Research Article
On the Earth's Climate in Ancient Times
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 1-5
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For some time past we have been drawing attention to some of the dicta of Geology, which appear to have a less solid foundation than they should have to authorize the positive manner in which they have been enunciated. Similar doubts on some points would appear not to be absent from other minds. Mr. Page has just issued a little work reviewing the state of the popular doctrines of our science, and Mr. Sterry Hunt has appropriated to the explanation of the higher Palaeozoic climate Dr. Tyndall's memorable researches on the relations of gases and vapours to radiant heat. Heat, from whatever source it may proceed, passes through hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen gases and dry air, with nearly the same facility as through a vacuum, and these gases are thus to radiant heat what rock-salt is amongst solids. Glass and some other substances which are readily permeable to light and to solar heat, offer, as is well known, great obstacles to the passage of radiant heat from non-luminous bodies, and many vapours and gases have a similar effect in intercepting the heat from such sources. Thus, for a vacuum the absorption of heat from a body at 212° Fahr. is represented by 0, that by dry air as 1, while the absorption by an atmosphere of carbonic acid gas is 90; by one of marsh-gas, 403; by olefiant gas, 970; and by ammonia, 1195.
Work for the Field-Clubs
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 41-42
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Without the slightest wish to interfere with the management, or any desire to criticize the past doings of Natural History Societies and Field-Clubs, we may be permitted, without any imputation of meddling, to suggest how much good work the forthcoming year may produce, through a little forethought and pre-arrangement. Spring time will now soon be upon us, and the time for field-excursions will have come on again. Would it not be well if the Councils of Societies organized their arrangements with a view to some practical ends?
In the districts of crystalline and metamorphic rocks, examples of transitional states bearing on the great origin-of-granite question might be designated as one of the topics of inquiry, and members solicited to search for and study examples, and to send notices of them to the Societies before the excursions were decided upon. In the districts of the Secondary rocks, examples of unconformability and thinning out, and the intercalation of special deposits, would also form a most valuable subject of inquiry.
Palaeontology, as such, should not be neglected: and by selecting given genera or families of fish, mammals, or mollusca, and tracing the ranges of species upwards and downwards stratigraphically through the separate beds of the various deposits of any geological formation or formations, the most valuable data for geological progress would be obtained; and contemporaneously with this investigation, another, devoted to the geographical extent at each horizon of the same species, should also be carried on.
Two or Three Incidents in a Ramble in the North of France
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 121-130
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Having lived from infancy on the shores of the Channel, with the beautiful section of the Kentish coast constantly before my eyes, it is only natural that as a geologist I should take especial interest in the study of the Cretaceous Rocks, and being fully acquainted with their divisions, fossils, and details in my own district, I was desirous of instituting a comparison with those of the north of France, with which they are so intimately connected.
Narrow as are the straits which divide the two countries, considerable differences exist in the subdivisions of this formation as we proceed westward, and much is to be learnt from the study of the ancient condition of the various portions of the great oceanic basin of which both the strata of England and France alike are portions.
There was also another subject of much practical importance as well as scientific interest, which deserved to be studied on both coasts—the flint beaches. Constantly are they journeying from west to east; but where do they come from and whither do they go? From whence are they derived?
These were the objects for which, on the 3rd of September, 1854, I started for a month's ramble in the north of France. My health at the time was but very indifferent, and I was unequal to those exertions I should otherwise have made, and which were necessary to render the investigations and comparisons complete.
The Primary Translation of the Earth
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 201-204
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In reference to the correspondence on my speculations in theoretical geology and astronomy which have been printed in this Journal, I wish to take this opportunity of saying, that if in the cases of the Rev. O. Fisher, p. 54 in this volume, and of Dr. Leslie, p. 295 in Vol. VI., I have inserted such comments on any of the physical hypotheses to which from time to time I have given expression without replying to those comments, that I do not therefore acknowledge my opponents to be right, nor, on the other hand, do I intend to pass them over slightingly as wrong, or as unworthy of attention. I simply thought it best not to get into controversy while my own ideas were being enunciated. I cannot, however, concur in the Rev. O. Fisher's views as to the possibility of the earth's velocity, if initial primarily, being maintained, nor of a larger orbit for our planet being a result of any retardation of her motion. I am well aware of Kepler's law referred to, and I have my own opinion both of its value and its application. Mathematics may derive a result from a given basis, but mathematics never yet gave birth to a basis of facts.
