mollusca, &c.; and, finally, let it be covered over by a deposit of sand, which would naturally be, in some measure at least, subjected to more or less denudation, and we have what seems to me an explanation of the formation of the ferruginous sandstone encircling the town of Northampton. Thus we have, in the first place, accompanying a great subsidence, the deposition of deep-water shells, and the conversion of the sand into so-called ironstone, often containing the casts of shells; then a certain amount of elevation, accompanied by the deposition of shells inhabiting shallower water; then sandstone with nodules of clay and ironstone and small pebbles, together with estuary shells*, ripple-marks, traces of serpulæ, and other marine annelides-of which latter, ripple-marks &c., there is a very fine specimen belonging to S. Sharp, Esq., in the Northampton Museum; and finally, layers of waved bands of sand at times apparently pure from any trace of iron, and evidently the result of shallow water. On the Tertiary Deposits of Victoria. By H. M. JENKINS. On the Noted Slate-veins of Festiniog. By S. JENKINS. On the Oldest Beds of the Crags. By E. RAY LANKESTER. In the county of Suffolk, lying on the London clay, wherever the Red Crag or the Coralline Crag is found, with few exceptions, is a bed from half a foot to three feet thick, of large and small nodules, bones, and teeth. All the nodules are rounded and waterworn, and so are the teeth and bones. They are evidently the members of an ancient stone beach, and form what the author calls the Suffolk Bone-bed. Most of the nodules are bits of rounded and worn clay, indurated with phosphate of lime, for which the bed is worked, and by a misnomer this deposit has been called the Coprolite-bed. The bits of clay which form the so-called coprolite are bits of London clay, just as in Cambridgeshire bits of gault and of oolitic clay are similarly phosphatized and worked as coprolite. Besides these nodules, the Suffolk bone-bed contains two distinct sorts of raammalian remains, those of terrestrial mammals (Mastodon, Rhinoceros, Tapirus, Ursus) and those of whales. In many of its features this bone-bed is similar to Mr. Gunn's stone-bed, containing, as it does, nodules and mammalian remains. The terrestrial mammals in both were washed, no doubt, from the same land-surface; but whence come all the great whales' remains and great sharks which are so abundant in this Suffolk deposit, and which are absent in Norfolk? The answer to this question is-they come from a great deposit of an earlier age, like that found in Belgium known as the Diestien or Black Crag; and in this we have evidence of a warmer sea, of a more Miocene-like fauna than in any of our well-preserved East-Anglian crags-either Coralline, Red, or Norwich. Most perfect remains of more than twenty longsnouted whales, such as now live in tropical seas, of huge sharks 80 feet long, and of a great seal with huge tusks, are found in the Diestien beds freshly and sharply preserved. In our Suffolk bone-bed these same bones and remains occur much washed and waterworn. They have been washed out of Diestien beds, and are proofs to us of the former existence of Diestien strata in Suffolk. But besides these remains, we find in the Suffolk bone-beds certain sandstone nodules which the author has lately found strong reason to believe are bits of the old Diestien deposits indurated and waterworn. This sandstone is even found adhering to the sharks' and whales' teeth and bones, but never to the mastodons'. But besides that, the specimens exhibited show a great number of shells preserved in that sandstone. These shells are not the shells of the Red Crag, nor even of the oralline Crag, for they occur among the waterworn nodules quite below either of these deposits. It is true that all the constituents of the Suffolk bonebed are sometimes dispersed in small numbers through the Red Crag, but this is what we must expect in the deposit of so destructive a sea. The most important * Since the above paper was read, I find that a species of shell, which I believed to be estuarine, is not so, and therefore the statement about estuary-shells must be somewhat modified. I believe, however, that these shells will still be found by a careful search after them.-C. J. fact about these nodules is the abundance of a Black Crag or Diestien shell, Isocardia lunulata. The shell does not occur in either Red or Coralline Crag; but out of every forty nodules with fossils in them, you have seven specimens of Isocardia. Even Isocardia cor is most rare in our English Crags. Only half a dozen specimens have been found altogether in the Coralline and Red Crag. The presence of this shell in these nodules proves that the nodules are bits of a very different deposit, and probably of a Diestien age, not necessarily of exact equivalence with the Belgian Black Crag. We know how much a few miles of distance may affect a marine fauna; and it is most probable that the Suffolk deposits were always littoral or sublittoral, while those of Belgium accumulated