Sept. 24, 1885] 
INA GRE 
up by Mr. F. S. Gardner, F.G.S., F.L.S.—The report opens 
with a list of all the principal works on the British Tertiary 
flora down to the year 1885. The number of species that had 
been more or less described were :—From the Thanet beds, 3 ; 
from the Reading beds, 9; from Sheppey, 108 ; from Alum 
Bay, &c., 43 ; from Bournemouth (deducting those not peculiar), 
11; Bovey Tracy, 50; Upper Eocenes, 13; Mull, 9; Antrim, 
about 16; making a grand total of 262 species, not a tenth part 
of which, Mr. Gardner anticipates, would survive a rigorous 
examination. The study of only one group of plants—the 
Gymnosperms—has been the serious business of the past three 
years ; for not only have I had to study, but in the majority of 
cases to find the specimens as well. I trust that the results 
attending the expenditure of the grant I have been favoured 
with may be considered satisfactory, and these I now proceed to 
detail. 
Bracklesham Flora.—Two visits have been made to Selsey. 
The beds, it is well known, are marine, but a few ter- 
restrial fruits are from time to time procured from them. I was 
able to make a large collection of fossil shells while looking for 
plants, which, being from the highest beds, are less known, and 
are interesting as illustrating the passage from the Bracklesham 
to the Barton fauna, which is more gradual, I think, than is 
supposed. The surface of one of these beds is dotted over with 
fossil Posidonzas, a marine monocotyledonous plant identical 
with the species now inhabiting the Mediterranean. It had not 
been previously recorded as a British fossil, though another 
species is abundant in the contemporary beds of the Ca/caire 
grossier of the Paris basin. In our species the rhizomes radiate 
from a centre, whilst in the French and other European fossil 
species they are long and branching. They are found among 
beautiful Ze//ina shells, preserving, to a large extent, their 
banded colours. The only other fossil plant to record here is a 
Nipadites, which, unlike those of the Bournemouth beds, is 
large, flattened, and oval. 
Readin; Beds.—A considerable portion of the grant has been 
expended in working these beds with, I am pleased to report, 
the happiest results. The flora is found in the Katesgrove pit, 
on the banks of the Kennet, immediately beneath the mottled 
clay. The matrix is a fine porcelainous fuller’s earth inter- 
stratified with sand, and the beds seem very local. The limit of 
the pit being reached, it is not probable that any part of the 
beds will be exposed for long. I have illustrated a beautiful 
specimen—one of several—of Anemia subcrefacea, Sap., from 
these beds. This fern is highly characteristic of the lower 
Eocenes in France, but had only previously been found in the 
middle Bagshot beds of Bournemouth in this country. I have 
also illustrated another fern (?) from these beds, of which I have 
only as yet found asmall fragment. ‘The figures are therefore 
taken from specimens found many years ago by Prof. Prestwich. 
Other valuable additions to the Reading flora are some splendid 
specimens of a conifer, which I can see no ground for distin- 
guishing from Zuxodium heterophyllum of China. Another 
interesting specimen from Reading is a pine leaf of two needles, 
about the size and substance of those of P. maritima, the first 
pine foliage, I believe, ever found in the English Eocene. One 
leaf bed is almost wholly made up of leaves of PZutonis, and a 
bed above is fairly sprinkled with fruits of the same. Fruits are 
very abundant, and incluje four kinds of leguminous pods, and 
there are many flowers. As a result of this work the Reading 
flora no longer appears so completely distinct from that of 
Bournemouth. 
Woolwich Beds.—\ regard these as thoroughly distinct in age 
from those of Reading. I have not found, in the course of two 
visits paid for the purpose, any bed worth collecting from, 
though I think such must exist at Lewisham. 
Studland Beds.—\Ne were able to reach a leaf bed in the 
Lower Bagshot at Studland, and to obtain a great number of 
specimens, nearly all of whieh are quite new tome. ‘They are 
mostly dycotyledonous leaves and fruits, which will require time 
to determine. There are no Coniferze among them, and I am 
only able to add one fern—a Lygodium, very near to that of 
Bournemouth—to the Chrysodium langeanum, procured abund- 
antly by me ten years ago in a different bed at the same 
locality. 
Hordwell Beds.—\ have to add Salvinia to the flora, not 
previously found fossil in England, and exclusively confined to 
the Miocene in Austria and Switzerland. E 
Barton Beds.—A new species of pine from Highcliff was 
discovered quite unlike those hitherto found at Bracklesham. 