Dr. Frankland on the Glacial Era
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 161-165
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Some of the novelties presented at the lectures at the Royal Institution have, from the hour they were spoken, taken rank with the discoveries of the age and the data of science; amongst such are some of the most important results of the researches of Davy, Faraday, and Tyndall. Others, as might be naturally expected, have risen to no higher rank than that of hypotheses or an hour's amusement, and after exciting some discussion and comment, have passed away into that oblivion to which all but fundamental or practically useful facts are, sooner or later, consigned. Amongst those familiar voices which we are there in the habit of hearing, few are listened to with more pleasure, profit, or instruction, than that of Professor Frankland, especially when he restricts himself to those branches of chemistry in which he is so eminent. The Glacial period and the former incandescence of the earth are two themes that geologists are eternally dwelling upon—whether with profit to themselves or with any advantage to their hearers it would be very difficult to say. For once Professor Frankland has left those realms of chemistry within which he is a monarch to run a lance at the same time both for and against geologists. Basing a theory on the supposed existence of an internal molten mass constituting the core of our globe, is taking for it about as secure a basis as any one might be presumed to have who attempted to balance his body at the top of a mounte-bank's pole, the other extremity of which was held by infirm and trembling hands.
On Spiral Planetary Orbits and the Physical Effects of a Retardation of the Earth
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 81-84
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When we see the untenable deductions to which even such an eminent man as Professor Frankland is led, in his new glacial doctrines, by basing a meteorological hypothesis upon the unproven basis of a central molten core in our planet, we cannot but be the more convinced of the necessity of reconsidering the theories and hypotheses which have been proposed to account for the origin and supposed early conditions of our earth. We have been called upon by geologists to reject the Mosaic cosmogony because its statements were not coincident with geological facts, and equally now are we called upon to examine what those asserted geological facts are, and whether the asserted superior theories of geologists are substantially correct, or whether they are one whit less mythical than the traditions of aboriginal peoples.
Because men saw what through their telescopes looked like luminous clouds, the elder Herschel and Laplace assumed the idea, still later urged by Nichols, that these celestial nebula were vast masses of ethereal vapours condensing into stars. Modern telescopes, however, constantly being increased in size and power, have resolved one after the other of these into wonderful star-systems—dust-clouds of brilliant suns. And has not every one of these far distant stars non-luminous planets and worlds rolling round it, as our earth and its sister-planets round our sun?
On Remains of the Megaceros Hibernicus in Gypsum in Ireland
- David Leslie
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 165-166
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The “Irish Elk” has been hitherto only found in the shell-marl underlying extensive turbaries. It is a true deer, intermediate between the fallow and rein-deer. In England it has been found in lacustrine beds, brick-earth, and ossiferous caves (Owen). The subject of the present paper is a dorsal vertebra belonging to a skeleton quite as large, if not larger than the specimen in the College of Surgeons Museum, London, with which it was compared. It was found on the Shirly property, in a bed of gypsum, county of Monaghan, Ireland. This gypsum-bed is very extensive, being many square miles in extent, underlying the glacial drift, embedded in and. sometimes alternating with a fine ferruginous clay. The subjacent rock is the older or lower coal sandstone, which lies unconformably on the mountain limestone, which reposes on the Silurian, the latter forming hills of 500 or 600 feet elevation in the immediate neighbourhood. The surface-soil is formed of ancient drifts of different ages, the one containing enormous blocks of mountain limestone, the other, the older, more compact, and containing small fragments, very rare, of a limestone, which, from comparison, is supposed to have been brought from the counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh, by a current that denuded all the western aspects of the Greywacke ranges of hills, producing very markedly the phenomena of “crag and tail,” which are there to be seen in endless examples.
On Helix, and Perforated Limestone
- E. Hodgson
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 42-44
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A few months ago I sent to the British Museum a block of mountain limestone, perforated into deep cells by mollusks. It was met with on a limestone ridge three miles south-west of Ulverston, and first attracted notice by being brought to town to be employed for building purposes.
The perforations were found to be on the under-side of a projecting ledge, and were large enough for the fingers to be introduced upwards to the depth, in some, of three inches, the diameter being about seven-eighths of an inch. They were inhabited, at the time of the discovery (August), by the land-snails Helix nemoralis and Helix concinna.
