Oct. 1 8, 1888] 



NA TURE 



597 



Dr. Lavis presented a report on Vesuvius, describing 

 various new sections cut through the tuffs and lavas of 

 Vesuvius and the Phlegrean fields. The report an- 

 nounced the completion of the author's map of Vesuvius, 

 and claimed to have established that the volcanic activity 

 of the mainland had followed a regular course south- 

 wards. The same author announced the discovery of 

 leucite in a lava from Etna, and in another paper attri- 

 buted the conservation of heat in volcanic chimneys to 

 latent heat set free on the passage of magma from a 

 vitreous to a crystalline condition. Among the other 

 papers were one by Dr. Claypole, who pointed out that in 

 many places, and notably in the Appalachians, strata 

 had been forced up from a depth greater than five miles, 

 the supposed depth of the " layer of no strain " ; and one 

 by Mr. Logan Lobley, who attributed (1) the formation 

 of lava to heat in the earth's interior inducing chemical 

 action, (2) its ejection to the expansion due to change 

 from a solid to a fluid state, and (3) explosive eruption 

 to the access of sea- and land-water to the volcanic focus. 

 In the discussion a good deal of misunderstanding 

 seemed to arise from the confusion of "zone of no 

 strain" with "zone of no cooling." 



Prof. J. Milne gave tables to show the distribution of 

 Japanese earthquakes in connection with years, seasons, 

 months, and hours of the day. Further tables proved that 

 the majority of earthquakes coincide with a high baro- 

 meter, and that they are more frequent when the glass is 

 falling or rising, than when it is steady. Earth-tremors 

 are almost always associated with strong wind. 



The local interest centred round papers on the Oolitic 

 and Carboniferous rocks. Mr. Horace Woodward united 

 the Cotteswold, Bridport, and Yeovil Sands under the 

 name of Midford Sands ; thought that the fullers' earth 

 should be grouped with the Great Oolite which its 

 upper beds sometimes replaced ; and preferred to divide 

 the Portlandian in Britain into an upper division, in- 

 cluding the Portland, Tisbury, and Swindon stone, and a 

 lower division, to hold the Portland Sand and Hartwell 

 Clay. 



A very interesting communication from Mr. Whitaker 

 described the occurrence of the Bath Oolite at a depth of 

 1081 feet in the Streatham boring, the author hoping that 

 the boring would be continued on the chance of meeting 

 some porous rock under this which might have tapped off 

 the Lower Greensand waters. Even if this did not take 

 place, he trusted that the boring might be continued for 

 purely scientific purposes, and as another opportunity of 

 testing the question of coal under London. 



Mr. Wethered correlated the Lower Carboniferous 

 limestone of Gloucestershire with the Tuedian and Calci- 

 ferous series of the north of England ; and Mr. Handel 

 Cossham described a series of trial shafts and headings 

 which proved the existence of a reversed fault with very 

 low hade on the northern part of the Bristol coal-field : the 

 effect of the faulting of the strata was nearly to double 

 the known coal resources in the western part of the field. 

 A similar overthrust, bringing Carboniferous limestone to 

 rest in dolomitic conglomerate at Tytherington was 

 described by Mr. Winwood ; and Mr. Ussher called in 

 similar faults to explain the position of the Vobster lime- 

 stone patches in Somerset. The latter author considered 

 the Watcombe terra-cotta clay to be of Triassic age. 



There were a few papers on the Archaean rocks, but 

 little that was new was brought forward. Dr. Persifor 

 Frazer considered that the central rocks of the nucleal 

 ranges of the Antilles were Archaean ; and Dr. Irving 

 summed the evidence for life in this system, and found it 

 wanting. 



Mr. Bell's '' Report on the Manure Gravels of Wexford" 

 concluded that these were immediately pre-glacial in age, 

 and that the Killiney gravels, and the marls, clays, and 

 brick-earths of the coast were of later date. Mr. Clement 

 Reid recorded Betula nana, Salix polaris, and 5. myr- 



sinites from the lacustrine deposit of Hoxne, to prove 

 that it was formed in a severe climate preceded by a 

 warmer one in which yew, bur-reed, and cornel flourished. 

