Geological Society, 467 
In the first of these media the differences are greater than can be 
fairly allowed to errors of observation. 
In the second ease it is yet more clearly apparent that the theory 
is defective. The ray C was not observed; but the theoretical index 
is evidently in error to a large amount, as it is even lower than that 
of B, The indices for D and C are perhaps within the limits of 
error; but that of E is too much in defect to be allowed. 
GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
[Continued from p. 402.] 
March 28, 1860.—L. Horner, Esq,, President, in the Chair, 
The following communications were read ;— 
1, “Notes about Spitzbergen in 1859.” By James Lamont, 
Esq., F,G.S. 
Mr, Lamont cruised about the southern coasts of Spitzbergen in 
his yacht during the summer and autumn of 1859. He first visited 
Edge’s Land, which is composed of horizontal strata of limestone, 
shale, and sandstone, with some coal. One of the glaciers on 
this coast has a frontage of 30 miles. Deeva Bay was explored 
throughout. Black Point yielded some Carboniferous fossils. The 
Thousand Isles are composed of greenstone, sometimes columnar, 
Stour Fiord and Walter Thymen’s Straits were next visited. The 
shores consist of the same kind of horizontal strata, with trap-rocks. 
Bell Sound and Ice Sound on the west coast, were also examined ; 
the former has high hills of grey fossiliferous limestone all round it; 
the fossils, as determined by Mr. Salter, prove to be all Carboni- 
ferous, At various points on the coast and islands of southern 
Spitzbergen Mr. Lamont found bones of whales at elevations of 10 
to 100 feet above the sea, and at distances of from a few yards to 
half a mile inland. The bones are sometimes imbedded in banks 
or moss, Drift-wood (pine) also abounds; some of it lies 30 feet 
above high-water-mark. 
In the supplement to this paper, Mr. Horner supplied a descrip. 
tion of the rock-specimens brought from northern Spitzbergen by 
Parry and Foster in 1827. From the evidence thus afforded it 
appears that the islands and mainland about the entrance of Waigatz 
Straits consist of granitic and gneissic rocks with quartz-rock and 
crystalline limestones,—possibly the altered equivalents of the 
Carboniferous sandstones and limestones of southern Spitzbergen, 
A list of the recent shells sent by Mr. Lamont from Spitzbergen 
was supplied by Mr. Woodward. Prof, Huxley gave the result of 
his examination of the bones—chiefly whale, white whale, and 
walrus. Mr, Prestwich described the gravels from Bell Sound— 
which consist chiefly of clay-slate, hornblende-slate, and mica-slate. 
Lastly Mr. Salter determined the following fossils—from the grey 
limestone of Bell Sound, Athyris or Spirifer, a large species, 
Productus costatus, P. Humboldtii, P. mammatus and another species 
of Productus, Camarophoria, Spirifer Keilhavii, Streptorhynchus 
crenistria, Zaphrentis ovibos, Stenopora, Syringopora, Fenestella, 
specimens of a new genus allied to the last, and some Sponges ;— 
from the dark-coloured limestone of Black Point, Edge’s Land, 
