132 Reports and Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 



palseozoological training. It is, as a rule, difficult for a surveyor to 

 properly decide the exact age of the rocks among which he is 

 working, unless he is himself able to name his own collections. We 

 know that this was not formerly considered necessary even on 

 the Geological Survey here at home, and much of the confusion of 

 age which has arisen in various places is doubtless due to this 

 indifference to the high importance of a constant reference to palaeo- 

 zoological guideposts and zone-marks. The system which demands 

 that one man shall map everything from Archsean to Eecent 

 doubtless debars many geologists from anything more than a super- 

 ficial acquaintance with fossils in the field, but that it is a necessary 

 consequence is disproved by many well-known Continental names. 



The report is illustrated in an admirable manner, and plates iii 

 and vii (collotypes) are perfect, and show that Mr. Beadnell is 

 also an expert photographer. The three plates of wind^worn 

 pebbles are photogravures and excellent, but such ordinary objects 

 seem scarcely worthy of the expense incurred ; certainly one plate 

 would have sufficed. 



The Director- General of the Egyptian Survey and his staff may 

 well be proud of the stratigraphical results of their labours ; and in 

 gracefully accepting the special knowledge of fossil forms afi'orded 

 them by Dr. Andrews, Mr. Bullen Newton, Professor Gregory, and 

 others, they cannot fail to enhance the high scientific value of the 

 palasozoological results obtained in this most interesting and ancient 

 country. C D. S. 



i^e:poe,ts .A.3:sriD :F'I^OGE:E!^DI3s^C3-s. 



Geological Society of London. 



I. — January 21st, 1903. — Professor Charles Lapworth, LL.D., 

 F.K.S., President, in the Chair. The following communications 

 were read : — 



1. " The Figure of the Earth." By William Johnson Sollas, 

 M.A., D.Sc, LL.D., F.E.S., F.G.S., Professor of Geology in the 

 University of Oxford. 



The almost precise correspondence of great terrestrial features 

 with a circular form seems to be frequently overlooked. The 

 Aleutian curve has its centre in lat. 6° N., long. 177° W., that of 

 the East Indies about 15° N. and 118° E., and round the latter centre 

 are several concentric curves. The northern part of South America, 

 the Alpine-Himalayan chain, the western shore of North America, 

 and a portion of Australia may be similarly reduced to geometric 

 form. A great circle swept through the centres of the East Indian 

 and Aleutian arcs runs symmetrically through the bordering seas of 

 Asia as far as Alaska, borders the inland lakes of America, passes 

 the Californian centre, extends through the middle of the Caribbean 

 Sea, runs parallel with the coast of the Antarctic Continent, and 

 returns to the East Indian centre without touching Australia. This 

 course is in remarkable correspondence with the general trend of the 



