indica is very similar to that of Vertebraria
australis (McCoy). In surface view, however, there is less resem-
blance. The areas, which represent the broad outer edges of the
wedge-like seements composing the fossil, are in the Indian specimens
small, and fairly regular, in size. From other Indian specimens
figured by Feistmantel, this would seem to be a constant characteristic.
In Australian specimens’ they appear to be often very irregular,
and to vary greatly in size. Oldham* has pointed out that the
Vertebraria described by Zeiller from South Africa also differs from
1 Feistmantel: Rec. Geol. Surv. India, 1879, xii, p. 163.
2 Seward: Mem. and Proc. Lit. Phil. Soc. Manchester, 1889, vol. iii, p. 1.
3 Zeiller: Bull. Soc. géol. France, 1890-91, ser. m1, vol. xix.
4 Seward: ‘‘ Fossil Plants,’’ vol. i; Cambridge, 1898.
> Zeiller: Bull. Soc. géol. France, 1896, ser. 111, vol. xxiv, p. 349.
SSB ily tice, Ue
7 Feistmantel: Mem. Geol. Surv. N.S. Wales, Palzont., No. 3, 1890, pl. xiv,
fig. 6; pl. xv, figs. 1-3.
8 Oldham: Rec. Geol. Surv. India, 1897, vol. xxx, pt. 1.
548 E. A. N. Arber—Fossil Plants from India.
Indian specimens. Although it is highly probable that all these
species are the remains of the rhizome of one and the same plant,
Glossopteris Browniana, Brongt., yet it would not seem possible to
unite them, on account of the variation in structure’ which they
present.
MacRoT&NIOPTERIS DANOIDES (Royle). [V. 4,191. ]
1839. Glossopteris daneoides, Royle: ibid., p. xxix*, pl. ii, fig. 9.
1881. Tae daneoides, Feistmantel: ibid., p. 88, pls. xxa, xxia,
gsi; 2.
This specimen, which is beautifully preserved, measures 5} inches,
and nearly 24 inches across. The midrib (3%; inch across) gives
off at right angles parallel veins, which are distant (34; inch), and
simple, or occasionally dichotomizing. There is no regular alternation
between the simple and branched veins. The leaf is oval-lanceolate,
and the margin entire or undulate.
The generic value of Macroteniopteris is a doubtful one. It
would perhaps have been better, in the present state of our
knowledge, to have included such forms under the broad definition
which Mr. Seward? has adopted in dealing with similar remains.
The chief distinctions between Macroteniopteris and Teniopteris
are apparently the simple frond of large size—a point of doubtful
value—and the distant secondary nerves, in the former case. It is
therefore open to question whether a generic distinction based only
on such characters will eventually be found to hold good.
CiapopHuesBis Rovuzi, Arber. [V. 4,192. ]
1839. Pecopteris Lindleyana, Royle: ibid., p. xxix*, pl. ii, fig. 4.
1881. -Alethopteris Lindleyana, Feistmantel: ibid., p. 80, pl. xviiia, figs. 2, 2a;
pl. xix qa, figs. 3, 4.
Royle’s specimen is a large bipinnate frond, the main axis of
which is nearly 7 inches long, and some of the pinne are of a similar
length. The pinnules, which are badly preserved, are somewhat
oblong in shape, and attached by a broad base. The apex is rounded.
They average 4 inch long, by 3°; inch broad. There is a strong
median nerve, from which dichotomizing secondary nerves are given
off. Feistmantel’s figures show the nervation accurately, but those
of Royle, and especially of McClelland,’ are somewhat misleading.
The general habit and the nervation recall certain fronds of
a British Jurassic fern, Todites Williamsoni (Brongt.); so much so
that Feistmantel* originally placed the Indian species in a group
with Alethopteris Whitbyensis, Heer, a plant very possibly identical
with T. Williamsoni (Brongt.).° The fructification of Royle’s plant
is known, and is of the Polypodiaceous type, and thus differs from
that of Heer’s plant, as Feistmantel® later admitted. It would seem
1 Etheridge: Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S. Wales, 1894, ser. 11, vol. ix.
2 Seward: Brit. Mus. Cat., ‘‘ The Wealden Flora,’’ 1894, pt. i, p. 124.
3 McClelland: Rep. Geol. Surv. India, 1849-50, pl. xiii, figs. 10a, 100, 10e, 11.
* Feistmantel: Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, 1876, vol. xlv, p. 360.
5 Seward: Brit. Mus. Cat., ‘‘The Jurassic Flora’’?: I. The Yorkshire Coast,
p- 88; London, 1900.
6 Feistmantel: ibid., p. 80.
Dr. H. Exton—Geology of Ladysmith. 549
best to refer Royle’s type to the genus Cladophlebis, a group of fossil
ferns whose fructification resembles that of recent Polypodiacex,
and of which the best known representative is Cladophlebis denticulata
(Brongt.), from the English Oolite. I have called Royle’s type
Cladophlebis Roylei, as the term Pecopteris Lindleyana was in any
case inadmissible, for it had been earlier applied by Presl to a fern
now known as Coniopteris arguta (L. & H.).1 The nervation in
Cladophlebis and Todites is of the same general type, but the
evidence of the fructification would seem to be strongly in favour
of referring Royle’s plant to the former genus.
PustuLaria CaLpERIANA, Royle.
No scientific description is given by Royle of any of his types.
All the plants he mentions are, however, figured, with the exception
of one which he merely refers to as having been named by him
Pustularia Calderiana.* The rock-specimen with Cladophlebis
Roylei contains several other smaller fragments, and also bears a label
with ‘“ Pustularia Calderiana” in probably Royle’s handwriting.
These specimens are imperfect, and perhaps for this reason were not
figured. They apparently consist of slender branched specimens of
Vertebraria indica, Royle, similar to those figured by Feistmantel.°
As, however, Royle’s plant was neither figured nor described, the
name Pustularia Calderiana has no significance.
IV.—GeoxtocicaL Notes on THE NeIGHsBouRHOOD oF LapysmITH,
Natat. No. 2: On some Travettep Buiocks in THE Ecoa
SHALES.‘
By Dr. H. Exton, F.G.S.
(Communicated by Professor T. Rupert Jones, F.R.S., F.G.S8.)
N both sides of the Klip River running through this district
a shale predominates, varying in colour from greyish-brown
to purple, having a conchoidal fracture, and the features of Ecca
Shale, as described by Dr. Molengraaf (Trans. Geol. Soc. South
Africa, vol. iv, pt. 5, pp. 107-112).
The watercourses and dongas are too shallow to show the base
of the EKcca series, and J have searched for the presence of Dwyka
Conglomerate here without avail.’ In a narrow gorge running into
the Klip River near to this station is a level piece of ground covered
with blocks, which, from the absence of a parent rock and from the
1 Seward: ibid., p. 116.
2 Royle: ibid., p. xxix*.
3 Feistmantel : ibid., vol. iii, pl. xiii, figs. 1, 2.
4 For No. 1 see p. 509.
5 Since Dr. Molengraaf’s memoir on ‘* The Origin of the Dwyka Conglomerate,”’
describing the Ecca Beds as resultants of elacial. action, much attention has been
given to the subject. See the Trans. Geol. Soc. South Africa, 1898, vol. iv,
pp: 108-115; and Nat. Science, 1899, pp. 199-202. In E. J. Dunn’s
Geological Map of South Africa (1887) the Ecca Beds range only up as far as the
Tugela River in Northern Natal. The Ecca Beds described by Dr. Molengraaf are
in the Vr yheid district, just south of Utrecht and west of Zululand.
550 Dr. H. Exton—Geology of Ladysmith.
peculiarity of their disposition, appear to have been travelled
blocks (Locality No. 1). Hach one is more or less encased with
a fine-grained sandstone, like the kernel of an almond in its shell,
which to a certain extent takes the shape of the central mass.
These blocks, lying on the Hcca Shale, are well shown in the
photographs Nos. 1 and 2, for which I am indebted to Captain
Dalgleish, of the Newcastle Field Artillery.
“No. 2” shows an artificial pile of detached blocks, each partially
exhibiting the crust or casing of sandstone. These stones have
evidently been exposed, and possibly rolled from higher ground,
and thus more or less fractured.
“No. 1” (see Fig. 1) shows a block still lying in siti, partially
embedded in the Hcca Shale, size 27 x 19 x 12 inches. The
immediate foreground shows the cutting of a military road, and by
this the portion facing the spectator has been exposed, whilst the
base of the block and the further portion remain embedded in the
shale, as when planted there by natural agencies.
oO,
WS
Me Sul Nyics
he .
YG ar, “ds WS
1), NEN, &, he S*
\ ; a
x ) ax St
9) Pc
Ih) \ fasta So
WT Bx \aeea me
Li) BS Fh Wy
Fic. 1.—One of the encrusted blocks in the Ecca Shale near the Station Hospital,
Ladysmith, Natal.
There is so much that to me is enigmatic in these stones that,
with the stimulus your kindly interest in them has excited, I have
extended my researches, with the result, as mentioned in mine
of May 16th, that I found a similar specimen at Nicholson’s Nek,
four miles due north-east from this station (Locality No. 2), and
on a second visit discovered others having the same characters.
Since then I spent a satisfactory day at Bester’s Farm (Locality No. 3),
behind Waggon Hill, about five miles in a south-west direction
from the Station Hospital (that is, Stationary, in contradistinction
Dr. H. Exton—Geology of Ladysnuth. 551
from Field Hospital). This Bester’s Farm (occupied by a man of
that name) must not be confounded with “ Besters,” a railway station
on the Harrismith line, about 16 miles from Ladysmith.
Following the watercourse (at this season merely a dry donga)
towards the hills a mile and a half away from Bester’s house
I found many of these Olifant Klip’ blocks in siti, embedded in the
blue shale. Some were embedded in the bed of the watercourse,
but others were revealed by projecting from the almost perpendicular
sides of the donga, having ten feet of shale between them and the
surface of the ground. These are absolutely untouched by the
hand of man. A casing of similar sandstone is here also evident ;
but, from moisture during the rainy season, more or less decomposition
has ensued.
A blow with the hammer sufficient to break the crust generally
detaches the same from its contained central mass ; in order, therefore,
that you may have the fullest opportunity of investigation I am
having a small block sawn through by a local mason here, so as
to give a section of the central portion still retaining its part of the
crust above and below. This is from the site of my first find, on
the declivity near the Klip River at this Station Hospital.
The thickness of the portion sliced off is 3 to 5 inches, and the
diameters of its flat face are 163 by 12 inches.
In the same package I have enclosed specimens from the centre
of blocks found by me at Bester’s Farm. These, as far as I can see,
possess the same characters as the specimens sent you by post
at first.
The enquiry as to the source of these blocks becomes more
interesting, and their geological relations more important, since
I am now enabled to prove their presence on or in the Heca Shale
at four different points widely apart.
Mcholson’s Nek
st
Bester’s Farm.
Fig, 2.—Showing the relative position of the four localities in which the travelled
concentric blocks have been found in the Ecca Shales near Ladysmith.
The fourth point is in the Nek between Gun Hill and the
mountain Umbulwana (Locality No. 4). Gun Hill is four miles
east of Ladysmith and 5} from the Hospital Camp. At this Nek
there are eight or ten blocks lying; partially exposed, im siti, on
1 The kernel of these blocks resembles in microscopic structure the so-called
‘Elephant Rock,’ or ‘ Olifant Klip’ of the Transvaal.
552 F. Chapman—The Olifant Klip from Natal, ete.
the Ecca Beds, with central mass and concentric coatings similar
to the others already mentioned.
The occurrence of these peculiar blocks in large numbers, at
places so far apart, points to some extensive physical operations
under which their formation and deposition have taken place.
Mr. Fred. Chapman suggests that these blocks, with a more or
less concentric structure, have been due to sigmoidal folds in crushed
Paleozoic rocks. Their distribution was probably due to ice-action
during the formation of the Keca Shales.
The encrusted blocks and their association with the Eeca Shale
are precisely the same in the four several localities in which J have
now found them.
There can be no question about their being travelled blocks.
I have been over the whole country within a radius of 15 miles
round here, and have failed to find anything approaching the kind
of stone of which the central portion consists. Therefore I] am
certain that I have not met with the rock from which these blocks
were derived, nor, as far as ] am aware, is there any previous mention
of the occurrence in Natal of what I must perforce call ‘dolomite,’
such as the central mass of these encrusted blocks, which is a blue
magnesian limestone, effervescing on application of a mineral acid.
[If the Ecca Beds are really extra-morainic deposits in connection
with the Dwyka Conglomerate, it may be to the latter we have to
look for the immediate source of the blocks, and to far-away southern
regions for the earlier rocks from which they originally came.—
DAR. Jl
V.—Nores on THE OxiFaANtT Kure From NATAL, THE TRANSVAAL,
AND LYDENBURG.
By Freperick Cuapman, A.L.S., F.R.M.S.
(Appendix to Dr. Exton’s paper on the Travelled Blocks in the Kcca Shales near
Ladysmith.)
J.—Specimen from one of the blocks lying on the EHcca Shale
on the declivity near the Klip River at the Station Hospital,
Ladysmith. This is a bluish-grey rock of close texture, with
a flaky and sometimes conchoidal fracture. The broken surface
does not reveal the rock’s internal structure; but on the weathered
surface, which appears as a brown crust, the siliceous strings and
bands passing through the rock stand out in high relief. The
surface effervesces freely when touched with acid.
Under the microscope this rock appears to be a mylonized
siliceous limestone. It was perhaps originally a calcareous sand-
stone ; possibly having organic remains (as shell-fragments), more
or less massive.
The arenaceous part of the rock now appears as brecciated fragments
of sandstone, alternating with contorted and fibrous calcareous
material. The whole structure shows an extraordinary amount
of crushing, and exhibits various stages in the formation of
a cleaved rock. The harder arenaceous portion occurs as strings
of rifted quartzose fragments, once continuous, but now broken
F. Chapman—The Olifant Klip from Natal, ete. 5d3
up and rippled, whilst between the folds, which are often sharp
and V-shaped, the calcareous and other minerals lie in fibrous
bands or intermingled with quartz-grains.
On the margins of the sandstone fragments some dolomite rhombs
may be detected.
This ‘ Olifant Rock’ is not a true dolomite, but a crushed limestone
with much siliceous interstitial matter, and the crushing has given
rise to a pretty ‘rippling’ of the granular portion, such as one
often sees in the Skiddaw Slates and other rocks of a similar nature.
II.—The large block, from near the Hospital, is broken on one
side, and has been sawn across carefully on the other to show its
structure ; and a large portion of the original surface exposed by
weathering is seen on the rest of the specimen. It is evidently
a portion of a sub-lenticular mass, consisting of an inner calcareo-
siliceous material and an outer finer-grained siliceous and limonitic
crust.
The whole block is strongly suggestive of its having been
a lenticular mass, produced by intense folding, which has resulted
in two contiguous, but differently constituted, layers being cut off
in their continuity from the rest of the mass, as may be seen in
certain of the folded Paleozoic rocks of the West of England, where
a series of sigmoidal folds ultimately give rise to a band of separate
lenticles. (See for instance Dr. H. Hicks’ paper on “ Folds and
Faults in the North Devon Rocks,” Grot. Maa., 1893, pp. 3-9,
especially the woodcut at p. 5.)
Fig. 3.—Sigmoidal folding in Devonian Rocks,:east side of Hele Bay, Ilfracombe.
To illustrate the origin of the concentric Olifant Klip blocks.
A. Ordinary sigmoidal fold in limestone.
B. Dumb-bell shaped fold due to pressure and thrust.
C. Isolated fold with crust and core.
D. Crushed and contorted slaty beds.
From a photograph by F. Chapman, 1899.
In explanation of the formation of the travelled and broken
blocks found in the Ecca Shale near Ladysmith, as lenticles, in
contorted Palxozoic strata, which have subsequently been broken out
and then shifted by water or ice-action, the above section is given.
504 FE, Chapman—The Olifant Klip from Natal, ete.
The microscopic structure of the inner portion of this Ladysmith
specimen is seen to be both minutely and coarsely crumpled; whilst
at short intervals the rock is traversed in various directions by
small and interrupted faults. The weathering has brought out
this structure of the internal portion very distinctly ; and therefore
the harder parts, with more silica in their composition, stand in
high relief. ole
The forces which have produced the structures of ‘rippling,’
shearing, thrusting, and faulting in the central part of the mass
have resulted in the formation of coarser vertical faults in the
stronger and more homogeneous siliceous layer which now, probably
through the folding process, forms the outer crust.
III.—A specimen from one of the blocks found in the Ecca Shale
at Bester’s Farm behind Waggon Hill, four miles from Ladysmith.
This is a dark-grey rock, weathering on the dull side to a light-
brown crust, along which harder bands of quartz stand out in
strong relief. These hard bands are thin and almost papery in
structure; and they are not continuous now, but nipped and dis-
connected by the oblique lines of the dynamical compression to
which they have been subjected. The remnants of the siliceous
bands are thus converted into a string of small lenticles.
The microscopic characters are like those of another specimen
(from Ladysmith) above mentioned; that is, a contorted and
mylonized siliceous limestone with much limonite.
IV. Note on a specimen of the Olifant Klip of the Lydenburg
District, from the Collection of Nicol Brown, Esq., F.G.S.— This
specimen shows strong indications of bedding lines, some of which,
in consequence of their being siliceous, stand out in rugged relief.
The rock also shows lines of faulting in a V-shaped manner (trough-
faulis). The surface of the limestone is coarsely hollowed or pitted
(like elephant hide), and is of a dull bluish colour. Cold acid has
no effect on the rock.
in section this rock is seen to be a dolomitic limestone. The
main mass is composed of tesseree of dolomite crystals with a few
idiomorphic ones; that is, with their faces developed, especially
in the clear parts of the section.
Darker patches in the rock, more finely crystalline to granular
in structure, seem to point to former organic inclusions.
V. Note on Olifant Klip from the Sterkfontein Caves near
Johannesburg, in the Transvaal, in Mr. Nicol Brown’s Collection. —
(1) A greenish or slate-coloured argillaceous limestone rock.
Decomposing externally into a brown ochreous crust. Under the
microscope this specimen shows itself to be much crushed, rapidly
on the way to become a micaceous calc-schist. Minute quartz-grains
interspersed through the section. Much limonitic material present.
The apparent lamination seen on the fractured surface is probably
due to cleavage.
(2) A sub-translucent, pale grey rock with oolitic structure.
Composition, a dolomite. Under the microscope the larger pro-
portion of this rock is seen to consist of minute rhombohedra of
Professor E. Hulli—On the Norwegian Fjords. 555
dolomite, whilst some of the oolitic grains have patches of poly-
synthetic quartz, as a mosaic, near their centres. The concentric
layers of the oolite granules seem to be marked out by a thin
coating of graphite.
VI. On the Olifant Klip from Lydenburg and Ladysmith; by
F. Rurtey, F.G.S.—I do not see any ground to doubt that the
rock from the Lydenburg district (see above) is other than what
the label on the section states, namely, a dolomitic limestone. The
prevalent rhombohedral forms, and the absorption of light when the
polarizer alone is turned, suffice, I think, to show that the opinion is
acorrect one. The section of the rock (Olifant Klip) from Ladysmith
is labelled «Crushed calcareous and siliceous rock.” Probably if
you have immersed a chip of the rock in H Cl you found a certain,
but I suppose not very large, residue of insoluble matter. The
section looks like limestone and sandstone crushed together, or very
fine grit. The sand-grains are very small, and cemented by what
I take to be limonite.
The sand-grains do not give satisfactory interference figures, but
in one or two cases they appeared to be positive.
I find that I can make out nothing satisfactory from the small
grains in the darker patches in the Olifant Klip. They do not
give any trustworthy figures in convergent light. I suppose they
are fragments of a fine grit.
VI.—On tue Paystcat Hisrory or tHe NorweGian Fyorps.'
By Prof. Epwarp Hutt, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S.
| Neate the Norwegian fjords were originally river valleys is a
statement which scarcely admits of controversy. In their form,
outline, and topographical position they are simply prolongations of
the valleys which descend into the sea partly submerged ; and if the
land were still further submerged, as it once was to the extent of
200 metres according to Andr. M. Hansen, the fjords would be
prolonged beyond their present inland limits without much variation
of form.
The process of valley erosion by rain and river action is nowhere
in Europe more admirably exemplified than in Western Norway,
and the process may be supposed to have been in operation in the
early formation of the fjord channels themselves before the epoch of
submergence. But when we come to examine the form of the
channels, as shown by the soundings marked on the Admiralty
charts, we find ourselves confronted by the remarkable fact that the
beds of the channels descend to very great depths, far exceeding
those of the outlets where the fjords open out upon the floor of the
North Sea. Now as river valleys must necessarily increase in depth
(in reference to the surface of the sea) from their sources to their
outlets, we are here brought face to face with a physical problem
which apparently is inconsistent with our view of the original
character of these channels as stated above. To the solution of this
problem we must now shortly apply ourselves.
1 Read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Glasgow, Sept., 1901.
596 Professor E. Hull—On the Norwegian Fjords.
2. General form of the fjord-beds. —The numerous soundings
laid down on the Admiralty charts of 1865 and 1886 enable us to
determine with accuracy the form of the submerged portions of the
fjords. Using these soundings, and by their aid laying down the
isobathic contours, we arrive at results sufficiently remarkable. In
the case of the Hardanger, the Feris, the Sogne, the Nord, the
Vartdals, and the Stor Fjords with their branches, we find that
shortly after passing the entrance from the outer sea, and the chain
of islands which fringes the coast of the mainland, they rapidly
descend to great depths, which are continuous for long distances
inland, and then gradually become shallower toward the upper limits,
where they pass into river valleys characterized by terminal moraines
of ancient glaciers, or old sea terraces. In carrying out the mapping
of the contours the author has adopted the following soundings :—
(1) Those of the 100-fathom contour (600 feet).
(2) Sp 200 ) Me sk ania i ae OOsteae)
(3 29 ” 400 39 ” (2,400 feet).
(An 2; 3 000 bo eer orm. (O;000rteeh) =
The floor of the Sogne Fjord descends to even greater depths than
the last of these, viz. 661 fathoms (3,966 feet), which is reached in
the case of this fjord at a distance of about 25 miles from the entrance.
