Geological Society. 491 
author, he regarded all the deposits abounding in recent shells in 
Scotland and Ireland as belonging to one group; but in his second 
memoir he contends that there are two distinct formations on the 
Clyde, in the older of which there are from ten to fifteen per cent. of 
extinct or unknown species of shells, which he refers to the Newer 
Pliocene system of Lyell; whereas all the species found in the 
newer, which he calls Post-tertiary, exist also in the present seas. 
During this Post-tertiary period, which is considered to have been 
‘ anterior to the human epoch, an elevation of at least forty feet 
took place on the shores of the Clyde. Mr. Smith affirms that the 
Till, or unstratified accumulation of clay and boulders, belongs not 
to the Post-tertiary, but to the older Pliocene division. 
PALZEONTOLOGY. 
In the department of Paleontology Prof. Owen has, during the 
past year, contributed many papers, with his usual zeal and ability, 
to the elucidation of this most essential and perhaps most generally 
interesting branch of our subject. At the head of these we must 
‘place his determination of a tooth and part of a jaw of a fossil mon- 
key, of the genus macacus, with part of the jaw of an opossum, and 
the tooth of a bat, in Eocene strata of the English tertiary forma- 
tion. These remains were found at Kingston, near Woodbridge in 
Suffolk, by Mr. Colchester, in strata which Mr. Lyell has referred 
to the London clay; thus proving the existence of quadrumanous, 
marsupial, and cheiropterous animals in this country during the 
Eocene period. We have now evidence of fossil Quadrumana in 
the tertiary formations, not only of India and Brazil, but also of 
France and England ; respecting which Mr. Owen has observed, 
that they appear under four of the existing modifications of the 
quadrumanous type: viz. the tailless ape (ylobates ), found fossil in 
the South of France; the gentle vegetable-feeding Semnopithecus, 
found fossil in India; the more petulant and omnivorous Macucus, 
found in Norfolk; and the platyrrhine Caliithrix, found in Brazil. 
This genus is peculiar to America, and its extinct species is of 
more than double the stature of any that exists at the present day. 
This geographical distribution of Quadrumana adds further weight 
to the arguments derived from the tropical aspect of vegetable re- 
mains that abound in the London clay at Sheppy, showing that 
great heat prevailed in the European part of the world, as well as 
in India and South America, during the Eocene period. 
The probability of high temperature is further corroborated by 
Mr. Owen’s recent recognition of four petrified portions of a large 
serpent (Palzophis Toliapicus), eleven feet long, and in several 
points resembling a boa, or python; and also of a bird allied to 
the vultures (Lithornis vulturinus), all from the London clay of 
the Isle of Sheppy; wherein the occurrence of fossil Crocodilians 
and Testudinata, and of fossil fruits, having a tropical aspect, allied 
to cocoa-nuts and many other fruits of palms, has been long known. 
Can we account for these curious facts without supposing that at 
the Eocene period of the tertiary epoch, the very clay on which 
London now stands was in the condition of a nascent spice-island, 
