194 TRANSACTIONS OF THE SOCIETY OP 



alluvium, composed of facilites (puddiug-stone) and of rolled pebbles. Among 

 these, the euphotide, found below Geneva, comes from the mountains of the 

 Valais, a considerable distance doubtless, and the translation of which, by 

 reason of the interposition of the lake, it is not easy to explain. 



M. Loriol read to us a memoir on the nunimulitic formation of Egypt, ^t'o 

 eight species of echinoderms already known in the nummulitic of that country 

 he adds four others entirely new. lie also communicated a series of researches 

 on the classic mountain of Saleve. The fauna of the coralline stratum which 

 forms the base of that mountain has furnished some new fossils, among others 

 a large species of Diccras. The deposits between the corralline and the middle 

 neocomian belong to the valengian stratum, as their fossils {Nat lea leviatlmn) 

 testify. The Urgonian stratum offers three species of invertebrata in common 

 Avith the deposits of Orgon, without speaking of several new species, and iu par- 

 ticular of a fine terebratula {T. Ehrodu7iens'ts.) which has not yet been pub- 

 lished, and which has been compounded with the T. semistriata. Finally, in 

 this Valengian stratum, M. Loriol has distinguished four new species of 

 brachiopods. 



Verbal reports. — Professor A. dc la Rive called the attention of the society 

 to the researches of M. Frankland on the physical cause of the glacial epoch. 

 This cause he finds in the generally admitted fact, that the ocean must, at the 

 precipitated epoch, have had a temperature much superior to that which it now 

 has ; that hence the evaporation of the seas would have been considerably aug- 

 mented, aud with it the aqueous piecipitations of the atmosphere. Now, these 

 enormous precipitations, falling in the form of snow, and during millenary pe- 

 riods, on the elevated table-lauds of the high latitudes of the globe, would 

 eventually occasion the vast accumulations of ice which characterized the epoch 

 in question. In support of this theory, M. de la Rive added, that since 1S15 

 he had observed the great extension which the glaciers of Switzerland had ac- 

 quired after the tv/o rainy years of 1816 and 1817. Further, that other savants 

 had already announced ideas upon the glacial epoch in close analogy with those 

 of M. Frankland. This communication of Professor de la Rive has been 

 inserted in the Bihliotheque Uuivcrsellc. 



Professor Desor communicated some of the results of his late researches ou 

 the lacustrian deposits of lake Neuchatel. He has studied two stations at Au- 

 verguier ; one of the age of stone, situated near the shore, at a depression of 

 about five feet below the mean level of the water ; the other of the age of 

 bronze, which is found somewhat in front of the other and at a greater depth. 

 He supposes that the stations of the age of stone are the remains^ of artificial 

 islands formed of pebbles heaped around stakes planted in the bottom of the 

 lake. 



M. de Heer announces the discovery of the wing of an insect of the genus 

 blatina in the anthracites of the Valais, near St. Maurice. This insect, found 

 under fossil plants of the epoch of coal, is a near neighbor of those of the coal 

 series. Professor Pictet has continued to give us information both of the facts 

 relative to the discovery of the jawbone of Moulin-Quignon and of the different 

 scientific inquiries which bear upon that discovery. These inquiries have been 

 successively published in the scientific and literary journals of the epoch; and 

 as they are too numerous for us to give here even a simple enumeration of them, 

 we must be content with a reference to the journals themselves. The last-named 

 naturalist spoke also of the discovery of a tooth of a gigantic crocodilian in 

 the oolite of Poitiers ; according to the savants who have examined it, this 

 animal appears to have been about one hundred feet in length. Finally, M. 

 Alexandre Prevost, our secretary, showed us a fragment of a human skull, 

 found in the valley of Chamounix, immediately above the Aiguilles by which 

 the glacier of Bossons terminates in that valley. This fragment is doubtless 

 a relic of one of the three guides who perished on the great plateau during tha 



