70 Geological Society. 



7. Idaei. Barren stem round, downy, covered with innumerable small 



dilated prickles, erect. R. idceus and varieties. 



There is, however, it must be admitted, an anomaly in the first 

 group, which can only be got over by subdividing it into two (as in 

 the tabular view), for the excessively glandulose assurgent stem of 

 R. dumetorum has a very different aspect from the prostrate bloomy 

 one of R. ccesius, and yet it is demonstrable that the former is really 

 derivable from the latter ; so that although the blue berries of the 

 dewberry would at first sight appear so discriminative, varieties arise 

 with fruit altogether of a different aspect. It must be borne in 

 mind, however, that this is in a great degree in accordance with the 

 well-known laws of cultivation. R. dumetorum is casius excessively 

 developed in leaves and flowers, but the fruit is mostly abortive or 

 imperfect; while R. ccesius, in its normal prostrate form, with thin 

 foliage and small flowers, produces on the humid ground the finest 

 and most palatable fruit of any of the fruticose brambles. 



The first group of C^esii must therefore necessarily be divided into 

 two, but the other groups will be found to maintain the characters 

 assigned them pretty correctly, and may therefore be depended on. 

 It is true that occasionally some of the Villicaulce will exhibit a few 

 glands on their stems or panicles under circumstances of great luxu- 

 riance of growth or exposure, but nothing to compare with the ex- 

 cessive glandulosity of the Glandulosce. Then it is true that the 

 barren stem of the second group of Ccesii is nearly as glandular as the 

 Glandulosce, but the former will show^ their aflfinity with ccesius by 

 the calyx being involute on the fruit, not reflex, as in the latter. 

 The Fruticosi always preserve an independent marked character; 

 and the Nitidi, if in one of their forms, R. affinis, coming near to the 

 Suberecti, may yet be always well distinguished by the arching bar- 

 ren stem, which, where exposed, is very stiff and rigid in the latter, 

 almost as much so as in R. idceus. This is well observable in the 

 barren moors of North Wales. The paper was accompanied by 

 drawings and specimens. 



GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



February 1, 1843. — Letter from J. Hamilton Cooper, Esq., to 

 Charles Lyell, Esq., V.P.G.S., " On Fossil bones found in digging 

 the New Brunswick Canal in Georgia." 



Mr. Cooper prefaces his communication by a description of the 

 country surrounding the locality in which the bones were found. 

 The portion described is that part of the sea- coast of Georgia which 

 lies between the Alatamaha and Turtle rivers in one direction, and 

 the Atlantic Ocean and the head of tide water on the other. For 

 twenty miles inland the land is low, averaging a height of from ten 

 to twenty feet, and reaching, in some instances, forty feet, and con- 

 sisting of swamps, salt-marshes, sandy land, and clay loam. It then 

 suddenly rises to the height of seventy feet, and runs back west at 

 this elevation about twenty miles, at which point there is a similar 

 elevation of between sixty and seventy feet. The whole of this 

 district is a post-tertiary formation, and is composed of recent allu- 



