GLEANINGS. 



121 



Professor Huxley, LL.D., F.R.S., has been unanimously elected an 

 Honorary Vice-president of the Birmingham Natural History and 

 Microscopical Society, in recognition of his distinguished services to 

 Biological Science. 



Geological Survey. — The corrected maps of the Nottingham district 

 (Quarter-sheets 71 N.-E. and S.-E.) are now ready. In addition to correc- 

 tions in the Triassic rocks, they contain the latest colliery information 

 as to underground faults, the sites of bore-holes, &c. They are the work of 

 Mr. W. T. Aveline, F.G.S. 



Chalk Fossils. — In almost every collection of organic remains from 

 the chalk may be seen " an elongated more or less undulating body, 

 composed of the scales and bones of fishes confusedly mingled." Dr. 

 Mantell considered this to be a long cylindrical fish, identical with the 

 Dercetis elongatus of Agassiz, and this was generally accepted, though 

 some collectors referred the remains to coprolites, and others to intestines 

 of fishes. In the Geological Magazine for 1879, p. 145, Mr. W. Davies, of 

 the British Museum, states his reasons for considering these curious 

 bodies to be " the remains of membranous tubes of large soft-bodied 

 Annelides, of solitary habits, that collected and agglutinated, either for 

 protection or disguise, the scales and bones of fishes to the exterior 

 surface of their tubes," just as some living annelides do ; he names them 

 Terebella Leivesiensis. 



The Rocks of Brazil Wood, Charnwood Forest. — With reference to the 

 remarkable exposure of the contact between granite and slate, discovered at 

 this point by Messrs. Allportand Harrison, and first described in our pages 

 (Vol. II., p. 243), a brisk controversyh as taken place in the Geological 

 Magazine between Prof. Bonney and Mr. Allport, as to the correct name 

 to be given to the altered rock ; it has hitherto been called gneiss, and 

 Prof. Bonney would retain this term for it, while his adversary designates 

 it as a micaceous schist. The rock is mainly a compound of two micas, and 

 as it has " neither the chemical composition, mineral constitution, 

 internal structure, nor even the external appearance of gneiss," Mr. 

 Allport's name would seem to be the better one. 



Roman Oysters. — During the excavations for the new Corporation 

 Baths, in Leicester, a few months ago, some strongly built walls and 

 concrete floors, evidently of Roman work, were met with. Underneath 

 the old masonry large numbers of oyster shells, many in very perfect 

 preservation, were met with, and similar specimens with shells of the 

 whelk have been found associated with Roman pottery in several parts 

 of the old town. Considering the position of Leicester in the very 

 centre of England, and the consequent expense of carriage, the discovery 

 of these marine delicacies here would seem to afford another proof of the 

 high estimation in which they were held by the early conquerors of 

 our island. 



Reports tf Satieties. 



BIRMINGHAM NATURAL HISTORY AND MICROSCOPICAL 

 SOCIETY. — Geological Section. — March 23rd. — The section resolved to visit 

 the exposure of coal in the excav itions at Rubery Hill, on Saturday, the 3rd of 

 April. — Mr. J. Levick exhibited Floscularia, cornnta and Podophrya, quadripartita, 

 two interesting infusoria. A repiint of a piper on the Precumbiian Gerolo^y of 

 Anglesey, b\ Dr. Callaway, of Wellington, was presented by the author. — Miss 



