1869.] Geology and Paleontology. 441 



weight, cohesion, and perhaps increasing contraction of the sohd 

 crust above, yet retaining in this state its intense expansibihty, 

 and being ready, at all points, to return to the fluid or gaseous 

 state, and make its escape whenever — by a fissure or disturbance 

 of the superincumbent crust — that pressure is partially removed. 

 In the second paper Mr. Scrope refers to steam as the recognized 

 agent in forcing up lavas through narrow and crooked fissures in 

 the solid crust of the globe, and concludes, from the cellular and 

 porous condition of most lavas, that water was present, in a finely 

 divided state, disseminated through the entire mass. Dr. T. Sterry 

 Hunt calls attention to the views of Keferstein and others, that all 

 crystalline non-stratified rocks, from granite to lava, are but the 

 products of the transformation of sedimentary strata. 



Mr. David Forbes concludes, after reviewing the evidences (as 

 to the nature of the interior of the earth) -pi'O et contra, that the 

 balance of argument appears to be in favour of the older theory, 

 that the earth is a central molten mass, surrounded or enclosed by 

 a comparatively thin solid crust or shell; and further, seems to 

 indicate the probabihty that its interior, besides consisting mainly 

 of molten sihcates, also contains a great accumulation of the heavy 

 metals and their compounds. 



Mr. N. Plant having brought home some plant-remains from 

 Coal-beds of true Carboniferous Age in Brazil,* they have been 

 examined and referred by Mr. Carruthers to the genera Fleming ites, 

 Noeggerathia, and Odontopteris.^ 



Professor Owen has described a remarkably perfect jaw of a 

 Ccstraciont fish, from the Oolite of Caen in Normandy, under the 

 name of Strophodus medius.X Its likeness to the recent Port 

 Jackson Shark is very great. 



Mr. Henry Woodward adds a new genus of Ophiuroid Star- 

 fishes to the Upper Silurian of Dudley. § 



Mr. Thomas Davidson contributes a series of notes on Conti- 

 nental Greology, relating chiefly to the classification of the Creta- 

 ceous system in France, England, Germany, &c. || 



' The Transactions of the Edinburgh Geological Society,' IT 

 consist of papers read before that Society to May, 1868. " The 

 Carboniferous Strata of Carluke," " The Old Eed Sandstone of 

 Scotland," " The Superficial Deposits of the South Esk," " Glacier 

 Action in Galloway, the Coasts of Antrim and Londonderry," 

 " The Miocene Beds of Greenland," " The Precious Stones of Scot- 

 land," are among the subjects treated of in this volume. There is 

 every prospect of this Society, which is now under the presidency 



* ' Geological Magazine' (April, 1869), p. 147. t Itid., p. 151. 



X Ibid. (May), p. 193. § Ibid. (Juno\ p. 241. 



II Ibid., pp. 162, 199, and 251. t 18G8. Vol. I., parts i. and ii. 



