66 REPORT — 1864. 



the east, while that was relatively lower than it is at present, and that afterwards 

 the distribution of the blocks near Wasdale Craig took place while the land was 

 rising. And he computes roughly that if the blocks now visible in the region 

 round Wasdale Craig were restored to it, and placed in the gi-anitic area now ex- 

 posed, they would cover it in every part to the depth of about 3 feet. The blocks 

 of stone now seen to be loosened around the Craig, and lying against its steeps, 

 would not amoimt to one-thousandth part of this quantity, from which the author 

 draws an argument in support of his views, of the preparatory concussions neces- 

 sary to produce enough masses for the ice to transport. On another point of some 

 difficulty he offered a few remarks. Both near the Craig, and at small distances from 

 it, the quantity of other stones distributed by the same agency as the granite is 

 relatively very small, and the masses are of small magnitude. At very great dis- 

 tances, as sixty or eighty miles away in Yorkshire, this disproportion as to quan- 

 tity is less remarkable, but the granite blocks are still usually the largest. The 

 author believes that the difference of magnitude between the granitic and the 

 schistose blocks maybe iiuderstood by the much gi-eater prevalence of joints in the 

 latter, which produces now, in some sorts of schistose rocks, near Wasdale Craig, 



f)retty extensive " screes," while the sides of the granitic cliffs are encumbered with 

 arge rock masses. The difference of quantity he supposes to be explicable by the 

 peculiar conditions of the formation of the ice, which he conceives to have gene- 

 rally picked up the blocks by adherence to the lower sm-face of the freezing mass, 

 and not, as in ordinary glaciers, to have received them on the upper surface. 



Notes on the Volcanic Phenomouc and Mineral and Thermal Waters of 

 Nicaragua. By Commander B. Pnr, R.N. 



On the Position in the Great Oolite, and the Mode of WorJdnr/, of the Bath 

 Freestone. By J. Bandell. 



On a Peculiar Fossil f omul in the Mesozoic Sandstone of the Connecticut 

 Valley, discovered by Prof. W. B. Eogeks. 



Professor H. D. Rogers of Glasgow, at the desire of his brother Professor William 

 B. Rogers of Boston, United States, drew the attention of the Section to a cast in 

 plaster of some fossil bones in the Mesozoic, probably Triassic, Red Sandstone of 

 the valley of the Connecticut River in Massachusetts. The original flat block of 

 sandstone imbedding these almost unique bones was discovered recently by the 

 last-named gentleman in a pile of the material which he traced to the very quarry 

 whence it has been lately extracted, thus identifying precisely the geological site 

 of the fossil. Upon a carefid scrutiny of the fossilized bones, competent zoologists 

 have pronounced them to partake of both bird and reptilian characteristics. This 

 lends to the specimens a high scientific interest ; that very recently there have 

 appeared other independent proofs of the reptilian or semi-reptilian oi-igin of very 

 many of those foot-marks on the Connecticut Red Sandstone, which, until the 

 publication of these proofs in tbe beautiful posthumous work of Dr. James Deane 

 of Greenfield, Massachusetts, have been mistakenly regarded as almost invariably 

 the foot-steps of bu-ds. (See ' Ichnogi-aphs from the Sandstone of Connecticut 

 River,' by J. Deane, M.D.) 



On the JRelutions of the Silurian Schist ivith the Quartzose EocJcs of So^itJi 

 Africa. By Dr. R. N. Rubidge. 



The author drew attention to the two maps he produced ; one, that of Mr. A. G. 

 Bain, published by the Geological Society of London in their ' Transactions ;' the 

 other coloured, to show the changes rendered necessary by the discoveries of the 

 last few years ; the latest being the finding of Upper Silvman fossils at the Knysna, 

 by Mr. Thomas Bain, and of a species of Knorria resembling one of tbe same genus 

 from Port Francis, which prove the Palaeozoic character of the clay-slate as far as 

 Zwellandam at least, while the discovery of Calamites in Pegnet-berg proves that 

 the Table Mountain sandstones are not older than the Silurian period. The author 