At the entrance itself the depth seldom exceeds 100 fathoms
(600 feet), and is generally less; but once the deep water is reached
there is little change of level for long distances. As regards the
cross-section of the principal fjords, a glance at the charts shows that
they retain the form of narrow channels with little variation in
breadth, receiving tributaries on either hand and bounded by steep
or precipitous walls of rock ; as in the case of the valleys of which
they are only prolongations under the surface of the sea.
3. When endeavouring to account for the peculiar form of the
fjords and the depth of their floors over the central portions we must
not forget that these old river valleys were the channels of great
glaciers during the post-Pliocene or Glacial period, and that glacial
erosion has contributed to the deepening process. Some Norwegian
geologists, such as Hansen,' attribute the great disparity of the depth
of the fjords at the inner and outer stages of their course to this
deepening of the original channels by glacier erosion on the one
hand, and to the piling up of enormous masses of moraine matter at
the entrance onthe other. To the latter cause the author fully assents ;
but he is doubtful whether glacier erosion has had the effect of adding
many hundreds of feet to the depth of the original floor of the valleys.
But leaving this question, we have to consider a second problem:
namely, by what means did the original rivers empty themselves
into the ocean before the Glacial period, when there was neither
deepening of the floor by glacial erosion nor shallowing by moraine
matter? Previous to the Glacial epoch the rivers must, in the
1 “Norway,”’ edited by Dr. Sten Konow and Karl Fischer, May, 1900. Translated
by J. C. Christie and Miss Muir, and others.
Professor E. Hull—On the Norwegian Fjords. O07
author’s view, have entered the Arctic Ocean through channels which
cannot now be clearly traced by soundings over the shallow floor of
the North Sea. At the same time it is certain that it was by such
channels that they reached their ultimate destination in the Arctic
Ocean, because rivers as they flow seawards must necessarily descend
to lower levels. This being so, it follows that the channels do
actually exist, though they may not be traceable by the soundings
over the flow of the comparatively shallow North Sea; and we have
now to consider why it is that they are untraceable.
The cause appears to be closely connected with the subsequent
submergence in later or post-Glacial times, as indicated by the raised
beaches and terraces." During this epoch the glaciers had only
partially disappeared or receded from the lower valleys. Great
quantities of mud, sand, gravel, and boulders would thus be carried
down by the streams and distributed by floating ice over the sea-bed.
By such material the whole floor of the North Sea has been overspread
to unknown depths, and owing to the agency of tides and currents
may have been swept into the deep channels of the pre-existing
rivers. ‘The author is convinced that, were it possible to strip the
floor of. the North Sea of its sedimentary covering, these channels
would be found traversing the floor of the continental platform, and
ultimately opening out by cajion-like channels on the floor of the
Arctic Ocean.
The phenomena here observed, or inferred, have their representa-
tives along the coasts of the British Isles and Western Europe. In
both cases there is the shallow continental platform, terminating in
a deep and rapid descent to the floor of the abyssal ocean, and
traversed by channels of ancient rivers traceable by the soundings
in the case of Western Hurope, or inferential in the case of Western
Scandinavia. Ina few cases these channels are for short distances
clearly indicated on the charts; as, for example, in the case of the
Bredsund Dybet, which is a prolongation of the Stor Fjord out to
sea, between the islands of Godo and Harejdo in lat. 62° 30’, with
a general depth of 100 fathoms below the adjoining floor of the sea ;
and there are a few other similar cases.
Outline of the physical history of the fjords.—As connected with
the past history of the Norwegian fjords the following appear to be
the most important stages :—
1st (Harliest) Period.—Continental conditions; Archean rocks ;
river erosion begins.
2nd Period.—Partial submergence in early Silurian times.
3rd Period.—Elevation of land during Mesozoic and Tertiary
periods ; further deepening of river channels.
4th Period.— Quaternary. Early Glacial ; great elevation of land
and ultimate extension of snowfields and glaciers. Ice filling the
valleys and moving out to sea.
1 According to Professor Reusch the terraces with marine shells reach an elevation
of about 200 metres (656 feet) in the Trondhjem district; but the author during
a recent visit was unable to observe any higher than 250 feet south of this position.
558 W. Ackroyd—Circulation of Salt.
5th Period.— Quaternary. Post-Glacial; subsidence and partial
submergence of land; retreat of the glaciers. Icebergs and rafts
of ice covering the adjoining sea. Amelioration of climate.
6th Period. — Recent. Re-elevation to approximately present
position with regard to the outer ocean. Formation of raised
beaches (strand linien) during the progress of emergence.
The paper concluded with a comparison between the above
physical features as they occur in Norway with those of Scotland.
VII.—On tre Circunation or Sart 1n 17s RELations To GEOLOGY.
By Witu1am Ackroyp, F.J.C., F.C.S., Public Analyst for Halifax.
wrong impression is given by the question: ‘“ Why will
Mr. Ackroyd not have the 19 rivers?” (Grou. Mae.,
November, 1901, p. 505). The data collected by Sir John Murray
are admirable additions to our natural knowledge, and they are used
in my last article (Guox. Mac., October, 1901, p. 448), but I contend
that they are not available for use in the expression—
Sodium in the sea.
= the age of the Earth ;
Sodium annually delivered into
the sea by rivers.
and I cannot accept either the minor or major limits of time arrived
at in this way. Perhaps a few more lines are necessary to further
amplify my reasons.
The 19 rivers contain the following compounds, among others, in
tons per cubic mile of water: calcium and magnesium carbonates,
439,580; sodium sulphate, 31,805; sodium nitrate, 26,800; and
common salt, 16,657. One may take the following views of these
data and of river water generally in so far as they affect the
denominator of the fraction :—
The Nitrate.—The succession of events in the process of nitri-
fication is well known to chemists from the genesis of ammonia
and carbonic acid to the final production of ammonium nitrate.
The theory is further held that when the ammonium nitrate is
changed to sodium nitrate it is by interaction with sodium chloride,
and that the latter is of marine origin. This last idea is strongly
supported by the composition of the caliche of the South American
nitrate industry. The inference is plainly that the sodium in
sodium nitrate is cyclic, and no more available in this calculation
of the age of the Earth than Triassic salt. Professor Joly makes no
allowance for it, nor indeed any mention of it.
The Common Salt.—I will not reiterate my arguments concerning
the part of this compound which is cyclic of short period, as
I have sufficiently indicated their nature in my last article. But
under this heading the calcium and magnesium carbonates certainly
demand attention. These carbonates carry with them on the
average probably not less than -01 per cent. of combined chlorine
(p. 447), which, as anyone who knows anything of analysis will
Notices of Memoirs—Prof. Beecher—Cambrian Fossils. 559
understand, is included under the head of chlorides, and calculated
into common salt would furnish 43 per cent. of the 16,657 tons.
It is cyclic of long period, and not available for Professor Joly’s
calculation.
Fluctuations.— An inverse relation undoubtedly exists between
the soluble contents of a river (including, of course, sodium
compounds) and the amount of water in it in Summer and Winter.
In all the great rivers subject to flood the variation must be
enormous; in the case of the Nile it amounts to 400 per cent.
As far as I can learn, these fluctuations have not been taken into
account.
Coming once more to the numerator: Mysteries hang over it.
The composition of the sea is not what one would expect with the
precise conditions of solvent denudation required by Professor Joly’s
speculations. For instance, one looks for huge proportions of nitrate
in it ; sea analyses show practically none. Again, the chlorine in it
multiplied by a known factor is a measure of its sodium contents,
but the same factor does not apply to average river water. These
are not matters of opinion but of fact. What becomes, then, of
Dr. Joly’s ‘constancy in the nature and rate of solvent actions
going on over the land surfaces” (Trans. Roy. Soc. Dublin, ser. 11,
vol. vii, p. 24) ?
Too much space and time would be required for me to deal with
the second half of Professor Joly’s November article. I may,
however, be permitted to observe that he appears to me to tilt at
an irrefragable law of solution, and then only saves his lance from
being utterly shattered by an adroit swerve.
NOt? ken SS) Oe VEaVE@ ar Se
—— ——~<>—__-
I.—Nore on THE CamBRIAN Fossiius oF St. Francois County,
Missouri. By Professor C. HK. Brxcuer.'
TQ\HE small collection of fossils submitted to the writer by F. L.
Nason, for identification, is interesting, especially as it determines
the geological horizon of an extensive series of limestones, sandstones,
conglomerates, etc., in south-eastern Missouri, the age of which has
hitherto been somewhat in doubt. Also, since these strata are
intimately associated with the lead-bearing rocks of this region, the
identification has considerable economic value.
It is stated by Arthur Winslow, in a paper on “ The Disseminated
Lead Ores of South-Eastern Missouri” * (p. 11), that although these
rocks are placed in the Lower Silurian ‘‘ The possibility still remains
that there may be a faunal break which will admit of some of the
lower strata being classed as Cambrian, though there is nothing in
1 Reprinted from Silliman’s American Journal of Science for November, 1901,
pp. 362-366.
2 Bulletin No. 132 of the United States Geological Survey, 1896.
560 Notices of Memoirs—Prof. Beecher —Cambrian Fossils.
the stratigraphy to suggest it. This must, therefore, be left to the
paleontologists, and owing to the dearth of fossils the problem is
not an easy one for them to solve.” In volume ix of the Missouri
Geological Survey (pt. iv, p. 52, Keyes, 1895) the Fredericktown
dolomite (=St. Joseph limestone) is referred to the Upper Cambrian
on account of the presence of Lingulella Lamborni (Meek), but since
this species is peculiar to the horizon, and the genus has a much
wider range, this correlation is not established. A general statement
is made by Keyes regarding this region (lc., p. 44) that “No strata
younger than the Cambrian are believed to be represented. But
few fossils have been found in the rocks of the area, so that the
faunal evidence as to geological age is somewhat meagre.” The
present collection of fossils, made by Mr. Nason, indicates that the
entire series is older than the Lower Silurian (Ordovician), and that
at least the upper portion probably belongs to the Upper Cambrian.
All but one species of the fossils were obtained from the lower
members of the Potosi limestones, and since this is the topmost
formation of this region its correlation is of the first importance.
The fossils occur abundantly in the limestone and conglomerate
beds, and more sparsely in the sandstones. They consist chiefly
of fragments of trilobites, with a few brachiopods and other forms.
Lithologically, there is a very close resemblance between these
fossil-bearing beds and those of a similar horizon in the Black Hills
of South Dakota. Limestones, limestone conglomerates, and sand-
stones of the same appearance are found in both sections. Faunally,
there is a suggestion of affinity with the Potsdam fauna of Wisconsin
and Texas. A careful comparison, however, reveals that these
resemblances are more general than specific, and that the species
seem to be distinct. Nevertheless, the facies of this fauna seems
to indicate Upper Cambrian, though further studies with additional
material may show it to belong to the middle member.
Owing tothe small number of specimens in the present collection,
the number of species is necessarily limited. It will doubtless be
considerably increased by future collections. Among the trilobites
the genera Ptychoparia, Ptychaspis, Chariocephalus, and Crepicephalus
are more or less clearly identifiable. A species of Chariocephalus
closely agrees with the C. onustus of Whitfield.
The species of brachiopods seem to be fairly abundant, especially
an orthoid shell resembling in some respects Billingsella. It occurs
in the shaly partings between the layers of limestone. A species
of Acrotreta and Lingulella are common both in the limestones and
arenaceous beds.
Hypolithes primordialis, Hall, and a small species of Platyceras also
occur in the limestones, together with segments of cystidean or
crinoidal columns.
Abundant remains of a linguloid shell are found on the lower,
or La Motte, sandstones constituting the basal member of the clastic
rocks of the section. Making allowances for different conditions
of preservation, this species may be identified with the Zingulella
Lamborni of Meek, which occurs in some green shales of the same
Notices of Memoirs—Prof. Beecher—Eurypterus in Cambrian. 561
age in Madison County, a little further south. In the absence of
other evidence the diagnostic value of this brachiopod is very slight,
and it is impossible to say whether the Bonne Terre, or St. Joseph,
limestones and the La Motte sandstones represent Lower Cambrian
terranes or whether they with the Potosi all belong to the Middle
or Upper Cambrian.
The important point of this correlation is that, upon paleontological
evidence which has hitherto been largely wanting, an extensive area
and thickness of sedimentary rocks ate definitely placed in the
Cambrian.
IJ.—Discovery or Evuryprertp REMAINS IN THE CAMBRIAN OF
Missouri. With an Illustration. By Prof. C. E. Brxcurr.
HE wonderful development of Merostomes in various parts of
the world at about the close of the Silurian has long been
recognized, and the suddenness of their appearance out of an
apparently clear Paleozoic sky has been a matter of considerable
speculation. Almost at the same instant of time there appeared on
the geologic horizon a marvellous assemblage of these ancient
arthropods. A very few scattering forerunners are known from
older rocks, but most of them are small and strange creatures, little
resembling the characteristic Hurypterus and Pterygotus of the Upper
Silurian, and in fact belonging to other orders than the Merostomata.
In North America the known genera and species of the order
Kurypterida belong almost exclusively to the Waterlime group
(Rondout) above the Salina beds. Dr. John M. Clarke’ has
recently announced the discovery, by Mr. C. J. Sarle, of a new
Kurypterid fauna at the base of the Salina, which carries this peculiar
biologic facies one comparatively brief stage further back. Evidences
of still older forms are very meagre. A single species of Eurypterus
(Z. prominens, Hall) is referred to the Clinton beds of the Silurian
with considerable doubt. The next indication of a greater antiquity
of this order consists of a fragment of an abdominal segment and
a single jointed limb, from the Utica slate of New York, described
by C. D. Walcott * as Echinognathus Clevelandi.
It is therefore of considerable interest and importance that a new
and much older horizon for the Kurypterida can now be chronicled.
Mr. Arthur Thacher, President of the Central Lead Company
of Missouri, formerly a professor in Washington University, found
a nearly entire specimen of a new Eurypterid in the Potosi limestone
of St. Francois County, and through his generosity and the kindly
interest of Mr. Frank L. Nason the specimen was transmitted to
the Yale University Museum. Owing to the supposed scarcity of
fossils in the Potosi and St. Joseph terranes of Missouri, their
1 Notes on Paleozoic Crustaceans. N.Y. State Museum, Report of the State
Paleontologist for 1900. 1901.
2 Description of a new genus of the Order Eurypterida from the Utica Slate.
Silliman’s Journal (8), vol. xxiii, 1882.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. XII. 36
562 Notices of Memoirs—
correlation was long a matter of uncertainty, until Mr. Nason
described certain horizons bearing an abundant and characteristic
Cambrian fauna.
The specimen here described at once suggests the familiar and
well-known genus Eurypterus, and only when its characters are
studied in connection with its geological occurrence is it apparent
that its differences are of sufficient importance to warrant its generic
separation. The specimen represents nearly the entire dorsal test
of the animal, and consists of the cephalothorax with the abdominal
segments, including the telson or tail-spine.
= tii Ly) ~ SN
EEE
HENNE) Oi
Sa
N
Strabops Thacheri, Beecher.—Dorsal aspect of type-specimen, +. Potosi Limestone
(Cambrian): St. Francois County, Missouri. Original in Yale University
useum.
The cephalothorax is comparatively shorter and wider than in
Eurypterus, the eyes are further forward, nearer together, and more
oblique, and besides the telson but eleven abdominal somites can
be determined on the dorsal side, instead of twelve as in Hurypterus.
Professor C. E. Beecher—Eurypterus in the Cambrian. 563
These differences are considered as indicative of a new genus, and
it is proposed to recognize this type under the name Strabops, nov.
gen., with Strabops Thacheri, n.sp., as the type species. The generic
name is in allusion to the inward turning or squinting of the eyes
(ozpaBos ‘squinting ’ and dys ‘ face’).
Doubtless many generic differences will appear when the
appendages of this type are obtained. The differences in the
characters available for ‘comparison are quite as great as between
Eurypterus and Dolichopterus, Stylonurus, Anthraconectes, or
Husarcus. This, taken with the fact that practically all the
Cambrian genera, especially the more highly organized types,
became extinct long before the Upper Silurian, lend support to
the conclusion that Strabops is generically distinct from any hitherto
known form.
Srrapors THACHER, gen. et sp. nov.
Body broadly ovate in general outline exclusive of the telson,
slightly convex in the specimen, though probably quite arched both
transversely and longitudinally in life, as indicated by the outline
of the separate segments.
Cephalothoraxy short and broad, length less than one-half the
width, anterior and lateral margins regularly rounded, posterior
margin gently curved in the middle and turning obliquely forward
toward the genal extremities, which are obtusely angular.
Eyes medium-sized, ovate, narrow ends pointing obliquely inward,
situated in the middle of the anterior half of the cephalothorax,
distant about the length of one eye, connected anteriorly by a distinct
arched line or fold. The eye tubercles are mostly exfoliated, and
their convexity and surface cannot be determined. Ocelli indicated
by two spots midway between the eyes.
Abdomen. The dorsal side shows eleven segments exclusive
of the telson. The axis in the specimen is slightly convex, and
slopes off into the nearly flat pleural region without any line of
demarkation. The greatest width is across the third segment. The
extremities of the segments are rounded anteriorly and on the sides,
and terminate behind as a simple angulation. The first six segments
are quite uniform in length, while the three following are somewhat
shorter, and the last two are a little longer.
Telson a broad flat spine, obtusely elevated along the middle.
Surface smooth, with an indication of a row of minute crenulations
or scale-like markings near the posterior edge of each segment.
Dimensions.—Greatest length of specimen 110mm., length ex-
clusive of telson 82 mm.; greatest width, allowing for compression
on left side, 60mm.; length of cephalothorax 20mm., width
49 mm.; greatest width of telson 17 mm.
Formation and locality.—From the lower members of the Potosi
limestone, Flat River, St. Francois County, Missouri.
The only known genus of merostomes besides Sérabops occurring
in the Cambrian is Aglaspis, Hall, represented by two species
(A. Barrandi and £. Eatoni, Whitf.). But since Aglaspis belongs
564 Notices of Memoirs—Seward & Ford—Anatomy of Todea.
to the order Synxiphosura, it leaves Strabops as the present sole
representative of the Hurypterida.'
IlI.—On tHe Anatomy or YJopr4a, with an ACCOUNT OF THE
GeronocicaL History or Osmunpacem. By A. C. Sewarp,
F.R.S., and Miss Sypittz O. Forp.?
HE anatomical structure of the genus Osmunda has been dealt
with by several writers, and more particularly by Zanetti in
an able paper published in the Botanische Zeitung for 1895, but
the other genus of the Osmundacez has not received equal attention
at the hands of anatomists. Our work, which was undertaken with
a view to discover in what respects Todea differs from Osmunda,
includes the examination of Todea barbara and T. superba, as well as
the investigation of series of microtome sections of young plants.
The family Osmundacez is usually regarded as to some extent
intermediate between the Husporangiate and Leptosporangiate ferns,
and in many respects the two genera Osmunda and Todea are of
interest in regard to the phylogeny of the various divisions of the
Filicine.
The stem of Todea barbara is traversed by a single stele composed
of xylem groups surrounding a central pith and separated from one
another by medullary rays: these groups vary considerably in shape
and number at different levels. There may be as few as two or as
many as eight xylem strands in one transverse section of the stem,
while in Osmunda regalis the number is considerably greater. The
xylem strands are surrounded by parenchyma, and the sieve-tube
zone occupies the same position as in Osmunda. This zone, which
is continuous in O. regalis, is occasionally discontinuous in Todea
opposite some of the xylem strands. The comparatively large
sieve-tubes occur in triangular patches at the outer end of each
medullary ray. A characteristic band of tangentially elongated
elements succeeds the sieve-tube zone, and this is followed externally
by a parenchymatous band, the outermost layer of which constitutes
the endodermis. The paper deals with the phyllotaxis of Todea
barbara, the origin of the leaf-traces, and the gradual alteration in
structure which the collateral leaf-trace undergoes as it passes out
from the stele of the stem as a horseshoe-shaped strand with one
protoxylem group, and gradually assumes the form of the broadly
U-shaped concentric stele of the petiole with its numerous proto-
xylem groups. The anatomy of ‘seedling’ plants of Todea is
found to agree with that of Osmunda regalis plantlets as described
by Leclerc du Sablon. As bearing on the questions of relative
1 Although Aglaspis was compared with Limulus by Professor Hall, and its
affinities were distinctly stated as with the Merostomata, yet most subsequent
writers have overlooked its true relationships and have included it in their lists
of trilobite genera. The family named Aglaspidie was first employed in 1877 by
S. A. Miller in ‘‘The American Paleozoic Fossils,’’ p. 208, and the restoration
of the family to the Merostomata was first made by the writer in a paper entitled
‘‘Outline of a Natural Classification of the Trilobites’’ (Silliman’s Journal (4),
vol. iii, p. 182, 1897).
2 Read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Glasgow, Sept., 1901.
Notices of Memoirs—A. M. Bell—Plants and Insects, Oxon. 5665
antiquity and phylogeny of the members of the Filices, we have
endeavoured to give an account of the geological history of the
Osmundacez.
ITV.—Purants anpD CoLEOPTERA FROM A Deposit or PLEISTOCENE AGE
AT Wotvercote, OxrorDsHIRE. By A. M. Bett, M.A., F.G.S.)
LANT remains of Pleistocene time are of great rarity in England.
The two most important series which have been described are
from Hoxne, in Suffolk, obtained by Mr. Clement Reid, F.R.S., and
Mr. H. N. Ridley (Guoz. Mac., 1888, p. 441), and from North
London by Mr. Worthington G. Smith.
There is in these remains a singular difference. Of twenty-eight
plants obtained at Hoxne three are Arctic (Salix polaris and myrsi-
nites, Betula nana) ; seventeen range to the Arctic Circle. At Stoke
Newington, on the contrary, Mr. W. J. Smith obtained the elm, the
chestnut, clematis, and perhaps the vine. Only three out of eleven
plants reach the Arctic Circle. The pine, the alder, birch, and yew,
with the royal fern, were more in harmony with the present and the
past floras. In the author’s opinion the Stoke Newington flora
represents a much later age of Pleistocene time than the Hoxne
flora. The conditions were continental, and the flora of the south
was gaining, while the Arctic flora was disappearing.
