HARD WICKE 'S S CIENCE - G SSIP. 



19 



nized station for this heath, and its existence so far 

 north is at least curious. Perhaps some of our 

 northern botanists can inform me whether it has been 

 previously noticed in the locality I have named, and 

 whether there is any evidence of its having been 

 introduced there.— y. JV. Oliver, Birmingham. 



Proposed Amateur Botanists' Exchange 

 Club. — Most amateur collecting botanists have long 

 felt the need of an exchange club, where they could 

 without expense send all their spare duplicates at 

 the end of each season, with the certainty of having 

 a large return parcel of dried and correctly-labelled 

 specimens from otlier parts of the British Islands, 

 which can seldom be secured without this medium. 

 Again, most botanists would be glad to secure a few 

 good critical species of the Ritbi, or Roses, and be 

 thankful to see the pile of grasses and sedges on 

 their herbaria shelves increasing with reliable spe- 

 cimens eveiy year. It is proposed at once to esta- 

 blish an Exchange Club to further this object, to be 

 composed of botanists from all parts of the United 

 Kingdom, who will contribute a few specimens every 

 year : no membership fee required, each member 

 paying the carriage of his own parcels. Surely one 

 hundred can be found willing to give in their names, 

 who are connected with our large naturalist field 

 clubs, and to these it will prove a boon long desired. 

 Botanists wishing to join are requested to send in 

 their names, not later than the end of January, 1877, 

 to the Editor of Science-Gossip, when rules, best 

 method of drying, labelling, and packing specimens, 

 with other useful information, will be forwarded to 

 each appHcant. The last edition of the ' ' London 

 Catalogue," published by Hardwicke & Bogue, 192, 

 Piccadilly, will be used by the members, both in 

 labelling and marked for desiderata. To save ex- 

 pense, it is proposed to publish the Yearly Report in 

 Science-Gossip. 



GEOLOGY. 



Observations on the Geology of East 

 Anglia, etc. — This is the title of an important paper 

 recently read before the Geological Society of London 

 by S. V. Wood, jun., F.G.S., and F. W. Harmer, 

 F.G.S., &c. The subjects discussed in this paper 

 were threefold, viz., — i. The unfossiliferous sands of 

 the Red Crag ; 2. The unconformity between the 

 Lower and Middle Glacial deposits ; 3. The mode in 

 which the Upper and Middle Glacial were accumu- 

 lated. The views of the authors under the first head 

 were similar to and confirmatory of those advanced 

 in the previous paper by Mr. Whitaker ; but they 

 pointed out that the Red Crag, which these sands, in 

 an altered form, represent, could not belong to the 

 Chillesford division of that formation, by reason of 

 the casts of shells which had been preserved not com- 



prising any of the more characteristic Chillesford 

 species, and of their including among them forms 

 confined to the older portions of the Red Crag. They 

 also pointed out that the Chillesford Clay had been 

 removed over all the area occupied by these sands 

 by denudation prior to the deposition of the Middle 

 Glacial, which rests upon these sands wherever they 

 occur. The removal of the Chillesford Clay, the 

 authors consider, was due in part, if not in all, to the 

 great denudation between the Lower and Middle 

 Glacial, which gave rise to the unconformity discussed 

 under the second head. This unconfonnity they 

 illustrate by lines of section traversing most of the 

 river valleys of Central and East Norfolk and Suffolk. 

 These show that such valleys were excavated after 

 the. deposit of the contorted drift, and out of that 

 formation and the beds underlying it. They also 

 show that the Middle and Upper Glacial have been 

 bedded into these valleys, as well as spread (the 

 middle only partially, but the upper moi-e uniformly) 

 over the high grounds formed of contorted drift out 

 of which they were excavated, and thus generally 

 concealing that deposit, which manifests itself only in 

 the form of occasional protrusions through these later 

 formations, but which they consider constitutes, 

 though thus concealed, the main mass of the two 

 counties. The authors also describe a glacial bed as 

 occurring at various localities in the bottom of some 

 of these valleys, -and which in one case they have 

 traced under the Middle Glacial. This they regard 

 as having been formed in the interval between the 

 denudation of the valleys and their subsequent sub- 

 mergence beneath the Middle Glacial sea ; and inas- 

 much as such valley-bed invariably rests on the chalk 

 in a highly glaciated condition, they attribute its for- 

 mation more probably than otherwise to the action 

 of glaciers occupying the valleys during an inter- 

 glacial interval of dry land. They also suggest that 

 if this was so, it is probable that the forest and mam- 

 maliferous bed of Kessingland, instead of being 

 coeval with the preglacial one of the Cromer coast, 

 may belong to this interglacial interval — that is to 

 say, to the earliest part of it, before the glaciers ac- 

 cumulated in the valleys, and when the climate was 

 more temperate, any similar deposits in these inter- 

 glacial valleys having been for the most part sub- 

 sequently ploughed out by the action of the glaciers. 

 In discussing the subject under the third head the 

 authors point out the many perplexing features which 

 are connected with the position and distribution of 

 the Middle Glacial formation ; and while they admit 

 that as to one or two of these the theory which they 

 ' offer affords no explanation, they suggest that the 

 theory of this formation's origin which best meets the 

 case is as follows, viz.,— As the country became re- 

 submerged, and as the valley glaciers retreated before 

 the advancing sea, the land-ice of the mountain 

 districts of North Britain accumulated and descended 

 i into the low grounds, so that by the time East Anglia 



