418 Chronicles of Science. [ July, 
so many interesting papers, that our space will not allow us to do 
justice to them all. In the March number, Mr. 8. V. Wood, jun., 
concludes his memoir on the structure of the Thames Valley. His 
conclusions are rather heterodox, and could only be understood after 
a careful perusal of the paper. The most remarkable inference is 
that the south side of the Thames Valley was subjected to violent 
convulsions after the deposition of the brick-earth deposits, and the 
author gives sections showing several faults of very recent date. 
He also states that in the present Thames Valley there is “ nothing 
analogous to terrace-formation, or to the modification of an estuary 
by the successive elevation of the land and cutting down of its bed, 
until the estuary has become a river.” He considers the brick-earth 
deposits to be of three different ages, and the “ upheaval of portions 
of the original valley, the dislocation of its deposits, and the 
extensive denudation of the uppermost of them,” &c., to have taken 
place after the deposition of the newest of the three. These and 
many other conclusions are contained in a paper of about thirteen 
pages, and if Mr. Wood finds that geologists do not accept them, he 
ought not to be surprised. It would require all those thirteen 
pages to prove conclusively one of his inferences—e.g. that the 
brick-earths of the Thames Valley are of three distinct ages. 
There is hardly a fragment of evidence, whether paleontological, 
strategraphical, or lithological, given in support of a single state- 
ment ; and it really appears as if the author considered matters of 
fact too trifling for publication. We recommend Mr. Wood to 
expand his thirteen pages into a couple of hundred, and give in full 
the evidence on which his conclusions rest. 
Professor Phillips describes a new species of Libellula from the 
Stonesfield slate, and starts the question whether the Oolitic insects 
“manifest any special affinity with congeneric forms now visible in 
Australia, as do the Cycads, Waldheimia, Trigonia, Cucullea, and 
Phascolotheria, which are their companions in the deposits of 
Stonesfield, with the plants, shells, and mammals of that old- 
fashioned corner of the earth.” This is a captivating inquiry for 
an entomologist, and we hope it will be taken up by a competent 
authority. 
Mr. E. C. H. Day gives a paper “On an Ancient Beach and a 
submerged Forest near Wissant,” and another “ On a Raised Beach 
and other recent formations near Weston-super-Mare.” In the first 
paper Mr. Day asks, “ Why has Wissant ceased to be a Port?” and 
he suggests that it is not because “the growth of the sand-dunes 
had obliterated its harbour,” but because of the harbour having been 
silted up, the shoal which formerly acted as a natural breakwater 
having been gradually destroyed. ‘The description of the raised beach 
is also interesting in connection with the questions recently discussed 
by My. Prestwich in describing the neighbouring beach of Sangatte. 
