1868. | Geology and Palzontology. 249 
Series.” The author considers that the Mendip Hills were up- 
heaved during the period of the Upper Trias by the intrusion of 
the basaltic dyke which runs along the ridge, and that they formed 
an island-barrier to the sea on its southern flank, where shore- 
deposits were formed during the succeeding periods; the Car- 
boniferous Limestone forming then the bed of the ocean. Hence 
arose the accumulations of Liassic date which the author has found 
in veins in the Carboniferous Limestone of the neighbourhood, and 
from which he has obtained a most remarkable series of fossils com- 
parable in many respects with those of the Halstatt beds. The 
Rheetic and Liassic beds within and those without the Somerset- 
shire coal-basin present a striking contrast in their development ; 
for while the latter attain a thickness of 3,820 feet, the former 
reach only to 169 feet. In one-of the veins (the Charterhouse 
lead-mine) Mr. Moore discovered a Helix, a Vertigo, and a Proser- 
pina, being the first traces of land-shells hitherto discovered in 
strata intermediate in age between the Tertiary and the Carboniferous 
periods. Mr. Moore also discusses the age of the Sutton Stone with 
considerable ability, coming to the conclusion that it is truly Liassic, 
and he seems to place it on the horizon of the Ammonites-Buck- 
landi beds of other localities. Many other questions are discussed 
in this valuable paper, which is rich in detailed sections, lists of 
fossils, and descriptions of new species, many of them being ex- 
tremely remarkable. 
The remaining paper is by Mr. Etheridge, “On the Physical 
Structure of North Devon, and on the Paleontological Value of 
the Devonian Fossils.” It is so very elaborate, that we cannot 
possibly give an abstract of it. The chief aim of the paper is to 
show that (in opposition to Mr. Jukes’s view) in West Somerset 
and North Devon the Devonian rocks form a regular unbroken 
ascending succession from north to south; that there is no fault of 
sufficient magnitude to invert the order of succession, or to cause 
the repetition of any considerable portion of the rocks. The paper 
is partly geological and partly paleeontological, the former portion 
consisting of descriptions of sections, and deductions drawn from a 
consideration of them ; the latter of tables of fossils illustrating the 
subject from every point of view, analyses of these tables, and con- 
clusions drawn therefrom. The author proves—-f lists of fossils can 
prove it—that the marine Devonian series constitutes an important 
and definite system distinct from the Carboniferous. We must 
refer our readers to the paper itself for further information, merely 
remarking that the tables of fossils are a perfect marvel of method 
and industry. 1 
Only three papers in the February number of the ‘ Quarterly 
- Journal’ demand our attention. The first, by Dr. Duncan, brings 
to a conclusion that author’s researches on the Fossil Corals of the 
