250 Chronicles of Science. | April, 
West Indies. In those islands Cretaceous, Hocene, and Miocene 
forms occur (the two former exclusively in Jamaica); but while the 
Cretaceous corals are singularly like those known from the lower 
chalk of Gosau, &c., and the Eocene present close affinities with 
the species of the London Clay and the Paris Basin, the Miocene 
fauna is very extensive, and its affinities are extremely diverse, but 
leaning especially to the existing Coral-fauma of the Pacifie Ocean. 
Dr. Duncan shows also that recent extensions of our knowledge of 
the Miocene fossil corals lend strength to the hypothesis he had 
previously put forth with respect to the former existence of a belt 
of scattered islands across the Atlantic. 
Mr. Medlicott’s paper “On the Alps and the Himalayas” con- 
tains a comparison of the two ranges, chiefly in reference to their 
relations with the flanking Tertiary deposits. The clays, sands, 
and conglomerates of the Sivaliks resemble the equivalent portions 
of the Molasse, and are arranged in a similar order, the coarser 
deposits prevailing towards the top. In the Himalayas, as in the 
Alps, the younger Tertiary deposits dip towards the mountain-range 
which they fringe, and the plane of contact dips in the same direc- 
tion, thus producing actual, though not parallel, superposition of 
the older rocks. In the Alps this abnormality has been explained 
by reference to prodigious faulting, and the same explanation, if 
true in one case, the author thinks should hold good in the other ; 
but he brings forward evidence to show that in the Himalayas the 
present contact of the Sivalik formation with the mountains is the 
original one, modified only by pressure without relative vertical 
displacement. This pressure the author considers was produced by 
the sinking of the mountain-mass, which caused at the same time 
those cortortions in the fringing Tertiary deposits which have 
hitherto been so difficult of explanation in the case of the Alps. 
He therefore submits that his explanation is the true one for both 
regions. 
"The last paper we shall notice is one by Mr. W. R. Swan, “On 
the Geology of the Princes Islands in the Sea of Marmora.” The 
author describes most of these islands as consisting in great part of - 
Devonian strata, differmg somewhat in age from those of the 
Bosphorus, which belong to the Lower division of the formation. 
He therefore refers most of the stratified deposits to a Middle 
Devonian series, while others appear to him to belong to the Upper 
division. The rocks which form the remaining portions of the 
islands are—(1) Trachytic, of younger age than the Devonian strata, 
and (2) Trappean, more recent than the Trachytic. The quartz- 
rocks, of which some of the islands are largely, and others entirely 
composed, are altered sandstones of Devonian age. 
The Council of the Society have awarded the Wollaston Gold 
Medal to Professor Carl Friedrich Naumann, of Leipsig, in recogni- 
