l62 



HA R D WICKE ' S S CIE NCE - G O SSI P. 



Peridermium Pixi, Chev.— This rare fungus has 

 appeared in considerable abundance upon some 

 Scotch fir-trees near King's Lynn during the present 

 month (June). For the past ten years I have been 

 looking out for it but without success, until the present 

 occasion. As far as I know it has hardly, if at all, 

 been found in England, during the past five-and- twenty 

 years. The Rev. M. J. Berkeley, in a note in the 

 "English Flora," says, "occasionally occurring in 

 England, especially in young plantations." The 

 variety which has occurred here grows upon the 

 leaves and is the Periderinium acricohun (Link). 

 Cooke, Micro-Fungi, p. 124. As many of your readers 

 take an interest in leaf fungi, it would be very interest- 

 ing to know whether this fungus has appeared else- 

 where in England ; and if so to what extent. — Charles 

 £. Plozuright. 



Erratum.— Ki page 123, 26 lines from bottom, 

 for " dwarf form oi Bavarica" read " dwarf form of 

 ■zjerna." 



GEOLOGY. 



FOSSILIFEROUS PEEBLES IN THE DrIFT IN 



Warwickshire.— The Rev. P. B. Brodie, ]\LA., 



F.G.S., has just read a paper on this subject before 



the Geological Society. The author notices some 



previous remarks upon these pebbles, which, in 



Warwickshire and elsewhere, either occur in the 



Trias or have been derived from it. To account for 



these, he supposed that there had been a more 



northerly extension of Silurian rocks than can now 



be detected in central England. The Lickey quart- 



zite has been supposed to have contributed some of 



these ; but the author states that he has not found 



any one well-defined Llandovery species, but that 



the most characteristic are Lower Silurian. These 



pebbles are most abundant south of Birmingham, 



towards Warwick and Stratford-on-Avon. They 



agree lithologically with the Budleigh-Salterton 



pebbles; these, as it has been shown, are partly 



Lower Silurian, partly Devonian, partly Carboniferous. 



The author gives a list of species collected by him 



from the Warwickshire pebbles. Sixteen are present 



from the twenty-four Lower Silurian forms found in 



Devonshire. Notwithstanding their identity, physical 



considerations forbid the supposition that they have 



been derived directly from that locality or Normandy, 



so that it is probable these Lower Silurian quartzite 



rocks once extended much farther to the north. In 



the discussion which followed, the president remarked 



that the subject was a difficult one, but the species, 



as stated by Mr. Brodie, were no doubt correct. At 



Budleigh-Salterton it was easy to tell from whence 



many of the pebbles had been derived ; but in the 



Midland counties it was most difficult. Mr. Ussher 



said that the occurrence of the same fossils did not 



prove that the pebbles were from the same area, and 

 that the drift of the paper was not quite clear from 

 its title. Professor Bonney thought it a most valuable 

 addition to our knowledge, and was glad that such 

 a contribution had been evoked by his own slight 

 paper. He thought it almost certain that there were 

 two sources for the quartzites, and that all the 

 fossiliferous specimens could not have come from 

 the Lickey, as some had been found at Nottingham. 

 Probably ancient rocks had extended to the north- 

 east of England, beyond those discovered in borings 

 it Northampton, and to the north-east of those 

 exjDOsed at Charnwood. 



On the Origin and Formation of Chalk 

 Flints. — In reference to my letter in Science- 

 Gossip for January, and Dr. Wallich's in March, I 

 beg to say that this gentleman has kindly forwarded 

 to me extracts of his paper from the "Annals and 

 Magazine of Natural History." I cannot accept his 

 theory of flint and chalk, partly for the reasons 

 given in January, and because I find that he makes 

 liquid silica, which is a primary matter, dependent 

 on protoplasm, on slime which is called by himself 

 a residuum. Dr. Allman, as president, gave the 

 history of this Bathybius to the British Association 

 at Sheffield, and told the assembly that the scientific 

 men in the " Challenger " found no trace of it all round 

 the world. Dr. Wallich allows that no light was 

 thrown by those investigations on the formation of 

 the flints on the sea bottom. I used that fact as 

 evidence that they were not formed on the surface 

 as Dr. Wallich says they were. Again, this gentle- 

 man seems to think that what he'calls the Amoebiform 

 shape of flints was a voluntary action. I say the 

 flat sheets, the round balls, the various casts, and. 

 the varied shape nodules were all involuntary forms, 

 given by the pressure of the surrounding mud or 

 by moulds that the silica fell in with, to its perco- 

 lating matter. While admiring Dr. Wallich's in- 

 genuity on the subject, I must adhere to the system 

 first laid down in chap. x. of " The Circle of Light 

 onDhamallgen," in 1869, and say again that the flint 

 layers are formed by the percolation of liquid silica 

 through the new deposit on to the face of the old 

 deposit. It is the only way in which the two forma- 

 tions could be parallel. — //. F. Malet, Florence. 



Norwich Geological Society. — The last number 

 of the " Proceedings" of this society contains a very 

 able address by the president, Mr. J. H. Blake, 

 F.G.S., dealing chiefly with the geological position 

 of the common forest bed. 



"Cloud Hill." — By 'this title a paper has been 

 published by Mr. W. H. Goss, E.G. S., written for the 

 North Staffordshire Naturalists' Field Club on the 

 occasion of their recent excursion to Cloud Hill, near 

 Congleton. It is an able disquisition on the " Origin 

 of the Millstone Grit, Clay, and Ironstone ; on the 



