. Feb. 3, 1870] 
NATURE 367 
Geological Society, January 26.—Professor Huxley, LL.D., 
F.R.S., president, in the chair. Thomas Daniel Bott, Esq., 
20, Osbome Villas, Talfourd Road, Peckham ; Edwin Buckland 
Kemp-Welch, Esq., 3, Beaumont Terrace, Bournemouth ; James 
Parkinson, Esq., F.C.S., Sarum House, Church Road, Upper 
Norwood, S.; Henry Sewell, Esq., Villa del Valle, Mexico; and 
Thomas F. W. Walker, Esq., M.A., F.R.G.S., Athenzeum Club, 
London, and 6, Brock Street, Bath, were elected Fellows of the 
society. The Rev. Dr. Oswald Heer, of Zurich, was elected a 
foreign member of the society. The following communication 
was read :—‘‘On the crag of Norfolk and associated beds.” By 
Joseph Prestwich, Esq., F.R.S., F.G.S. The author com- 
menced by referring to his last paper, in which he divided the 
Red Crag into two divisions—a lower one, of variable oblique 
bedded strata, and an upper one of sands passing up into the 
clay known as the Chillesford clay. In 1849 he had alluded to 
the possibility of this clay being synchronous with the Norwich 
Crag. He has since traced this upper or Chillesford division of 
the Red Crag northwards, with a view to determine its relation 
to the Norwich Crag. He has found it at various places inland, 
but the best exhibition of it occurs in the Easton Bavant Cliffs. 
He there found in it a group of shells similar to those at Chilles- 
ford, and under it the well-known bed of mammaliferous or 
Norwich Crag, with the usual shells. The author also showed 
that in this cliff and the one nearer Lowestoft traces of the Forest- 
bed clearly set in upon the Chillesford clay. He next traced 
these beds at the base of Horton Cliff, and then passed on to 
the well-known cliffs of Happisburgh and Mundesley. He con- 
sidered the Chillesford clay to pass beneath the Elephant bed, 
and to represent some part of the Forest-bed. The same clay 
may be traced to near Weybourne. The crag under these beds 
he referred to the Chillesford sands, Mention was then made 
of the sands and shingle above the Chillesford, to which the 
author proposed the names of ‘‘Southwold Sands and Shingle.” 
These usually are very unfossiliferous, but at two or three 
places near Southwold the author found indications of an 
abundance of shells (AZé/us, &c.) and Foraminifera in some 
iron sandstones intercalated in this series. In the Norfolk cliffs 
these beds contain alternating seams of marine and freshwater 
shells. The inland range of the beds to Aldeby, Norwich, and 
Coltishall was next traced, and the Chillesford clay shown to be 
present in each section, and the sands beneath to be referable to 
the Chillesford sands, as already shown by other geologists on 
the evidence of the organic remains. Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys, who 
had carefully examined the shells of the Norwich Crag for the 
author, stated that a considerable number of Arctic species were 
found in the Norfolk Crag which did not occur in Suffolk. 
While, therefore, the Norwich Crag seems to be synchronous 
with a portion of the Suffolk Crag, that portion is the upper 
division, and, therefore, the triple arrangement proposed by Mr. 
Charlesworth and advocated by Sir C. Lyell, together with the 
fact of the setting in of a gradually more severe climate, pointed 
out by the late Dr. Woodward and by Sir C. Lyell, are con- 
firmed. Mr. Prestwich then referred to the origin of the materials 
of the Southwold shingle, and showed that, with few exceptions, 
they came from the south. Init he had found a considerable 
number of worn fragments of chert and ragstone from the Lower 
Greensand of Kent. He considered this a convenient base-line 
for the Quaternary period ; as then commenced the spread of the 
marine gravels overthesouth of England, andsoon after commenced 
the great denudations which give the great features to the country. 
Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys observed that no littoral shells occur in the 
Coralline Crag, while in the Red Crag they abound. In the 
Norwich Crag there is also evidence of littoral conditions, but in 
certain places the shells exhibit a deep-water character. In the 
Norwich Crag, after eliminating as derivative or extraneous 
certain species (as had already been done by the late Dr. Wood- 
ward), he finds, exclusive of varieties, 140 species, of which 123 
are living, and 17 are supposed to be extinct. Of these 123, 101 
still live in the British Seas, 12 are Arctic and North American, 
8 Mediterranean, and 2 Asiatic. The southern species were 
probably derived from the Coralline Crag. The two Asiatic 
species were the Corbicula fluminalis and Paludina untcolor. 