Mr. Woodward, on receiving the stone, very kindly sent for my perusal a ‘Memoir on Perforations by Helices in the Calcareous Rocks of the Boulonnais,’ by M. Bouchard-Chantereaux. In this memoir the author states his belief that the cells are the work of Helices, and that the eroding action is performed by the foot, with the aid of an acid secretion.
Ever since I became familiar with the microscopic structure of the tongue of Helix, etc., I have always believed that it was so constructed for purposes of abrasion, either of stone or other hard substances; but I was not previously aware that the land-snails were, any of them, supposed to form for themselves hollowed, hybernating chambers in rocks.
On the Foraminifera of the London Clay
- T. Rupert Jones, W. K. Parker
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 85-89
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In 1833, T. N. Wetherell, Esq., of Highgate, discovered several Foraminifera in some London Clay taken from a well at the Lower Heath, on the south side of Hampstead; see Proceed. Geol. Soc. vol. ii. 1834, p. 93, and Transact. Geol. Soc. 2 ser. vol. v. p. 131. In plate ix., one of the two plates accompanying Mr. Wetherell's paper in the Geol. Transactions, these Foraminifera, with other small fossils from the clay, were figured by Mr. J. De C. Sowerby, by whose help also the determination of the fossils was made.
At page 135 of Mr. Wetherell's paper, the figured Foraminifera are referred to as “Nodosaria, pl. ix. figs. 3–7; Articulina, figs. 8–10; Marginulina, fig. 12; Kotalin, figs. 13–18; Cristellaria, fig. 19; Miliola, fig. 20.” Fig. 11, doubtfully referred to “Frondiculina,” is not a Foraminifer, but probably the cast of the palettes of a Teredo; a similar fossil is figured and thus designated by D'Archiac in the Mém. Soc. Géol. Franc. We have seen, in Mr. Wetherell's collection, the Foraminifera from the well above-mentioned, as well as others from the London Clay of Hampstead, Highgate, and Finchley. We possess a large series of picked specimens collected by Mr. John Purdue from the London Clay of the Copenhagen Fields, Islington, when the cuttings for the Great Northern Railway were being made; also some from the London Clay of Finchley, Chelsea (bed of the Thames), and Clapham; and a very fine suite of specimens from Wimbledon Common (out of the clay at about 100 feet in depth).
Fossil Birds
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 204-209
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It is certainly very much out of stratigraphical order to jump from the fossil bird-remains of the Stonesfield Slate to those of the Tertiary beds of the Paris basin ; nor is such a step in any accordance with historical order. We aro simply compelled to take it, through the necessity of saying a few words in explanation of certain plates which have been issued with the previous numbers of this volume. The gap, however, in the historical series is not so very wide; and it is by no means useless in this place to run over afresh the review which the great Cuvier made of the labours of his predecessors. A section of vol. iii. of his famous work, ‘Recherches sur les Ossements Fossiles,’ published in 1812, was devoted to the remains of birds. “Naturalists,” he begins, “ are agreed that, of all animals, birds are those whose bones or other relics are the most rarely found in the fossil state. Some even absolutely deny that any have ever been met with; and indeed, by one of those singular accidents reserved for the beds of gypsum of our neighbourhood, there are scarcely any other well preserved fossil bones of birds than those they have furnished.” He then, to show the correctness of this statement, and the then recent knowledge even of the fossil birds of the platriàres of Paris, glances over the statements of Walch, Hermann, Camper, Blumenbach, Faujas, Lamanon, Gesner, Luid, Wallerius and Linnaeus, Davila and others, the accounts of most of which have been already given in our previous articles.
Three Days at Farringdon.—Position of Sponge-Gravel
- C. J. A. Meyer.
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 5-11
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Early in September of the present year, I accompanied my friend Mr. C. Evans in a short excursion to Farringdon, with a view to examining the well-known “Sponge-gravel” pits of Little Coxwell; our intentions being, besides collecting fossils, to trace, if possible, some positive connection, or otherwise, between these reputed Upper Cretaceous Sponge-gravels and the acknowledged Lower Greensand deposits of Furze Hill and Badbury Hill.
