236 
Geological Society. 
discoveries, and new ideas from British and foreign sources, a 
careful bibliographic list of books, current periodicals, and papers on 
histological and related biological subjects, and, lastly, the Pro¬ 
ceedings of the Society’s Meetings, complete this well edited and 
valuable Part for February. 
PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 
GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
December 18, 1878. — Henry Clifton Sorby, Esq., F.R.S., 
President, in the Chair. 
The following communications were read :— 
1. “On remains of Mastodon and other Yertebrata of the Miocene 
Beds of the Maltese Islands.” By Prof. A. Leith Adams, M.B., 
F.R.S., F.G.S. 
The author recognized the following Maltese formations :— 
Upper Limestone. —Maximum thickness over 250 feet, passing into a 
sandy rock, and that into a hard red limestone. Fossiliferous, 
containing 4 Brachiopoda, several Lamellibranchs and Gastero- 
pods, and 25 Echinodermata (10 being peculiar). 
Sand Bed. — Maximum thickness about 60 feet, variable in character, 
characterized by vast abundance of Heterostegina depressa ; 15 
Yertebrata. 
The Marl Bed. — Maximum thickness over 100 feet, but sometimes 
almost wholly thinned out. Organic remains rarer than in the 
Sand Bed. 
The Calcareous Sandstone. —Maximum thickness rather over 200 feet. 
Contains bands of nodules, of which the second is rich in 
organic remains. Hence come the noted teeth of Squalidae. 
Among its invertebrate fauna are many Pectens, with other 
Lamellibranchs, Gasteropoda, and Brachiopods ; also 22 species 
of Echinodermata. 
The Lower Limestone . — Maximum thickness over 400 feet. Scutella 
subrotunda and Orbitoides dispansus are abundant in the upper 
part; and it is generally fossiliferous. 
In a nodule seam in the Calcareous Sandstone in the Island of 
Gozo two rather imperfect teeth of a Mastodon have been found. 
Both are penultimate molars. They agree most nearly with the 
teeth of Mastodon angustidens ; but the characters are not sufficiently 
well preserved to differentiate the species with certainty. 
The same formation has furnished teeth of a Phoca to which the 
specific name rugosidens has been given by Prof. Owen. Large teeth 
referable to the Phocidae are found in the nodule seams of the Cal¬ 
careous Sandstone and in the Sand Bed ; the Marl Bed has also 
furnished a portion of a jaw. 
