478 Chronicles of Science. | July, 
existed, such extinct species as occur in deposits of that age having 
since disappeared through the agency of man. 
Dr. Duncan has given in full the results of his researches on the 
Fossil Corals of Scinde, in a paper which appeared in the April num- 
ber of the ‘ Annals and Magazine of Natural History.’ He finds that 
of forty-two species occurring in the Hala mountains, in Scinde, and in 
Cutch, fourteen of which are new, at least eleven species are not of 
EKocene date, notwithstanding that MM. D’Archiac and Haime appear 
to have ignored the occurrence of coral-bearing Miocene strata in the 
great chain of hills extending from the ‘ Salt-range’ almost due south 
to Kurrachee, as they referred all such beds to the Nummulitic forma- 
tion. It has for a long time been suspected that this so-called 
Nummulitic formation of India might include a later Tertiary deposit, 
as was originally determined by Messrs. Grant and Sowerby, and from 
what has recently been done it appears that there is now very little 
doubt as to the correctness of this view, notwithstanding the assertions 
to the contrary made by MM. D’Archiac and Haime in their great work 
on the fossils from the strata in question. 
Mr. Searles Wood, jun., has this quarter published another con- 
tribution to the literature of the more recent strata, in continuation of 
those noticed in the last number of this Journal. From his researches, 
as detailed in his memoir “On the Belgian Equivalents of the Upper 
and Lower Drift of the Eastern Counties,” published in the ‘Annals and 
Magazine of Natural History’ for May, it appears that the sands and 
gravels underlying the Boulder-clay in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, to 
which he has given the name “ Lower Drift,” are probably the equiva- 
lents of the Campinian sands of Belgium ; and that the Boulder-clay, 
or “ Upper Drift,’ is the equivalent of the Loess of Belgium and the 
Rhine. This view differs essentially from that taken by many eminent 
geologists respecting the correlation of these deposits, and as the ques- 
tion rests entirely on stratigraphical and physical considerations, it 
can be discussed only by those who possess very considerable local 
knowledge of the deposits. 
Mr. Wood’s papers have, however, placed the matter on a footing 
somewhat different from that on which it rested previously to their 
publication, for he has applied the terms “ Upper Drift” and ‘“ Lower 
Drift’ to deposits which have until now been confounded together, 
with other more recent accumulations, under the general title of 
‘“‘ Drift.” So indefinite has been the meaning attached to this word 
“ Drift,” in respect of the age of the deposits to which it has been 
applied, that Mr. Wood does not appear to have been quite happy in 
his choice of terms; for if we confine the application of the term 
“ Upper Drift” to the Boulder-clay, and of that of ‘“ Lower Drift” to 
the sands and gravels between it and the Red Crag, which have never 
before been treated of as a distinct deposit, what are we to call all 
those accumulations of sand, gravel, and clay, which are newer than 
the Boulder-clay, and to which the term “ Drift” has hitherto been 
more commonly applied ? 