 A lengthy report from Dr. Crosskey on new erratic blocks 

 in Yorkshire, Essex, Lancashire, and Leicestershire, was 

 followed by a paper on a high-level boulder-clay (700 feet) 

 in the Midlands, in which the same author inclined to the 

 theory that it was floated from the nearest glacier and 

 deposited by ice-foot and icebergs. Mr. Shore recorded 

 Neolithic flakes and a hammer-stone found in peat 

 below the tidal alluvium at the Southampton new dock 

 excavation ; and Mr. Lamplugh's report on the old sub- 

 glacial sea-beach at Bridlington gave proof of some 

 remarkable changes in the physical geography of the 

 Yorkshire coast since the time of its formation. 



Amongst the palaeontological work was Prof. Rupert 

 Jones's " Report on the Palaeozoic Phyllopods " ; and Prof. 

 Williamson's on the Carboniferous flora, in which the 

 author showed that the central vascular bundle of the 

 Carboniferous Cryptogams contained a germ which deve- 

 loped into a persistent pith, while portions of the medul- 

 lary tissue assumed the functions of a cambium. Dr. 

 Irving described experiments to show that the vigour of 

 plant life is increased until the percentage of C0 2 in the 

 atmosphere equals the oxygen ; and Mr. Whidborne 

 briefly described many new species of Cephalopoda, 

 Gasteropoda, Crustacea, and Conchifera from the De- 

 vonian of various localities. An important communication 

 was made by Mr. H. F. Osborn, who traced back the 

 Mammalian teeth to the tritubercular and thence to the 

 triconodont type, and proposed a new nomenclature 

 based on this principle. Prof. Gaudry commented on 

 the gigantic size of some Tertiary Mammalia, Prof. 

 Seeley on an Ichthyosaurus from Africa, and Prof. Marsh 

 on the classification of the Dinosaurs. Mr. Smith Wood- 

 ward and Prof. Bassani dealt with fish-remains from 

 the Chalk, London Clay, and Lower Miocene. 



Among the petrological papers we may note : — Dr. 

 Sterry Hunt on mineralogical evolution, in which the 

 author attempted to correlate chemical resistance with 

 hardness, and this with condensation, in minerals ; and to 

 show that the greater stability of those (silicates) which 

 belong to the more condensed types was shown in their 

 superior resistance to decay. Dr. Sterry Hunt concludes 

 that the great successive groups of stratiform crystalline 

 rocks mark necessary stages in the mineralogical evolu- 

 tion of the planet. Mr. Joly decolorized beryl at 357 C., 

 and has discovered twelve-sided basal prisms of iolite in 

 the Dublin granite. Prof. Seeley raised a discussion on 

 Oolitic structure, in which Dr. Gilbert instanced the 

 formation of recent Oolites in the Great Salt Lake. Prof. 

 Blake presented a long report on the Anglesey rocks, in 

 which he described the passage of dolerites into horn- 

 blende and glaucophane schists, and then into slate-like 

 rocks ; and of gabbros into talcose schists. Mr. Watts 

 described an igneous succession in Shropshire from old 

 acid andesites through younger dolerites into picrites, 

 without any break in the sequence ; and Dr. Persifor 

 Frazer exhibited and described some curious specimens 

 of glassy and spherulitic oligoclaseand quartz with peculiar 

 optical properties. Though not precisely belonging to 

 this Section, some clay models exhibited and described 

 by Dr. Ricketts may here be mentioned, in which, by 

 vertical pressure in the centre, reversed folds and inverted 

 faulting had been produced. The author attempted to 

 apply this method to explain the folding and cleavage of 

 the Silurian slates in Wales. 



NOTES. 



Some time ago Lord Crawford offered to present to Scotland 

 his valuable collection of astronomical instruments at Dun Echt, 

 on condition that suitable accommodation should be provided 