The plants as yet identified, by the kindness of Mr. Clement Reid,
from Wolvercote resemble those found at Stoke Newington more
than those at Hoxne. This is in harmony with the writer’s view
that the Wolvercote deposit is of late Pleistocene age, nearer to the
Stoke Newington than to the Hoxne deposit.
Highteen plants obtained by the author are given. All of them
are found in Oxfordshire to-day. Hight only have an extension to
the Arctic Circle. Four mosses have been obtained, one of which
is certainly recent. A considerable number of the wing-cases of
beetles have also been found. These are difficult to identify, but
the genus of one, remarkable by its rows of hairs, has been named
by Mr. Waterhouse, of the Natural History Department of the
British Museum. Only one of the genus is now found in England,
and that is different from the Wolvercote species. On the other
hand the genus is common on the Continent.
These facts, coupled with those from Stoke Newington, tend to
the conclusion that in late Pleistocene time the climate of the
Thames Valley was more continental than it is at present.
Y.— Recent Discovertrers in Arran Geronocy. By WIiLLiaAm
Gunn, of H.M. Geological Survey of Scotland.’
(Communicated with the permission of the Director of the Geological Survey.)
N the last ten years very important additions have been made to
our knowledge of the geology of Arran both in the aqueous and
in the igneous rocks of the island.
Among the older rocks a series of dark schists and cherts has been
discovered in North Glen Sannox. They are probably of Arenig
1 Read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Glasgow, Sept., 1901.
566 Notices of Memoirs—Wm. Gunn—Geology of Arran.
age, though no organic remains have been found in them, are closely
related to the rocks of Ballantrae in Ayrshire, and similar beds
occur in various places along the Highland border, where they have
been described by Messrs. Barrow and Clough. In the Isle of Arran
these rocks are intimately connected with the Highland schists.
The Old Red Sandstone of Arran has been found to comprise two
subdivisions, and in North Glen Sannox the upper division lies
unconformably on the lower. This formation is not confined to the
ground north of the String road, as generally supposed, but extends
in places three miles to the south of that road, being well developed
in the Clachan Glen, where it is much metamorphosed by intrusive
igneous rocks. No fossils have been found in the Old Red Sandstone
of Arran except Psilophyton princeps, specimens of which have been
obtained from the lower division in Glen Shurig.
The Carboniferous formation, fine sections of which occur on the
shore at Corrie and at Laggan, is now known to occupy but a small
portion of the area of the island. Near Brodick Castle and in Glen
Shurig its width of outcrop is not much more than 200 yards, and it
does not reach the western shore, being overlapped in the interior
by unconformable beds of New Red Sandstone. Beds probably of
Coal-measure age with characteristic Upper Carboniferous fossils
have been recognized at Sliddery Water Head, Corrie, The Cock,
and in various other places, but these have no great thickness and
contain no seams of coal. They represent apparently the basement
beds of the Coal-measures.
The stratified rocks of the southern part of the island, consisting
of red sandstones, conglomerates, and marls, have been proved to
repose unconformably on the Carboniferous formation, and in places
they contain derived pebbles with Carboniferous fossils. All the
evidence points to their being of Triassic age, and they may easily
be divided into two series, the lower of which probably represents
the Bunter Sandstone and the upper the Keuper marls. These
Triassic rocks occupy the whole of the coast from Corrie southwards,
around the south end of the island, and the west coast up to Machrie
Bay, where they appear to lie conformably on the Old Red Sandstone.
They also form a small area in the north-eastern part of the island
near The Cock.
That still more recent formations once existed in the island,
whence they have been removed by denudation, is proved by the
presence of fragments of Rhetic, Liassic, and Cretaceous rocks in
a large volcanic vent which is probably of Tertiary age. These
fragments occur on the western side of the island in the district of
Shisken, on the slopes of Ard Bheinn, and they have yielded a con-
siderable number of characteristic fossils which have been examined
and determined by Mr. E. T. Newton.
Some of the most important of the discoveries are those connected
with the old volcanic rocks of the island. A series of interbedded
lavas and tuffs is found in North Glen Sannox associated with
the schists and cherts previously mentioned. Like them they are
probably of Arenig age, and closely related to similar rocks at
Notices of Memoirs—P. Macnair—Schists of S. Highlands. 567
Ballantrae in Ayrshire. Two distinct volcanic platforms have been
found in the Old Red Sandstone of the island. One set of basic
lavas is intercalated in the lower division on the west side of the
island, and another occurs in the upper division of the North Glen
Sannox. In addition to the volcanic series previously known in the
Lower Carboniferous rocks two others have been discovered in the
upper part of the formation. That the island was the seat of volcanic
activity in times still more recent is proved by the recognition of
a large volcanic vent in the Shiskin district, which must be of
post-Cretaceous age, as shown by some of the fragments it includes.
From these facts we conclude that the island has been the scene of
volcanic action at no less than seven different periods.
Much has also been learned with regard to the distribution and
age of the various intrusive igneous rocks. 'T'wo masses of a some-
what intermediate character found in Glen Rosie and in Glen Sannox
are probably of Old Red Sandstone age, but nearly the whole of the
varied igneous rocks of the island must now be assigned to the
Tertiary period, not excepting the well-known granite mass of
the northern part of the island. The finer granite which occupies
the interior of the nucleus has a tortuous boundary. It is clearly
intrusive in the coarse granite which surrounds it, but both belong
practically to the same period, as they have one and the same system
of jointing.
The ring of granite, granophyre, and quartz diorite which sur-
rounds the large volcanic vent was previously little known, and
the other numerous and varied intrusive masses, both acid and
basic, which occur in the island were but poorly represented on
existing maps.
VI.—On tHe CrystTALLiIne Scuists oF THE SouTHERN HIGHLANDS;
THEIR PHysicAL STRUCTURE AND PROBABLE MANNER OF
Devetopment. By Prerer Maonair.'
'T\HE area under notice is defined as that lying immediately to the
north-west of the great boundary fault which crosses Scotland
from the Firth of Clyde to Stonehaven. An account is then given
of the various opinions that have been held concerning the structure
of this region since the time of Macculloch up to the present day.
The author then proceeds to show that the schist zones traverse this
region in roughly parallel bands, and described a series of sections
at right angles to the strike of the principal foliation of the area.
The following is a summary of the author’s conclusions regarding
the stratigraphy, physical structure, and the manner of development
in this part of the Scottish Highlands :—
1. The sedimentary schists of the Highlands proceeding from the
margin inwards may be divided into the following zones :—Lower
Argillaceous zone, Lower Arenaceous zone, Loch Tay Limestone
zone, Garnetiferous Schist zone, Upper Argillaceous zone, Upper
Arenaceous zone. Associated with these are schists of igneous
1 Read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Glasgow, Sept., 1901.
568 Notices of Memoirs—
origin. It is probable that these zones are capable of still further
subdivision, but this is not attempted as yet.
2. From an examination of the relationships of these different
zones, the order as given above appears to be an ascending one,
proceeding from the margin inwards, the well-marked zone known
as the Loch Tay Limestone forming a sort of datum-line, from which
one can recognize the positions of the lower and upper schists.
3. It is supposed that the movements which plicated the rocks of
the Highlands were directed from the centre outwards, or from the
north-west towards the south-east. This is shown by the fact that
where the bedding can be traced the overfolding is generally
towards the south-east. Also the foliation, where it has been
observed, faces in the same direction.
4. In the eastern part of the region we suppose that the beds
have been folded into a series of isoclines facing the south-east, and
that foliation has been developed roughly parallel to the axes of
the folds in the bedding, thus making the foliation appear to be
roughly coincident with the original planes of stratification. At
Comrie, in Perthshire, the axes of the isoclines in the bedding are
nearly vertical, but with a slight hade towards the north-west. The
axes of the isoclines get gradually lower and lower as we proceed
towards Loch Tay. In the same way the foliation planes are nearly
vertical along the frontier, but get flatter and flatter as we proceed
northwards.
d. In tracing these rocks towards the south-west an increasing
crumpling and folding of the foliation planes, accompanied by more
intense metamorphism, is seen to take place: this is made evident
in approaching the shores of Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond, but it
seems to have reached its maximum in Cowal.
6. In Cowal, along the Firth of Clyde, the position of the foliation
planes has been reversed, now dipping towards the south-east.
Between the Firth of Clyde and Loch Fyne the foliation planes
have been much crumpled, and still later divisional planes have
been developed in them, this being a region of the most intense
metamorphism.
VII.—Tuz Source or Warr in tHe Humser. By W. H.
Wueeter, M.Inst. C.H.!
[° has frequently been stated that the mud or warp in suspension
in the Humber is derived from the erosion of the cliffs on the
Yorkshire coast, and the object of the paper is to show that it is
physically impossible for the detritus eroded from those cliffs to be
carried into the Humber, and that the material in suspension in the
water is derived from detritus washed off the land drained by
the Humber and its tributaries or eroded from their banks. The
drainage basin of the Humber covers 10,500 square miles, and
embraces strata of various kinds of rocks, including estuarine
deposits, glacial drifts, chalk, sandstone, and oolites.
The water in the zone extending around the junction of the Trent
* Read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Glasgow, Sept., 1901.
W. H. Wheeler—The Warp of the Humber. 569
and the Ouse with the Humber, extending over a length of thirty-
five miles, is very highly charged with solid matter in suspension,
the maximum quantity being attained in the Summer, when the
downward flow of the fresh water is at a minimum, the quantity
then in suspension amounting to as much as 2,240 grains, or nearly
the third in a cubic foot of water. Above and below this zone the
quantity diminishes to 262 grains up the river Trent and 202 grains
near the Albert Dock at Hull, while off Spurn, at the entrance to
the river, there is no mud in suspension, but only a few grains
of clean sand. The floor of the North Sea at the entrance is covered
with clean sand and shells, the beach up to Grimsby also being
covered with sand.
The solid matter in suspension is derived from the detritus washed
off the land and poured into the river when freshets occur, or from
the erosion of the banks of the river and its tributaries. The greater
quantity that prevails in the more turbid zone is due to the material
being kept in a state of oscillation by the ebb and flow of the tides
when the quantity of fresh water flowing down is not sufficient to
carry it out to sea.
The average quantity of solid matter contained in thirteen other
English rivers when in flood is 200 grains in a cubic foot. The
average rainfall within the watershed of the Humber is 29-60 inches,
of which 10 inches may be taken as the quantity due to such rains
as produce freshets. With these figures the normal total quantity
of solid matter placed in suspension in floods may be put at three
million tons in a year. A portion of this is carried out to sea
in heavy freshets, and the rest remains in the river in a state of
oscillation.
The tendency in all rivers, whether fresh or tidal, is for material
to work downward under the laws of gravity. The same quantity
of tidal water that flows into the river has to flow out again, but
its capacity for transporting material downwards is reinforced by
the discharge of the fresh water.
The flood current in the Humber runs at the rate of four miles
an hour, and its duration varies from six hours at Spurn to two and
a half at Goole. It may be taken, therefore, that a particle of
solid matter entering the Humber at Spurn Point wouid not be
carried by the flood tide more than 20 miles up the river, or 25 miles
below the point where the greatest amount of solid matter is held
in suspension. On the turn of the tide it would be carried back
again. Allowing for the greater time the ebb current is running
above the junction of the rivers as compared with the flood, the
material carried down on the ebb is 73 per cent. greater than that
carried up on the flood.
Taking the length of the Holderness Cliffs as 34 miles, the
average height at 12 yards, and the mean annual loss at 24 yards,
the mean quantity falling on the beach is about 1} million cubic
yards a year, of which about 40 per cent. consists of stones, gravel,
and coarse sand, leaving less than a million cubic yards to be
washed away. ‘The foot of the cliffs is only reached for about four
570 ~=©Notices of Memoirs—R. L. Jack—Artesian Water.
hours at high-water of springs, that is, by 260 tides in a year,
the average quantity of alluvial matter for each tide being 3,728
cubic yards.
The drift of the tidal current towards the Humber lasts 34 hours,
and runs at a velocity of 24 miles an hour; the greatest distance
a particle of solid matter put in suspension at the point of mean
distance, 20 miles from the Humber, could be carried southward
is 83 miles; when this distance is reached the tide would turn and
the particle would be carried northward for 16 miles, or 28 miles.
away from the Humber.
It is, however, quite improbable that a particle of matter placed
in suspension at the foot of the cliffs could ever reach the main
current going to the Humber. Owing to the Yorkshire coast being
in an embayment the main tidal current does not approach nearer
the coast than the 6-fathom line, or a mile away from the coast.
The current of the flowing tide sets into the embayment towards
the coast. Even if a particle from the cliffs could overcome this
shoreward set and traverse the water contained in this mile of water
in an opposite direction, so as to be brought into the main southerly-
going current, the quantity of solid matter brought into suspension
would only be sufficient to supply one grain to 14,000 cubic feet
of water.
It is evident from the above facts that it is not possible for the
detritus from the Yorkshire coast to reach, much more to be carried
_ up, the Humber.
VIII.— Tue Arrestan WATER IN THE STATE OF QUEENSLAND,
Ausrratia. By R. Logan Jaox, LL.D., F.G.S."
HE western interior of Queensland is a vast area of magnificent
pastoral country, but is not endowed with a sufficient rainfall.
In 1881 the author had reason to suspect that the Cretaceous rocks of
the Western Downs afforded conditions favourable for the discovery
of artesian water. Subsequently, in 1885, the author (then Govern-
ment Geologist) and Mr. J. B. Henderson, hydraulic engineer, made
a study of the area, and an experimental bore was put down which
proved a success.
From Mr. Henderson’s annual report for 1899-1900 it appears
that up to June, 1900, 185 miles of boring had been made in search
of artesian water in the district, and a large proportion of the bores
have been successful; and though the artesian water does not fully
compensate for the lack of rain, still the bores have already produced
an important change in the conditions of life in the interior.
The greater part of the western interior of Queensland is composed
of soft strata of Lower Cretaceous age, consisting of clay-shales,
limestones, and sandstones. These strata are so disposed that the
lower members of the series crop out on the western flanks of the
coast range, where not only is the elevation of the surface greater
than in the downs to the west, but the rainfall is also comparatively
abundant.
' Read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Glasgow, Sept., 1901.
Reviews—Charles Rabot—Length of Arctic Glaciers. 571
Along the eastern margin of the Cretaceous area there is a porous
sandstone of great thickness, the ‘Blythesdale Braystone,’ and owing
to low dip the outcrop of this permeable stratum occupies a belt
from five to twenty-five miles wide; but the Braystone finally
disappears beneath the argillaceous and calcareous upper members
of the series which forms the surface of the downs to the west.
Several rivers disappear while crossing the outcrop of the Braystone,
and the water must be carried in it beneath the clay-shales of
the downs.
The outcrop of the Braystone is concealed over part of the area
by nearly horizontal tablelands of the ‘Desert Sandstone,’ an upper
member of the Cretaceous formation lying unconformably on the
lower divisions. It is, however, also of a permeable nature. The
author gives an estimate of the water which should penetrate the
Braystone, and suggests the probability that much of it finds an
outlet under the sea in the Great Australian Bight and the Gulf of
Carpentaria.
The artesian water basins are, in fact, broken basins, and the
break gives rise to leakage either on land or beneath the sea. In
places, therefore, the water rises in a bore, but does not reach the
surface owing to the site of the bore being higher than the head of
pressure. This is termed ‘sub-artesian water,’ and the author gives
illustrations of both artesian and sub-artesian water in the district
in question.
ee) ce WV EVV Se
Bee
LES VARIATIONS DE LONGUEUR DES GLACIERS DANS LES REGIONS
ARCTIQUES ET BOREALES. Par Cuartes Rasor. (Extrait des
Archives des sciences physiques et naturelles, 1899-1900.)
pp. 230. (Geneva and Bale: Georg & Co.)
(J\HIS is the latter part of a treatise of which the former was
published in 1897. Since that date much additional informa-
tion has appeared, of which a summary is given, together with the
conclusions to which the author has been led. These are :—(1) Prior
to the eighteenth century the glaciers, as proved by documentary
evidence in Norway and Iceland, and made highly probable also
in Jan Mayen and Spitzbergen, were much less extensive than they
are at the present day, and this minimum condition had lasted for
centuries. (2) During the eighteenth century, as well as in the
earlier years of the nineteenth, a very great extension (une crue
enorme) occurred, which was general throughout the Northern
Hemisphere. In the course of this the glaciers invaded regions
which had been free from ice during historic times. Of this, in
Greenland, Jan Mayen, Iceland, Norway, and Alaska, in some cases
there is documentary proof; in others it is made highly probable
by less direct evidence. (8) The remainder of the nineteenth
century has been a period of uncertain movements. In some places
a considerable advance has been followed by a slight retreat ; in
others the latter set in after a pause at the maximum which had
been reached in the earlier years. At the present day the Greenland
572 Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London.
glaciers appear to be stationary at a maximum. In Iceland almost
all the glaciers are now retreating, though not to any great extent,
and in some of them the previous advance continued till about the
year 1880. From Spitzbergen the evidence is defective; so far
as it goes some glaciers appear to be advancing, others retreating.
In Norway the ice reached a maximum at the beginning of the
century, and since then there has been a slow retreat, interrupted by
slight advances. In none of these regions has there been a diminution
comparable with that which has been observed in the Alps during
the last half-century. M. Rabot has drawn up a table to show the
advances of the glaciers for Greenland, Iceland, Jan Mayen, Spitz-
bergen, Scandinavia (north and south), and the Alps. Though
the information is not equally full and precise in all cases, it
suffices to show that while the movements of the glaciers in the
northern region exhibit a general correspondence, they afford signs
of a local individuality, and those of the Alpine glaciers appear
to be in most cases independent. The results from the northern ©
region are then used by M. Rabot to test the three laws of the
variation of glaciers which were tentatively advanced by Professor
Forel. (a) The law of periodicity. In the north this apparently
does not hold good, the duration of the advances and retreats
being irregular. (6) Law of simultaneousness. This holds good.
(c) Law of variation of volume; namely, that any change affects
the length, breadth, and thickness of the glacier. This apparently
is not valid in the north, for there the end of a glacier may be
stationary or even advancing, while its thickness higher up is
diminishing. For this apparent anomaly the author offers an
explanation. Lastly, he discusses the question whether the results
of the more minute observations which have been carried on in the
Alps during the last twenty years establish a relation between
the variations of the climate and the length of the glacier; such
a relation appears to be suggested, but more evidence is needed
before it can be regarded as established.
The rule “ Always verify your references” holds good, as
commonly, in M. Rabot’s book, for names are often misspelt.
We leave Germans to deal with Pettermanus, but object to Professor
Garwood being persistently transformed into Garnwood. This,
however, is a superficial blemish. The memoir itself embodies
a mass of information, accumulated by patient and laborious study,
and cannot fail to be very valuable for purposes of reference to
all who take an interest in glacial questions. T. G. Bonney.
ee Ome S AN» 92> 22@ CD NieaS-
I.—Geonoercat Socrery oF Lonpon.
November 6th, 1901.—J. J. H. Teall, Hsq., M.A., V.P.R.S., President,
in the Chair. The following communications were read :—
1. “Note on a Submerged and Glaciated Rock-Valley recently
exposed to view in Caermarthenshire.” By Thomas Codrington, Esq.,
M. Inst. C.E., F.G.S.
Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society of London. 573
This valley was brought to light in building a bridge across the
River Towy at Drysllwyn, 9 miles from Caermarthen, to which
the tide now flows. At the bridge the valley is narrowed to about
half a mile. Near the water-edge the rock sloped down gradually
to 23 feet below summer water-level, and was glaciated in large
furrows a foot or more across, and striated blocks of grit rested
upon it. About 60 feet farther out into the river, rock was not
met with till depths of from 84 to 42 feet below summer level were
reached, and the rock-surface was found to be sloping towards the
south at an angle of from 28° to 18° with a vertical line; it was
followed down to between 45 and 56 feet below summer water-level.
Scratched stones were again met with in the clay near the rock.
The glaciated surface on the northern bank is only 25 feet above
sea-level; and the rock-surface is sloping down at a precipitous
angle at 8 feet below sea-level at a distance of 18 miles from the
mouth of the river.
2. “On the Clarke Collection of Fossil Plants from New South
Wales.” By Edward Alexander Newell Arber, Esq., B.A. (Com-
municated by Professor T. McKenny Hughes, B.A., F.R.S., F.G.S.)
This collection, numbering nearly 2,600 specimens of all kinds,
including some 80 fossil plant-remains, was presented to the
Woodwardian Museum, Cambridge, in November, 1844.
The following is the stratigraphical succession in New South
Wales :—
4, Wianamatta and Hawkesbury Beds.
3. Newcastle Beds.
( c. Upper Marine Beds.
b. Lower Coal-measures.
| a. Lower Marine Beds.
1. Lepidodendron-beds (Arowa, etc.).
2. Marine or Muree Beds.
Four species from the Wianamatta Series are described, fourteen
species (including one new one) from the Newcastle Series, and
two from the Arowa Beds. Of the twelve new types described by
McCoy; five (namely, Odontopteris microphylla, Sphenopteris plumosa,
Glossopteris linearis, Phyllotheca ramosa, and Ph. Hookeri) are no
longer considered as such. One new type has been added.
The age of the beds is then discussed. Such evidence as the few
plants in the Clarke Collection afford supports Feistmantel’s con-
clusion that the Wianamatta Beds are of Triassic age. Thinnfeldia
odontopteroides occurs in Rheetic beds in South America, and the
identification of Rattee’s Salisburia palmata with the American
Baiera multifida, and a comparison with the Rhetic Baiera Steinmanni
of Chile, is a new point in favour of this conclusion. The plants
also support Feistmantel’s opinion that the Newcastle Beds are
equivalent to the Permian of Hurope. The exact horizon and age
of the Arowa Beds must for the present remain doubtful.
3. “On an Altered Siliceous Sinter from Builth (Brecknockshire).”
By Frank Rutley, Esq., F.G.S.
1 Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., 1847, vol. xx.
