Geological Sodcty : — Aimiversary 4)f 1S39. 225 



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The fresh water beds of the Isle of Wight, which had already 

 supplied specimens of some of the Pachydermata of the Paris 

 basin, have furnished an additional supply of rich fossils, which 

 have been examined by Mr. Owen. He has found them to con- 

 tain bones of four species of Pala^otherium, and two species of 

 Anoplothcrium ; also a jaw of the Chwropotamus, a fossil genus 

 established by Cuvier ; and another jaw closely resembling that 

 of a Musk Deer, which Mr. Owen refers to the genus Dicobune, 

 a genus also established by Cuvier upon the fossils of the Paris 

 basin. Such discoveries, falling in with the conclusions obtained 

 by the researches of previous philosophers respecting the tertiary 

 period of the earth's history, and supplying what they left imper- 

 fect, cannot fail to give us great confidence in the results of those 

 investigations, and to enhance our admiration of the sagacity 

 which opened to us this path of discovery. 



Dr. Mitchell gave an account of his attempts to trace the drift 

 from the chalk and strata below the chalk, as it exists in the coun- 

 ties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Bed- 

 ford, Hertford, and Middlesex. This drift I had occasion to no- 

 tice in my Address last year, in reference to Mr. Clarke's elaborate 

 geological survey of Suffolk ,■ and I then stated that this diluvial 

 deposit is known in the neighborhood of Cambridge by the name 

 of hroicn clay. Dr. Mitchcl has shown that this deposit is of 

 greater extent than we were before aware. But still to determine 

 with precision its principal masses, total extent, and local modifi- 

 cations, w-ould be a valuable service to the geology of the eastern 

 part of our island. 



As my order requires me to take the igneous after the sedi- 

 mentary rocks I must here notice Dr. Fleming's " Remarks on 

 the Trap Rocks of Fife," which he distinguishes into three 

 epochs ; — those of the eastern extremity of the oolites, which are 

 variously associated with the old red sandstone ; — those which 

 run from St. Andrew's to Stirling, which were produced after the 

 coal measures , — and those which occur along the shores of the 

 Forth, which occur in the higher coal measures. 



2. Foreign {South Euro;pean and Trans-European) Geol- 

 ogy. — In the survey of the progress of our labors which I offered 

 10 your notice last year, I stated, that in proceeding beyond the 

 Alps, and I might have added the Pyrenees, we no longer find 

 that multiplied series of strata, so remarkably continuous and 



Vol. xsxTii, Ao. 2.— Julv-October. 1539. 2Q 