in deep water. These nodules, which probably are of great importance, are supposed by some to be of indurated Coralline or Red Crag-by Mr. Searles Wood and, the author believed, by Sir C. Lyell; but a careful examination only is required to convince any one that such is not their mineral structure, and that the shells and bones they contain are those of Diestien age. The difference between the Diestien fauna and the Red and Norfolk Crag fauna is very great. Great changes as to glaciation have gone on between the two. The Coralline Crag bridges over the break in part, as does the yellow Antwerp Crag. The presence of derived Mastodon-remains in the Red and Norfolk Crag, and of Diestien Cetacea in the Red Crag too, is always most deceptive, and tends to mislead the judgment as to the true character of those beds. On the Range and Distribution of the British Fossil Brachiopoda*. By J. LOGAN LOBLEY, F.G.S. This paper was read in explanation of a series of Tables exhibited to the Section, and prepared with the view of showing, by a new arrangement, the range, distribution, increment, decrement, and maximum development of each subgenus, genus, and family, as well as of the class of Brachiopoda in British strata. The paper contained a summary of the results shown by the Tables, and was accompanied by lists of the species hitherto discovered in each formation, or minor group of rocks, in which the class is represented. The first of the Tables gives the range and distribution of each genus, the genera being arranged in the order of their incoming or earliest appearance in British strata. The number of species of each genus in any geological formation is represented by short thick lines, each of which indicates the presence of one species. These lines are so arranged that the increment, decrement, and maximum development of each genus is distinctly shown, and the number of species of each genus in each formation in which it appears may be at once ascertained. The second Table gives the genera arranged according to their family alliances, and shows the family to which each genus belongs, the order in which each family has appeared, and the number of species as well as of genera in every formation in which the family is found. The third table is a summary of the second, in order to show more distinctly the increment and decrement of each family without reference to its genera, each line representing a species as in the other Tables. The fourth Table is a summary of the third, to represent at a glance the relative importance of the representation of the class Brachiopoda in each geological formation. The following are some of the more prominent results shown by these Tables. Of the forty-seven genera and subgenera, eleven are represented by species now living in the seas of our globe, and are therefore recent as well as fossil genera. Of these, Discina, Lingula, Crania, Rhynchonella, and Terebratula range from Palæozoic rocks. The genera Leptana, Spirifera, and Spiriferina range from Paleozoic into Mesozoic, but do not reach Cainozoic strata, while each of the following twelve genera is characteristic of a single formation:-Kutorgina (Lingula flags), Acrotreta (Llandeilo), Orthisina (Caradoc), Orbiculoidea (Wenlock), Nucleospira (Wenlock), Merista (Middle Devonian), Uncites (Middle Devonian), * Some of the details of this paper are given in the Geological Magazine for November, 1868, vol. v. p. 497. Davidsonia (Middle Devonian), Stringocephalus (Middle Devonian), Rensselæria (Middle Devonian), Terebrirostra (Upper Greensand), Magas (Chalk). Thirty genera are essentially Paleozoic, and eight genera have not been found in any other than Mesozoic strata, though four of these have living representatives, while not one genus can be considered characteristic of Cainozoic strata. Of the nine families in which the forty-seven genera and subgenera may be placed, one, Productida, is confined to Palæozoic strata, and one, Thecididae, is characteristic of Mesozoic rocks. This family, however, although not represented in Cainozoic strata, has a species living in the present seas. Strophomenidæ and Spiriferida may almost be said to be Palæozoic, since very few species of either of these families have been found in rocks newer than the Permian, while in older strata the species of both are most numerous. The families which range from the Paleozoic rocks to the present time, and are represented by recent species, are Lingulide, Discinidae, Cramada, Rhynchonellida, and Terebratulida. When we consider the range and distribution of the class as a whole, we find that it is represented in British strata by a very large number of species, some of which are found in almost every geological formation. Coming into existence, as far as we yet know, in Cambrian times, Brachiopoda abounded in Silurian seas; but the class attained its maximum development in the Carboniferous period. A small number of species have been taken from Permian rocks; but Triassic strata have not hitherto yielded us any. When we examine Liassic and Oolitic