Taking up our quarters at Farringdon, we first visited the Sponge-gravel pit near the Windmill public-house at Little Coxwell, where we found a splendid section of the gravel exposed (see section 4), and in a few hours had collected a good supply of fossils;—dip of beds E. by N. 10°, resting, in part at least, upon Kimmeridge clay. Next day we went to Furze Hill, and found near the top of the hill the ironstone concretions described by Mr. Godwin-Austen (Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. vi. p. 456), containing numerous fossils, all of them, I believe, of Lower Greensand age. These concretions, for the most part, lie scattered about on or near the surface. In one place, however, we found a small section exposed, where the concretions occurred in position, imbedded in light-coloured sand. About fifteen feet lower down the hill, we found the same light-coloured sand, alternating with clay in thin layers, without concretions, and apparently unfossiliferous.
On the Occurrence of Acanthodes in Palæozoic Rocks
- Hugh Mitchell
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 130-132
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Whatever theory we may conceive or adopt respecting the origin of species, it is undeniable but that Acanthodes—a genus of fossil fishes—has maintained a noble struggle for life. Known to occur first of all in the Lower Devonian or Old Eed Sandstone, it has been found also in the Middle Division of that great system, and again in the coal-measures, and finally disappears in the Lower Permian—the Roth-todt-liegende or Lower Dyas of German authors.
In the accompanying table we have endeavoured to put into accessible and readable shape the particulars of its occurrence, so far as known to us, among the rocks.
We first detected the occurrence of Acanthodes in the Lower Devonian or Old Red Sandstoue at Farnell, in the county of Forfar, Scotland, in the summer of the year 1857. From investigations since made, it now appears that an abundant flush of Acanthodian life ushered in the morning of the vast period embraced by the Old Red Sandstone. Along with the genus Acanthodes there occur also several other genera of the Acanthodian family, such as Climatius, Parescus, and some unnamed. The genera Climatius and Parescus were first founded upon and described by Agassiz, in his great work, from spines, but since the perfect forms have turned up in our northern rocks, it has been found necessary to remove them from among the Cestraciont Placoids into the Acanthodian family of the Ganoids, that is to say, provided we adhere to the classification of Agassiz.
Fossil Birds
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 11-24
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Rozier says, in his ‘Journal de Physique,’ 1782, page 174, that “mention is made in the Catalogue of Davila of a tibia and of a beak imprinted on two different stones.” If there be any other notice in Davila than the passages we have quoted, it has escaped our search.
In 1782, M. Robert de Paul de Lamanon gave, in the Abbé Rozier's ‘Journal de Physique’ (vol. xx. p. 174), an excellent summary of what was then known of Ornithic fossils. After noticing the accounts in Albertus Magnus and other old authors, he goes onto say in his ‘Description de Divers Fossiles trouvés dans les carrières de Montmartre, près Paris, et vues générales sur la formation des Pierres gypseuses,' “M. Rouelle, according to M. Darcet, found in the plaster quarries of Montmartre parts of a bird separated one from the other. I(Lamanon) have seen also in the Cabinet of Natural History of Bordeaux, some bones that it has been attempted to refer to birds; they were found by the Abbé Desbiey in the quarries of Léognan, which are at two leagues from this capital. We can only assert, however, that these isolated bones may have belonged to birds, on the ground that their medullary cavity is very large relatively to their thickness.
New Species of Terebratella, From the Bargate Stone
- C. J. A. Meyer.
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 166-167
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I send some drawings and a short description of a pretty little Brachiopod from the Lower Greensand of Godalming, of which, unfortunately, I possess at present only a few single valves, viz. 7 dorsal and 4 ventral valves. These are, however, sufficiently perfect to enable me partially to describe the shell, and I take the present opportunity of so doing, with the hope that, at some future time, better specimens may come to light. (See Pl. XII. Figs. 1–6.)
The species is apparently new, local in distribution, and, so far as I am at present aware, confined to the “Bargate stone” of Guildford and Godalming, the position of which is near the base of the ferruginous or upper division (of Fitton) of the Lower Greensand. From the partial outward resemblance of this shell to that of Terebratella Menardi, and from the fact of the hinge line and medial septum in the dorsal valve being of the same form in both, I am inclined to consider this species as a Terebratella: the peculiar form of the dorsal valve has suggested its specific name.
