August 5, iS8o] 



NA JURE 



Comp. Zool.," Harvard, No. iv.), amost excellent memoir, 

 containing valuable disquisitions on the affinities of various 

 genera, and excellent notes on the geographical distribu- 

 tion of the species and the nature of the bottom on which 

 the dredgings were made. The memoir contains the 

 results of some interesting researches on the relations of 

 the Rugose to the Henactinian corals, in connection with 

 the account of the aberrant genus Haplophyllia. The 

 deep-sea Antipalliaria and ActiniadK are described in it, 

 as well as the stony corals, and the genus Pliobothrus, 

 with great acumen, referred to its proper place amongst 

 the Hydrozoa. A second memoir on deep-sea corals was 

 contributed by Count Pourtales to [the account of the 

 zoological results of the Hasslcr Expedition, and many 

 others on this and other zoological subjects are to be 

 found in the Bulletin of the Harvard Aluseum of Com- 

 parative Zoology. The last work which appeared from 

 his pen is the description of the plates of corals in the 

 Report on the Florida Reefs, by the late Prof. Agassiz, 

 which has just been published by Alexander Agassiz, by 

 the permission of the superintendents of the U.S. Coast 

 Survey. These plates are the most perfect and beautiful 

 representations of corals that have as yet been published 

 anywhere. They were drawn under the inimediate 

 direction of Prof. Agassiz. 



Count Pourtales' name is indissolubly connected with 

 deep-sea zoology by means of the genus Pourtalesia, 

 named after him. Pourtalesia, a sea-urchin, one of the 

 Spatangidre allied to Ananchytes, was found by the 

 Challenger expedition to be one of the most ubiquitous 

 and characteristic deep-sea animals. Numerous species 

 of the genus new to science were obtained by the expedi- 

 tion in deep water, some of them being of most extra- 

 ordinary shapes. In conclusion it need only be added 

 that Count Pourtales' kindness and good-nature were as 

 much appreciated by English naturalists as elsewhere. 

 He was most generous, always ready to give advice to 

 naturalists working in the same most difficult field as 

 himself, to supply them with specimens for investigation, 

 and to discuss in the freest manner, with perfect impar- 

 tiality, any question of systematic arrangement. He will 

 be regretted by many friends in England, to which he paid 

 frecjuent visits on his way to his native country, his last 

 visit having been made in the spring of the present year. 



H. N. MOSELEY 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT SWANSEA 

 PREPARATIONS of the most unstinted kind are now 

 ••• being made at Swansea to insure to the members of 

 the British Association a hearty, hospitable welcome, a 

 good opportunity for the interchange of scientific results, 

 and an instructive and healthful summer holiday during 

 their visit in the week commencing on Wednesday, 

 August 25 ne.xt. The Excursion Committee have already 

 made arrangements for visiting the more interesting 

 places in the district. The presidential address will be 

 delivered on Wednesday, and a portion of Thursday, 

 August 26, will be devoted to an excursion, limited to 

 200 members, to the celebrated iron-works and collieries 

 at Dowlais, by special invitation of G. T. Clark, Esq., 

 of Dowlais House. As this excursion will take place so 

 early, members who intend joining in it should send in 

 their names to the Local Committee as soon as possible 

 before their arrival in Swansea. The return will be 

 made in time for the reception soin'e, which the Mayor of 

 Swansea (.AJderman John Jones Jenkins) will give in a 

 fine wooden pavilion capable of accommodating 6,000 

 people. 



Saturday, August 28, will be almost entirely devoted to 

 excursions to the Gower Coast, Penrice Castle, Oxwich 

 Bay, Arthur's Stone, Worm's Head, Bishopstone Valley 

 and its underground river ; Bacon Hole and other bone- 

 caves, with the Bays ; the Via Julia at Langhor, with ruins 



of castle, hospitium, sanctuary, and collieries and tin- 

 works ; Llandilo, Golden Grove, Carreg-Cennen, and 

 Dynevor Castle ; and by sea to Lundy Island and 

 Ilfracombe. 