574 Reports and Proceedings—NManchester Literary Society.
A rock-specimen, given to the author many years ago by the late
H. W. Bristow, forms the main subject of this paper. It shows no
trace of original sand-grains; it is compact, and with a fracture
platy to conchoidal; small splinters of it can be fused on their
edges to a white, frothy glass. Under the microscope the rock is
decidedly tufaceous, containing small fragments chiefly of pumice,
less often of crystals which are apparently epidote. In the slides
of this rock and in some of the siliceous sinters from New Zealand
used for comparison, there are small patches of a brown substance
which may possibly be of organic origin; in connection with it,
Professor Weed’s discovery of algous growths in some of the New
Zealand sinters is mentioned. A specimen of hard breccia, also
from the vicinity of Builth, is described. The cement of this rock
is also possibly siliceous sinter, as well as some of the fragments,
which latter show faint evidence of the inclusion of little shreds
of pumice.
JI.—Manonester Literary AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.
October 15th, 1901.—Mr. Charles Bailey, President, in the Chair.
Mr. R. D. Darbishire, F.8.A., exhibited a large collection of the
Holithic implements of the Kentish plateau, and illustrated with
map and section the outline of the denudation of the valley of the
Weald, leaving a drift-deposit on the remaining Chalk of the north
and south escarpments.
In the process many levels of river-gravels had been fixed, and
partly occupied by stone implements of successive ages, mostly much
mixed up in the redeposition of the gravels by succeeding move-
ments. He described the general facies of the so-called Paleolithic
implements from river deposits in France and England, and their
peculiar modes of manufacture by ‘chipping’ or flaking, and shapes ;
and confessed inability to determine the uses of such tools or any
characteristics of the men who made them. They were fossil
indications of man with mind, skill, and purpose, and that was all.
He then referred to the late Sir Joseph Prestwich’s announcement
of Mr. B. Harrison’s great discovery of stone implements in the
drift covering the remaining chalk plateau, quoted important
adhesions, and referred to the expressions of scepticism by Sir
J. Evans, Professor Boyd Dawkins, Sir H. H. Howorth, and others.
Exhibiting a very complete and well-arranged series of the plateau -
remains, Mr. Darbishire, after claiming large personal familiarity
with stone implements, proceeded to vindicate the primeval and
distinctive character of the same by reference to :—(1) The peculiar
character of (a) the material used, and (6) the uniform and extreme
‘patination’ of most specimens. (2) The peculiar shapes of the
same, showing several separate designs (c) in lateral curves (like
bites out of a cake), sometimes duplicated with a point left between ;
(d) in instruments with bold lateral curves on each side of a strong,
sometimes sharp, sometimes obtuse point; (e) in flat flints, with
chipped edges more or less all round; and (f) in repudiation of
a vague dismissal of the remains in question as ‘ wastrels.’
Correspondence—J. R. Dakyns—“ Verbum Sap.” 575
(8) The peculiar and original fashion of chipping the flint
perpendicularly through the thickness so as to remove the natural
edge (sharp and rough) of the stone, and the general absence of
work on the sides of the tool. (4) The collective facies of the
mass, unembarrassed by admixture of forms known as Paleolithic.
And lastly to (5) a very decided declaration that after many years’
study of stone implements from various countries and ages, he had
never seen an eolith amongst paleoliths, or a palolith amongst
eoliths.
In conclusion, he declared his unhesitating concurrence with
those more learned and skilful observers who believed that in the
so-called Holithic remains Mr. Harrison had revealed the fossil
indications of the mind and purpose of a race of men long anterior
to that of the Paleolithic record, and confirmed a precedent geological
era for the habitation in this country of Man, actually qualified
by invention, design, skill, purpose, and perseverance—still the
fundamental characteristics of the race—which with the great
development and inheritance of civilization, the arts, and literature,
is now possessing the earth.
Coes FOND PINGC Br
FAXE OR FAXOE.
Str,—I recently saw it stated in the GronocicaL Magazine that
Faxe is the correct name of the well-known locality for fossils in
Zealand, and that the name Faxoe used by Darwin and others is
impossible, as the place is not an island. This is not conclusive.
May not the place have formerly been an island, and may not Faxe
be a modern corruption of an older name Faxoe? It is well known
to philologists, and to all who have paid any attention to place-
names, that there are many places which are proved by their names
to have once been islands, though they are no longer so. The late
Isaac Taylor, in his interesting book, ‘“‘ Words and Places,” mentions
several such names in the Valley of the Thames and in the Eastern
Counties, as well as elsewhere. J. R. Dakyns.
Snowpon View, GwyNant, BEDDGELERT.
FOSSILS WITH GARNETS.
Sir,—Verbum sapientibus contains in itself no proposition: it
may equally be either sat sap. or sat upon insip.; in this style,
“Words are worth nothing, therefore take mine.” But certainly,
in a case like the present, where statements of opposite import are
both alike quotations from the “traditions of the elders,” the old
motto of the Royal Society, for those in a position to adopt it,
Nullius per verba, is the best VeRBUM Sap.
THE CIRCULATION OF SALT.
Sir,—In connection with recent questions concerning the circu-
lation of salt I would like to call attention to a curious phenomenon
described by Messrs. F. W. and W. O. Crosby in the Technology
Quarterly (U.S.A.), vol. ix, No. 1, March, 1896. I refer to the
576 Oorrespondence—A. K. Coomara-Swamy—Couper Reed.
« Sea mills of Cephalonia” (Greece). ‘<The mills are driven by
a current of sea-water which flows into the land for about fifty
yards through an artificial channel, finally disappearing amid clefts
and fissures in the limestone rock” (Baedeker). ‘The boundaries
of this influx have never been definitely determined, but it
certainly extends along the coast for nearly half a mile” (loc. cit.).
Messrs. Crosby estimate the daily consumption of sea-water at
6,000,000 cubic feet. H. HE. Strickland has also described these
sea-mills (Proc. Geol. Soc., xi, pp. 220, 221).
A. K. Coomara-Swamy.
WORPLESDON.
SALTER’S UNDESCRIBED SPECIES.
Str,—In my first paper on some of Salter’s Undescribed Species
(Grout. Mac., 1900, Dec. IV, Vol. VII, p. 803, Pl. XII) there
is an unaccountable omission, which has only within the last few
days been brought to my notice. There is an absence of any
reference to the specimen represented in Fig. 7 on the accompanying
plate. In what manner the oversight occurred J am unable to
discover, as a description was ready for publication with the rest
of the paper. The specimen figured, which is referable to the
species JViobe solvensis (Hicks), is of not a little interest, because
it is the one mentioned by Salter (Cat. Camb. Sil. Foss. Woodw.
Mus., 1873, p. 23, a469) under the name Asaphus Menapie. The
following description is given by him (loc. cit.) : ‘‘ Asaphus Menapie,
Hicks (undescribed). A large species with smooth tail-piece.”
It comes from the Tremadoc rocks of Ramsey Island, and was
presented to the Woodwardian Museum by Dr. Hicks. It occurs
on the same piece of rock as the type-specimens of Calymene
vexata (Salter) (? = Neseuretus recurvatus, Hicks) and Calymene
ultima (Salter) (2? = Neseuretus quadratus, Hicks), which I have
described and figured in the paper above mentioned. The piece
of rock bears Salter’s label with these names; also a later label
in Tawney’s handwriting, with the inscription “Salter’s MSS. names
not adopted exactly by Hicks when he described the fossils.” This
remark is borne out also by the fact that this pygidium of Asaphus
Menapie does not agree with that of Niobe menapiensis (Hicks),
as figured and described by Hicks (Q.J.G.S., vol. xxix, 1878,
p- 46, pl. iv, figs. 1-9), but with that of Niobe solvensis (Hicks),
described and illustrated at the same time. Hicks makes here no
mention of the name Asaphus Menapie, and was apparently ignorant
of its retention in the Cambridge Catalogue, which was then on
the eve of being published. The specimen of A. Menapie¢ is
a slightly distorted internal cast of the pygidium, measuring 26 mm.
wide and 16 mm. long, and it agrees in all its visible characters
with Hicks’ Niobe solvensis.
In my paper there is also an obvious misprint in the numbering
of the figures on the plate (PI. XII). Nesewretus quadratus is repre-
sented by Fig. 6, not by Fig. 5, which represents JVeseuretus, sp.
F. R. Cowrrr REep.
Woopwarpian Museum, CAMBRIDGE.
ABB
Ao G., Magnesian Concretions,
Abergavenny, The Country around, 135.
Abnormal Section of Chloritic Marl at
Mupe Bay, 319.
Acanthodes striatus, Wellburn, sp. nov.,
219.
Ackroyd, W., Circulation of Salt in its
Relation to Geology, 445, 558.
Adams, F. D., Origin of the Ancient
Crystalline Rocks, 321; Nodular
Granite from Pine Lake, Ontario,
322; Experimental Investigation into
the Flow of Marble, 322.
Address by John Horne, F.R.8., to the
Geological Section of the British
Association, Glasgow, 442.
Age of the Harth, 125, 186, 371.
Alberta and British Columbia, Lake
Basins in, 97.
Allen, H. A., Insect from the Coal-
measures of South Wales, 65.
Altered Siliceous Sinter from Builth,
578.
Amalitzky, V., The Permian of Russia,
231.
Ami, H. M., Carboniferous System in
Eastern Canada, 266; Address to the
Ottawa, Field Naturalists’ Club, 324.
Ammonites Ramsayanus, Sharpe, 261.
Anatomy of Todea, 564.
Ancient Crystalline Rocks, Origin of, 321.
Ancient Glacier-dammed Lakes in the
Cheviots, 518.
Andrews, C. W., Recently Discovered
Vertebrates from Egypt, 400, 436.
Anguilla, Geological and Physical De-
velopment of, 282.
Antigua, Geological and Physical De-
velopment of, 281.
Arber, E. A. N., On Royle’s Types
of Fossil Plants from India, 546; On
the Clarke Collection of Plants from
New South Wales, 573.
Argonaut from the Tertiary of Japan,323.
Argyllshire, Onthe Crush-Conglomerates
of, 330.
Arran, Ancient Volcanoes in, 270.
Arran, Former Extension of Rhetic
Strata over, 269.
DECADE IV.—VOL. VIII.—NO. XII.
BOH
Arran Geology, Recent Discoveries in,
5.
Artesian Water in Queensland, 570.
Be OCIAN of the North Cotteswolds,
46
Ball, J., The Geology of Egypt, 271.
Barron & Hume, Geology of the Eastern
Desert of Egypt, 154.
Barton, A fine example of Plewrotoma
prisca from, 409.
Barytherium grave, Andrews, 528.
Bassett, H., jun., Note on the pre-
paration of Spherulites, 14.
Bastogne, Altered Rocks from near, 42.
Bate, D. M. A., A Bone Cave on the
River Wye, 101.
Bateman Collection of Antiquities in
the Sheffield Museum, 37.
Bather, F. A., Alleged Prints of
Echinoderms in Jurassic Reptiliferous
Sandstones, 70 ; Geologic Distribution
of Pollicipes and Sealpellum, 521.
Beach-Structure, 523.
Beadnell, H. J. L., Geological Dis-
coveries in the Nile Valley, 23 ;
Geology of the Farafra Oasis, 470 ;
The Fayim Depression, 540.
Becker, G. F., Geology of the Philippine
Islands, 472.
Beecher, C. E., Cambrian Fossils of
St. Francois County, Missouri, 561 ;
Discovery of Eurypterid Remains in
the Cambrian of Missouri, 561.
Belinurus kiltorkensis, Baily, 52.
Bell, A. M., Pleistocene Plants and
Coleoptera from Wolvercote, 565.
Bellerophon Ruthveni, Salter, sp. nov.,
356.
Bennett, F. D., The Earliest Traces of
Man, 427.
Bennie, James, Obituary of, 1438.
Beyrichia Kirkbyana,Jones,sp.nov.,435.
Bitumen in Cuba, 423.
Blake, J. H., Obituary of, 238.
Blanford, W. T., Vertebrate Animals in
India, Ceylon, and Burmah, 421.
‘ Blood-Rain’ in Sicily, 192.
Bohemia, Permo-Carboniferous Fauna
of, 472.
37
978
BON
Bone Cave in the Carboniferous of the
Wye Valley, 101.
Bone-beds of Pikermi, 482.
Bonney, T. G., Yorkshire Boulders, 95 ;
Schists from the Lepontine Alps, 161 ;
Names for British Ice-sheet, 187, 332 ;
Life of, 385; On the Limburgite from
near Sasbach, 411.
Bonney & Hill, Drifts of the Baltic Coast
of Germany, 41.
Brachylepas cretacea, H. Woodw., gen.
nov., 150, 240, 528.
(Bradytherium) grave, Andrews, 407;
see Barytherium, 528.
Branner & Newsom, Economic Geology,
471.
British Association, Glasgow, Geological
Address, 452; List of Papers read, 516.
British Earthquakes of 1900, 358.
British Ice-sheets, Names for, 142, 187,
284, 332.
British Pleistocene Fishes, 49.
Brown, H. Y. L., Map and Report on
the Tarcoola District, 424.
Buckman, S. 8., Bajocian and Con-
tiguous Deposits on the North Cottes-
wolds, 46; Homcomorphy among
Jurassic Brachiopoda, 326; Jurassic
Brachiopoda, 478.
Bulimine and Cassiduline, 420.
Bullen, R. Ashington, Notes on two
Well-Sections, 280; Eolithic Imple-
ments, 426.
Burckhardt, Prof. Dr. Rudolf, On Triassic
Starfishes, 3.
Pinar a Brachiopoda, etc., 473.
Cambrian, Discovery
Remains in the, 561.
of Eurypterid
Cambrian Fossils of St. Francois County, |
Missouri, 559.
Camel and Nilghai from the Upper
Miocene of Samos, 354.
Canada, The Geological Survey of; 136.
Canadian Geology, 471.
Canadian Paleozoic Corals, 472.
Carboniferous, Lower, Fishes of Eastern
Fifeshire, 110.
Carboniferous Shale from Siberia, 433.
Carboniferous System of Eastern Canada,
266.
Carboniferous Trilobites, Notes on some,
152.
Carter, W. L., Underground Waters of
North-West Yorkshire, 75.
Caucasian Museum, 522.
Caucasus, On the, 372.
Caves and Pot-holes of Ingleborough, 77.
Chalk Ammonite, Note on a, 251.
Chalk Cirripede from Norwich, 145 ;
and Dorset, 528.
Index.
CRU
Chapman, F., On the Olifant Klip from
Natal, 552.
Characters of Mammals, 242.
Cheviot Porphyrites in the Boulder-clay
of East Yorkshire, 143.
Cheviots, Evidences of Ancient Glacier-
dammed Lakes in the, 513.
Circulation of Salt in its Relation to
Geology, 344, 445, 504.
Cirripede from the Upper Chalk of
Norwich, 145; of Dorset, 528.
Clark, W. B., Geological Survey of
Maryland, 266, 418.
Clarke, J. M., New Paleozoic Crustacea,
472.
Clarke, W. J., Extension of the Shrop-
shire Coalfields under the Triassic
Rocks, 45.
Claypole, E. W., Petroleum in California,
268; Obituary of, 480, 527.
Climate under which the Coal was
formed, 31.
Clough, C. T., Suardalan, Glenelg, 382.
Coal, Origin of, 29.
Coal-measures of the Shropshire Coal-
fields, 45, 79.
Coal-measures of South Wales, An Insect
from the, 65.
Codrington, T., Submerged and Glaciated
Rock- Valleys, 572.
Celacanthus, On the Pectoral Fin of, 71.
Cole, G. A. J., On Belinurus kiltorkensis,
52; Concretions of Calcitein Magnesian
Limestone, 187.
Colorado, The Grand Caityon of the, 324.
Complimentary Dinner to Sir A. Geikie,
F.R.S., 287.
Concretionary Types in Cellular Mag-
nesian Limestone of Durham, 34, 187.
Coneretions of Calcite in Magnesian
Limestone, 187.
Connection of the Glacial Period with
Oscillation of the Land, 205.
Conte, J. Le, Professor, Obituary of, 384.
Coomara-Swamy, A. K., Occurrence of
Corundum as a Contact - Mineral at
Pont-Paul, 95; Circulation of Salt,
575.
Copper-bearing Rocks of South Australia,
520.
Coralline Rocks of St. Ives and Elsworth,
45, 78.
| Craig, Robert, Obituary of, 191.
Crane, Edward, Obituary of, 286.
Cretaceous Lizard from the Island of
Lesina, 523.
Cretaceous Rocks of Britain, 82.
| Cretaceous Rocks of Queen Charlotte
Islands, 138.
Crick, G. C., A Chalk Ammonite, 251.
Crustacea from the Upper Cretaceous of
Faxe, 486.
Index.
CRY
Crystalline Schists of the
Highlands, 567.
Cunningham, J. A., Crystallization of
Minerals in Igneous Rocks, 326.
Cuttriss, W. 8., Caves and Pot-holes
of Ingleborough, 77.
Southern
AKYNS, J. R., Origin of Coal, 135 ;
Cheviot Porphyrites in the Boulder-
clay of East Yorkshire, 143; Curious
Breccias in the Highlands, 332, 382 ;
Intrusive Igneous Rocks, Ireland, 526;
Faxe or Faxoe, 575.
Dale, E., The Scenery and Geology of
the Peak in Derbyshire, 89.
Davies, A. M., The Mammiillatus-Zone
in East Surrey, 331.
Davis, W. M., The Grand Canyon of
the Colorado, 324.
Davison, C., On the British Earthquakes
of 1900, 358.
Dawson, Dr. G. M., Obituary of, 190;
Rocky Mountain Region of Canada,
371.
Denudation in Nant Ffrancon, North
Wales, 68.
Dowling, D. B., General Index to the
Report of Progress, 139.
Drifts of the Baltic Coasts of Germany,
41.
Dromiopsis Birleye, H. Woodw., sp.
nov., 498.
Dromiopsis Coplande, H. Woodw., sp.
nov., 498.
Dufton Pike, Altered Tufaceous Rhyolites
from, 44.
Dunmail Raise (Lake District), On the
Origin of the, 141.
Dupare & Marzec, Map of Mont Blanc,
472.
Dwerryhouse, A. R., The Movement of
Underground Waters of Craven, 72.
ARLIEST Traces of Man, 337, 424,
425, 426, 427, 428.
Earthquakes, On the British, 358.
Earthquakes, Periodicity of, 449.
Ebbing and Flowing Wells and Springs, |
526.
Eeca Shales, Travelled Blocks in the, 549.
Echinoderms, Prints of, in the Triassic
Sandstone of Warwickshire and Elgin,
3, 70.
Economic Geology, 471.
Edinburgh Geological Society, 266.
Egan, F. W., Obituary of, 95.
Egypt, Extinct Vertebrates from, 400,
436
Egypt, The Geology of the Eastern
Desert of, 154.
Egyptian Geology, 470.
579
GAU
Eminent Living Geologists: Professor
Lapworth, F.R.S., 289; Professor
T. G. Bonney, F.R.S., 385. ;
Encrinurus multiplicatus, Salter, 107.
Enon Conglomerate of the Cape of Good
Hope, 350.
Eolithic Implements, 426.
Kolithic Man, 425.
Eubcea, Bone-beds in Northern, 482.
Euetenodopsis tenuis, Wellburn, gen. et
sp. nov., 220. weet
Evans, Dr. J. W., A Monchiquite from
Mount Girnar (Kathiawar), 42.
Evaporation and Sublimation, 189.
Exton, Dr. H., Geological Notes on the
Neighbourhood of Ladysmith, 509, 549,
AXE, Upper Cretaceous Crustacea
from, 486.
Fayam Depression, Note on the, 540.
Fergusson, M., Geological Notes from
Tanganyika Northwards, 363.
Fish Fauna of the Millstone Grit, 216,
286.
Fish Fauna of the Yorkshire Coalfields,
37.
Fisher, Rev. O.,.Mr. A. R. Hunt on
the Age of the Earth, 186.
Fishes of Eastern Fifeshire, 110.
Flow of Marble, Adams & Nicolson on
the, 322.
Foraminiferal Publications, Various, 420.
Forkill, Voleanic Agglomerate of, 519.
Formation of Reet - Knolls, R. H.
Tiddeman on the, 20.
Fornasini, C., On the Bulimine and
Cassiduiine, 420.
Fossil Crab’s and other Trails, 371.
Fossil Estherie of the Enon Con-
glomerate, 350. : :
Fossil Fish from the Millstone Grit
Rocks, 80.
Fossil Foraminifera in Servia, 270.
Fossils in the Cretaceous Rocks around
Glynde, 249.
Fossils and Garnets, 479, 525, 576.
Fouquea cambrensis, Allen, sp. nov., 66.
Fox-Strangways, C., Geology of the
Country between Atherstone and
Charnwood Forest, 41.
France, Geological Notes on Central, 59.
Fritsch, Dr. A., Permo-Carboniferous
Fauna of Bohemia, 473.
ARWOOD, E.J., appointed Professor
G of Geology at University College,
144.
Gaudry, Professor A., President of the
International Geological Congress, 240.
580
GEI
Geikie, A., Geology of Western Fife and
Kinross, 81; Retirement of, 96;
Complimentary Dinner to, 287.
General Index to the Reports of Progress,
139.
Geological Changes in Northern and
Central Asia, 234.
Geological Distribution of Extinct British
Non- Marine Mollusca, 422.
Geological History of the Rivers of East
Yorkshire, 370.
Geological Map of Mont Blanc, 472.
Geological Notes from Tanganyika
Northward, 362.
Geological Notes on Central France, 59.
Geological Notes on the Neighbourhood
of Ladysmith, 509.
Geological Society, 41, 93, 140, 177,
234, 278, 327, 379, 572.
Geological Society of Tokyo, Journal of
the, 267.
Geological Society’s Library, 420.
Geological Survey, 96, 144, 192, 528.
Geological Survey of Canada, 136.
Geological Time and the Circulation of
Salt, 344, 504.
Geologists, Eminent Living, 289, 385.
Geology and the Circulation of Salt, 445.
Geology of Austro-Hungary, 423.
Geology of Central and Western Fife
and Kinross, 81.
Geology of Devonshire, 523.
Geology of Eastern Sinai, 200.
Geology of Egypt, 23, 271.
Geology of Hawaii, 267.
Geology of India, 268, 270.
Geology of London, 423.
Geology of New Jersey, 525.
Geology of Norfolk, 422.
Geology of Scotland, 421.
Geology of South Central Ceylon, 94.
Geology of West Cornwall, 323.
Geology of the Country between Ather-
stone and Charnwood Forest, 41.
Geology of the Eastern Desert of Egypt,
164.
Geology of the Malay Peninsula, 128.
