106 Chronicles of Science. [Jan., 
objects of interest found on the rock, and nothing else ; secondly, 
that a geological survey of the rock should be made by a competent 
surveyor. We believe that Professor Ramsay, the Director of the 
Geological Survey of Great Britain, has undertaken the last- 
mentioned task, so that we may be sure of its being well done. 
Dr. Falconer’s posthumous paper “ On the asserted Occurrence 
of Human Bones in the ancient fluviatile Deposits of the Nile and 
Ganges” has already been noticed at some length. 
Mr. Whitaker’s three papers on the Chalk of the Isle of Thanet, 
of Bucks, and of the Isle of Wight are interesting to British 
geologists, but the special nature of the facts described prevents our 
discussing them here. 
Some curious facts are mentioned in Dr. Stoliczka’s paper on the 
Cephalopoda of the South-Indian Cretaceous Rocks, which will be 
read with interest in connection with Dr. Duncan’s paper already 
noticed. It is satisfactory to find that these two paleontologists, 
working independently and upon different classes of animals, come 
to the same conclusion respecting the age of the Indian Cretaceous 
strata. Although none of the genera of Cephalopoda from these beds, 
with the exception of Ammonites, are represented by species which 
exhibit any remarkable difference from Kuropean Cretaceous forms, 
yet of the genus named there are four species of the group Maero- 
cephali, one of the Planulati, and one of the Fimbriate, which 
are of course allied to Jurassic forms. “ The most striking and 
abnormal among the Ammonites, however, are three species of the 
Triassic group Gilobosi,” and Dr. Stoliczka may well have been 
astonished at their occurrence in such company. 
A great deal has lately been said for and against the theory of 
the atmospheric erosion of river-valleys, of the Valley of the Weald, 
&c.; and we now have, in Messrs. Foster and Topley’s paper “On 
the Superficial Deposits of the Valley of the Medway, with remarks 
on the Denudation of the Weald,” a carefully prepared account of 
certain phenomena which are thought by the authors to prove, or 
at any rate to render it probable, that the Valley of the Weald owes 
its present surface-configuration chiefly to atmospheric causes. 
There are those who theorize and speculate without a knowledge of 
the phenomena they wish to explain ; there are again those brillant- 
minded and experienced men who can propound a probable theory 
and support it with ability, off-hand, simply from their great 
knowledge of natural phenomena in various districts; but there are 
also those equally useful workers in science, who, like these authors, 
accepting a theory already rendered probable, take a particular 
district and find out how every individual fact lends additional pro- 
bability to the view they accept. Of course, in this instance, the 
conclusion is foregone, but we honestly believe that had the facts 
