178 Scientific Intelligence — Geology and Mineralogy . 



the influence of causes more local, and, at many points, it must have 

 had two distinct phases, each characterised by the nature of their 

 deposits. 



We are thus led to a more general application of one part of the 

 opinion advanced by M. H. D. Rogers, in regard to North America, 

 namely, that there have been two erratic phenomena separated by a 

 period of repose. It is during the latter that the fauna of marine, 

 fluviatile, and terrestrial Molluscs lived, as well as that of the mam- 

 miferous Pachyderms, Cai'nivora, and Ruminants, which character- 

 ise the quaternary formation. The first of these faunas still exists 

 almost entire, while the second has only a small number of represen- 

 tatives in actual nature. 



bth. After the phenomenon of strife, there was a sensible sinking 

 of the coasts at many points, and at a later period, in almost all 

 quarters of the globe, the end of the quaternary epoch has coincided 

 with the unequal rising upwards of these same coasts, * * * This 

 elevation has varied from a few metres to 450, and perhaps 1000 

 metres above the present level of the sea, without enabling us to de- 

 termine, in the majority of cases, the dislocations in connection with 

 these movements of the ground. 



Gth, Although, in all formations, we meet with pudding-stones, 

 breccia, and incoherent conglomerates, it must be admitted that at 

 no period of the history of the earth have there been produced on its 

 surface, in a very general manner, detritic deposits, owing to me- 

 chanical causes, violent and ti-ansitory, and a comparatively small 

 quantity of regular sedimentary deposits, marine or lacustrine, which 

 owe their origin to the action of tranquil waters. 



1th, Finally, it must be admitted that none of the hypotheses pro- 

 posed for, in order to explain the phenomena of the diluvian epoch, 

 is sufficient of itself to account for the facts observed, but that the 

 agents adduced by . many of them have concurred, eitlier simulta- 

 neously or successively, and in diverse proportions, according to cir- 

 cumstances, to pi'oduce the results we now witness. Our object ought, 

 therefore, to be to determine, in the time and space, the degree of 

 influence of the different causes which have produced these effects. 



All the proofs in support of these conclusions will form the first 

 part of the second volume of the History of the Progress of 

 Geology. — (From VInstitut, No. 742, p. 87.) 



3. Temperature of the Sea at Spitzhergen. — M. Ch. Martins 

 submitted, in March 1848, to the French Academy of Sciences, a 

 memoir on the temperatures of the Icy sea, at the surface, at great 

 depths, and in the neighbourhood of the glaciers of Spitzbergen. 



This memoir is founded on 305 observations of temperature made 

 by MM. Bravais, Pettier, and Martins, during four voyages of the 

 Recherche, between Hammerfest in Lapland (latitude 70'^ 40' N.), 

 and Spitzbergen, as far as latitude 79° 34' N., as well as in the vi- 



