Royal Society. 361 



demise of its Founder, in 1832, I deem it more probable that a like 

 lapse of time after the issue of the present volumes will have been 

 attended by such rich results to the young and ardent naturalists of 

 Australia as to show that their predecessor at home had but 

 ' skimmed the cream,' and given them the broad outlines of a 

 picture of ancient animated nature which their labours will fill in 

 and finish." 



In the descriptions and plates of the present work, devoted not 

 only to the characteristic fossils of the extinct families, genera, and 

 species, but also to the dentition and osteolog}' of the still existing 

 types, the generations issuing from the colonial schools, coUeges, and 

 universities of Australia, of whom some may be irresistibly led, like 

 those of the present generation of Anglo-Americans, to investigate 

 and interpret the phenomena of an environing nature, will find an 

 instrument which will facilitate and accelerate their endeavours to 

 reconstruct the strange forms of mammalian life which once traversed 

 the Australian plains and scrubs and have long since passed away 

 from that continent. 



In Prof. Onsen's aim to elucidate the palaeontology of the colonies 

 of Great Britain the present work maintains the character and claim 

 on favourable reception of that on the Fossil lleptilia of South 

 Africa, noticed in the ' Annals ' for June 1876. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



EOYAL SOCIETY. 



April 12, 1877.— Dr. J. Dalton Hooker, C.B., President, in the 



Chair. 



" On the Rapidity of Growth and Variability of some Madre- 

 poraria on an Atlantic Cable, with remarks upon the rate of 

 accumulation of Foraminiferal Deposits." By Prof. P. Maetin 

 DuxcAjs, F.R.S., Pres. Geol. Soc. 



A telegraph-cable was laid off the nort.h-west of Spain in 1870, 

 and a portion of it was recovered in 1876, in long. 9° 4' W. and 

 lat. 44° 6' N. The depth from which the recovered portion came 

 was from 522 to 550 fathoms ; the ground was conglomeratic, and 

 there was a deposit there of sticky foraminiferal mud. Much 

 coral-growth had occurred on the cable, and when it was fished up 

 some living and dead forms, together «-ith Echini, Pecteus, and mud, 

 came up from off the surrounding sea-fioor. 



The growth on the cable consisted of numerous individuals of 

 De-vnophijllwin Cnsta-Oalli of different sizes, and of many bush- 

 shaped coralla of Lophohelia j^i'o/'fera, var. </racilv> ; thei-e were 

 also small masses of Solenosmilia variabilis (nobis), a new Am- 



