GEOLOGY. 301 



strata of Devonian age, and large areas of Wenlock (Niag- 

 ara) strata. In addition to these, the collections show, for the 

 first time, the presence of strata of Llandeilo (Trenton) age, 

 which had been supposed to be unrepresented in these north- 

 ern regions. As regards climatic conditions, the flora of the 

 Arctic Cretaceous is said to correspond to a climate like that 

 of Egypt or the Canaries ; while the Eocene flora is chiefly 

 dicotyledonous, and wants the tropical character which be- 

 longs to that of Western North America. On Grinnell Land, 

 lat. 81 45' N., Fielden found a bed of lignite 25 feet thick, 

 with a Miocene flora, which Heer has compared with that of 

 Spitzbergen, lat. 76-79, and that of Disco, in Greenland, lat. 

 70-7l. That of the most northern station still presents co- 

 niferous forms, with elm, hazel, viburnum, and poplar ; but 

 a progressive diminution of genera and species is noticed in 

 the Miocene flora as we approach the pole from Central Eu- 

 rope, showing that the temperature then, as now, decreased 

 in going northward, though more slowly than at present. It 

 would thus appear that it is not the geographical position 

 of the pole, but the temperature of the polar region, which 

 has changed since the Miocene period. (See in this connec- 

 tion the Record for 1876, p. cii, and for 1877, pp. 177, 178.) 



MESOZOIC OF SCOTLAND. 



It has long been known that small areas of various Meso- 

 zoic rocks exist in the Hebrides and the Western Highlands 

 of Scotland, where they are often partially concealed by 

 faults, which have let them down thousands of feet among 

 older and harder rocks, or are overlaid by great masses of 

 Tertiary lavas. Judd, after many years of study, has made 

 known their history, and has shown that these patches of 

 Mesozoic rocks in the Western Highlands extend over a 

 large area, and were probably continuous with the same 

 rocks of the northeast coast of Scotland, of Ireland, and of 

 Enoland. These rocks in the regions examined were <jen- 

 erally deposited either upon the ancient gneiss or upon the 

 Lower Cambrian (Torridon) sandstones ; but in one place 

 rest unconformably upon Carboniferous sandstones and 

 shales, with coal-plants. Beneath the Jurassic series he has 

 found 1000 feet or more of Pcecilitic (Permian and Triassic) 

 strata, consisting of sandstones and marls, with some lime- 



