Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris, 559 



Hockheim the beds are much dislocated, and at Wisbaden fossil 

 bones are found, the teeth accompanying which refer them to 

 animals allied to the Lophiodon tapiroides, and to the Sumatran 

 Tapir. These calcareous deposits are only 200 feet above the 

 level of the Mayne, and they are perforated in many places by- 

 basalt, upon which they rest. The basalt finally disappears south- 

 east of Darmstadt, and is succeeded by primitive rocks. There 

 are strong salt-springs at Soden, and various mineral waters near 

 Frankfort and Hadnigstein. 



The Falkenstein mountain, though composed of talc-slate, pro- 

 trudes through the high table land in the form of basalt. To the 

 north of this the older rocks disappear, and the district is occupied 

 by grauwacke. The grauwacke is divided into quartzy grauwacke 

 and grauwacke slate ; the latter is very distinct from micaceous 

 slate, and contains casts of Spiriferi^ of the Pleurohranchi of 

 Cuvier, &c. ; the former offers Encrinites, and unknown coral- 

 loids. 



At the meetings of this Society on March 17, Jpril 7, and 

 Jfpn721, no business was transacted which requires notice in the 

 Zoological Journal ; except that at the meeting on Jpril 7, R. I. 

 Murchison, Esq. F.R.S., one of the Secretaries, presented a cast 

 of the superior portion of a gigantic Saurian femur, from Sussex. 



ROYAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF PARIS. 



March 7. — M. de Lacepede made a verbal report on M. 

 Virey's History of the Human Race, M. Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire 

 concluded the reading of his Memoir On the Fossil Reptile of 

 Caen or Teleosaurus ; and he announced another. On the Skull 

 of the Mummy of a Crocodile found in the Catacombs of Thebes, 

 and on its relations to those of the Animals, presumed to be of the 

 same Species, which now exist in Egypt, M. Edwards read a 

 Memoir, Ofi the Muscular Contractions produced by the contact 

 of a solid body with the Nerves, without the Galvanic Action, 