Geology of the Philippine Islands, 472.
Geology of the South Wales Coalfield, 135.
Geology of the Transvaal, 475.
Gibson, W., Rapid Changes in the Thick-
ness of the North Staffordshire Coal-
measures, 79.
Gigantophis Garstini, Andrews, gen. et
sp. nov., 438.
Glacial Rock-Valleys exposed in Caer-
marthenshire, 572.
Glaciation of South Africa, 268.
Goodchild, J. G., Former Extension of
Rheetic Strata over Arran, 269.
Graphite Mines of Ceylon, 175.
Graphites from Peru, Note on, 195.
Index.
HYD
Gravel-Flats of Surrey and Berkshire,
On the Origin of, 510.
Greenly, E., Recent Denudation in Nant
Firancon, North Wales, 68, 429.
Griffithides longiceps, var. angusta, H.
Woodw., 150.
Groom, T. T., Igneous Rocks associated
with Cambrian Beds of the Malvern
Hills, 93.
Guardeloupe, Geological and Physical
Development of, 282.
Guide to the Geology of London, 528.
Gunn, W., Recent Discoveries in Arran
Geology, 565.
ARKER, A., Sequence of Tertiary
Igneous Rocks of Skye, 506.
Harmer, F. W., Influence of Winds on
Climate, 327.
Heddle, M. F., The Mineralogy of
Scotland, 325.
Highlands, Curious Breccias in the, 332.
Hilgard, E. W., Survey of the State of
Mississippi, 326.
Hill, Rev. E., & Professor Bonney, On
the Drifts of the Baltic Coast of Ger-
many, 41.
Hill, J. B. (R.N.), Geology of West
Cornwall,323; Crushed Conglomerates
of Argyllshire, 330.
Hind, Wheelton, Geological Succession
of Beds below the Millstone Grit, 185.
History of Sarsens, 54, 115.
Hitchcock, C. H., Geology of Oahu,
Hawaii, 267.
Holland & Hatch, Geology of India, 270.
Hollow Spherulites of the Yellowstone
and Great Britain, 235.
Holst, N. O., The Glacial Period in
Scandinavia, 205.
Horistoma discors (Sby.), var. Marie,
Salter, 246.
Horne, J., Recent Advances in Scottish
Geology, 452.
Howarth, E., Catalogue of the Bateman
Collection, 37.
Howorth, Sir H. H., The Harliest Traces
of Man, 337.
Howse, R., Obituary of, 382.
Hughes, Professor T. McKenny, Museum
Exhibition Cases, 143.
Hull, Professor E., Physical History of
the Norwegian Fjords, 55.
Humber, Source of the Warp in the, 568.
Hume, Dr. W. F., The Rift Valleys of
Eastern Sinai, 198; Geology of Eastern
Sinai, 200.
Hunt, A. R., Age of the Earth and
Sodium of the Sea, 125, 285; The
Late Rev. J. McEnery, 428.
Hunterian Oration, 419.
Hydrology of Carboniferous Rocks, 418.
Index.
IGN
TGNEOUS Rocks and Associated Sedi-
mentary Beds of the Tortworth In-
lier, 279.
Igneous Rocks associated with the Cam-
brian Beds of the Malvern Hills, 93.
Igneous Rocks, Systematic Nomenclature
for, 304.
India, Royle’s Types of Fossil Plants
from, 546.
Influence of Winds upon Climate, 327.
Insect from Coal-measures of 8. Wales, 65.
International Geological Congress, 240,
285, 288.
Intrusive Igneous Rocks in Ireland, 381,
526.
Treland, Intrusive, Tuff-like, Igneous
Rocks and Breccias in, 381.
ACK, R. L., Artesian Water in
Queensland, 570.
Jevons, H. 8., A Systematic Nomen-
clature for Igneous Rocks, 304.
Johnson, J. P., Cretaceous Rocks at
Glynde and their Fossils, 249.
Johnston, M. 8., Geological Notes on
Central France, 59; International
Geological Congress, 285.
Joly, J., The Circulation of Salt and
Geological Time, 344, 504; Age ot
the Earth, 371.
Jones, T. R., History of Sarsens, 54,
115; Fossil Hstherie from the Cape
of Good Hope, 350; Eolithic Man,
425; Some Carboniferous Shales from
Siberia, 433.
Judd, Professor J. W., Note on the
Structure of Sarsens, 1.
Jukes-Browne, A. J., The Cretaceous
Rocks of Britain, 82.
Jukes-Browne & Scanes, Upper Green-
sand of Mere and Maiden Bradley, 93.
Jurassic Brachiopoda, 478.
Jurassic Fauna of Cutch, 276.
Jurassic Flora of East Yorkshire, 36.
ENDALL & MUFF, Evidences of
Ancient Glacier-dammed Lakes in
the Cheviots, 513.
Keuper Marls, Section of, at Great
Crosby, 417.
Kidston, R., Flora of the Coal-measures,
29
Kilroe & McHenry, Intrusive, Tuff-like,
Igneous Rock, 381.
Kiltorcan Beds of Ireland, Belinwrus
from the, 52.
Kirkby, J. W., Obituary of, 480.
Kitchm, Dr. F. L., Jurassic Fauna of
Cutch, 276.
Koshiwara, Mr., Argonaut from the
Tertiary of Japan, 323.
581
MER
| oseigaae of Montana, 423.
Ladysmith, Geological Notes on the
Neighbourhood of, 509.
Lake Basins in Alberta and British
Columbia, 97.
Lambe, L. M., Revision of the Genera
and Species of Canadian Palzozoic
Corals, 472.
Lamplugh, G. W., Names for the British
Ice-sheets, etc., 142, 284.
Landslips in Boulder-clay near Scar-
borough, 380.
Lapworth, C., Eminent Living Geo-
logists, 289.
Lepontine Alps, Schists and Schistose
Rocks in the, 161.
Lichas scutalis, Salter, 5.
Limburgite from near Sasbach, 411.
Lindstrom, Professor G., Obituary of,
288, 333.
Lomas, J., Construction and Uses of
Strike-Maps, 34.
Longe, F. D., On the Formation of
Flints in Chalk, 422.
Liitken, Professor C. F., Obituary of, 191.
Lydekker, R., Skull of a Chiru-like
Antelope from Hundes, Tibet, 329.
Lynton, Coblenzian Fossils from, 529.
ACNAIR, P., Crystalline Schists of
the Southern Highlands, 567.
Macnamara, N. C., The Hunterian
Oration, 419.
Major, C. I. Forsyth, Characters of
Mammals, 241; Reported Fossil Camel
and Nilghai at Samos, 354.
Malay Peninsula Limestone, 189.
Mammillatus-Zone in East Surrey, 331.
Man, Earliest Traces of, 337.
Manchester Literary and Philosophical
Society, 574.
Mansel-Pleydell, J. C., Climate and
Geological Changes and the British
Flora, 424.
Mansergh, J., Water and Water Supply,
271.
Marr, J. E., What is Coal?, 33;
Evaporation and Sublimation, 189.
Maryland Geological Survey, 266, 418.
Matley, C. A., The Geology of Mynydd-
y-Garn, 43.
McEnery, The Late Rev. J., 428.
McEvoy, J., Geological Survey of
Canada, 136.
McMahon, C. A., Tourmaline in White
Granite of Dartmoor, 316.
Meldon, Tourmaline of the White Granite
of, 316.
Mennell, F. P., Copper-bearing Rocks
of South Australia, 520.
Merzbacher, G., On the Caucasus, 372.
582
MES
Mesozoic Plants, Catalogue of, 274.
Meyer, C. J. A., Obituary of, 46.
Microscopic Structure of Sarsens, 1.
Millstone Grits of Great Britain, Fish
Fauna of the, 216.
Mineralogy of Scotland, 325.
Missouri, Cambrian Fossils
Francois County, 559.
Missouri, Eurypterid Remains in the
Cambrian of, 561.
Meriophis Schweinfurthi, Andrews, gen.
et sp. nov., 438.
Meeritheriwn Lyonsi, Andrews, gen. et
sp. noy., 403.
Molengraaf, G. A. F., Geology of the
Transvaal, 475.
Monchiquite from Mount Girnar, Juna-
garh, 42.
Monckton, H. W., Landslips in Boulder-
elay near Scarborough, 380; Origin
of the Gravel-Flats in Surrey and
Berkshire, 510.
Morgan & Reynolds, Igneous Rocks of
the Tortworth Inlier, 279.
Mupe Bay, Section of Chloritic Marl at,
319.
Museum Exhibition Cases, 143.
Mynydd-y-Garn, The Geology of, 43.
of St.
TAITADITA, Structures and Affini-
ties of the Rheetic Plant, 140.
Nant Firancon, Recent Denudationin, 68. |
Natal, Olifant Klip from, 552.
Neolithic Implement from the Malay
Peninsula, 128.
New Director of Geological Survey, 144.
New Professor of Geology at University
College, 144.
Newton, E. T.,
Fishes, 49; Notes on Graptolites from
Peru, 195; Volcanic Vents in the Isle
of Arran, 270; Paleontological Notes,
237; Occurrence of Bones of Crane in
Peat, 422.
Newton, R. B., Geology of the Malay
Peninsula, 128; Limestone of the
Malay Peninsula, 189; Geological
Distribution of Extinct British Non-
Marine Mollusea, 422.
Nicolson & Adams, Experimental In-
vestigation into the Flow of Marble,
322.
Nile Valley, Recent Geological Dis-
coveries in the, 23.
Nolan, J., Notes on the Volcanic Ag-
glomerate of Forkill, 515.
Nordenskiéld, Baron Adolf Erik, Obituary
of, 429.
North Staffordshire Coal - measures,
Changes of Thickness and Character
ne) 78), z
British Pleistocene |
Index.
PLE
BITUARIES: C. J. A. Meyer, 46;
F, W. Egan, 95 ; James Bennie, 143;
G. M. Dawson, 190; C. F. Liitken,
191; R. Craig, 191; J. H. Blake,
238; E. Crane, 286; G. Lindstrém,
288, 333; R. Howse, 382; J. LeConte,
384; Baron Nordenskidld, 429; J-
Storrie, 479; J. W. Kirkby, 480.
E. W. Claypole, 480, 527; M. F.
Woodward, 480.
Oldham, R. D., On the Origin of Dun-
mail Raise, 141; The Periodicity of
Earthquakes, 449.
Olifant Klip from Natal, 552.
Origin of the Gravel-Flats in Surrey
and Berkshire, 510.
Oscillations in Sea-level, 167, 223, 253.
Osmundacez, Geological History of, 564-
ACKARD, A. 8., A Fossil Crab and
other Trails, 371.
Paleogene Vertebrate Fauna in Egypt,
New, 540.
Paleolithic and Neolithic Man, Link in
the ‘ Break’ between, 424.
Paleeozoic Crustacea, 472.
Papers read before Sections at British
Association, Glasgow, 516.
Parkinson, J., The Geology of South
Central Ceylon, 94; Some Lake Basins
in Alberta and British Columbia, 97 ;
The Hollow Spherulites of the Yellow-
stone and Great Britain, 235.
Passage of a Seam of Coal into a Seam
ot Dolomite, 379.
Pavlovic, Protessor P. 8., Fossil Fora-
minifera of Servia, 270.
Peach & Gunn, Volcanic Vents in the
Isle of Arran, 236, 270.
Peak of Derbyshire, The Scenery and
Geology of the, 89.
Pearson, H. W., Oscillations in the Sea-
level, 167, 223, 258.
Peckham, S. F., Bitumen in Cuba, 423.
Pectoral Fin of Celacanthus, 71.
Pendle Hill, Beds below the Millstone
Grit, 185.
Periodicity of Earthquakes, 449.
Permian of Russia, 231.
Peru, Note on Graptolites from, 195.
Petroleum in California, 268.
Phacops (Odontocheile) caudatus, var.
corrugatus, Salter, 106.
Phosphatie Layers at the Base of the
Inferior Oolite in Skye, 519.
Pleistocene Fishes, British, 49.
Pieurotoma prisca (Solander) at Barton,
409.
Pleurotomariacyclonemia, Salter, sp.,248.
Pleuvotomaria Fletcheri, Salter, 247.
Pleurotomaria ? helicoides, Salter,sp.,356.
Index.
PLE
Pleurotomaria striatissima, Salter, sp.,
355,
Pleurotomaria uniformis, Salter, sp., 356.
Pollicipes and Scalpellum, The Geologic
Distribution of, 521.
Portuguese Geology, 525.
Posidonomya concinna, Jones, sp. nov.,
435.
Posidonomya subovata, Jones,sp.noy.,435.
Preparation of Spherulites, 14.
Probable Manner of Development of
Crystalline Schists, 567.
Proetus Fletcheri, Salter, sp., 11.
Psephodus minuta, Wellburn, sp. nov.,
218.
Psephophorus eocenus, Andrews, sp. nov.,
440.
* Pyrgoma cretacea’ = Brachylepas cre-
tacea, from the Upper Chalk of
Norwich, 145, 240; and Dorset, 528.
AISIN, C. A., On Altered Rocks
from near Bastogne, 42.
Reade, T. M., Erosive Effects of Sand-
blast on Wood, 193; Section of
Keuper Marls at Great Crosby, 417.
Recent Denudation, Nant Ffrancon, 429.
Recent Discoveries in Arran Geology, 564.
Recently Discovered Extinct Vertebrates
from Kgypt, 400, 436.
Reed, F. R. Cowper, Salter’s Undescribed
Species of Trilobites, 5, 106, 246,
576; Salter’s Undeseribed Species of
Mollusca, 355; Geological History
of the Rivers of East Yorkshire, 370.
Reef- Knolls, The Formation of, 20.
Reptilian Remains from Patagonia, 192.
Retirement of Sir Archibald Geikie, 96.
Reynolds & Lloyd Morgan, The lgneous
Rocks of the Tortworth Inlier, 279.
Rhodes, J., Discovery of a Silicified
Plant Seam beneath the Millstone
Grit of Swarth Fell, 520.
Rift Valleys of Eastern Sinai, 198.
Rocky Mountain Region of Canada, 371.
Rogers & Schwarz, Glaciation in South
Africa, 268.
Royle’s Types ot Fossil Plants from
India, 546.
Rutley, F., Altered Tufaceous Rhyolitic |
Rocks from Dufton Pike, 44 ; Olifant
Klip, Ladysmith, 555; Altered
Siliceous Sinter from Builth, 575.
ALT, The Circulation of, and Geo-
kD logical Time, 344, 504.
Salter’s Undescribed Species, 5, 106,
‘246, 355, 576.
Samos, Camel and Nilghai in, 354.
Sand-blast of the Shore and its Erosive
Effects on Wood, 193.
Sarsens, History of, 54, 115.
583
STR
. Sarsens, Note on the Structure of, 1.
Sasbach, On Limburgite from near, 411.
Scandinavia, Oscillation of the Land,
especially in, 205.
Schists and Schistose Rocks
Lepontine Alps, 161.
Scott, D. H., Structure and Affinities ot
Fossil Plants from the Paleozoic
Rocks, 174.
Sea-level, Oscillations in the, 167,225,258.
Sections of Cretaceous Rocks around
Glynde, 249.
Sections of Keuper Marls at Great
Crosby, 417.
in the
| Seward, A. C., Vegetation of the Coal
Period, 31; On the Jurassic Flora of
East Yorkshire, 36; Catalogue of
Mesozoic Plants, 274; On the Anatomy
of Todea, 564.
| Shorter Geological Notices, 271, 324,
372, 424, 523.
Siberia, Carboniferous Shales from, 433.
Silicified Plant Seam beneath the
Millstone Grit of Swarth Fell, 520.
Silurian Crinoids of Chicago, 376.
Silurian (?) Rocks in Forfarshire, 329.
Sinai, The Geology of Eastern, 200.
Sinai, The Rift Valley of Eastern, 198.
Skull of a Chiru-like Antelope from
Tibet, 329.
Skye, Sequence of the Tertiary Igneous
Rocks of, 506.
Sodium of the Sea, 125, 186, 285.
Sollas, Miss Igerna B. J., Structure
and Affinities of the Rheetic Plant
Naiadita, 140.
Sollas, Professor W. J., Rate of Increase
of Underground Temperatures, 502.
Sources and Distribution of Far-Trayelled
Boulders of East Yorkshire, 17.
Spencer, J. W., Geological and Physical
Development of Antigua, 281; of
Guardeloupe, 282; of Anguilla, etc.,
282; of St. Christopher, 283.
Spherical Concretions of Graphite, 421.
| Spherulites, Preparation of, 14.
St. Christopher Chain, Geological and
Physical Development of the, 283.
Stereogenys Cromeri, Andrews, gen. et
sp. nov., 442.
Storrie, John, Obituary of, 479.
Strahan, A., The Origin of Coal, 29;
Abnormal Section of Chloritie Marl
at Mupe Bay, Dorset, 319; The
Passage of a Seam of Coal into
a Seam of Dolomite, 379.
Strahan & Gibson, Geology of the South
Wales Coalfield, 135.
Strike-Maps, Construction and Uses
of, 34.
Structure and Affinities of Fossil Plants,
174.
584
SUA
Suardalan, Glenelg, C. T. Clough on, 382.
Subulites pupa, Salter, sp. nov., 109.
Systematic Nomenclature for Igneous
Rocks, 304.
dies GANYIKA Northwards,
logical Notes from, 362.
Teall, J. J. H., F.R.S., appointed Di-
rector of the Geological Survey, 144.
Temperature, Rate of Increase of Under-
ground, 502.
Tertiary Igneous Rocks of Skye, Sequence
of, 506.
Thalassochelys libyca, Andrews, sp. nov.,
44].
Thompson, Beeby, On the Use of a Geo-
logical Datum, 380.
Tiddeman, R. H., On the Formation of
Reef-Knolls, 20.
Tomistoma africanum, Andrews, sp. NOov.,
443.
Tourmaline of the White Granite of
Dartmoor, 316.
Transference of Secondary Sexual Cha-
racters of Mammals from Males to
Females, 242.
Traquair, R. H., Lower Carboniferous
Fishes of Eastern Fifeshire, 110.
Triassic Reptiliferous Sandstones, Prints
of Echinoderms in, 70.
Triassic Starfishes, 3.
Trilobites, Notes on some Carboniferous,
152.
Trochonema bijugosa, Salter, sp.nov., 357.
Trochus calyptrea, Salter, sp. nov., 109.
Turvilepas ketleyanus, Salter, sp. nov.,
108.
Geo-
pee le D Temperature, Rate
of Increase of, 502.
Underground Water of Craven, The
Movement of, 71, 75.
Underground Water of North - West
Yorkshire, 72.
EGETATION of the Coal Period,
29
Vertebrata in India, Ceylon, and Burmah,
Distribution of, 421.
Voleanic Agglomerate of Forkill, Co.
Armagh, 615.
Voleanic Vent of Tertiary Age in the
Island of Arran, 236.
ATSON, J. A., Link in the ‘ Break’
between Paleolithic and Neolithic
Man, 424.
Watts, Professor W. W., Notes on
Charnwood Forest, 41.
Index.
YOS
Wedd, C. B., On the Coralline Rocks of
St. Ives, 45; Outcrop of the Coralline
Limestone of Elsworth, etc., 78.
Weed & Pirsson, Geology of Shonkin
Sag, Montana, 423.
Weinschenck, E., The Graphite Mines
of Ceylon, 175.
Wellburn, E. D., The Fish Fauna of
the Yorkshire Coalfields, 37; On the
Pectoral Fin of Celacanthus, 7 ; Fossil
Fishes from the Millstone Grit, 80.
Weller, Dr. S., Silurian Crinoids of
Chicago, 376.
Well-Sections, Note on two, 280.
Wheeler, W. H., The Source of the
Warp in the Humber, 568.
Whidborne, G. F., Coblenzian Fossils
from Lynton, 529; Lower Devonian
Fossils from Torquay, 533.
Whitaker, W., Address to the Geologists
Association, 423; Guide to the
Geology of London, 528.
Whiteaves, J. F., Fossils from the
Cretaceous Rocks of Queen Charlotte
Islands, 138.
Wood, Sand-blast of the Shore and its
Erosive Effects on, 193.
Woodward, A. S., Reptilian Remains
from Patagonia, 192; On the Bone-
beds of Pikermi, Attica, and on similar
Deposits in Northern Eubeea, 482.
Woodward, Henry, On‘ Pyrgoma cretacea,’
from the Upper Chalk, 145, 240, 528 ;
Notes on some Carboniferous Trilobites,
152; On Plewrotoma prisca, 409; On
Crustacea from the Upper Cretaceous
of Faxe, 486.
Woodward, H. B., Note ona Phosphatic
Layer at the Base of the Inferior
Oolite in Skye, 519.
Woodward, Martin Fountain, Death of,
480.
Woodwardian Museum Notes, 5, 106,
246, 355.
Wright, G. F., Recent Geological
Changes in Northern and Central
Asia, 234.
Wye Valley, Bone Caves in the Car-
boniferous Limestone of the, 101.
Db gener eae Boulders, 95.
Yorkshire Boulders, Sources and Dis-
tribution of, 17.
Yorkshire Rocks, The
Strata in the, 188.
Yoshiwara, Mr., Argonaut from the
Tertiary of Japan, 323.
Succession of
STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS, PRINTERS, HERTFORD.
pee ve VIII.—No. L Price 1s. 6d. nett.
THE
GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE]
| Slonthy J Jeni of Geology.
WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED
“THE GHOLOGIST.”
= EDITED BY
HENRY WOODWARD, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &c.
ASSISTED BY =
ROBERT ETHERIDGE, F.R.S.L. & E., F.G.S., h&c.,
WILFRID H. HUDLESTON, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S., &c.,
GEORGE J. HINDE, Pu.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &c., AND
HORACE BOLINGBROKE WOODWARD, F.R.S., F.G.S.
JANUARY, 1901.
