Bradstock), and as they are not far apart they would in time meet and form a continuous channel (the Fleet), which would be widened and kept clear by land-waters, aided perhaps by tidal action as suggested by Mr. Evans.*

2. Mr. Ray Lankester records the discovery of Machairodus in the Forest-bed of Norfolk; and from the researches of Mr. Pengelly, no doubt can remain that the great sabre-toothed tiger should be retained on our list of British Fossil Mammals.

3. Professor Owen describes two new Ichthyodorulites, Lepracanthus Colei from the coal-shale of North Wales, and Hybodus complanatus (of Neocomian age) from the Iguanodon quarry of Mr. Bensted, at Maidstone.

4. The Rev. T. G. Bonney discusses the origin of some supposed "Pholas-burrows" in the Ormesheads. He is inclined to attribute these holes (with Dr. Buckland and M. Bouchard-Chantereaux) to the agency of land-snails, probably Helix aspersa; but we expect that many will still think it safer to regard them as due to atmospheric influences, and that subsequently snails have taken up their abodes in the hollows.

5. Mr. C. E. De Rance writes on the Surface-Geology of the Lake District.

6. Dr. H. A. Nicholson describes some plant-remains from the Skiddaw slates, and Mr. Henry Hicks some still older from the Arenig beds of St. David's.

7. Dr. Ruskin continues his researches on Banded and Brecciated Concretions.

8. Mr. Scrope combats some of Mr. Mackintosh's statements of the marine origin of certain terraces, popularly called "Lynchets or "Balks." These he regards as of artificial origin, to be owing to the disturbing action of the plough and the mattock on the surfaceslopes, aided by downward rain-carriage of the loosened soil-a process which, he adds, is visibly going on wherever a hill-side is under cultivation.

9. Professor Harkness contributes a paper on the Middle Pleistocene Deposits, having reference to the beds in England, Scotland, and Ireland.

10. Mr. R. Tate furnishes some notes on new and little-known Liassic Brachiopoda, and gives a table showing the distribution of all the species known to occur in the Lias of Britain.

11. The Earl of Enniskillen, following Sir P. Egerton's example, supplies an alphabetical catalogue of type-specimens of Fossil Fishes in his collection at Florence Court, which he also adds are open to the inspection of any geological or palæontological student.

12. Mr. W. H. S. Westropp notices the occurrence of Albite in the granite of Leinster.

*When this paper was read at the Geological Society's meeting.

We regret to record the death of Dr. R. N. Rubidge, F.G.S., &c., a gentleman well known for his investigations into the geology of South Africa.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.

The 100th No. of the Society's 'Quarterly Journal' is now before us. It is hardly so bulky as usual, for besides two postponed papers it only contains the communications read at one (the last) meeting of Session 1868-9, and very many of them are merely published in abstract. One of these papers is by Mr. Whitaker, and the subject "The Connection of the Geological Structure and Physical Features of the South-east of England with the Consumption Death-rate "-is a comparatively new and a very important

one.

We will briefly notice one or two of the papers contained in this Journal.

Sir Philip Egerton, Bart., describes two new species of Gyrodus: one from the Middle Oolite on the east coast of Sutherlandshire; the other, several specimens of which exist, is from the Kimmeridge clay of Kimmeridge.

Mr. J. W. Hulke, F.R.S, contributes two papers. In the first he describes a large Saurian humerus from the Kimmeridge clay of the Dorset coast. A careful examination and comparison of it with other reptilian remains show it to possess strong crocodilian affinities, but to differ from any genus yet completely known. That to which it appears most closely related is a bone (now in the British Museum) upon which Dr. Mantell founded his genus Pelorosaurus. The immense size of the Saurian to which this humerus belonged may be judged from the bone measuring 31 inches in length, and the girth of the shaft near the middle being 11 inches. In the second paper, Mr. Hulke furnishes notes on some fossil remains of a gaviallike Saurian from Kimmeridge Bay, wherein he establishes its identity with Cuvier's "Deuxième Gavial d'Honfleur" (Steneosaurus rostrominor of G. St. Hilaire), and with Quenstedt's Dakosaurus.

Mr. W. T. Blanford, F.G.S., who was attached as geologist to the Abyssinian expeditionary force, here brings forward some of the results of his observations while acting in this capacity. Recent and Post-Tertiary, Tertiary, Cretaceous, Jurassic, and probably Triassic rocks, are represented in Abyssinia. Many fossils were collected, and Mr. Etheridge remarked on the similarity of the Oolitic specimens to those from the Cotteswold Hills, and also to some from the Holy Land. In speaking of the denudation to which the country has been subjected, Mr. Blanford stated that there were no marks of glaciation discernible, the excavation of the valleys

* This paper has appeared in the Geological Magazine.'

being apparently due to the excessive rainfall. There was not a trace of marine denudation over the surface examined.

Mr. Mackintosh, F.G.S., contributes an interesting paper "On the Correlation, Nature, and Origin of the Drifts of North-west Lancashire and a part of Cumberland, with remarks on Denudation."

Mr. J. Wood Mason, F.G.S., describes a new Acrodont Saurian from the Lower Chalk, near Folkestone, to which he assigns the name Acrodontosaurus Gardneri.

Mr. Searles V. Wood, jun., F.G.S., and Mr. F. W. Harmer, bring forward evidence of a peculiar case of intra-glacial erosion near Norwich.