Terebratella trifida, n. sp. Shell (judging from a comparison of several single valves) as wide as long, in old specimens perhaps rather longer than wide; convex in both valves: dorsal valve moderately convex, and divided into three portions; a large, elevated, mesial fold, in the shape of an acute rib, occupying the entire central division, on either side of which, on the lateral divisions, there exist one or two ribs of small elevation, followed occasionally by a third of still smaller size;
A Help to the Identification of Fossil Bivalve Shells
- Harry Seeley
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 44-50
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Lamellibranehiate shells are the most abundant fossils of most rocks. Numerous in genera, and prolific in species, they are multitudinous in individuals, and the specimens vary. The study is not easy. It has little of the poetry of many other branches of natural history, and has naturally received less attention. But in each subkingdom specially, no less than in the animal kingdom generally, the law holds good that the lower the organization the longer is the duration in time. And so, important as the higher mollusca are in the analysis of rocks into their several zones, it is on the lower forms we rely in synthetical arrangements. The Conchifera readily divide rocks into Palaeozoic and Neozoic,—no form with a pallial sinus being known below the Lower Secondary strata; while, from the appearance in them of numerous new genera, no class of animals better marks the recognized systems into which fossiliferous rocks are grouped. It is indispensable both to the geologist and biologist to be familiar with the genera, and it is the object of this paper to render the principles on which they are identified more easy and exact.
That genera are practically realities every student knows well; as such the geologist and zoologist have to do with them. And it has elsewhere been shown that between hosts of groups intermediate forms can no more be found, than can intermediate wood fill the space between the forked branches of a bush. Accepting the fact, the question arises,—How may genera be known?
On the Glacial Drift of Furness, Lancashire
- E. Hodgson.
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 209-217
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The following sketch of the glacial deposits of Furness is not pretended to be complete ; it is, in fact, nothing but a sketch: neither can it presume to be free from errors. The marine drift, especially, has not received all the attention it demands, but will, I hope, with the clays and peats of Furness, form a subject for a future memoir. The deposits in the section are referred doubtfully to their periods.
Striated Bock Surfaces.—The district of Furness; its south-eastern part, however, does not perhaps present so many of those remarkable records of the glacial period, the striated rock-surfaces, as are to be met with in more mountainous districts. The rocks, especially the Carboniferous Limestone and Permian formations, either lie in agreat measure hidden under a thick covering of deposits, or, as in the hills of the Upper Silurian strata, are of such a soft decomposing nature, that they retain very little primitive facing.
Occasionally, however, striations may be found. A little way in shore, west from the estuary of the Crake, at the head of Morecambe Bay, a rock-surface recently exposed by the removal of the overlying material, and now quarried away, showed a series of parallel shallow groovings from an inch to an inch and a half apart; the intervening spaces plane and smoothed, and having very fine striæ. The striæ and grooving had a direction from E. to W., or perhaps a little N.E. to S.W.
Cuttings From a Note-Book on Chalk Gasteropods
- Harry Seeley
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 89-93
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Two years ago, collecting matter for future use, in travelling over the Chalk-lands, I made, in the museums visited, such brief memoranda of striking fossils as might save the trouble of comparison with other specimens. The notes were never intended for publication in their present form, but as any more extended work on the subject is at present impossible, such of them as I have permission to print may be found useful to others engaged on similar work.
This series is part of the magnificent collection in the Brighton Museum; to the Committee of which I am indebted for the opportunity of making use of them.
Conical, twice as high as wide. Many-whorled; whorls flat and narrow, being fou r times as wide as high. Each whorl is ornamented on the upper and lower sutural margins by a very numerous row of closely-placed tubercles. The anterior row has the tubercles elongated longitudinally; those of the posterior row are more bead-like. Connecting these rows are half as many again narrow, sharp, upright ribs. The tubercles and ribs become not only actually, but relatively much more numerous as the shell enlarges; they are crossed horizontally by a number of (about ten) fine spiral striae.
On the Fossil Foraminifera of Malta and Gozo
- T. Rupert Jones
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 133-135
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In a former volume of the ‘Geologist’ there are notices of the geology of Malta and Gozo (vol. for 1860, pp. 198, 275, 421), from which it appears that the stratal groups forming these islands are, in downward succession,—
1. Upper Limestone ; fossiliferous.
2. Soft sandy rock, consisting of yellow, green, and black sand in variable proportions, and containing many shells and echinoderms, chiefly as casts, and sharks’ teeth.