The beds are rapidly assuming an angle of repose, and becom- 
ing deeply buried under @éér7s, so that some of them are no 
longer visible except by making excavations. Though the 
Barton series is one of the most interesting of our Eocene 
formations, the detailed bedding has not been worked out like 
that of the Bracklesham series below and the Headon series 
above, and the greatest misconceptions seem to prevail as to the 
number of species of fossils that it contains. 
Bournemouth Beds.—Five series of leaves were obtained this 
year by Mr. Keeping and myself, the most noteworthy of which 
are some specimens of Godeya which exceed any I had previously 
seen. I have illustrated a new and very distinct species of 
Adiantum, a fragment of what may be Gymnogramma, and a 
trifid group of Polvpodium leaves, which seem to be different 
from cither of the species previously recorded. 
The London Clay.—Mr. Shrubsole has kindly sent me some 
of the best of the fruits that have been found. I have not made 
any complete studies of them yet, but they promise to afford 
results of the highest value, Among a few recognised is the 
very unmistakable seed of Verschaffeltta, a genus of palms from 
Seychelles quite new to fossil floras. 
Gurnet Bay Beds,—I have been able to ascertain that another 
fern rivals Anemia subcretacea inrange, Chrysodium langeanum, 
which extends from the town of Bagshot upwards into the Bemb- 
ridge beds. The plants are as a rule dreadfully macerated and 
chopped up. Among them are small fragments of a G/etchenia, 
which, though not very beautiful, is a very important fern, 
coming from the horizon. By far the most important discovery, 
however, is that of Doliostrobus, the first really extinct conifer 
that I have met with in British Eocenes. It belonged to the 
tribe of Avaucariee, and its identification has been thoroughly 
confirmed by correspondence and the interchange of specimens 
with Dr. Marion, the well-known botanist of Marseilles. It is 
certain that during the Eocene period, as the temperature 
increased from the base upward to the Middle Bagshot, when 
the maximum of heat seems to have prevailed, there was a 
tendency for the plant world to move northward. It is equally 
certain that in the later half of the Eocene, as the temperature 
began to decrease, the movement was in the opposite direction, 
and we find in the European Miocenes of Switzerland and Italy 
a number of plants that at an earlier period were growing in the 
far north. 
Report of the Committee, consisting of H. Bauerman, F. W. 
Rudler, and Dr. H. Johnston Lavis, for the Investigation of the 
Vilcanic Phenomena of Vesuvius, by H. Fohnston Lavis, M.D., 
F.G.S., Reporter.—The unfortunate outbreak of cholera in 
Naples and the stringent local quarantine measures prevented 
work on Vesuvius being carried out during the autumn of 1884. 
Nevertheless, daily observations were made of the variations in 
the activity of the volcano, of which a careful record. has been 
kept. All important changes of the crater-plain, and in the 
cone of eruption, haye been photographed. Descriptions of the 
small eruption of May 2 of 1883 have already been given in 
Nature, and the results of a microscopical examination of the 
sides of the remarkable hollow dyke then formed will soon be 
published. The Naples section of the Italian Alpine Club have 
generously undertaken to publish a journal of Vesuvius, which 
will contain reproductions of the photographs exhibited. The 
third sheet of the geological map of Vesuvius and Monte Somnia 
(scale r : 10,000) has been completed by the reporter, and is 
exhibited at the meeting. The relationship of the varying 
activity of a volcano in a Strombolian state of activity to baro- 
metric pressure, the lunar tides, and rainfall, cannot but be 
regarded as important in solving some questions of vulcanology. 
Instrumental means of measuring such present so many practical 
difficulties that a scale of activity has been drawn up, which 
requires only a few minutes to learn, can be practised by any 
one with good eyesight and moderate intelligence who is within 
visual range of the volcano, and, above all, requires no further 
outlay than pen, ink, and paper. The objections will be men- 
tioned after describing the process. Ist degree, a faint red 
glimmer above the main vent interrupted by complete darkness ; 
2nd degree, the glimmer is continuous, but the ejection reaches 
hardly above the central crater rim at the most ; 3rd degree, 
glimmer continuous and well marked ; the ejections are distinctly 
discernible as they rise and then fall on the slopes of the cone of 
eruption and roll down its slopes; 4th degree, the ejections 
reach a considerable height, are brilliant, and light up the top 
of the great cone ; 5th degree, verging on an actual paroxysmal 