Cree ey BY eS:
I. OntatnaL ARTICLES.
paGE | Norices or Memorrs—continued. PAGE
1. Note on the Structure of Sarsens. 2. Discussion on the Conditions under
By Professor J. W. Jupp, C.B., which Plants grew in the Coal-
Tee Res. N.P2GsSios se. 1 period. By Messrs. R. Kidston,
2. Note on certain Impressions. of A. Strahan, A. C. Seward, and
Echinoderms observed in the Pieciy ME anh taco er «a eet peetetees 29
Triassic Reptiliferous Sandstone 3. J. Lomas on the Construction and
of Warwickshire and Elgin. By Uses of Strike-Maps eeeeeeeseanee BE
Professor Rupotr Burck Hardt, 4. G. Abbott: The Concretionary ;
Ph.D., of the University ot Basel. Magnesian Limestone of Durham 35
(With a Process-block.)............ 3 5. A. C. Seward: The Jurassic Flora
ee W oodwardian Museum Notes : ot East Yorkshire eacceenccvees sese's 36
J. W.. Salter’s Undescribed 6. Edgar D. Wellburn: The Fish-
Species, II. By F. R. Cowper Fauna of the Yorkshire Coalfields 37
Reep, M.A., F.G.S. (Plate I.) 5 | III. Reviews
.4. Note on the Preparation of 1. E. Howarth’s Catalogue of the
Spherulites. By H. Basserr, Jun. Bateman Collection in the Sheffield
(With a Process-block.) ......... 14 MIS CUTIE = satsaties ich seat Seeramen ean 37
5. Sources and Distribution of York- 2. C. Fox-Strangways & W. W.
shire Boulders. By J.W.Sraruer, Watts : Geology of Country near
HIS Gre Seneca nd Pet s qatar once e 17 Charnwood Forest ........ssseseeeee 41
6. On the Formation of Reef Knolls. IV. Reports AND PROCEEDINGS.
- By R. H. Trppeman, M.A., Geological Society of London—
IRCA wide (os rerasts Soucek Paswiabid F< 20 1. November 7, L90Un sere teas 41
II. Notices or Memorrs. 2. November 21, 1900 -............00 42
1. Hugh 5 hss ilhs Beadnell on Recent oe December Vv, L900 ae. eevee cae 40
Geological Discoveries in the Nile VY. Oxprruary.
Wigley Ghee see ys ec iv. avtetinn soe 23 G. Je Me Meyer. G87 sic 46
¢é- The Volume for 1900 of the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE is ready,
LONDON: DULAU & CO., 37, SOHO SQUARE.
price 20s. nett. Cloth Cases for Binding may be had, price 1s. 6d. nett.
COLOURED CASTS OF RARE FOSSILS
SUPPLIED BY
ROBERT F. DAMON, WEYMOUTH, ENGLAND.
120. Brachyodus Africanus. Right ramus of mandible. Described |
and figured by C. W. Aarons Esq. ., F.G.S8., in Geol. Mag., 1899. Lower
Miocene : Egypt.
121. Hoplophorus, sp. Terminal tube of rane sheath. Pleistocene:
Santa Fe.
122. Ichthyosaurus Zetlandicus, _ Seeley. Crannne. Figured in
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxxvi, pl. xxv. Upper Lias: Whitby. Wood-
wardian Museum, Cambridge.
| 123. Iguanodon Bernissartensis, Boulenger. Left hind foot. Figured
in Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxx, pl. iv, fig. 5. Wealden: Brook, I. of
Wight. Hulke Collection. :
124. Iguanodon Manielli, Meyer. Left Spal Figured in Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soe., vol. xlii, pl. xiy. Wealden: Cuckfield.
125. Macherodus, sp. Right ramus of mandible. Figured in Quart.
Journ, Geol. Soc., vol. xlii, pl. x. Forest Bed: Suffolk. Backhouse Coll.
126. Mastodon arvernensis, Croix & Job. Molar tooth. Red Crag:
near Felixstowe.
127. Melriorhynchus Moreli, Deslongchamps. Figured by R. Lydekker,
Esq., F.R.S., in Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1890. Oxford Clay: Chippenham.
128. Odontopteryx toliapicus, Owen. Skull. Figured in Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxix, pl. xvi. London Clay: Sheppey.
129. Rhytidosteus capensis, Owen. Portions of skull and mandible.
Figured in Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xl (1884), pls. xvi, xvii.
130. Scelidosaurus Harrisoni, one Skull. Figured in Owen's
Liassic Rept., pt. i, pls. iv—-vi. Lias: Charmouth, Dorset.
131. Zanclodon Cambrensis, E. T. Newton, Esq., F.R.S. Two casts-
showing inner and outer surfaces of ramus of mandible. Described and
figured in Quart. Journ. Geol.-Soc., 1899. Rhetic: Bridgend, Glam.
CASTS OF HUMAN REMAINS.
132. Pithecanthropus erectus, Dubois. Upper portion of cranium of
a primitive type from superficial deposits, Bengawan River, Java.
133. Upper portion of cranium from a cavern in the Neanderthal.
Described t-y Prof. D. Schaaffhausen in Miller’s Archive, 1858. Figured also
in Lyell’s ‘‘ Antiquity of Man,” Ist ed.
134. Imperfect cranium from a cavern at Engis, near Liége, Belgium.
Figured and described by Dr. P. C. Schmerling in Oss. Foss. Cay. Prov. Liége,
1833, Also in Lyell’s ‘‘ Antiquity of Man,’’ Ist ed.
135. Imperfect cranium, mandible, femur, tibia, and fibula, found
34 feet below the surface at Tilbury, Essex. Figured and described in Owen’s
‘¢ Antiquity of Man,’’ 1884. :
are MAGAZINE
Stlonthly sictal of Geology.
WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED
PeLTHE GHOLOGIST.”
EDITED BY
HENRY WOODWARD, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S.
ASSISTED BY
ROBERT ERHERIDGE, F:R:S. L. & Es, F.GS., &es,
WILFRID H. HUDLESTON, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S., &c.,
GEORGE J-*HINDE, Pu.D.; F.R.S., F.G.S., &c., ‘AND
HORACE BOLINGBROKE WOODWARD, F.R.S., F.G.S.
5 Gs
FEBRUARY, 1901.
Ge et Se ba INE a SS
I. OrtetnaL ARTICLES. PAGE | Notices or Mremorrns—continued. PAGE
1. British Pleistocene Fishes. By 3. Caves and Pot-holes of Ingle-
E. 'T.. Newton, F.R.S., F.G.S. 49 borough. By 8S. W. Cuttriss ... 77
2. On Belinurus kiltorkensis. By - 4. ‘Ihe Outcrop of the Corallian
Prof. GRENVILLE A. J. Coxe, Limestones. By Ce-B Wedd,
M.R,I.A., F.G.S. (Woodcut.) 52 | F.G.8 Seslsseeseeeeeteecceecsseecaseneere 78
3. History of the Sarsens. By Prof. | 5.- Rapid Changes in the Coal-
T. Rupert Jones, F.R.S.,F.G.8S. 54 measures of N. Staffordshire. By
4. Geological Notes on Central W... Gibson, FG: 2.12.5 ceee 79
France. - By Miss M. S. Joun- 6. Fossil Fish from the Millstone
STON. (Plates BALEY 3). es. 25: 59 | Grit. By Edgar D. Wellburn,
5. An insect from the Coal-measures BaiGiss icc atesseyl cs cnceemueat eee ese 80
of South Wales. By H. A. AttEn, Ill. Reviews.
F.G.S. (With a Figure in text. ) 65 | 1. Sir A. Geikie’s Geology of Fife
6. Recent Denudation, Nant Ffrancon, amd FQINTOSS: wepee cee: «2 se eeee ne eeor 81
North Wales. By Epwarp | 9. Jukes-Browne’s and Wm. Hill’s
GR ENaLY HE Gr. Desccrs tea coeeesbae ek 68 Cretaceous Rocks of Britain ...... 82
7. Alleged Prints of Echinoderms in | 8. E.-Dale’s Geology of the Peak of
Triassic Reptiliterous Sandstones. Derbyshire. i. tt scoss ses eae es 89
By F. A. Barner, M.A., D.Sc., IV. Rerorts AND PROCEEDINGS.
7 TRE Ces ae ine Po Si RL on a 70 Geological Society of London—
Bb \/ 8. On the Pectoral Fin of Celacan- 1. December 19, 1900.........0..e0ee0e 93
thus. By Epcar D. WerLt- o> January. Oi. LOO eae cee tee 94
BURGE Gis) eLOet Mivacseacvsk shes 71 | VY. CoxrrEesronDENCeE.
II. Novices or Memoirs. Professor ‘I. G@. Bonney, F.R.S. 95
1. Movements of Underground Waters | VI. Onrrvary.
of Graven. By Protessor W. W. Frederick Wm. Egan, B.A. ...... 95
Watts and others - ......in.:.5.5.6 72 | VII. MisceLLannovs.
2. Underground Waters of N.W. | _ Retirement of Sir A. Geikie,
Yorks By the Rey. W. Lower Director-General of the Geo-
Carter and others ...%.............. 75 | logical Survey.s.-.....sc.+-eseesegses 96
LONDON: DULAU & CO., 37, SOHO SQUARE
_¢ The Volume for 1900 of the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE is ready,
price 20s. nett. Cloth Cases for Binding may be had, price 1s. 6d. nett.
COLOURED CASTS OF RARE FOSSILS
SUPPLIED BY
ROBERT F. DAMON, WEYMOUTH, ENGLAND.
136. Upper portion of cranium (a) with mandible ; another cranium (6),
right femur, and left tibia: from the cavern of Beche Aux Roches, Spy, in
Province of Namur, Belgium. Figured and described by MM. Fraipont and
Lohest in Archives de Biologie, 1887. Bu
137. Upper portion of cranium from an ancient burial-place. Manor
Hamilton, co. Sligo, Ireland. ig
138. An imperfect mandible of obtuse angle as seen in profile, from the
caves of Naulette, Dinant.
139. An almost entire mandible of similar character. Malarnaud.
Casts of human bones found in the cave of Cro-Magnon, near
Les Eyzies in Perigord. Deseribed by MM. Lartet and Christy in “ Reliquix
Aquitanice,” and in Bulletin Soc. d’Anthrop. Paris, 1868. Also noticed in
Dawkins’ “‘ Cave Hunting,’’ etc. -The series consist of :—
140. Almost perfect cranium (a) with mandible (1 & 2).
141. Imperfect cranium _(b) with mandible (3 & 4).
142. Upper portion of cranium (ce) (5).
143. Imperfect mandibles (6 & 7).
144. Left humerus and proximal half of ulna (8 & 9).
145. Right femur (articulations wanting) (10).
146. Left tibia and imperfect right tibia (11 & 12).
147. Right fibula (18).
ADDENDA.
148. Didus ineptus, Linn. Foot. Recent: Mauritius.
149. Ichthyosaurus Zetlandicus, Seeley. Cranium. Type-specimen
of I. longifrons, Owen. Figured in “ Liassic Reptilia”: Mon. Pal. Soc.,
1881, pls. xxiii-xxv, Upper Lias: Curcy, near Caen, Normandy.
Prices on application. In ordering, the numbers will be sufficient,
R. F. D. begs to call the attention of Directors of Museums and Professors of Biology
and Geology in Universities to his fine series of 149 Coloured Casts of rare and interesting
Fossils. The complete set, except Nos. 28 and 75, will be sent carriage paid for the
sum of £180. =
Any Museum acquiring such a grand series of Casts would possess much, not only to
interest the Student, but also to attract the general public. 3
A town about to establish a Museum would find that these specimens, when properly
mounted and displayed in glass cases, with instructive labels to each, would form
a substantial basis for a Public Museum at a very small cost. i
Directors or Curators and Protessors of Colleges can obtain by return of post, if
desired, a list of the Museums in Great Britain, Australia, Africa, America, Austria,
Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, India, Italy,
Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Russia, and Switzerland, where these Casts
can be seen which R. F. D. has supplied.
bd
Gs = 2 Se ee i
No. 441. New Series.—Decade IV.—Vol. VIII.—No. III. Price 1s.6d. nett.
|
pe eICAL MAGAZINE
Sonthly J
Journal of Geology.
WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED
—LHE GHOLOGIST.”
EDITED BY
HENRY WOODWARD, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &e.
ASSISTED BY
ROBERT ETHERIDGE, F.R.S.L. & E., F.G.S., &c.,
WILFRID H. HUDLESTON, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S., &e.,
GEORGE J. HINDE, Pu.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &c., AND
HORACE BOLINGBROKE WOODWARD, F.R.S., F.G.S.
MARCH, 1901.
eRe ING a NE ESS
|
LONDON: DULAU & CO., 37, SOHO fk aren
ee
¢& The Volume for 1900 of the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZI
s price 20s. nett.
Sa ia
Cloth Cases for Binding may be had, price mene
I. OxtgInaL ARTICLES. PAGE | IJ. Reviews. PAGE |f-
1. Some Lake Basins in Alberta 1. Geology of the South Wales
and British Columbia. By J. Coalfields Parte Ll x esse eee 139
Parkinson, I'.G.8S.. (Plate VI.) 97 | 2. Three Works by the Geological
2. Bone Cave in the Carboniferous Suryey of Canada (Dr. A. H.
Limestone of the Wye Valley. TOOT O) eos. ese aco rese eae eee 136
By Miss Dorotuy M. A. Bare. é
(With Illustrations in text.) ... 101 III. Reports anp PRocrEprnes.
3. Woodwardian Museum Notes. Geological Society of London—
By F. R. Cowprr Rexrp, M.A., Tee January 23, NCU: cota eee 140
BE GuSs a (blate VIL) Incr as 106 2. Webriary-Cy 19 Ol 2 ccednanes ae 140
_/4. Lower Carboniferous Fishes of Iv. C nage
| Eastern Fifeshire. By Dr. R. 1 SE
H. Traquatr, F.R.S., F.G.S. 110 1. Mr. G. W. Lamplugh, F.G.S. 142
5. History of the Sarsens. By Pro- QoNr a Seis DAK VNS ee tee tose aceon 143
fessor I’. Rupert Jones, F.R.S., 8. Professor T. McKenny Hughes 143
F.G.S. (Concluded from the . G
February ate Vee neabay as 115 V. Onrrvany.
6. The Age of the Earth and the Mr. James Bennie ............... 143
Sodium of the Sea. By AnrHtR . Se
Pica MG Rs ok. jag | VI. MiscenLanzous.
7. Geological Literature of the The New Director of the Geo-
Malay Peninsula, etc. By R. logical Survey ......:...... sesteenes 144
Butien Newron, F.G.S. (With Retirement of Professor T. G..
an Illustration.) .........-+s.0005- 128 Bonney, D.Sc., LL. Dey grt 144
8. Origin of Coal. By J. R. Appointment of Mr. F. J. Gar-
MDASEVN SISO CO be deve sseeascewicane ee 136 wood, M.A., ! Se oie 144
ROBT.
1-2
CS G9 =¥ G Gr P C9
55
56-57
58-59
60-61
62
ROBT 3k DAMON
ABRIDGED LIST OF
F. DAMON’S COLOURED CASTS
OF RARE FOSSILS.
Archezopteryx.
Acrodus Anningie.
Anthracotherium magnum.
Asaphus tyrannus, v. ornata,
Astropecten orion.
#lurosaurus felinus,
Bothriceps Australis.
Huxleyi. y
99
Bothriolepis Canadensis.
Cancrinus latipes.
Cephalaspis Lyelli..
jie Salweyi.
Che rolepis Canadensis.
Cyamodus laticeps.
Celodus ellipticus.
», gyrodoides.
Cynognathus erateronotus.
sip leptorhinus.
a0 platyceps.
Delphinognathus ccnocephalus.
Biprotodon Australis,
Didus ineptus.
Dinotherium giganteum,
Dinornis maximus.
Eurypterus nanus.
Elasmotherium Fischeri,
Eurypterus lanceolatus.
fe €eculeri. :
Eleven teeth and left humerus
of Pigmy Elephants of Malta.
Eusthencpteron Foordi.
Gastornis Klaasseni.
Ganorhynchus Woodwardi.
Gomphcegnathus polyphagus.
species.
Holoptychius nobilissimus,
Homalonotus delphinocephalus. —
Hyperodapedon Gordoni.
Hoplosaurus ?
Hyracotherium leporizum.
Iguanodon.
. Hollingtonier sis.
Loxomma Almanni.
Lariosaurus Balsami.
Lithomantis cartonarius.
Lithosialis Brongniarti.
Megalosaurus Bucklandi.
Mastodon elephantoides.
Mesosaurus tenuidens.
Meiolania Oweni.
Meiolania platyceps.
Megalania prisca.
Macropus anak.
99-108
109
110-111
112-113
114
115-117
118
119
120
121
122
123-124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
182-147
148
149
Neusticosaurus pusillus.
Procoptodon rapha. 5
Phascolomys gigas.
Pliosaurus grandis. =
Ptychognathus Maccaigi.
Paleotherium magnum.
Placodus gigas.
Plesiosaurus Hawkinsi.
macrocephalus.
Pterocactylus crassirostris.
Ptychogaster emydoides
Pareiasaurus Baini.
Phorarhacos.
Proterosaurus Speneri.
Paleopithecus Sivalensis. .
Pyc.odus Bowerbanki.
Pterygotus Anglicus.
Rhinoceros antiquitatis.
Rhamphosuchus crassidens,
Sapheosaurus laticeps.
Scaphognathus Purdoni.
Strophodus medius.
Stylonurus.
Sivatherium giganteum.
Tapirus priscus.
Theriodesmus phylarchus.
Thylaccleo carnifex.
Tetraconodon magnum.
Tritylodon longevus.
Tiirachodon Kannemeyeri.
Rhytina gigas.
Elginia mirabilis.
Geikia Elginensis.
Gordonia Huxleyana.
i Judciana.
iy Traquairi.
Sacrum, etc. (? ¢enus).
Herpetosuchus Granti.
Brachyodus Africanus.
Hoplophorus, sp.
Ichthyosaurus Zetlancicus.
Iguanodon,
Macherodus.
VW astodon arvernensis.
Melriorhynchus Moreli. —
Qdontopteryx.
Rhytidosteus capensis.
Scelidosauius Harrisoni.
Zanclodon Cambrensis.
Casts of human remains.
Lidus ineptus.
Ichthyosaurus Zetlandicus.
WEYMOUTH, ENGLAND.
» 7
]
Bm Detainee
No, 442. New Series.—Decade IV.—Vol. VIII.—No. IV. Price 18.64. nett,
Series
| GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE
Shlonthly Jounal of Geology.
WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED
“THE GEOLOGIST.”
EDITED BY
HENRY WOODWARD, SSeS
ASSISTED BY
ROBERT ETHERIDGE, F.R.S.L. & E., F.G.S., &c.,
WILFRID H. HUDLESTON, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S., &c.,
GEORGE J. HINDE, Pu.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &c., AND
HORACE BOLINGBROKE WOODWARD, F.R.S., F.G.S.
«Fi. Ge. Se:
APRIL, 1901.
Se) OOS es Mae SN
I. OntGrnau ARvICLES. . “pace | III. Reviews. PAGE
1. Oa ‘ Pyrgouwa cretacea,’ from The Graphite Mines of Ceylon.
the Upper Chalk. By Henry By Professor Weinschenek ....., 17a
Woopwarp, LL.D., F.R.S., eee : : wee a
WPS. BGS ..cte. (Plate +, IV. Repvorrs anp PROCEEDINGS.
; VIII, Figs. 1-5, and 3 Illustra- Geological Society of London—
: tions in the text.) ........ccccc.s. 145 1. Anniversary Meeting, Feb. 15... 177
4 2. Note on some Carboniferous [ase Atebruary 20, 19019 >. <.5. ake sites 183
: Trilobites. By Henry Woop- | V. CorresPponDENCE.
warp, LL.D.,P.R.S.,V.P.Z.S., 1. Rev. O. Fisher, M.A.; F.G.S, 186
F.G.S., ete. (Plate VIII, Figs. i 2. Professor 'l’, G. Bonney, D.Se.,
GHB.) note ceetecee ee eeeete tenant caee 152 Bh dt. Gem. ote van ae he eee 187
3. Notes ou the Geology of the 3. Professor G. A. J. Cole, F.G.S. 187
Eastern Desert _ ot Egypt. By 4, A. Strahan, M.A., F.G.S......2. 188
* I. Barron, A.R.C.S., F.G.S., 5. Prof. J. E. Marr, M.A., F.R.S: 189
3 and W. F. Hume, D.Sc., . 6. R. Bullen Newton, F.G.S....... 189
Do Wuese Ma GB 154 x ;
4. Schists in the Lepontine Alps. VI. Oprrvany.,
By Professor T. G. Bonney, 1. Dr.-'G. M.» Dawson, ©.M.G.;
Weep. ERS 161 LEDsetd ee, ecdacaaen aoe 190
5. Oscillations in the Sea-level. By 2. Protessor C. F. Liitken ......... 191
: EW... PEARSON, Hsq. (Plate | 3. Robert OTAig* sas! 5 ates tee 191
‘ Rea ce erick oe Tai beac ad ogse 167 | VII. Miscertanzous: 5 |
II. Norrces or Memorns. | The Geological Survey............ 19265)
* Dr. D. H. Scott, M.A., F.R.S.: ‘Blood Rain’ in Sicily, Italy,
‘ Structure and Affinities of Fossil and*AustriaQ.. 2! AaB CR. 199) 4
“s Plants from the Palwozoie Rocks 174 Miolama in Patagonia............ 192 |
s LONDON: DULAU -& CO., 387, SOHO SQUARE. |
i \ |
price 20s. nett.
The Volume for 1900 of the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE
is ready,
Cloth Cases for Binding may be had, price 1s. 6d. nett.
‘uoryeordde uo s|Issog ervey Jo sys¥Q pemojog 9LT SNOWVA AZ “A Jo S3sTT
1
CAN) wnesngy ystyag ey} ut poaroserd o1v suoutoads yeursti10 ONY,
‘VINODVLVd ‘ZOU0 VENVS ‘(¢ENHOOIN) SLISOdHA AUVILAIL
‘cT-1 ‘dd ‘oggq ‘Arenure ‘sag7 Ul SMOIPUY "MM *)
Aq paquosap os|Y ‘c@gyT ‘Ax emo} ‘ounueSity yeadooy “ysuy ‘Jog ul oulysomy “qq ‘yorg Aq
pequiosap pue pesedoosip osye ‘sngny/u Ud soloads 1eT[Vts JeyMoewos oY} Jo yy} WoT po]jopou
Usvseq sey {juys oy} pus ‘nowtoods jeuiS110 ey} Wolst po10jsol ATVYSTS teeq SY 9] qipuvul onL
sousouty “SO WISSIONOT SOOVHYOUOHd
) QUI LONILXT SILNVIID 3HL 40 31SI0NVIN ONY TINS
AED HO
STHCON HZIS HALT SHIIddOs
‘pupysuq ‘yyNours[ AA ‘NOWVG | “LgOd
aRS ee ey a
No. 443. New Series.—Decade IV.—Vol. VIII.—No.V. Price 18.64. nett, -
oe 7
GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE
’
Sonthly Jounal of Geology.
WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED
“THE GEOLOGIST.”
EDITED BY
Peat.) VV OOD AR D 1 b.D:,:-F.R-S,
i ASSISTED BY
ROBERT ETHERIDGE, F.R.S.L. & E., F.G.S., &c.,
, OF G20 weet
WILFRID H. HUDLESTON, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S., &c.,
GEORGE J. HINDE, Pu.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &c., AND
HORACE BOLINGBROKE WOODWARD, F.R.S., F.G.S.
MAY, 1901.
Solel GO Ae INS Diese al SI EAE a aed Pha
| IT. OrtetnaL ARTICLES. PAGE | ORIGINAL ARTICLES—continued. PAGE
1. Erosive Effect of Sand-blast on | 6. The Fish Fauna of the Millstone
Wood. By T. Metzaxp Reape, | Grits of Great Britain. By E. D.
Gske FG. Sa> PUR. 1B: A. Weipurn, L.R.C.P., F.G.S.,
REALG ohte) Sea eec atone siesremein = Se 193 | BER LPS ects coiedaeaeneeees 216
; aaaeT | 7. Oscillations in the Sea-level. By
2. Note on Graptolites from Peru. | H. W. Paxson, Esq. (Con-
By E. Tf. NeEwTon, F.R.S., tinued from the April Number,
Bree, Cte (With-an Ius-” | ee era. 223
LORE ie oe beasasitectbreeece 195 Sve, Coa ae hea eee ne
tration.)..........5 5 TEoheteee.
3. The Rift Valleys of Eastern The Permian of Russia. By
Sinai. By W. F. Hume, D.Sce., Professor V. Amalitzky ......... 231
A.R.S.M., F.G-.S., etc:......... FS ITT) Busonie aNd ecoeeneeae
‘ te nghe Wate B Geological Society of London—
: a i rte oar: 1H March Gy BOOTS Se sree tacesnte se 234
F G S etc siete ? 200 Fe Miarehr 20: 190s ec tice eee 236
LOSER aa tie 5 esac Ss oncob oop |
: : ; | IV. Oprrvany.
5. The Glacial Period and Oscilla- John Hopwood Blake ............ 238
tion of Land ‘in Scandinavia. .
By Dr. Nits Oxor Hotst. VY. MiscELLaNezous.
{ Translated by F. A. Batuzr, International Geological Con-
D.Se., F.G.8. ....eeseeeeseeeee sees 205 | EVES IOO cg cette ep treaties 240
LONDON: DULAU & CO., 37, SOHO SQUARE.
¢¢ The Volume for 1900 of the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE is ready,
price 20s. nett. Cloth Cases for Binding may be had, price 1s. 6d. nett.
“uoTyeorT[dde uo psy aq BD YOryM Jo 4siry ‘STISSOT e1ey JO SISVH PeANOT[OD 190440 o2T puy
‘Anojon adey : uoywmsog oovy
ne ees ‘SA LONOWALVYO SAHLYNOONKO
FO UOPTPAS PUB [NAG Fo S[epoy_ os, y
"U0 OFE JYSIOL
woMKQ ‘SOWIXVN SINYONIG
Jo jopoyy ospy “Auojog edup : UOIJBUIOT COBY
° (4
Aefaeg « ‘TNIVE SOMAVSVIAMVd
JO. WozOTOYG Oy} JO Topo] oz1s-ojr'T ospy
"eINoovyeg ‘ZnIg Se emad0TP, ¢
Oulysowy ‘SOWISSIONOT SOOVHNOWOHA
PUC JOUNXH o1uvsSry oyy Jo erqrpuvy_ pur TMHg
OU} JO sapoyy ozts-eyry sorpddng
‘puyjsuq ‘yynowse ‘NOWVG ‘qT “LGOd
at Beer Psa cee
| No 444. New Series —D
~N
| GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE
; ———— Honthly Journal of Geology.
“THE GEROLOGIST.”
EDITED BY
HENRY WOODWARD, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &c.
ASSISTED BY
x
4 ROBERT ETHERIDGE, F.R.S.L. & E., F.G.S., &c.,
|| WILFRID H. HUDLESTON, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S., &c.,
GEORGE J. HINDE, Pu.D., F:R.S., F.G.S., &c., AND
a HORACE BOLINGBROKE WOODWARD, F.R.S., F.G.S.-
Ba . JUNE, 1901. |
2 SS GB GST ES SI 1 fier Bl ep
-f) I. Oxternau ARTICLES. pace | Notices or Memorrs—continued. PAGE
5 1. On the Evidence of the Trans- 12. Fossil Foraminifera of Servia... aio
ference of Secondary Sexual 13. Geology of Evypt..............005. fal
Characters of Mammals trom 14. Shorter Geological INGLES: 35 0 5t 271
Males to Females. By C. I. Ill. R
Forsyrtu Masor, M.D., F.Z.S. 241 : ae ee Gada bas,
<a8 ahr : 1. A. C. Seward’s Catalogue of
. 2. Woodwardian Museum Notes: Spt cteinknti Me eT SD
: ; the Mesozoic Plants in the
Salter’s Undeseribed Species. tips Bene
: British: Musewine 2 ie8222 see aces 274 4
By F. R. Cowrrr Rezp, M.A., ? Sins are eee eae
Sie 2. Dr. F. L. Kitchin’s Jurassic
=e Ee So pete ae Fauna of Cutch (Brachiopoda) 276
8! Sections of Cretaceous Rocks at pee : ek i Mie
Glynde and their Fossils. By IV. Rerortrs AND PROCEEDINGS.
JesPs JOHNSON, HSQa.!..ccscress«s 249 Geological Society of London—
4. A Chalk Ammonite, probably 1. Special General Meeting, Mar.27,
A. Ramsayanus, Sharpe. By Ek L Reais toe mance ROBe A. te Cacia 278 |
ee URICK, GS e., var ous 251 | 2. Ordinary Meeting, April 3 ...... 279
5. Oscillations in the Sea-level. } 38. Ordinary Meeting, April 24 ... 280 |
af (Pt. 111.) By H. W. Praxson, V. CorresponpENce.
= Hea ee from the May 253 1. G. W. Lamplugh, F.G.S....... 284 |
tease accents O39.) 2. A. R. Hunt, M.A., F.GsSe.'.., 285 4
- II. Norrces or Memorrs. on Migs Wie S Ad OhistOns cate cnoe: 256 |
1. Petroleum in California ......... 265 4. ‘*Qverwhelmed Recorder’’...... 286 |
2. Maryland Geological Survey ... 266 | VI. Oxrrvary. |
Bi Carboniferous of. Eastern Canada 266 Haward Graven ces: i}
4, Edinburgh Geological Society... 266 hieaeee st Oe maa ae i pee “
5. Geologic: al Society of Tokyo ... - 967 VII. Miscernangous. 2~<(galiel Insist, SS
6. Geology GEM AWille.srtncscceeant 267 1. Dinner to Sir A. Gitte, D. C. a 1 4,
7. Glaciation in South Africa ...... 268 PROS shacceecan | eee ee aes S2BOMY /
8. Geology of India ...............055 268 2. International Gaolobtdal Gow mem Pe
9. Former Extension of Rhietic PVOBS ish tencacoie vd Nees Me Re a oN te) 2a) Si
PAPA OVELSATEAM woccs cose cade ans 269 3. Sudden Death of Prof, Ci tay .—
10. Ancient Voleanos in Arran ...... 270 Lindstrém, For. Mem. Geol.
11. Geology of India ..........5... pee -V A!) BOC AON Gan: cigs tienes dsceecen canes 288
LONDON: DULAU & CO.., 387, SOHO SQUARE.
a
(< The Volume for 1900 of the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE is ready,
‘ price 20s. nett. Cloth Cases for Binding may be had, price 1s. 6d. nett.
og
CASTS OF HUMAN REMAINS
SUPPLIED BY
ROBERT F. DAMON, WEYMOUTH, ENGLAND.
134.
136.
136.
Pithecanthropus erectus, Dubois. Upper portion of cranium of
a primitive type from superficial deposits, Bengawan River, Java.
Upper portion of cranium from a cavern in the Neanderthal.
Described by Prof. D. Schaaffhausen in Miiller’s Archive, 1858. Figured also
in Lyell’s ‘‘ Antiquity of Man,’’ Ist ed. 3
Imperfect cranium from a cayern at Engis, near Liége, Belgium
Figured and described by Dr. P. C. Schmerling in Oss. Foss. Cay. Proy.
Liége, 1833. Also in Lyell’s ‘‘ Antiquity of Man,” 1st ed.
Imperfect cranium, mandible, femur, tibia, and fibula, found
34 feet below the suiface at Tulbury, Essex. Figured and described in Owen’s
“Antiquity of Man,’ 1884.
Upper portion of cranium (a) with mandible; another cranium (4),
right femur, and left tibia: from the cavern of Beche Aux Roches, Spy, in
Province of Namur, Belgium. Figured and described by MM. Fraipont and
Lohest in Archives de Biologie, 1887.
Upper portion of cranium from an ancient burial-place. Manor
Hamilton, co. Sligo, Ireland.
An imperfect mandible of obtuse angle as seen in profile, from
the caves of Naulette, Dinant.
An almost entire mandible of similar character. Malarnaud.
Casts of human bones found in the cave of Crv-Magnon, near
Les Eyzies in Perigord. Described by MM. Lartet and Christy in ‘“ Reliquize
Aquitanice,’’ and in Bulletin Soc. d’Anthrop. Paris, 1868. Also uoticed in
Dawkins’ “ Cave Hunting,’’ ete. The series consist of :—
140. Almost perfect cranium (a) with mandible (1 & 2).
141. Imperfect cranium (4) with mandible (3 & 4).
142. Upper portion of cranium (e¢) (5).
143, Imperfect mandibles (6 and 7).
144. Left humerus and proximal half of ulna (8 & 9).
145. Right femur (articulations wanting) (10).
146. left tibia and imperfect right tibia (11 & 12).
147. Right fibula (13), ;
Price £11 12s. 6d. for the complete set (packing
included).
LISTS of R. F. Damon’s 178 Coloured Casts of Rare
Fossils can be had on application.
X , °
: New Series.—Decade IV.—Vol. VIII.—No. VII. Price 1s.6d. nett.
: : THE | |
| GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE
dtlonthly Journal of Geology.
“THE. GHOLOGIST.”’’
HENRY WOODWARD, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &e.
ASSISTED BY
ROBERT ETHERIDGE, F.R.S.L. & E., F.G.S., &c.,
WILFRID H. HUDLESTON, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S., &c.,
GEORGE J. HINDE, Pu.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &c., AND
HORACE BOLINGBROKE WOODWARD, PAS FS
JULY, 1901.
oo INE bea ES:
Noricres or Memorrs—continued. PAGE
5. Argonaut from the Tertiary of
PAGE
Geologists :
I. OrtGInaL ARTICLES.
1. Eminent Living
II oe ATE PS ie ee
3. Notes on the Tourmaline of the
White Granite of Dartmoor. By
Lieut -Gen. C. A. McManon,
F.R.S., F.G.S8.
4, Abnormal Section of Chloritic
Marl at Mupe Bay, Dorset. By
304
016
j Professor C. Lapwortu, LL.D., Japan. By Mr. Yoshiwara ... 323
F.R.S.,F.G.S. (With a Por- 6. The Grand Canyon of the
DEAL Se LAUGH Vi. )eeincwnd cme ete vace 289 Colorado. By Prof. W. M. Davis 324
2. A Systematic Nomenclature for 7. Shorter Geological Notes......... 324 |
Leneous Rocks. By H.8.JEvons, Wiha
1. The Mineralogy of Scotland. By
the late M. F. Heddle, M.D.,
HES Diomey tne ates AREAS 8: Co 320
2. Homeomorphy among Jurassic ~
Brachiopoda. By 8. 8. Buckman,
IB Geis! Ane wn th oe oecmeuc eaneannes 326
IV. Rerorts AND PROCEEDINGS.
A. Srranan, M.A:, F.G.8. ... 319 : D*
IL N M oe Geological Society of London—
: paTeEs OF aS f eoMteiy 85 LOO evame vara: Sasvaes cence
1. Origin of the Ancient Crystalline 9-¢May 22, 1901S: sc ccc2soacssesepe cen 329
Rocks. By Prot. F. D. Adams,
PP ese. Ors es CbCsce, exsSa sc access
2. Nodular Granite from Pine Lake,
Ontario. By Prof. F. D. Adams 3
VY. CorresPpoNDENCE.
1. A. M. Davies, B.Sc., F.G.S. ... 331
2. Professor T. G. Bonney, D.Sce.,
pracy aeimenial Tavesiseation into 1) ates at a RE tr Sea Pt 3832
- xp ae 5 Sede ius Dakyns SBsq. isan deus oes 332
the Flow of Marble. By Prof.
F. D. Adams & J. T. Nicolson 322 | VI. Onrrvary.
4. Geology of West Cornwall. By Protessor Gustaf Lindstrom.
J hand 3} G ll ba Naas seae cee een eae 823 (With a Portrait, Plate XIII.) 333 }
LONDON: DULAU & CO., 37, SOHO SQUARE.
_ ¢& The Volume for 1900 of the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE is ready,
Cloth Cases for Binding may be had, price 1s. 6d. nett.
f price 20s. nett.
ae Sete
ROBT. F. DAMON, Weymouth, England,
Begs to call the attention of Directors of Museums and Professors of Biology and
Geology in Universities to his fine series of 178 Coloured Casts of rare and interesting
Fossils. The complete set, except Nos. 28 and 75, will be sent carriage paid for the
sum of £200.
Any Museum acquiring such a grand series of Casts would possess much, not only
to interest the Student, but also to attract the general public. ‘
A town about to establish a Museum would find that these specimens, when properly
mounted and displayed in glass cases, with instructive labels to each, would form a
substantial basis for a Public Museum ata very small cost.
Directors or Curators and Professors of Colleges can obtain by return of post, if
desired, a list of the Museums in Great Britain, Australia, Africa, America, Austria,
Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, India, Italy,
Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Russia, and Switzerland, where these Casts
can be seen which R. F. D. has supplied.
The following TWO FINE CASTS should be in every Museum :
75. Pareiasaurus Baini, Seeley. Skeleton. Karoo Formation (Trias) :
Bad, near Tamboer Fontein, Cape Colony. The original preserved in the
British Museum (Nat. Hist.). Described and figured in Phil. Trans., 1892,
B, pp. 311-879, pls. xvii-xix, xxi-xxiii. Coloured reproductions of this
magnificent and remarkable reptile, measuring 7 ft. 9 in. in length and 4 ft. in
_ breadth, fitted with ironwork ready for mounting for a museum. Price £50.
77. Phororhacos longissimus, Ameghino. Length 60cm. The
mandible has been slightly restored from the actual specimen, and the skull
has been modelled from that of the somewhat smaller species Ph. inflatus,
‘figured by F. Ameghino (1895). Buenos Ayres, from the Tertiary Deposits
(Miocene P), Santa Cruz, Patagonia. Described by C. W.Andrews, Esq., F.G.S.,
in the Zdbis, January, 1896, pp. 1-12. The original specimens are in the
Geological Department of the British Museum (Natural History). Price £5.
R. F. DAMON’S casts of HUMAN REMAINS have been lately supplied to several |
Museums in England, on the Continent, Australia, and New Zealand.
Price for the complete set, Nos. 132 to 147, £11 12s. 6d.
(packing included).
The following three casts have just been added to the already
fine collection :
177. Megaladapis madagascariensis, Forsyth Major. Cranium and
mandible. Type-specimen. Described and figured by Dr. C. Forsyth Major
in Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond., vol! 185, B (1894), pp. 16-38, pls. y—vil.
Pleistocene : Amboulisatra, 8. W. Madagascar.
178. Cast taken from brain-cavity of the above. Described and figured
by Dr. Forsyth Majorin Proe. Roy. Soc. Lond., 1897, p. 47, pl. v, figs. 4-6.
175. Upper and lower molar teeth of above.
Price £2 3s. 6d.
FULL LIST WITH PRICES SENT ON APPLICATION.
ADDRESS—
ROBT F. DAMON, Weymouth, England. |
ee
.446. New Series.—Decade IV.—Vol.VIII.—No.VIII. Price 1s.6d. nett.
GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE
dlenthly Jounal of Geology.
WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED
“THE GEOLOGIST.”
EDITED BY
HENRY WOODWARD, LL.D., F.R.S
ASSISTED BY
ROBERT ETHERIDGE, F.R.S.L. & E., F.G.S., &c.,
WILFRID H. HUDLESTON, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S., &c.,
GEORGE J. HINDE, Pu.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &c., AND
HORACE BOLINGBROKE WOODWARD, F.R.S., F.G.S.
5) FG. Sk, Se
AUGUST, 1901.
Go Mew oT Ss:
I. OrternaL ARTICLES. PAGE | II. Notices or Memotrrs. PAGE
1. The Earliest Traces of Man. 1. F. R. Cowper Reed’s Rivers of
By Sir Henry H. Howorrn, BastanOrkshivGsycwccseseceea eae 370
K.C.1.E., F.R.S., 1 A Cope ee See 337 2. Dr. G. M. Dawson’s Rocky
- 2. The Circulation of Salt and Miountainsivcus kee eccetes 871
Geological Time. By Professor 3. Professor Joly’s Age of the Earth 371
_J. Jory, M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S. 344 4. Packard’s Crustacean Trails, ete. 371
3. On the Enon Conglomerate and 5. Shorter Geological Notes.......:. 372
its Fossil Estherie. By Professor
T. Rurert Jones, F.R.S., III. Reviews.
F.G.8. (With 4 Illustrations.) 340 1. Merzbacher’s Caucasus. By
4. Reported Occurrence of the Prof. T. G. Bonney, F.R.S. ... 372
Camel and Nilghai in the Upper 2. Dr. Stuart Weller’s Silurian
Miocene of Samos. By C. I. Crinoids. By F. A. Bather,
ForsytH Mayor, M.D., F.Z.S, 354 DAses WG iS. ee Dee 376
5. Woodwardian Museum Notes: eae ;
Salter’s Undescribed Species. IV. Rerorts anp Proceepines.
By F. R. Cowper Rezgp, M.A., Geological Society of London—
TER Cots Reems (led Ch). 80 ee 300 Te Fune’ dso 0 eco a ncccnpeen eters 379
6. On the British Earthquakes of Di Tuner l LO Oe etoceseataueance 380
1900. By C. Davison, D.8ce.,
M.A., F.G.S. (With an Illus- V. CorrEsPoNDENER.,
RAMON) deine SP) Sar adee sence teeny se 388 Maro Cals Grose, = sisi de access 382°
-~I
. Geological Notes from Tangan- : Basti.
yika Northwards. By Matcoum Vi. ae |
Frreusson, Esg. (With Maps 1. Richard Howse, M.A. .,........4: 382
MHAUSECHOUS:) WUses. arr caunascedsen 362 2. Professor Joséph_Le Conte ...... 3884
LONDON: DULAU & CO., 37, SOHO SQUARE.
¢ The Volume for 1900 of the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE is ready,
price 20s. nett. Cloth Cases for Binding may be had, price 1s. 6d. nett.
ROBT. F. DAMON, Weymouth, England,
Begs to call the attention of Directors of Museums and Professors of Biology and
Geology in Universities to his fine series of 178 Coloured Casts of rare and interesting
Fossils. The complete set, except Nos. 28 and 75, will be sent carriage paid for the
sum of £200.
Any Museum acquiring such a grand series of Casts would possess much, not only
to interest the Student, but also to attract the general public.
A town about to establish a Museum would find that these specimens, when properly
mounted and displayed in glass cases, with instructive labels to each, would form a
substantial basis for a Public Museum ata very small cost.
Directors or Curators and Professors of Colleges can obtain by return of post, if
desired, a list of the Museums in Great Britain, Australia, Africa, America, Austria,
Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, India, Italy,
Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Russia, and Switzerland, where these Casts
can be seen which R. F. D. has supplied.
The following TWO FINE CASTS should be in every Museum:
75. Pareiasaurus Baini, Seeley. Skeleton. Karoo Formation (Trias) :
Bad, near Tamboer Fontein, Cape Colony. ‘The original preserved in the
British Museum (Nat. Hist.). Described and figured in Phil. Trans., 1892,
’B, pp. 311-379, pls. xvii-xix, xxi-xxili. Coloured reproductions of this
magnificent and remarkable reptile, measuring 7 ft. 9 in. in length and 4 ft. in
breadth, fitted with ironwork ready for mounting for a museum. Price £50.
77. Phororhacos longissimus, Ameghino. Length 60em. The
mandible has been slightly restored from the actual specimen, and the skull
has been modelled from that of the somewhat smaller species Ph. inflatus,
figured by F. Ameghino (1895). Buenos Ayres, from the Tertiary Deposits
(Miocene r), Santa Cruz, Patagonia. Described by C. W.Andrews, Esq., F.G.S.,
in the Jdis, January, 1896, pp. 1-12. The original specimens are in the
Geological Department of the British Museum (Natural History). Price £5.
Rk. F. DAMON’S casts of HUMAN REMAINS have been lately supplied to several
Museums in England, on the Continent, Australia, and New Zealand.
Price for the complete set, Nos. 182 to 147, £11 12s. 6d.
(packing included).
The following three casts have just been added to the already
fine collection :
177. Megaladapis madagascariensis, Forsyth Major. Cranium and
mandible. Type-specimen. Described and figured by Dr. C. Forsyth Major
in Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond., vol. 185, B (1894), pp. 15-88, pls. y—vii.
Pleistocene : Amboulisatra, 8.W. "Madagascar.
178. Cast taken from brain-cayvity of the above. Described and figured
by Dr. Forsyth Major in Proce. Roy. Soc. Lond., 1897, p- 47, pl. v, figs. re 6.
175. Upper and lower molar teeth of above.
Price £2 3s, 6d.
