^0 Proceedings of Philosophical Societies. [March, 



was that immediately preceding the formation of this gravel by 

 that transient and universal inundation which has left traces of its 

 ravages committed at no very distant period over the surface of 

 the whole globe, and since which, no important or general phy- 

 sical changes appear to have affected it. 



Both in the case of the English and German caverns, 

 the bones under consideration are never included in the solid 

 rock ; they occur in cavities of limestone rocks of various ages 

 and formations, but have no further connexion with the rocks 

 themselves, than that arising from the accident of their being 

 lodged in cavities produced in them, by causes wholly uncon- 

 nected with the animals, that appear for a certain time to have 

 taken possession of them as their habitation. 



GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Nov. 2, 1821. — A letter from M. Brieslak on the Gypsum of 

 Monte Seano was read. 



The gypseous deposit of Monte Seano is covered by a bed of 

 yellow arenaceous marie, of four or five feet in depth, in which 

 are found many rounded masses of the same marie ; some large 

 irregular crystals assuming the rhomboidal form of gypsum, and 

 a thin layer bed of whitish compact gypsum of a scaly foliated 

 fracture. Under this marie bed, sulphate of lime appears in 

 horizontal layers, varying in thickness from two or three inches 

 to three or four feet ; and interrupted in many places by thin 

 strata of grey schistose marie, with veins of fibrous and granular 

 gypsum. The sulphate of lime is penetrated with a bituminous 

 matter, of a compact, granular, or foliated or fibrous texture, and 

 for the most part of a grey colour, but sometimes approaching to 

 black, which sometimes exhales by percussion or friction. The 

 gypsum of this quarry is very remarkable for the great number of 

 vegetable remains which it contains ; but in general, the 

 impressions of the leaves are so much broken, and the stalks so 

 irregularly dispersed, as to render it difficult to determine the 

 genera to which they belong. Prof. Moritti, however, disco- 

 vered among them the leaves of the sahx caprea, of the viscum 

 album, and of the acer platanoides, plants which at present may 

 be found growing in the neighbourhood of the quarry. 



" Observations on the Species of Belemnites called Fusiform, 

 on Fossils of the Cactus Tribe, and pn the Opercula of the Fos- 

 sil Echini,'* by Mr. Cumberland, were read. 



From a close examination of numerous specimens of belem- 

 nites in the Stinchcome Quarry, near Dumley, in Gloucester- 

 fihire, and especially of some large ones of the fusiform species, 

 Mr. Cumberland was enabled to discover that these bodies were 

 only the nucleus of the interior of the upj)er part connected by a 

 cylinder with the alveolus that belonged to its smallest chamber ; 

 and in one specimen he observed a triform muscle which formed 

 the apex of the pointed end of the cone of the belemnite, and of 



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