In a paper that appeared in the “Geologist” for May, 1863, the author, Professor King, has noticed the remarkable escarpments that occur in the Burren Hills, on the south side of the Bay of Galway. He is of opinion that they have been formed by sea action during the slow upheaval of the British area after its submergence during what he calls the “subaqueous“ or “middle division“ of the Glacial period, and that “every escarpment indicates a stoppage in the upheaval.“ These escarpments, or ancient seamargins are not confined to the Burren Hills, as I have observed them in various other localities, but never so continuous, nor so well developed. In this paper it is proposed calling attention to those in counties Clare and Galway. I shall first notice the conspicuous escarpments in the Burren Hills, but before doing so I may be allowed to refer to similar phenomena in course of formation at the present day.

In connection with the discussion on the origin of hills and valleys, which has recently occupied the pages of the Geological Magazine, I would submit a few observations on some phenomena, in evidence of the great power of subaërial denudation, which seem scarcely to have been noticed with the prominence they deserve. I assume that the joint action of sea and river denudation is un-questioned, and that the main point under discussion is relative to which of these processes determined the final contour of the land. What I wish particularly to notice is that the forma of the whole land surface with some trifling exceptions (as lake basins, which appear to admit of special explanation) is merely a modification of the same principle of contour as the true river valley, exhibiting a system of watersheds by which almost everypart of the land is connected with the sea by adjacent land on a graduated series of levels lower than itself.

In a paper in this Magazine, upon the structure of the Thames Valley, I endeavoured to show that instead of being, as had been asserted, a valley of similar structure to those of the Somme and Seine, and containing deposits of nearly similar order and age, the valley in which the Thames gravel was deposited possessed no outlet to what is now the North Sea, being divided from it by a range of high gravelless country; and that, in lieu of such an outlet, the valley opened, in more than one part, over what is now the bare Chalk country forming the northern boundary of the Valley of the Weald. I also endeavoured to show that all the deposits of the Thames Valley, except the peat and marsh clay, belonged to several successive stages, marking the gradual denudation of the Boulderclay, the lower Bagshot, the London Clay, and the subjacent Tertiaries, which had, at the end of the Glacial period, spread over the south-east of England in a complete order of succession: the sea into which this valley discharged occupying, what is now, the Chalk country of the Counties of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire, inclusive of the interval subsequently scooped out to form the Valley of the Weald: so that, not only was the latter valley newer than that of the Thames, and of the most recent of the Thames Valley deposits, except the peat and marsh clay, but that these deposits in themselves marked a long descent in time from that comparatively remote period of the Boulder-clay.

As a slight contribution to the elucidation of questions of denudation, and at the same time an exemplification of the application of mathematics to a geological problem, I send the following:

Noticing a lofty chalk cliff, forming the face of an old quarry in the neighbourhood of Lewes, I remarked that the action of the weather upon the surface was to disintegrate it equally all over, so that the face of the quarry remained vertical, while the stuff that fell down formed a talus, whose surface was approximately a plane, inclined to the horizon at that particular angle at which such materials will stand. The question then occurred to my mind— What will be the profile of the solid chalk behind the talus?.

Professor Steenstrup, some years ago, questioned the fact as to whether the Zoantharia tabulata and rugosa, included by him under the common name of “Cyathophylla,” might be considered as true polyps. MM. Edwards and Haime in framing those great subdivisions of their “Coralliaria,” remarked their striking dissimilarity from the other Actinozoa. Professor Agassiz, in his grand monograph on the Acalephæ of North America, considers these differences so important that henceforth all connection between the above-named groups and the Zoantharia aporosa and perforata will be impossible. But besides these peculiar characteristics of the Rugosa, such, for instance, as the compact imperforate structure of the calyx and septa (the septa originating from four primary ones), the absence of costæ, the strange septal fossæ in the bottom of the calyx, the processes resembling rootlets, the transverse floors or tabulæ in the interior, which often have a cellular or vesicular structure; there is another peculiarity as yet not much known.