344 report — 1879. 



In support of this opinion the following facts were cited : The Yorkshire coal-basin 

 was admittedly pre-Perniian, for north of Nottingham the magnesian limestone 

 everywhere overlaps the coal measures ; but the axis of this basin is parallel with 

 and was evidently determined by the same series of movements that upraised the 

 Penine chain. The Permians disappear on the west in approaching the Penine 

 chain ; in this direction also the marl slates attenuate, and the marl slates and 

 magnesian limestone become more sedimentary, as if approaching a margin. 

 Mountain limestone pebbles occur in Permian breccias on one or both sides of the 

 Penine axis. Many fragments of carboniferous rocks occur in Lower Bunter Sand- 

 stone (breccias) on the borders of Notts and Derbyshire ; but the author finds no 

 fragments of Permian rocks in these breccias. No outliers of Permian rocks are 

 found at any distance west of the magnesian limestone escarpment between 

 Nottingham and Northumberland. The character and succession of the Permians 

 on the two sides of the Penine chain are very dissimilar. 



2. On the Foundation of the Town Hall, Paisley, with Notes on the Bocks 

 of Renfrewshire. By Matthew Blair. 



Dolerite underlies the Boulder Clay there ; it is probably the source of boulders 

 of a similar rock which occur in the drift, and which have hitherto been considered 



as strangers to the district. 



3. On the Deposit of Carbonate of Lime at Hierapolis, in Anatolia, and the 

 Efflorescence of the Limestone at Les Baux, in Provence. By Dr. Phen^, 

 F.G.8., F.8.A. 



The author brought this subject forward as part of a duty which he considered 



ought to be recognised by travellers, of giving examples of matters of an exceptional 



character coming under their notice, the more, so when, as in the present case, the 



particulars might be turned to purposes of utility. He had selected these two 



distant sites of calcareous deposit, not alone from their picturesque beauty and 



effect, but because they presented, he believed, the two most widely differing 



conditions of a somewhat similar material probably to be found. In the former 



case, the deposit of lime was so rapid that a large extent of country was covered 



with it. Its forms were eccentric and yet so beautiful that there was hardly auy 



style of ornament the simulation of which would not be found in it. The Roman 



city, which took the place of a former Grecian one, was half submerged beneath 



a sea of rock of intense hardness, which, blocking up streets, temples, and vast 



arches, after reaching to a certain height, viz., the level of its source, ran over the 



natural aqueducts which it formed as it went, and began new ones lower down, 



which it again and again, as it reached the level of its source, repeated. He had 



counted six or eight of these natural walls nearly 50 feet in height, which, if they 



have been formed in consecutive order, give many hundred feet of deposit since 



the Bonian occupation, perhaps within about 1,500 years. Part of the deposit 



was perfectly white, the other part quite black, giving the most singular 



appearance, as it looked like a snow drift lying in the intensely hot sun of Asia 



Minor, or a cataract of snow falling over black rocks, or a frozen cascade, which 



could only be illustrated in drawing by giving a representation in black and white, 



while the other parts of the landscape were in their usual natural colours. The 



Turks called it Pambuk Kalessi, or castle of cotton, from its whiteness. The 



destruction of this city by being hermetically sealed in stone, contrasts strangely 



with that of Eski-Hissar or Laodicea, on the opposite range of hills, which has 



had its stone edifices reduced by earthquake almost to a level. The hardness 



of this deposit, and the rapidity of its formation, contrasted strangely with 



the stone at Les Baux, which, though by no means soft to cut, had from its 



natural cavities suggested the idea to the founders of the city of excavating their 



houses in the sides of the rocks, quite as much as they built them outwards. This 