Their observations tend to show that after the deposition of the uppermost bed of the Lower Glacial period there was a physical break, a suspension of deposit, during which lapse of time an erosion took place, sweeping out some of the glacial beds already formed, and extending some way into the Chalk beneath. Into the trough thus formed the succeeding drifts of Middle Glacial age were deposited, as well as upon the hills in regular order above those Lower Glacial beds unaffected by the denuding agency. A section exhibiting these phenomena has recently been disclosed by some new drainage works at Norwich, which the authors hoped by their communication to induce geologists to visit. Some little time ago, Mr. Harmer described to the Society a "Third Boulder-clay which he found lying in the bottom of the Yare valley. This may now be explained from the section described in the present paper; the authors are inclined to regard it as a portion of the Great (or Upper) Boulder Clay, which was deposited at this low level owing to the intra-glacial erosion which had taken place before its deposition.

Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S., records some recent discoveries of flint implements in the drift of Norfolk and Suffolk, concluding with some observations on the theories accounting for their distribution. The distribution of the drift-beds he is disposed to attribute, with the French geologists, to some powerful cataclysmal action, perhaps of short duration, and several times repeated,—an opinion in which it appears but few of our own countrymen coincide.

6

8. METEOROLOGY.

THE sudden change of weather noticed in the note to our last Chronicle, p. 549, forms the subject of an interesting paper in the last number of the Journal of the Scottish Meteorological Society." This change occurred in the afternoon of the 28th of August. The preceding days had been exceptionally warm, especially in

England; but on that evening a current of polar air began to flow southwards, causing a fall of temperature of 40° within ten or twelve hours at several stations (35° at Marchmont Dunse in seven hours), and producing the unusual phenomenon of a smart night-frost before the end of August.

The same number of the journal contains a paper by Mr. Milne Home "On Rotatory Storms," which he seeks to explain by the analogy of other known atmospherical disturbances. The paper, which is well illustrated, consists of a series of extracts from the reports of various observers of waterspouts and whirlwinds which they have witnessed, and from Dr. Baddeley's work on the Dust-storms of India. The reasoning on the data thus collected is very brief, and not altogether satisfactory. Mr. Home assumes that all our ordinary storms are simply gigantic whirlwinds, generated by some unknown agency, probably the friction of interfering aircurrents at a high level in the atmosphere. Two such currents would generate a vortex of conical shape, with great barometrical rarefaction in the centre, of which the point may reach the earth, and produce a reduction of pressure and a great disturbance of the atmosphere. There are, however, several flaws in this chain of reasoning, not the least important of which is the attempt to explain the sudden fall of temperature in the rear of the storm, which accompanies the north-west wind felt there, by the supposition that the centrifugal force of the vortex throws out a mass of heated air into the upper region of the atmosphere, and thereby displaces the colder strata at that level, forcing them down to the ground.

A more important paper on a cognate subject is Mr. Blanford's investigation as to the origin of the Calcutta cyclone of Nov. 1, 1867, which appears in vol. xvii. of the Royal Society's 'Proceedings.' Mr. Blanford is led by the data he has collected to the belief that the cyclone was generated on Oct. 27 in the neighbourbood of the Nicobar Islands. For a day or two previous there had been a barometrical depression at that point, when three distinctly-marked wind-currents commenced flowing round it, and ultimately coalesced to form the cyclone.

If this idea be true, it would tend to show that the origin of the barometrical depression, the nucleus of the storm, was to be sought for in some agency independent of the mutual action of the wind-currents, a result apparently at variance with the general tendency of Mr. Meldrum's investigations into the analogous storms of the South Indian Ocean, which appear to indicate, as already remarked by us, that the barometrical depression is generated between pre-existing currents of air which subsequently form tangents to the cyclone.

The Report of the Meteorological Committee for Calcutta for

1868 has just appeared, and it shows that Mr. Blanford is getting his work well in hand, and gives a fair promise of future good results.

The next number of the Proceedings' (No. 114) contains a paper by Sir E. Sabine, "On the Results of the First Year's Performances of the Photographically Self-recording Instruments at Kew." The mean values for the several elements are compared with those obtained by discussion of the observations for Nertschinsk and Barnaoul, published by Kupffer, and the results are very interesting, as showing the contrast between insular and continental climates.

In connection with Siberia, we may notice that a brief account of the climate of Sitka and the adjacent country is to be found in vol. viii. of the Transactions of the Swedish Academy,' recently published. It is in German, and is contained in a letter from Herr Furuhjelm, of Helsingfors, who lived in that colony for many years. Little was known of its climate before; and what we now learn of it shows that "Walrussia" is anything but an enviable place of residence, owing to its excessive dampness.

Professor Wild, the new Director of the Central Physical Observatory at St. Petersburg, has lost no time in bringing out the volume of Annales' for 1865, the issue of which had been interrupted since the death of Kupffer. He tells us in the preface that a complete change will soon be made in the form and contents of the publication. The metrical scale is to be at once introduced throughout the empire, and the speedy adoption of self-recording instruments is announced as probable.

The Journal of the Austrian Meteorological Society contains a very interesting account, by Abich, of two hail-storms experienced at Tiflis in May last. The stones, which were of great size, were crystallized in forms well known in mineralogy. How these stones remained suspended in the air long enough for crystals of such size and regularity to be formed is a question which Abich does not attempt to solve. It is most fortunate that the occurrence came under the notice of so able a mineralogist as he is, and we hope that it will find its way into some of our geological journals. The connection between meteorology and physical geology is close enough, but a bond of union between it and mineralogy is at least unexpected.

Herr von Freeden has brought out No. 2 of the Mittheilungen' of his office, the weather calendar for North-west Germany, being a discussion of his own observations carried on for ten years at Elsfleth, near Bremen. The whole treatment of the subject is very thorough, and the paper is a most useful one, as a record of what may be effected by a single observer keeping a registry for a long