320 Geological Society. 
I have next to call your attention to an able sketch of the geo- 
logy of Denmark, which you will find at some length in our Pro- 
ceedings, from the pen of an eminent Danish naturalist, Dr. Beck, 
of Copenhagen. He describes in Bornholm, besides the granitic and 
Silurian rocks, certain strata which appear to agree with our Weal- 
den group in mineral character and fossil plants, some of these 
being the same as those found in the Hastings sands, although the 
shells are marine. In Bornholm this formation is characterized by 
containing coal. The most remarkable feature in the geology of 
Denmark Proper is the great development of the cretaceous system 
above the white chalk with nodular flints. In the island of See- 
land the ordinary white chalk is covered with a hard yellowish 
limestone containing some fossils of the white chalk and others 
peculiar to itself, especially univalves of the genera Trochus, Fusus, 
Voluta, Oliva, Cyprzea, and Nautilus. At Faxoe this rock consists 
of an aggregate of corals of unknown depth, but certainly more 
than forty feet thick. When I myself visited the Faxoe quarries in 
1834 in company with Dr. Forchhammer, the rock struck me as 
agreeing with the description usually given of the limestone in re- 
cent coral reefs. The fossil zoophytes of Faxoe are often cemented 
together by white chalk, which may recall to your recollection the 
recent chalk which Lieut. Nelson has presented to our museum 
from the coral reefs of the Bermudas. This recent substance is 
not distinguishable from some of the white marking chalk of En- 
gland, and like it is composed of pure carbonate of lime. It is in 
fact a white earthy mud, known to be derived from the decomposi- 
tion of the softer corallines, such as Eschara, Flustra, and Celle- 
pora. These observations support an opinion which has long been 
entertained by some geologists that all chalk may be derived from 
the decomposition of shells and zoophytes. 
While on this subject I may mention a discovery made by Mr. 
Lonsdale during the last summer, and which he has permitted me 
to announce. In arranging our collection he has found that our 
common white chalk, especially the upper portion of it, taken from 
different parts of England, (Portsmouth and Brighton among others, ) 
is full of minute corals, foraminifera, and valves of a small ento< 
mostracous animal resembling the Cytherina of Lamarck. From 
a pound of chalk he has procured, in some cases, at least a thou- 
sand of these fossil bodies. They appear to the eye like white 
grains of chalk, but when examined by the lens are seen to be fossils 
in a beautiful state of preservation. 
According to Dr. Beck there is a whitish and hard chalk above 
the Faxoe beds almost entirely made up of pulverized zoophytes 
including bivalves and Echini, chiefly of the same species as those of 
the white chalk with flints, and with corals like those of Faxoe. 
There are layers of flint or chert in this upper division. These 
conclusions, drawn from a careful examination of an extensive series 
of the Danish fossils, are very important, for it was formerly ima~ 
gined by Dr. Forchhammer that the Faxoe beds and the overlying 
chalk belonged to the calcaire grossier, an idea suggested by the 
