68 Dr Buckland's Address. 



subterraneous expansion were in the valleys. The streams of lava from 

 the more recent cones tire bare and rugged, like the coulees in central 

 France. Three periods of eruption are traced : the first having produced 

 basalt, which caps the jilains of white limestone, and was ejected before 

 the formation of the valleys ; the second marked by currents of lava 

 from the more ancient system of volcanos in action since the formation of 

 the valleys ; the third resembling the coulees of Etna and Vesuvius, and 

 mentioned by Strabo, but of which there is no historical tradition as to 

 the period when they were in activity. 



We have a notice by the Rev. W. B. Clarke of a shower of ashes that 

 fell on board the Roxburgh off the Cape de Verd islands in February 

 1839, the cause of which was not apparent. The sails were covered with 

 a fine powder, resembling the ashes of Vesuvius, which was probably de- 

 rived from an eruption in the Cape de Verd group. 



Paleontology. — In the department of Palavntologg, Prof. Owen has, 

 during the past year, contributed many papers, with his usual zeal and 

 ability, to the elucidation of this most essential, and perhaps most gene- 

 rally interesting branch of our subject. At the head of these we must 

 place his determination of a tooth and part of the jaw of a fossil monkey, 

 of the genus macacus, with part of the jaw of an opossum, and the tooth 

 of a bat, in eocene strata of the English tertiary formation. These re- 

 mains were found at Kingston, near Woodbridge in Suffolk, by Mr Col- 

 chester, in strata which Mr Lyell has referred to the London clay ; thus 

 proving the existence of quadrumanous, marsupial, and cheiropterous 

 animals in this country' during the eocene period. We have now evi- 

 dence of fossil quadrumana in the tertiary formations, not only of India 

 and Brazil, but also of France and England ; respecting which Mr Owen 

 has observed, that they appear under four of the existing modifications of 

 the quadrumanous type : viz. the tailless ape (Hg/obates), found fossil in 

 the South of France ; the gentle vegetable-feeding Semnopithecus, found 

 fossil in India ; the more petulant and omnivorous Macacus, found in 

 Norfolk; and the platyrrhine Callithrix, found in Brazil. This genus is 

 peculiar to America, and its extinct species is of more than double the 

 stature of any that exists at the present day. This geographical distribu- 

 tion of quadrumana adds further weight to the arguments derived from 

 the tropical aspect of vegetable remains that abound in the London clay at 

 Sheppey, shewing that great heat prevailed in the European part of the 

 world, as well as in India and South America, during the eocene period. 



The probability of high temperature is further corroborated by Mr 

 Owen's recent recognition of four petrified portions of a large serpent 

 (Palceophis Toliapicus), eleven feet long, and in several points resembling 

 a boa, or python ; and also of a bird allied to the vultures (Lithornis 

 vulturhius), all from the London clay of the isle of Sheppey ; wherein the 

 occurrence of fossil Crocodilians and Testudinata, and of fossil fruits, 

 having a tropical aspect allied to cocoa-nuts and many other fruits of 

 palms, has been long known. Can we account for these curious facts 



