520 REPOKT — 1882. 



and equivalency of the Colwell Bay and Headon Hill marine series, througli the 

 * Venus bed,' all being stratigraphically and palseontologically the same. Professor 

 Judd insists upon 250 feet of strata intervening between the Bembridge limestone 

 and the marine band of Headon Hill, but Forbes and the Geological Survey in 

 their section show less than one-half of that thickness. Recent research contirms 

 this view. At pp. 148-150, the author also endeavours to show that the palfeonto- 

 logical evidence is in accordance with, and as complete as the stratigraphical. 

 This of course is based upon the belief that both are read or interpreted rightly. 

 The comparison is between the collective fauna of "WhiteclifF, Colwell Bay, and 

 Brockenhurst on the one hand, and Headon Hill and Hordwell on the other hand ; 

 but Messrs. Keeping and Tawney have shown the illogical nature of conclusions 

 drawn from such an admixture of beds. Each bed should be compared separately. 



Professor Judd (on pp. 150-164) correlates the British fluvio-marine strata 

 with that of the Continent, adding at p. 153 of this paper a list of his so-called 

 Brockenhurst species from "\Miitecliff ]3ay, Colwell Bay, Brockenhurst, and Lynd- 

 hurst, with those species common to the Barton beds below and Hempstead series 

 above. This so-called Brockenhurst, but i-eally Middle Headon fauna, numbers 84 

 genera, and 187 species (65 of which are manuscript names). Four of the 13 c6rals 

 of the Brockenhurst beds also occur in the Oligoceue strata of North Germany. 

 This conclusion was arrived at by Professor Duncan, independently of the work 

 of Von Konen upon the mollusca in the same beds.^ The author also prepared 

 a list of the Hempstead or so-called Middle Oligocene fauna, in which no less 

 than 40 genera and 101 species are named ; 40 of these are manuscript names, 

 by Mr. F. Edwards, thus reducing the described fauna to 61 species. The sub- 

 division and nomenclature of the series is next given, and the author proposed to 

 extend the ' name of the Headon series, so as to embrace all the beds between the 

 Barton and the Brockenhurst series, and to call all those strata said to belong to 

 the zone of Ce)-ithium concavum the Headon group,' doing away with the smaller 

 subdivision of Lower, Middle, and Upper. To all the beds between the Brocken- 

 hurst and Hempstead series Mr. Judd would apply the name Bembridge group ; 

 including the series both above and below the ' Bembridge series of Edward Forbes, 

 and also beds referred by him to the base of the Hempstead, the Osborne and 

 St. Helen's, and to the Upper Headon.' Such a proposal labours under the 

 error of altogether failing to recognise the position which the Brockenhurst fauna 

 occupies in this interesting series. Professor Judd in fact places the Brockenhurst 

 beds not only above the Middle Headon, but above the Upper Headon and Osborne 

 beds of Headon Hill. It occupies, however, in fact, a place at the base of the 

 Middle Headon, as is well seen at Whitecliff Bay, and at Brockenhurst itself. 



This change in the nomenclature and classification has not met with approba- 

 tion, and is strongly opposed by Messrs. Tawney and Keeping in their exhaustive 

 paper, and by Mr. Lucas in his communication to the 'Geological Magazine."^ 

 Messrs. Keeping and Tawney elaborately defend the labours and views of the Geo- 

 logical Survey, giving a mass of evidence, both as to the order of the strata and the 

 distribution of life-forms, clearl}- showing that the relations of the whole group can 

 be determined by examination of the continuity of the Colwell Bay and Headon 

 Hill beds, and that the brackish-marine beds of Colwell Bay coiTespond with the 

 brackish-marine beds of Headon Hill in every essential particular, being, in fact, 

 one continuous and imbroken sequence, as laid down by the Geological Survey ; 

 this the authors have again clearly demonstrated in the text of their Memoir, and 

 laid down in their clear and continuous section from Clirt" End or Lynchen Chine 

 to near Alum Bay Chine, and synthetically proved in their vertical sections. 



The following general and condensed description or analysis of the Headon 

 series of Colwell Bay and Headon Hill, as given by Messrs. Tawney and Keeping, 

 will aid those wishing to examine the section, prior to reading or possessing them- 

 selves of the original papei- in the ' Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,' 

 vol. xxxvii., or that of Professor Judd, loc. cii., Note 1. 



' A. von Konen on 'The Correlation of the Oligocene Deposits of Belgium, North- 

 ern Germany, and the South of England,' Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, 

 vol. XX. p. 97. * Geological Magazine, decade ii. vol. ix, p. 97. 



