No. 2.] MISCELLANEOUS. 127 



PS he hud many years since pointed out. Id some parts of North 

 America he found the Montalban restiuir uucoutbrm:ibly on Lau- 

 reutian. Above tho Montalban comes the Taonian (Lower 

 Taconic of Emmons), a series of quartzites and solt micaceous 

 schists, with dolomites and marbles. All these various series are 

 older than the Lower Cambrian (Meneviau) strata of North 

 America; and it maybe added that the Keweenian or great 

 copper-bearing series of Lake Superior there occupies a position 

 between the Montalban and the Cambi'ian. 



In the Alps the speaker recognizes the Laurentian, Huronian 

 ■and Montalban, all of which he has lately seen in the Biellese, at 

 the foot of Mont Viso, in Piedmont. The Huronian is the great 

 plttre uerdi group of the Italians, and much of what has been 

 called altered Trias in this region is, in his opinion, probably 

 Taconiau. The Montalban forms the southern slope of Mont St. 

 Gothard, and is the muscovite gneiss and mica-schist of the 

 Saxon Erziiebirsie. Here Dr. Credner and his assistants of the 

 Geological Survey have described abundant conglomerates hold- 

 ing pebbles of Laurentian rocks imbedded in the Upper or Mont- 

 alban gneiss. The pre-Cambrian age of this has been shown by 

 Credner, who has proved by careful survey that the so-called 

 younger or Palaeozoic gneisses of Naumann are really but a con- 

 tinuous part of the older series. Late surveys also show that 

 the crystalline rocks of the Taunus are re;illy Eozoic and not, us 

 formerly maintained, Devonian in age. 



The speaker insisted upon the fact that where newer strata ai'C 

 in unconformable contact with older ones, the effect of lateral 

 movements of compression, involving the two series, is generally 

 to cause the newer and more yielding strata to dip towards and 

 even beneath the edges of the older rock, a result due to folds, 

 often with inversion, sometimes passing into faults. This pheno- 

 menon throws much light on the supposed recency of many 

 ciystalliue schists. 



The followiiJii" communications were read: — 



1. '• x\dditional Evidence on the Land Plants from the Pen 

 y-aloii' Slate quarry, near Corwen." By Henry Hicks, Esq., 

 M^D^, F.G.S. 



The author stated that since the date of his former paper 

 (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, August, 1881) he had a>certaiiied 

 that plant-remains occurred in the slaty beds down to the base 

 of the quarry, though much obscured by cleavage. The iaiger 

 specimens are in the form of anthracite. Mr. Carruthers states 

 that there is sufficient evidence to show that they are the remains 