Among the sciences geology this year takes the fore- 

 most place in the person of the distinguished president, 

 Prof. Ramsay. There are few districts which comprise, 

 within so small an area, so many geological formations 

 as Swansea, and fewer still that offer such problems for 

 solution and such advantages for useful study. To the 

 west of the town an axis of old red sandstone is 

 thrust up through lower shales and limestones, and 

 the stratifications of the whole neighbourhood have 

 been dislocated and curiously denuded. Along the 

 coast of the Bristol Channel for twenty miles the 

 grand limestone cliffs are fissured and distorted until 

 they exhibit almost every variety of dip and strike. Here 

 are bold projecting torrs, inhabited by sea-birds ; undis- 

 turbed sandy bays, the realised dream of the bathing 

 enthusiast ; and the celebrated bone caves, explored by 

 Buckland and Col. Wood, and described by Falconer. 

 The list of their fossil contents is a long one, including, 

 with the exception of the Drepanodon \Machairodns) of 

 Kent's Hole, all the larger-sized extinct carnivorous and 

 herbivorous mammalia found in all the caves of England 

 put together. Of the smaller-sized genera, too, Bacon 

 Hole and its neighbouring caverns contained representa- 

 tives of every one save Lai^oDiys and Speniwp/iilus. In 

 Mev.-slade Bay Mr. Prestwich discovered a fine example 

 of raised beach, and beneath the sands of Swansea Bay 

 are well-exposed beds of peat— roots, stems, branches, 

 and leaves of the silver birch, and larger vegetation, the 

 remains of a forest still retained in local tradition. On 

 the other side of the bay, in these deposits, have been 

 found antlers of splendid proportions, and British and 

 Roman implements. The Pholas Candida is found in the 

 decayed wood, and the rocks at the western extremity of 

 the bay abound with Lifhophak^i, the most numerous being 

 Saxicava rugosa. The South'Wales coalfield, the largest 

 but one in Britain, is brought within easy workable range 

 by a great east and west anticlinal and several smaller 

 a.xes, and is so cut into by deep river valleys that the coal 

 is generally worked by means of adits and galleries. As 

 a consequence of this fortunate conformation of carboni- 

 ferous strata and surface, the deepest coal-pit in the whole 

 basin — Harris's Deep-Navigation Steam Colliery, in the 

 Aberdare Valley — does not exceed 700 yards of vertical 

 depth. There is still considerable difference of opinion as 

 to the identity of certain beds which occupy the place of 

 the millstone grit. To the north and east of the basin 

 the grit is of the usual kind, save «here the sands and 

 gravels are compacted into a hard, whitish, quartz-like 

 rock ; but to the west of Swansea the equivalent beds 

 change into siliceous under-clays, with coal-seams above 

 them. At Lilliput, in Swansea Bay, there are two inter- 

 esting outcropping ridges of this kind ; and a little farther 

 west still the coal-measures are found to lie conformably 

 on the limestone, with the exception of those in the 

 neighbourhood of Oystermouth Castle, where Sir Henry 

 de la Beche found a section " of a kind of lenticular mass 

 which fines offto the east and west," and "was formed under 

 minor conditions of a difterent nature." At the head of 

 the Swansea Valley there is said to be "a seam of coal 

 occurring in the millstone grit.'' The Town hill sand- 

 stones, which form the highlands in the neighbourhood of 

 the town, and the high bold escarpments of which may 

 be traced almost all round the Basin, are equivalent to 

 the Pennant rocks of the Bristol district. They are 

 peculiarly interesting for the great quantity of detrital 

 coal they contain. A few minutes' walk from the town 

 to the quarries enables the geologist to see the curiosity 

 in si/ii. Even the same coal pebble is sometimes seen to 

 consist of coal of two distinct ages. The markings 

 beautifully show how the newer plants were pressed down 



