180 Scientific Intelligence — Geology and Mineralogy, 



the surface during winter, the glaciers, the floating ice, tlie tides, and 

 currents. — (From Ulnstitut, No. 741, p. 78.) 



4. Analog}/ between the Fossil Flora of the European Miocene 

 and the living Flora of America. Professor Agassiz, in a letter 

 to R. I. Murchison {Athenteum, No. 1023), says, " I think I made 

 a lucky and quite an unexpected hit, by tracing the close analogy be- 

 tween the Fossil Flora of the European miocene deposits (molasse) 

 and the living Floi'a of the temperate parts of the United States of 

 North America. The correspondence extends to all the types of or- 

 ganised beings. After having seen the Chelydra alive in the swamps 

 here, under the shade of trees analogous to those which cover the 

 ancient soil of Oeningen (so celebrated for its profusion of terrestrial 

 and fresh-water fossil remains), I cannot help thinking that the cli- 

 mate could not have been tropical in Europe at the time when the 

 strata of Oeningen were deposited. Again, I may observe, that 

 there is the closest affinity between the Flora of the Atlantic shores 

 of North America and that of Japan ; v/here we have tlie Megaloba- 

 trachus, the corresponding living type of the Andrias, or great fossil 

 Salamander of Oeningen. As I am unable to write a paper now, I 

 would thank you to make these remarks known before I can pub- 

 lish them in extenso.'''' 



5. Burra-Burra Copper Mines in New Holland. — A full and sta- 

 tistical account of the condition and prospects of the mines, up to a 

 late period, is contained in these volumes. Of the one, in working 

 which the greatest progress has yet been made, the Burra-Burra, 

 about one hundred miles from Adelaide, we have, in these columns, 

 from time to time, furnished our readers with various particulars of 

 interest ; and will add a few statistics from the volume before us : — 

 " The huge cargoes which have been shipped, the piles of ore we 

 had seen at the port, the hundreds of draught-oxen and laden drays 

 we met in their progress to the wharf, the thousands of tons of ore 

 around the workings, and near the intended smelting-house, their 

 daily accumulations, and the reports of credible, unbiassed witnesses, 

 had prepared us to expect much ; but before we had passed through 

 a sincrle oallerv, as the larger horizontal diverges or levels are very 

 properly called, we saw enough to convince us we had commenced the 

 examination of a mine incompai'ably richer and mo're productive than 

 any mine of any kind we had ever seen in the United Kingdom. . . . 

 The present openings or workings consist of twenty-nine shafts or 

 winzes, the deepest being one hundred and forty-four ieet (at which 

 depth a lode of very rich ore has recently been cut), and they amount, 

 in the aggregate, to 1860 feet in depth; also seventy galleries or 

 levels, the united 'engths of which measure 7292 feet, or rather more 

 than one mile and a half. .... The directors estimate the total 

 quantity of ores raised in the twelve months, ending to the 20th ult., 

 was 7900 tons ; but, as in calculating the small ores retained for 

 smelting at the mine at 1462 tons, they were greatly below the 



