GEOLOGY. 329 



FREQUENCY OF EARTHQUAKES. 



A correspondent of the Xew York Courier, who keeps hourly ther- 

 mometrical observations, says, that earthquakes produce changes in the 

 atmosphere that rests upon the earth, and exert an influence upon it 

 to a greater and wider extent than persons who are not in the habit of 

 observing the phenomena in connexion with atmospheric changes have 

 generally supposed. 



" Within the field of our research, during a period of fifteen months, 

 commencing with January, 1852, and ending with March, 1853, (four 

 hundred and fifty-five consecutive days,) we have recorded earthquakes 

 that have been active on one hundred and seventeen of these days, on 

 each of which the place and places where the earthquakes were felt 

 are particularly stated, and the day of the month also. In addition to 

 these thus particularly specified, we have recorded many earthquakes 

 during the same fifteen months ; the places where they were felt are 

 stated, but the day of the month could not be ascertained from the 

 published accounts ; and others also, in considerable numbers, where 

 neither the day of the month nor the month of the year is mentioned, 

 but which were within the said fifteen months. 



" The field of our research embraces but a small portion of the globe. 

 Large districts of our earth are uninhabited, and of the inhabited dis- 

 tricts there are many where there are no intelligent minds to observe 

 and make record of the phenomena, and others where there are no 

 newspapers to convey intelligence. 



"The conclusion we have arrived at from these observations, made 

 without any interruption for a series of years, is that all the great and 

 sudden changes of the temperature of the atmosphere are produced 

 by the earth, and these changes affect those who breathe it both physi- 

 cally and mentally, to a greater or lesser extent." 



ON THE DISCOVERY OF FOSSIL REPTILIAN REMAINS, AND A LAND- 

 SHELL IN THE INTERIOR OF AN ERECT FOSSIL TREE IN THE 

 COAL MEASURES OF NOVA SCOTIA. 



The following is an abstract of a lecture by Sir Charles Lyell on the 

 above subject, before the Royal Institution of Great Britain. 



The entire thickness of the carboniferous strata, exhibited in one 

 uninterrupted section on the shores of the Bay of Fundy, in Xova 

 Scotia, at a place called the South Joggins and its neighborhood, was 

 ascertained by Mr. Logan to be 14,570 feet. The middle part of this 

 vast series of strata, having a thickness of 1400 feet, abounds in fossil 

 forests of erect trees, together with root-beds and thin seams of coal. 

 These coal-bearing strata were examined in detail by Mr. J. ~\V. Daw- 

 son of Pictou, and Sir C. Lyell, in September last (1852) and among 

 other results of their investigations, they obtained satisfactory proof 

 that several sigiilarise, standing in an upright position, or at right 

 angles to the pfanes of stratification, were provided with stigmariae as 



