393 Scientific IntelUgehcc—Geologi/, 



notice on the combination of carbonic acid with lime. After 

 some details on the importance of carbonate of lime, the variety 

 of forms under which it occurs, the different applications for eco- 

 nomic purposes, for marl, manure, smelting in metalling opera- 

 tions, 8ec. he called the attention of the members to the fact, that 

 carbonate of lime, when heated without the presence of any other 

 gas but carbonic acid, did not lose its carbonic acid, whatever 

 may be the intensity of the heat employed, and under the com- 

 mon atmospheric pressure. An analogous fact is the occurrence 

 in lime-kilns of masses of limestone that have been softened and 

 crystallized without the loss of their carbonic acid. Probably 

 pressure has little to do with the retention of the carbonic acid 

 during the fusion of carbonate of lime. The absence of mois- 

 ture, as well as the presence of carbonic acid, may contribute 

 powerfully to the retention of the carbonic acid. 



6. Prevost on the Geological transition Jrom Chalk to Ter- 

 tiary Deposits. — In travelling from Syracuse to Cape Passaro, 

 Prevost observed an apparent passage from the tertiary to the 

 secondary formations in the neighbourhood of Noto, by means 

 of thick beds of white friable limestone, almost without fossils, 

 which on the one hand was connected with the tertiary deposits 

 by its mineralogical characters and superposition, and on the 

 other passed in an equally gradual manner to calcareous beds, 

 which the greater number of geologists refer to the chalk forma- 

 tion. 



7. Antediluvian Ambergris, — In the clay ironstone of our 

 coal-formation, near to Bathgate, Burntisland, &c. we have been 

 long familiar with a pale yellowish- white and wine-yellow, trans- 

 lucent, soft, inflammable mineral, to which no particular name 

 had been given. It is now said to have the chemical characters 

 of ambergris. 



8. Belemnites i7i Talc-slate, <^c.— Studer stated at the meet- 

 ing of naturalists at Clermont, that he had found belemnites 

 amongst garnets in talc-slate on the south side of St Gothard. 

 The same naturalist also announced his having discovered at the 

 Lake of Lugano that the black augitic porphyry Was older 

 than the red quartziferous one, the latter forming dikes in the 

 former, but not the reverse, as he and Von Buch thought in 

 1887. 



9. Geological Map of ' Spain. -r^houhey Elie Beaumont, and 



