Scientific Intelligence — Geology. 177 



turalists, older tlian the chalk formation, were those of a species 

 of Opossum, or Didelphis, found in the oolitic rocks of Stones- 

 field. Some years ago, Hugi, professor at Soleure, discovered, 

 in quarries in that part of the oolitic system named Portland 

 Stone, remains of true quadrupeds. Very lately, these neglected 

 observations of Hugi have, we are told, been confirmed and 

 strengthened by additional discoveries in the same quarter, made 

 by a Mr Gressy. He, in a communication to the Natural His- 

 tory Society of Strasbourg, enumerates the following animal re- 

 lics as having been found inclosed in undoubted beds of Port- 

 land stone, along with remains of crocodiles, emys or fresh-water 

 turtles, &c., viz. bones of Paleotherium, the Anoplotherium gra- 

 cile, of a kind of hedgehog, and a pachydermatous or ruminating 

 animal, the size of a sheep. 



8. Temperature of the different Tertiary Deposits at the 

 Epoch of their Formation, — M. Deshayes has communicated to 

 the French Academy of Sciences a notice on the determination 

 of the temperature of the tertiary periods of Europe from the 

 knowledge of the fossil shells which these formations contain. 

 The author commences by detailing rapidly some facts relative 

 to the distribution of molluscous animals in proceeding from the 

 north to the south, and principally from the North Cape to the 

 Gulf of Guinea. " If" (says he) " we take as a whole the small 

 number of species living in the north, we can divide them into 

 two perfectly distinct categories : the one series peculiar to the 

 cold seas and never passing their limits ; and the other, includ- 

 ing a smaller number, living also in the temperate seas of Ger- 

 many, France, and England, with the species belonging to these 

 seas. In examining the mollusca of our temperate sea?, in which 

 there exists a larger number of species than in the seas of the 

 north, it is easy to divide them into three series. In the first 

 are included the species I have just indicated, those which ex- 

 tend to the seas of the north ; the species of the second series 

 extend to the southern seas ; and those of the third are peculiar 

 to temperate seas. In the intertropical region similar pheno- 

 mena present themselves. There we find a greater number of 

 species than in the two preceding regions ; and if some among 

 them occur also in the temperate region, a large proportion are 

 peculiar to the equatorial regions. These, thelp^ are the general 



VOL. XXI. NO XLT. JULY 1836. M 