3. Bluish marl, with sharks’ teeth and other fossils, especially Pecten Burdigalensis.
4. Light-yellow calcareous freestone ; the common building-stone of the islands, rich with echinoderms, and containing also nautilus, fish-remains, and other fossils: this comprises also a band of chocolate- coloured pebbles, with sharks’ teeth.
5. Lower Limestone, white and hard; with Scutella subrotunda, fish-teeth, and a few other fossils.
These strata have been described by Captain Spratt, in the Geol. Soc. Proc, vol. iv. p. 225, etc., and their fossils determined and enumerated by Professor E. Forbes, ib., p. 230, etc. Dr. Wright also gave a notice of the beds, and descriptions of several of their fossils, in a paper published by the Cotteswold Nat. Field-club, and in the Annals Nat. Hist., 2nd ser., vol. xv.; lastly, Dr. A. L. Adams and Dr. Wright communicated a paper on the Maltese Strata and Echinoderms to the Geological Society, in 1863.
Having lately received, from Captain F.W. Hutton and Dr. A.Leith Adams, some fine specimens of foramiuifera from the Maltese beds, carefully labelled as to their respective strata, as well as some notes on the strata from the same friends, I am enabled to add something as to the distribution of the foraminifera.
Stratum No. 1, which, being largely composed of corallines (Nulliporae, E. Forbes's List, loc. cit.), and destitute of corals, seems to have no title to its old name of “Coral-limestone,” contains Heterostegina depressa, according to Dr. Adams and Captain Hutton; the latter informs me that this limestone is sometimes 230 feet thick, Pecten Pandora being one of its most abundant fossils.
On the Denudation of Arthur's Seat
- James Haswell
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 93-99
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“Quid magis est saxo durum ? quid mollius unda ?
Dura tamen molli saxa cavantur aqua.”
The condition of Central Scotland during the long period represented by the Secondary formations is involved in darkness. On the east and west coasts of Scotland rocks of Secondary age occur north of the Grampians, but of the physical history of Central Scotland during the time these rocks were deposited, we know nothing. From the time of the deposition of our Upper Coal-beds, or, it may be, of some Permian Sandstones, up till the time when the whole island was locked fast in one immense mantle of ice, we are almost entirely ignorant of what was going on in that part of the country which lies between the Grampians and the Forth. And the man who shall decipher for us the physical geography of that period, and reveal to us the old surface of that district, with its vegetation and animal productions, prior to the time of the Boulder Clay, will have rendered no small service to the cause of Scottish geology.
But although we have not as yet been able to trace the old surface of the land, we are not altogether without data to guide us in our researches. One thing is clear and certain,—a great change was taking place over the whole face of this region.
Fossil Birds
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- 17 March 2016, pp. 50-53
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We shall, we trust, be pardoned for returning in this number, before we proceed onwards to Cuvier's works, to some omissions of old authors which have occurred.
The first of these additional quotations is from Scheuchzer's later work, published at Zurich in 1718, ‘Meteorologia et Oryctographia Helvetica,’ p. 336.
“Diluvian Birds.—Everybody can very easily conceive that all the birds, owing to their agility, could have escaped the waters of the Deluge, and it is therefore not to be wondered that even in the richest and best-assorted museums of arts and natural history, remains of the bird-kind are very seldom to be met with, or that they are, so to say, scarcer than a white raven. In Switzerland I have as yet found nothing; from the quarry of Oeningen I can show a well impressed bird's feather, which I have reproduced on page 14 of the Querel. Pisc.” This figure we give in our Plate IV. fig. 1.
The original passage follows below :—
“Aves Diluvianæ.—Es kan ein jeder ohnschwer begreifen, dass die Vögel, wegen ihrer Leichte, alle werden in denen Sündfluth-Wassern oben aufgeschwummen seyn, und sich desshalb nicht zu verwundern, wann auch in denen best-versehenen Kunst-und Naturalien-Kammern etwas von dem Vogel-Geschlecht überbliebenes so seltsam oder nock rarer ist als ein weisser Rab. In denen Schweitzerischen Landen habe noch nichts gefunden; aus den Oeningischen Steinbruch aber kan ich zeigen eine wol ausgedruckte Vogelfeder, welche habe abbilden lassen in Querel. Pisc, p. 14.”