Twenty species in the Norwich Crag have not been found in the 
Red or Coralline Crag, and he therefore thought there was some 
difference in their geological age, the Norwich Crag being both 
more recent than the Red Crag, and its shells of an Arctic or 
more northern kind. Tedlina balthica he regarded as signi- 
ficant of brackish water conditions. Actcon Now, a charac- 
teristic shell of the Red and Norwich Crag, had been found 
fossil by Prof. Steenstrup in Iceland. Sir Charles Lyell 
had been struck with the similarity of the beds at Chillesford 
and at Aldeby, in which also the shells, though 4o in one 
case and 70 in the other, were very similar in character ; 
but in neither was 7?//ina balthica found, though common in the 
glacial beds. He called attention to the condition of the shells 
as they occurred at Aldeby, and suggested that where the two 
shells of a bivalve were found in contact, they would probably 
afford some evidence whether they were derivative or no. Mr. 
Searles V. Wood, jun., was inclined to differ to a large extent 
from the author, especially with regard to the beds above the 
Chillesford clay. The sands containing Zed/ina solidula he placed 
as the lowest member of the glacial series ; the fauna they con- 
tain is different from that of the Chillesford bed. He regarded 
the sand-beds at Kessingland as above the lower boulder-clay 
and contorted drift of Cromer, and considered that it might be 
traced as occupying this position along a great part of the coast 
of Norfolk. Hehad, in company with Mr. Harmer, surveyed a 
great part of the Norfolk and Suffolk district, and they intended 
to place their maps and sections at the disposal of the Geological 
Society and the Survey. He recommended that any examina- 
tion of the country should commence from the east rather than 
from the west. Mr. Boyd Dawkins, speaking of the fossil 
mammalia of the crag, mentioned that, at the base of the crag 
at Horstead, immediately on the chalk, was a bed exhibit- 
ing an old land-surface, and in this were found the principal 
perfect mammalian remains, whereas in the crag above they 
were water-worn. But though these bones occurred in the 
marine deposit, the animals had lived on the land, and there 
was no evidence but that they belonged to a much earlier period 
than that at which it was submerged. He thought that the 
facies of the Cervidze found at Horstead was that of an early 
Pliocene age. The mammals of the London Clay had in some 
cases become confounded with those of the Suffolk Crag, but 
these he regarded also as belonging to an old Pliocene land- 
surface. He differed from the author in not regarding the 
Forest-bed as Quaternary, as the remains of RAinoceros etruscus, 
Ursus arvernensis, and Elephas meridionalis, &c., had occurred 
in it, in many cases in fine condition. He could see no reason 
for splitting up the Cainozoic series into four divisions, as there 
was no break in the life between the Tertiary and Quarternary 
periods. Though there might be a break in England, the forms 
of life were continuous from the Miocene of Pikermi on the 
Continent. The President suggested that if we were to admit a 
Quaternary period we must go back to the Miocene, as the 
mammalian fauna of that period was the direct ancestor of that of 
the present day.’ Mr. Prestwich, in reply, remarked that he did 
not quite agree with Mr. Jeffreys as to the number of derivative 
species in the different members of the Crag. The fauna, how- 
ever, required further investigation. With regard to the ob- 
jections of Mr. Wood, he had not on this occasion intended 
going into details as to the beds above the Chillesford clays ; 
his object had rather been to show that these latter extended 
over a large area, and contained in other places than Chilles- 
ford the same shells as those occurring there. He did not 
attach the same value to the presence of 7e//ina balthica as did 
Mr. Wood, it being a shell now living and found on the coast. 
He had not overlooked the importance of the mammalian re- 
mains, but, like Mr. Dawkins, he had felt the uncertainty which, 
in the case of the Crag, so often attached to their origin, and 
therefore had not much insisted on them. He thought the divi- 
sions of Miocene and Pliocene were well known and generally 
accepted ; and though the division was arbitrary, he thought the 
setting in of the Glacial period a good epoch at which to com- 
mence the Quaternary period. If we were to go back to some 
break in the forms of life, we might go back indefinitely. 
Ethnological Society, January 25.—Professor Huxley, 
president, in the chair, The following new members were 
announced at this and the preceding meeting :—The Earl of 
Dunraven and Mount-earl, K.P., Lord Rosehill; Messrs. J. 
W. Barnes, T. H. Baylis, D. Duncan, M.A., J. E. Edwards, J. 
F. McLennan, W. Morrison, M.P., and R. L. Nash. Dr. 
Hooker, C.B., exhibited a collection of figures in unbaked clay, 
modelled by a native Zulu ; and Colonel Lane Fox exhibited 
some stone mullers used for pounding grain.—Mr. Borwick, 
F.R.G.S., read a paper on the origin of the Tasmanians 
geologically considered. The Tasmanians have now become 
almost extinct, an old woman being the only survivor of the 
race. They were related in manners and in general physique to 
