546 Clironicles of Science. [Oct. 



Proceedings of the Geological Society of London. 



As there are twenty-nine papers published in the August num- 

 ber of the Quarterly Journal of this Society, it Is impossible to do 

 more than to briefly notice one or two of the most important ones : 



1. Professor Henri Coquand compares the Cretaceous strata of 

 England and the North of France with those of the West and 

 South of France and the North of Africa. In this paper the author 

 points out that although a comparison may be made between the 

 Cretaceous beds of Paris and in the North of France with those 

 of England, without any great discrepancies being discovered, 

 immediately one examines the Cretaceous beds of Provence, one 

 finds — 1st, thick beds with RadiolUes; 2nd, 300 metres of Sand- 

 stones (Gres d'Uchaux) ; 3rd, 150 metres of Limestone with Hip- 

 purites, which are wanting both in the Parisian and the English 

 Chalk series. He pleads, and we think with justice, that, as each 

 district possesses its peculiar and local formation, it is there that 

 one should seek for the type, and that if these beds had occurred in 

 England we should certainly have made an horizon for them, and 

 given them a place and a name ; why then should they not take a 

 place in the series, and be recognized by foreign geologists ? 



2. Mr. W. Carruthers, " On the Structure and Affinities of 

 Sigillaria and allied Genera," indicated the characters of the 

 medullary rays of dicotyledonous stems, and stated, that they have 

 a vascular horizontal system connected with the axial organs, in 

 which respect they agree with acrogens. The woody columns of 

 Stigmaria and Sigillaria are destitute of medullary rays, the 

 structures previously described as such being the vascular bundles 

 running to the rootlets and leaves. Hence the author concluded 

 that Sigillaria is a true cryptogam. 



3. Professor T. H. Huxley describes a new Labyrinthodont 

 Amphibian reptile from the Black-bed coal of Bradford, Yorkshire, 

 which the author considers was nearly allied to the genus Pholido- 

 gaster, and for which he proposed the name of I'lioliderpeion. It 

 exhibits portions of both jaws, with close-set, nearly equal teeth, 

 nearly circular in section, and slightly recurved at the apex. The 

 ventral armour consists of oval plates, traversed obliquely by a 

 convex ridge dividing them into two unequal parts ; these plates 

 overlapped each other so as to expose only the surfaces of their 

 obhque ridges. 



4. " On the Upper Jaw of Megahsaiirus," by the same author. 

 The information concerning the skull of this reptile was very 

 defective, only a portion of the lower jaw being kno\vn heretofore. 

 The beautiful upper jaw, with the teeth, now figured and described, 

 from the Stonesfield Slate, adds greatly to our knowledge of this 

 very interesting and gigantic Dinosaurian. 



