TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 111 
Two other species of this genus, purporting to come from the lias near 
Caen, were seen lately (June 1840) by Mr. Lyell, in the private collec- 
tion of Professor Deslongchamps and M. Tesson, of that city. A brief 
notice had been previously given of their discovery in a report of a 
meeting, held in 1837, by the Linnzan Society of Normandy. To 
satisfy himself of the correctness of the alleged geological position of 
these Cones, Mr. Lyell visited, in company with M. Deslongchamps, 
one of the localities called Fontaine Etoupe-Four, about six miles south 
of Caen. He found there a stratified limestone, containing Ammonites, 
Belemnites, Pleurotomarie, and other Mollusca and Crinoidea, resting 
unconformably in horizontal strata on highly inclined quartzite and 
talcose schists of the transition formation. Many deep rents occurring 
in the fundamental rock were filled with the limestone, and in these 
situations shells in great abundance, together with broken pieces of 
quartzite, are united into a breccia by a calcareous cement. Most of 
the Cones have been found in these rents, and the matrix in which they 
occur constitutes the oldest portion of the incumbent or fossiliferous 
formation. In regard to the age of this last, some of the shells, such 
as Ammonites planicosta, and A. Bucklandi, occur in the lias of En- 
gland; others are met with in our alum shale, and inferior oolite. The 
specimens collected by the author, or which were presented to him by 
M. Deslongchamps, have been examined by Mr. Lonsdale, of the 
Geological Society of London, who, judging by this evidence, consi- 
ders the formation to be either an upper member of the lias, or to be 
intermediate between the lias and inferior oolite. M. Alcide D’Or- 
bigny has also collected forty or fifty species of fossils from the lime- 
stone of the same place, and he refers them to the upper lias, although 
a great proportion of the shells are new, and some do not even belong 
to any genera hitherto established. The stone in which the Cones are 
imbedded is of a pale brown ferruginous colour, like ordinary inferior 
oolite, but precisely resembling, according to Mr. Lonsdale, the gritty 
lias or corn-grit of Radstock. Some of these Cones were first dis- 
covered by M. Deslongchamps, and M. Tesson soon afterwards ob- 
tained the most perfect specimens, of which last drawings were made 
by M. Deslongchamps, and presented to Mr. Lyell for publication. 
The originals have alsc been examined by Mr. George Sowerby, and 
they seem to be all referable to two very distinct species, one of which 
has been named Conus concavus, in which the spire is so depressed 
that the summit is concave. For the second, the name of Conus 
Cadonensis is proposed. It approaches nearest to C. antediluvianus, 
varying considerably in the height of the spire in different individuals. 
On ancient Sea Cliffs and Needles in the Chalk of the Valley of the 
Seine in Normandy. By C. Lyeiy, F.RS. GS. 
The observations in this paper are principally confined to that part 
of the winding valley of the Seine which extends from Andelys to 
Elbeeuf, a distance by the river of about thirty miles. This valley, 
which is from two to four miles wide, has been excavated through 
chatk with flints horizontally stratified, about 300 or 350 feet in thick- 
