* Brief Notices. 91 



continental land . . . fringed with sand spits and dunes and tied to 

 one another by tremendous sand bars". Thej? form, in fact, "a fearful 

 menace to the sailor and his craft." 



The rocks comprise hard grey or mottled schistose sandstones, with 

 overlying purple-red sandstones, probably Permian ; and at the base 

 diabase in sheets accompanied by tuffs, and permeated by thin seams 

 and sheets of gypsum, with also enormous gypsum beds intimately 

 associated with the diabase. The lowest strata include, though they 

 are but rarely seen, shales and limestones yielding goniatites and other 

 fossils, of Carboniferous age. These are described by Dr. J. W. Beede, 

 with a number of text-illustrations. Dr. Clarke remarks that in 

 nearly every soil-section of the red rocks, there is a thin but persistent 

 layer of pure white glistening sand, no doubt decoloured by organic 

 acids. The islands have never been subjected to glacial action : they 

 owe their preservation to slow elevation in later stages of their history. 



The work is illustrated by a map and many views of rock scenery, 

 including the Great and Little Bird Rocks, which afford nesting-places 

 for gannets and other sea-fowl. There are also illustrations of sand- 

 dunes and of the action of sand-etching on pebbles and boulders. 



4. Peofessor a. C. Sewakd's Links with the Past in the Plant 

 World (Camb. Manuals of Science and Literature, Camb. Press, l.s ) 

 is a popular discussion of the relative antiquity of existing plants and 

 their distribution in past times as compared with the present, especially 

 as illustrated by the ferns, the Sequoias, Araucarias, and Ginkgo. 



5. Devonian Fauna of Wisconsin. — An important illustrated mono- 

 graph on the fossils of the Middle Devonian of Wisconsin, U.S., has 

 recently been published by Dr. Herdman F. Cleland in the Bulletin 

 of the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, No. xxi. 

 Prefaced with a brief sketch of the stratigraphy and a short biblio- 

 graphj-, pp. 27-161 deal with the fossils, which are illustrated upon 

 fifty-three excellent plates. The Cephalopoda are of special interest. 



6. Oolitic Unios. — Mr. Wilfred Jackson has been paying especial 

 attention to the figured types of Captain Thomas Brown and has had 

 the good fortune to discover several of them among the miscellaneous 

 fossils of the Manchester Museum. Of especial interest are two shells 

 believed to be the originals, of Ala-inwdon vetustus. Brown, from the 

 Upper Estuarine Beds of Gristhorpe, Yorkshire. Mr. Jackson figures 

 and discusses these in the Naturalist, 1911, pp. 104 seqq. 



7. " The Resources of Tennessee." — This is the title of a monthly 

 pamphlet issued by the State Geological Survey of Tennessee for the 

 purpose of calling the attention of builders and others to the products 

 of their own country adapted to their special requirements. No. 2 

 (August, 1911) is before us and deals with the Camden Chert as an 

 ideal road material, the Ferndale iron-ore deposit, and cement 

 materials in Tennessee. Three thousand copies are printed, and an 

 appeal is made to the local Press to aid the work the Survey is 

 attempting by reprinting the matter thus circulated. 



8. Paul Choffat.— The friends of Dr. Paul Choffat will find a list 

 of his geological publications in the Conim. Serv. Geol. Portugal, 

 viii, 1911. It is conveniently divided into subjects and occupies 

 30 pages. 



