1866. | Geology and Palzontology. 107 
proved adverse they would not have been distorted to harmonize 
with it. Messrs. Foster and Topley show that an old river-gravel 
of the Medway occurs 300 feet above the present level of the river ; 
therefore the valley below must have been excavated by sub-aérial 
causes—“ rain and rivers.” They also go farther, and say that in 
this case “ there can be but little difficulty in supposing the present 
form of the ground in the Weald to have been produced entirely by 
these agents;” this is not yet proven, but is to a great extent highly 
probable. According to the chronological statement given by the 
authors, Col. Greenwood was the first to maintain (in 1857) that 
the valleys were wholly formed by “rain and rivers ;” unfortunately, 
however, his book was but little read by geologists at the time. The 
question was raised as a question by Mr. Jukes in 1862; but 
Professor Ramsay has been its great exponent and advocate, and 
has disposed of most of the objections to his theory that have been 
advanced by the advocates of marine-denudation. It must not be 
supposed, however, that rain and rivers are considered by him and his 
followers to have done all the work ; the sea began, and atmospheric 
agencies completed it. 
Two out of Mr. Henry Woodward’s three papers on new fossil 
Crustacea are well worth notice. In one the author proves that 
Professor de Koninck’s Chiton Wrightianus is not a Chiton, but a 
Cirripede. This fossil was found in the Wenlock limestone and 
shale of Dudley; it is apparently allied to Loricula and other 
pedunculated Cirripedes, and thus carries back the first appearance 
of the group from the Lias to the Upper Silurian, =~ 
In another paper, Mr. Woodward describes a new genus of 
Eurypterida, which he names Hemiaspis. It is remarkable on 
account of its appearing “ to offer just the link we needed to con- 
nect the Xiphosura with the Eurypterida.” The author also re- 
marks, that “there are several peculiarities about Hemiaspis which 
seem to offer analogies with the Trilobites.” In this chronicle we 
have thus recorded the discovery of two transition-forms—a Coral 
and a Crustacean, and we feel confident that the determination of 
such links between heretofore distinct families is destined some day 
to form an important element in the solution of the laws which have 
regulated the origin and succession of life on the globe. 