FULL LIST WITH PRICES SENT ON APPLICATION.
\ ADDRESS—
ROBE, BDA ON, Weymouth, England.
\
\
\
\
GROLOGICAL MAGAZINE
dplonthly Journal of Geology,
WITH WHICH IS INCGRPORATED
“tHE -GHROLOGIST.”’
EDITED BY
HENRY WOODWARD, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &c.
ASSISTED BY
ROBERT ETHERIDGE, F.R.S. L. & E., F.G.S., &c.,
WILFRID H. HUDLESTON, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S., &c.,
GEORGE J. HINDE, Pu.D., F.R.S., F.G.S:, &c., AND
‘HORACE BOLINGBROKE WOODWARD, F.R.S., F.G.S.
SEPTEMBER, 1901.
Re i ea ES
I. Orternat ARTICLES: _ PAGE | Noricus or Memortrs—continued. PAGE
oa ees ae Geoeee : 5. Bulumine and Cassiduline...... 420)
I ee R ay Pos F R ne 6. Other Foraminiferal lists ...... 420
Wi i" Pp See sca XIV ; 395 7. Blanford’s Indian Vertebrates... 421
(With a ortratt, ate 5 -) 885 8. SphericalConcretions of Graphite 421
2. Preliminary Note on Recently- 9. Geology of Scotland...... 42]
discovered extinct Vertebrates ip Rdolocy ot Nortolcc oe eee, 499
Ss ‘ ‘ ey ots Nortol ks stg teens 22
De ate are Ry aa 11. British Non-marine Mollusca... 422
ANDREWS, Sc., F.G.S, (Wit 12. Austro-Hungarian Geolegy ... 423
4 Uliswations)-...-3 Re eect peat 400 13. Laccoliths of Montana............ 423
3. On Pleurotoma, prisea, Sobr., [4 Bitumen an: © wb ssccessestieeeiee 423
from Barton, Hants. By Henny 15. Geology of London Pike feds 423
W pe aed LL.D., P.R.S. 16. Shorter Notices ........ssceceeeee 424
(With an Illustration.) .......+. 409
4, On the Limburgite from near III. CorrEsponPENcE. |
Sasbach. a G.Bonnex, ihe ye Adana ‘son 494
D.Sc., F.B.S. (With 2 Figures 2. Professor T Yup + Jones ...... 425 |
in text. ) wee vec cce ern ecns eenievecce 411 3. Rey. R. Ashan®ton, Bullen Aw 1 426
5. Another Section of Keuper Marl 4. Mr: F. Dé Bennete aM MIS tity 427
at Great Crosby. By'T.Metiarp 5. Mrs A. BeaTuut”.. shee 428) |
Reape, C.E., P.G.S. ee 417 6. -Mr..E. Greegley/7...3 22.3432 429) |
|| II. Norices or Memorrs. LV.’ Optrvars
1. Hydrology in Belgium ......... 418 Ue
3 2 1. Baron Nils A. Ev-Nordenskiéld
2. Maryland Geological Survey ... 418 Riemer: ee}
Wve tanteran Gratian! 1901... 419 Naturalist and Arctic Explorer.. 429 |
4. Geological Literature ............ 420 ITY Gis se acdvawes com eaten “tee 432
LONDON: DULAU & CO., 87, SOHO Sle oe
t+ The Volume for 1900 of the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE is ready,
price 20s. nett. Cloth Cases for Binding may de had, price 1s. 6d. nett.
MORE NEW COLOURED CASTS
RARE FOSSILS,
WHICH CAN NOW. ee SUPPLIED BY
ROBERT F. DAMON, WEYMOUTH, ENGLAND,
177. Megaladapis fellatece ce Forsyth- es Grantors and
mandible. Type-specimen. Described and figured by Dr. C. Forsyth-Major
in Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond., vol. 185, B (1894), pp. 15-38, pls. y—vii.
Pleistocene: Amboulisatra, S.W. Madagascar. Price £1 10s.
178. Cast taken from brain-cavity of the above. Described and figured
by Dr. Forsyth-Major in Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond., 1897, p. 47, pl. y, figs. 4-6,
Price 7s. 6d. -
179. Miolania Morenoi, A. 8. Woodward. - Cranium, with imperfect”
: mandible and portion of caudal sheath. Described and floured by Dr. A. 8.
Woodward in Proc. Zool. Soc., 1901, pp. 170-176, pls. xv—xviii. Cretaceous ?:
Chubut, Patagonia. Originals in La Plata Museum. Price £3 15s.
180. Ichthyosaurus breviceps, Owen. Slab measuring 4 ft. 2 in. =
2 feet, showing right side of skull. Described and figured by Owen in
Mon. Foss. Rept. Lias (Pal. Soc., vol. xxxv, 1881), pp. 109-111, pl. xxix,
fig. 1, Lower Lias: Lyme Regis. Original in British Museum. Price £3,
181. Rhinoceros antiquitatis, Blumenbach. Cranium of young
individual dredged off Dogger Bank, Original in British Museum. Price £3.
182, Elephas primigenius, Blumenback.. Mandible. Described and
figured by E. Charlesworth in Mag. Nat. Hist., 1839, p. 347, fig. 40; also
figured in Cat. Foss. Mamm. Brit. Mus., part iv, p. 193, fig. 32. Dredged
off Dogger Bank. Original in British Museum. Price £3.
183.. Pleurosternum Bullocki, Owen. Dorsal aspect of cranium.
Middle Purbecks: Langton Quarries, Purbeck. Original in Roy. Coll. Surgeons
Museum. Price 5s. ;
184. Borhyena fera, Ameghino. Imperfect mandible. Santa Cruz
Beds, Patagonia. Price 10s. 6d.
185. Prothylacinus sp., Ameghino. Molar tooth. Santa Cruz Beds,
Patagonia. Price 4s.
186. Amphiproviverra sp., Ameghino. Left ramus of mandible.
Santa Cruz Beds, Patagonia. Originals in La Plata Museum. Price 6s.
187. Hyracotherium leporinum, Owen. Palate with teeth. Described
and figured in Geol. Mag., vol. ii (1865), pt. x, fig. 2, London Clay.
Original in British Museum. Price 5s. ~
188, —————- —————. [eft ramus of mandible. Described and
figured in Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xiv, pl. ili, figs. 4-6. London
Clay: Harwich. Original in British Museum. Price 3s.
189. Mochlorhinus platyceps, Seeley. Imperfect cranium. Described
and figured in Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., 1898, pp. 164-176, woodeuts 1-3.
Bethulie, Orange Free State. Original in Albany Museum. Price 21s.
190. Hypsilophodon Foxi, Huxley. Cranium. Figured by Hulke in
“ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1874, pl. iii; also in Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., 1882,
pl. Ixxi, fig. 1, and pl. Ixxvi, fig. 2. Wealden: Isle of Wight. Price 25s.
ADDRESS :
ROBT F. DAMON, Weymouth, England.
10.448. New Series.—
Decade IV.—Vol. VIII.—No.X. Price 1s.64. nett.
| GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE
Monthly Jounal of Geology.
WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED
“THE GEOLOGIST.”
EDITED BY
HENRY WOODWARD, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &c.
ASSISTED BY
‘ROBERT ETHERIDGE, F.R.S.L. & E., F.GS., &c.,
WILFRID H. HUDLESTON, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S., &c.,
GEORGE J. HINDE, Pu.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &c., AND
“HORACE BOLINGBROKE WOODWARD, F.R.S., F.G.S.
a Oo eee
OCTOBER, 1901.
Som fa NT Ss.
-" SS a ee ae eee
I. OntetnaL ARTICLES. - PAGE | Norices or Memoirs—continued. PAGE |
1. Some Carboniferous Shale from 2. Geological Survey Report, Egypt:
Siberia. By T. Rupert Jones, The Farafra Oasis >....... Ra 470 |
F.R.S., F.G.S. (Plate XVI.) 433 8. Economic Gedlogy ............... 471 |
2. Recently Discovered Extinct 4. Canadian Geology s aoenaes oer 471 |
Vertebrates from Egypt. (Pt. IT.) 5. Canadian Paleozoic Corals ...... 472
By Cuas. W. AnpxeEws, D.Se., 6. Paleozoic Crustacea............... 472
F.G.S8., of the British Museum 7. Map of Mt. Blane ...c.cs.sv0csee 472
(Nat. Hist.). (With 4 Ilus- 8. Geology of the Philippines ...... 472
trations.) ....eseve eeseeseesseeeeess 436 9. New Brachiopoda gre eeecemisetsnes 473
8. On the Circulation of Salt in
its Relations to Geology. By III, Reviews.
Witrram Ackroyp, F.I.C., 1. Fauna of the Gas-coal, ete., of
SO Stieaae cc cctcacsaietesett eres ces 445 Bohemia. By Dr. Fritsch. ... 473
3 4. The Periodicity of Earthquakes. 2. Geology of the Transvaal ...... 475
@ lee By R. D. Oupnam, F.G.S., Le f it
Bie cemiaident Geol. Surv. of LY: Ee aN EN Es: CRS ae
An Sah iin eee 449 1, Mr. 8S. 8. Buckman, F.G.S. ... 478
2. Fossils and Garnets ............... 479 |
II. Nortces or Memorrs. |
1. British Association, Glasgow, V. Oxrruary,
Sept. 12th, 1901. Geology: 1. John Storrie, ACTOS. < as ive fae
Presidential Address by John 2. J. W. Kirkby -......se..sceeeeee 480
Horne, F.R.S. L. & E., F.G.S., 3. Professor E. W. Claypole ...... 480
POMS EGULOTSG! se) cote atteraaciesees « 452 AME ES WV OD wWardsos ccc esateet sens 480
LONDON: DULAU & CO., 387, SOHO SQUARE.
{ <a ‘The Volume for 1900 of the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE is ready,
price 20s. nett. Cloth Cases for Binding may be had, price 1s. 6d. nett.
ROBERT F. DAMON,
WEYMOUTH, ENGLAND,
Can forward, within a few days of receipt of order, besides numerous other
specimens, the following :—
Post-Tertiary Fossils from Barbadoes.
Tertiary Fossils from Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia.
Tertiary Mollusca from Muddy Creek, Victoria, Australia. f
Vertebrate Remains from the Pliocene Tertiary, Siwalik Hills, India. =
Antwerp Crag Fossils (100 Species).
Fishes from the Eocene of Monte Bolca.
Rudistes, Hipourites, Requienia, etc.: Cretaceous (Senonien), Dordogne.
A Grand Collection of Fishes, beautifully preserved, from the Cretaceous Beds
of the Lebanon, Syria. (Described by Mr. J. Davis and others.)
St. Cassian Fossils (123 Species). ;
Plants from the Trias of Austria.
British and Foreign Permian Fishes.
Carboniferous Fossils from Belgium.
Bothriolepis, Fusthenopteron, Phaneropleuron, etc., from the Devonian of Canada.
Silurian Fossils from America.
Crinoids from the Carboniferous of Russia and America.
x ‘3 Devonian of France.
200 Specimens of Rocks from Puy-de-Dome.
100 < of Rocks and Minerals for Schools, ete. SEE LIST.
Micro-Slides of Rocks, etc., for Students. SEE LIST.
190 Coloured Casts of Rare Fossils.
R. F. Damon’s COLOURED CASTS can be seen in many English and
Colonial and Continental Museums. List can be had on application.
An interesting set of HUMAN REMAINS can now be supplied.
FOR BRITISH FOSSILS see lst.
-FOR MINERALS see list.
Thirty Models of Natural Crystals of Diamonds and Coloured
Precious Stones. £3 3s,
ZOOLOGICAL SPECIMENS.
Aves — Reptilia — Amphibia — Pisces — Insecta — Arachnoidea —
Crustacea — Vermes— Mollusca — Tunicata — Bryozoa — Ceelenterata—
Echinodermata—Porifera—Protozoa.
A number of Mounted Birds, Fishes, Reptiles, etc., to be sold at
a very low figure. :
250 species of Foreign Fishes in spirits. £25.
50 species of Foreign Amphibia and Reptilia in spirits. £1 10s.
100 species of Foreign Crustacea in spirits. £2 10s.
RECENT MOLLUSCA from Great Britain, Australia, China, Japan,
Philippines, East and West Indies, and other parts of the world.
No. 449. New Series.—Decade IV.—Vol. VIII.—No. XI. Price 1s.64. nett.
‘GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE
dtonthly J Journal of Geology.
WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED
“THE GHOLOGIST.”
EDITED KY
HENRY WOODWARD, -LL.D.,
ASSISTED BY
ROBERT ETHERIDGE, F.R.S.L. & E., F.G.S., &c.,
WILFRID H. HUDLESTON, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S., &c.,
GEORGE J. HINDE, Pu.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &c., AND
HORACE BOLINGBROKE WOODWARD, F.R.S., F.G.S.
F.R.S., F.G.S., &c.
NOVEMBER, 1901.
ORS OG Se Sa SS
II. Notices or Memorrs. a
Titles of Papers relating to
I. OntGINAL ARTICLES. PAGE PAGE
_ 1. On the Bone-beds of Pikermi, ye
Attica, and similar Deposits in
Eubeea. By A. Smitx Woop-
warp, LL.D., F.R.S: 481
. Crustacea collected by Miss C.
Birley and Miss L. Copland from
the Cretaceous of Faxe, Denmark.
By Henry Woopwarp, LL.D.,
F.R.S., etc. (Plate XII and
WOON CHES oie. Setateac te sep cek es cae 486
. Rate of Increase of Underground
senate By J.Nouan,M.R.I.A.
eee eee ee eee eee eee ey
LONDON:
3.
Geology, read at Meeting of
British Association, Glasgow,
September, 1901
. Phosphatic Layer at Base of
Inferior Oolite, Skye. By
Horace B. Woodward, F.R.S. 519
. Silicified Plant Seam, Millstone
Grit, West Riding. By John
Ribodes css scons teestarpemee nee
. Copper-bearing Rocks of South
Temperature. By Prof. ow. J. Australia. By F. P. Mennell... 520
Sotras, LL.D., D.Se., F.R.S 502 5. GeologicDistributionof Pollicipes
4, Circulation of Se alt and Geological and Scalpellum. By Dr. F. A.
Time. By Prof.J.Jony, M.A., ather, E.GiS. { wecsayeccdwcseet 521
eens Be raasccok Gree basa cee 504 6. The Caucasian Museum, Tiflis... 522
5. The Sequence of the Tertiary 7. Geology of Deyonshire............ 523
Igneous Rocks. of Skye. By 8. A New Fossil Lizard from Lesina 523
ALYRED Harker, M.A., F.G.8, 506 9. Shorter NOuces ose<ecssen.csss tens 523
6. Geological Notes ‘around Lady- III. CorresponpDENCE.
smith, Natal. No. 1: Igneous 1. Prof. T. G. Bonney, F.R.S. ... 525
Rocks. By Dr. Hueu Exton, 2S Mere Jo Rt, Dakyns'ic. castes dees
REGS Se ik Wray ane senaawes st eens 509 8. Mr. T. E. Knightley ............ 526
7. Origin of the Grayel-Flats of IV. Oxsrrvary.
Surrey and Berkshire. By Edward Waller Claypole, B.A.,
Horace W.Moncxton,F.L.8., DiSezcbond’secccccete-ceeacesmane 527
Winer Srrtes seas seta costae « 510 | V. MisceLLanxovs.
Brachylepas cretacea from W hit-
8. Ancient Glacier-dammed Lakes 1
in the Cheviots. By P. F. way Pit, South Dorset............ 528
Kenpatt & H. B. Murr, B.A. 513 2. Geological Survey of Great
9. Voleanie Rocks of Forkill, Co. Britain and. Ireland .....««t®2. 528
Whitaker’s Guide to the Geology
Of London... /.128gpvs cave conaves
DULAU & CO., 37, SOHO SQUARE.
¢& The Volume for 1900 of the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE is ready,
price 20s. nett.
Cloth Cases for Binding may be had, price 1s. 6d. nett.
Robt. F. Damon,
WEYMOUTH, ENGLAND, —
HAS NOW FOR $ SALE
Three Collections of Minerals.
- No. 1.
1,732 Specimens in Mahogany Cabinet, by Edwards,
38 drawers enclosed by doors. Size of Cabinet:
Height 4ft. 9in., width 3 ft. 10 in., depth i ft. 7in.
PRICE, INCLUDING PACKING, £200.
No. 2. | ee 2
2,540 Specimens, contained in two Cabinets. Also
98 Exhibition Minerals in two Table Cases.
PRICE, INCLUDING PACKING, £170.
No. 3.
A very large number of Specimens contained in
four Cabinets (100 drawers) and in eight flat |
Show Cases, besides various large specimens.
PRICE, INCLUDING PACKING, £500.
Particulars on application.
ADDRESS—
ROBT. F. DAMON, Weymouth, England.
"sgt Tn GEES ogee il
0, 450. New Series.—Decade IV.—Vol. VIII.—No. XII. Price 1s.6¢. nett,
GE OLOGICAL MAGAZINE
fe sblonthly Sournal of Geology.
SEH em ShOMOGLIST.2
HENRY WOODWARD, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &c.
ASSISTED BY *
ROBERT ETHERIDGE, F.R.S.L. & E., F.G.S., &c.,
WILFRID H. HUDLESTON, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S., &c.,
GEORGE J. HINDE, Pu-D.,-F:R.S.;. F.G.S., &ee AND
HORACE BOLINGBROKE WOODWARD, F.R.S., F.G.S.
DECEMBER, 1901.
Gay IN Ae eI Ss
I. OriGInaL ARTICLES. paGE ) Notices or MremMorrs—continued: PAGE
1. Devonian Fossils from Devon- 3. Ou the Anatomy of Todew. By
phires; By the, Rev. G.. F. A. C. Seward, F.R.S., and
~Wuipporne, M.A., F.G.S., Miss S$ Oce Bord tse: saa eeene 564
V-P. Pal. Soc. (With Plates 4. Pleistocene Plantsand Coleoptera
my bieand -XVITI-)...2-..2.s60 05629 from Wolvereote, Oxfordshire.
2. The Fayim Depression. By By A: M. Bell, M A., F.G.S... 565
H J.L. Beapnett, F.G.S ,etc. 540 5. Recent Discoveries in Arran
3. Notes on Royle’s Types of Fossil Geology. By W. Gunn, H.M.
Plants from India. By E. A. Geological Survey.........sceseeees 566
NEWELL ARBER, B.A. ..... 546 6. CrystallineSchists of theSouthern
4. Geological Notes on the Neigh- Highlands. By Peter Macnair 567
bourhood of I.adysmith : No. 2 7. The Source ot Warp in the
By Dr. H. Exron, F.G.S., ete. Humber. By W. H. Wheeler,
(With 2 Illustrations. Vinton 549 MeTnst! CEs occas cees 568
5. Notes on the Olifant Klip front 8. Artesian Water in the State of
Natal, etc. By F. Cuapman, Queensland. By R. L. Jack,
hen F.R.M.S. (With an | Lied O yore RAL OBS Jean rr Sears soe 570
Mites toga Ota) oo dence ses ve Scion ane A52 E
By F. Rurtey, F.G.S.... 655 | TH. Reviews.
6. On the Physical History of the Variation in the Length of Arctic
Norwegian Fjords. By Prof. Glaciers. By C. Rabot ......... 671
K. Hux, M.A.,LL.D., F.R.S. 545
7. On the Circulation of Salt in IV. Reports anv Proceepres.
its Relations to Geology. By 1. Geological Society of London—
W. Ackxoyn, F.1.C., £'. . S... 558 Now..6th, 190 toe wane: 572
II. Notices or Memoirs. 2. Manchester Literary and Philo-
mart lon ithe Cainbrine Fossils BOD MICA SOCLEL You. eeuseereepenacre 574
of St. Francois County, Missouri. vV.c
By Prof. C. E. Beecher ......... 5a9 Se ERE ONDE
2. Discovery of Eurypterid Remains 1 eal at DY a gt eR A ees 575
in the Cambrian of Missouri. Das OVerbuny Sa pers sits eontetesen 575
By Prot. C. E. Beecher. (With 3. A. K. Coomara-Swamy ......... 575
ane Pitstration.)M .wcrcster neces vs 561 4, F. R. Cowper Reed ..,,........... 576
- With this Number is presented an Extra Sheet, containing Index and Title
; for Decade IV, Vol. VIII, 1901.
LONDON: DULAU & CO, 387, SOHO SQUARE.
¢¢ The Volume for 1900 of the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE is ready,
price 20s. nett.
Cloth Cases for Binding may be had, price 1s. 6d. nett.
re
Ait
—
: = FF a
Ce
) ROBERT F. DAMON,
WEYMOUTH, ENGLAND, —
Will send on application free to Museums his list of
%
’
‘
7
7
‘
Coloured Casts of Rare Fossils,
NOW NUMBERING OVER 200 SPECIMENS.
The following TWO FINE CASTS should be in every ‘Museum = “a |
| Pareiasaurus bani, :
| Seeley. Skeleton. |
Karoo Formation (Trias): Bad, near Tamboer Fontein, |
Cape Colony. es
~ | The original preserved in the British Museum (Nat. Hist.). Deseribed
~ and figured in Phil. Trans., 1892, B, pp. 3811-879, pls. xvli—xix,
' xxi-xxiii.~ Coloured reproductions of this magnificent and remarkable
_ reptile, measuring 7 ft. 9 in. in length and 4 feet in breadth, fitted with
ironwork ready for mounting for a museum.
PRICE £50.
4
77
Phororhacos longissimus,
I
|
|
Ameghino. Length 60 cm. ee |
The mandible has been slightly restored from the actual specimen, and
|
——————= ll
' the skull has been modelled from that of the somewhat smaller species
Ph. inflatus, figured by F. Ameghino (1895). Buenos Ayres, from the
' Tertiary Deposits (Miocene ?), Santa Cruz, Patagonia Described by
—G. W. Andrews, Esq., F.G.S., in the 767s, January, 1896, pp. 1-12. The
original specimens are in the Geological Department of the British
Museum (Natural History).
| PRICE £5.
Also BR. F. DAMON’S Casts of HUMAN REMAINS.
Price for the complete set, Nos. 132 to 14/,
£11 8s. Gd. (packing included).
: hy 4 (aso)
eee
———EE>E>E>E————EE-
Pais P=
es
wi