strata, we find again a large number of species, which, however, become fewer as we ascend the scale until we reach the Portland rocks, in which no Brachiopod has been found. The class again increases in importance in Cretaceous strata, and again diminishes in Tertiary formations, which have yielded hitherto not more than eight or nine species. Although in British seas living Brachiopods are very rare, yet they are by no means so in the seas of southern latitudes, the bays and harbours of Australia swarming with Waldheimia and other forms of this interesting and remarkable class of the animal kingdom. On the occurrence of Spherical Iron Nodules in the Lower Greensand. By Jonn LowE, M.D. Two years ago a large number of spherical pieces of sandstone was found in a railway-cutting at Walferton, near Lynn. They were mostly about the size of ordinary marbles, and were found to consist of a variable number of concentric lamine resembling the ordinary "car"-stone of the district, and containing in their interior a quantity of loose grains of pure sand, with occasionally a small vitreous-looking fragment of organic matter. The hill through which the cutting is made is about 50 feet in height at its highest point, and is composed of bands of yellow sand of variable degrees of hardness, but always of a friable nature. On the summit is a thin layer of iron or carstone, which is largely used for building. There is no superincumbent chalk nearer than Sandringham, a distance of about a mile and a half. On examining the sides of the cutting, the sand was found to be perforated by some boring animal (a large species of Teredo? or Pholas?). The borings have generally a horizontal direction, but sometimes pass upwards from one layer of sand into another. They are usually long and somewhat widely separate, never apparently crossing each other, as is seen in Pholas-borings. They are filled with sand of a much coarser quality than that which surrounds them, but when they take an upward direction the sand they contain is of a finer grain. The periphery of the borings is hardened by the deposition of iron, so as to form a tube. At the extremity of each there occurs one of the spherical bodies above described. It is obvious that all the borings have been filled with sand, carried in and deposited by water, and that a stream of ferruginous water has subsequently percolated through the bed of sand, giving rise at the same time to the nodules and to the hardened periphery of the tubes. It seems not improbable that the deposition of the iron has been determined by the presence of organic matter. In the ordinary iron nodules, common in the district, wood or other organic matter is commonly present, and seems to have served as a nucleus of attraction for the iron. Even in the adjacent peat-beds logs of wood are found converted into solid crystalline iron pyrites. [Specimens of ironstone formed round the roots of couch-grass were exhibited; these were of recent formation on the surface of the ground.] Mr. Judd has found similar formations on the roots of willow in sand-pits in Lincolnshire. There is therefore ground for supposing that the remains of the boring animal in the end of the tubes gave rise to the spherical nodules, and that the hardened circumference of the borings was in the same manner due to the presence of traces of organic matter left in the process of boring. On the Coal-field of Natal. By Dr. MANN, F.R.G.S. &c., Special Commissioner of the Government of Natal. The position and general configuration and geological character of the colony of Natal were described, and the presence of coal-deposits on the surface in various positions was explained. The history of the gradual discovery of the deposits was briefly sketched, and the quality and character of the coal was then considered. In the last and most important trial recently made to determine the question of quality, seven tons were used on board the surveying-ship Hydra,' and compared with equal quantities of Cardiff and West-Hartley coal. The result of this experiment was, that steam was up with Cardiff coal in 60 minutes, with 26 cwt. consumed; West-Hartley coal in 50 minutes, with 32 cwt. consumed; Natal coal in 55 minutes, with 30 cwt. consumed. In steaming on the third grade; the consumption per hour was— In steaming on the third grade, the consumption was respectively The several samples yielded Cardiff...... 