452 Geological Society. 



A memoir on the neighbourhood of Bonn was presented last 

 year by Mr. Horner. After describing the characters of the grau- 

 wacke, trachyte, basalt, brown coal, gravel and loss, the author 

 compares the age of these with that of analogous formations in 

 other parts of Europe, and of one another. The beds of grauwacke 

 as they contain Terebratulas and other shells he refers to the upper 

 part of that system ; he considers the brown coal more recent than 

 the plastic clay, some of its plants and shells having been identified 

 with specimens found at Aix en Provence. The loss, which re- 

 poses on a thick bed of gravel, and contains existing land shells, 

 together with bones of extinct quadrupeds, is considered the latest 

 deposit, and attributed to the bursting of a lake in the upper part 

 of the Rhine. From the beds of trachytic tuff being interstratified 

 with brown coal, and from the occurrence of a bed of basalt above 

 it, Mr. Horner infers that volcanic operations took place during, 

 and even subsequently to, the deposition of the lignite. Having thus 

 established the comparative age of the brown coal, he also deter- 

 mines that of the volcanic rocks. 



The tertiary coal or lignite near Gratz, in Styria, is interesting 

 on account of its organic remains. In the memoir of Professor 

 Sedgwick and Mr. Murchison on the Eastern Alps, the strata of 

 this deposit, which are nearly horizontal, are shown to rest on " an 

 inclined system of secondary green-sand." Imbedded in the coal 

 are various vegetable remains, shells of a Cypris, scales of fishes, 

 and fragments of bones of Mammalia and Tortoises. Professor 

 Anker of the Joanneum, has sent to the Society an account of 

 these, together with the drawing of a jaw, which Mr. Clift conceives 

 to have belonged to a Hyaena. 



Mr. Pratt, ignorant of the prior researches of Dr. Christie, care- 

 fully examined, in the year 1S32, the caves of Monte Grifoni near 

 Palermo ; and having ascertained the height to which the perfora- 

 tions of lithodomi extend in each, infers that the change of level was 

 not effected by one movement, but by several. 



Asia. — Much information has been received from the East during 

 the past year. Mr. Burnes, distinguished for his travels in India, 

 Persia and Toorkistan, has presented to the Society his geological 

 memoranda of the countries lying between the mouth of the Indus 

 and the Caspian Sea. Mr. Burnes, though he did not travel for the 

 express purpose of studying geology, carefully and faithfully noted 

 whatever attracted his attention. In reading his account of these 

 hitherto almost unknown regions, we cannot but be struck with the 

 resemblance of their geological structure to that of Europe. The 

 central axis of the Hindoo Koosh is composed of granitic rocks, suc- 

 ceeded by various schists, conglomerates, variegated marls, lime- 

 stones and sandstones. Besides this mighty system, some portion 

 of which cannot be identified with European strata for want of fos- 

 sils, there is a vast range of salt (previously noticed by Mr. Elphin- 

 stone), of coal, and, near the mouth of the Indus, nummulitic lime- 

 stone. 