9 per cent. of ashes, 2 per cent. of clinker. West-Hartley 8 Natal 16 5 For easy steaming the Natal coal was deemed nearly equal in commercial value to Cardiff coal; but with full steam a larger quantity of Natal coal was required on account of the masking of the combustion with ash. Specimens of the coal and of organic remains of Glossopteris, from the coaldeposit of Bushman's River, were exhibited, and the inference was drawn that in all probability the Natal coal will prove to be of the Jurassic or Cretaceous age. On the Sequence of the Deposits in Norfolk and Suffolk superior to the Red Crag. By GEORGE MAW, F.G.S., F.L.S., &c. In connexion with a large diagrammatic section from the neighbourhood of Aldborough in Suffolk to the Norfolk coast, and detailed sections of the strata at different localities, drawn to scale, reference was made to the various disputed points on the sequence of the more recent deposits of the eastern counties. Although the superposition of the Chillesford beds on the Norwich Crag had been questioned so recently as during the late session of the Geological Society of London, it was now, the author believed, admitted by every geologist acquainted with the district. It was suggested in general terms by Mr. Prestwich, eighteen years ago; and the recent labours of Mr. J. E. Taylor, in the Norwich district, in distinguishing and separating the upper from the Lower Norwich Crag, had fixed an exact horizon by which the series in Norfolk and Suffolk could be correlated. Mr. Maw considered that the whole of the beds above the oblique ferruginous Red Crag in the well-known Chillesford Crag-pit pertained to the Chillesford Clay series. The Fluviomarine, or Lower Norwich Crag, was here wanting; but he disagreed with those who considered the obliquely bedded ferruginous Red Crag as the equivalent of the Norwich Crag; for in its occurrence at Thorpe, in Suffolk, within three and a half miles of Chillesford, it showed no approach in either its physical or paleontological features to the Red Crag. The Chillesford beds extend transgressively over the Coralline Red and Fluviomarine Crags, and do not appear to pass upwards in conformable succession from any of the subjacent beds. The upper part of the Chillesford beds probably graduate into the drift underlying the Boulder-clay of High Suffolk. These were considered older than the coast beds of Cromer, and appear to partake of the general denudation contour of the country, having been extensively denuded in the excavation of valleys that are cut deeply through them into the chalk and other older formations. The coastbeds, including the forest-bed of Cromer (with which the author identified the other forest-beds along the S.E. and S. coasts), the laminated beds, and the overlying Boulder-till and contorted drift, were considered more recent, being deposited after a long interval of denudation and disposed with reference to the existing coast outline. The resemblance in the fauna and flora of the Murdesley freshwater deposit to that of the forest and laminated beds was noticed, and the Mundesley peat and other thin layers of similar matter in the Norfolk coast-till, were considered to be merely a recurrence of the laminated beds at its base. The Thames valley deposits at Grays Thurrock might be contemporaneous with the Norfolk coast-beds, and they exhibit a contorted structure at their base. The phenomenon of "trail" or surface furrowing and rearrangement of drift, which had been described by the Rev. O. Fisher as the result of land-ice, did not appear to be accountable on any other theory. It seems to have been one of the most recent phenomena applied to the general denudation contour of the land-surface. It was not confined to the east of England; and the author exhibited a drawing of a section of stratified drift at the Bangor Station, North Wales, which had been rearranged in surface-furrows and pouches similarly to Mr. Fisher's "Trail" in the east of England. It was possible that it might have been contemporaneous with the deposition of the glacial beds on the Norfolk coast, which were also deposited subsequently to the land-surface receiving its present denudation contour. On New Discoveries connected with Quaternary Deposits. When examining an oolitic quarry at Falkland the author discovered in a fissure at about 40 feet from the surface, a drift with a number of small teeth and bones of mammals, and that subsequently he obtained them in great abundance, many of them belonging to small rodents. His attention being thus directed to the presence of mammalian remains in the fissures of the Oolite, he had since obtained them of many genera under similar circumstances along the escarpments of the Oolite through Somersetshire and Gloucestershire, associated with freshwater shells and bog-iron ore, which latter forms a considerable proportion of the material filling up the fissures. At Falkland twenty-two hut circles had been destroyed in quarrying the stone within a few years, and the author suggested it was probable the material filling the hut circles and the oolitic fissures was of the same age, though at the present time he had no distinct evidence to prove such to be the case. On the Geology of the Chapada Diamantina in the province of Bahia, Brazil. By the Rev. C. G. NICOLAY. The information which we possess as to the geology of the province of Bahia is scanty, but, as far as it goes, satisfactory. The engineers Halfeldt, Vivian, and Cato have examined respectively the Rio di São Francisco, the route from the city of Bahia to Joazeiro on the same river, and to Sa Isabel de Paraguassu in the Chapada Diamantina; my own observations, besides those in that locality, |