Correspondence. 329 
perusal of this paper, he will find that his arguments from the 
Ordnance Survey are there anticipated, but have led me to a different 
conclusion. With regard to his finding flint weapons at Marionville, 
this has no bearing on the question; as all it proves is that the abo- 
rigines formed their rude weapons after the sand was deposited by 
winds or river-action, but most certainly never by a marine agent, 
because utterly ‘devoid of shells.’ 
Mr. Smyth adds, ‘ Additional evidence, which I intend soon to lay 
before our Society, fully corroborates the facts I have adduced 
regarding the present rate of upheaval, and shows beyond a doubt 
that the whole southern shore of the Firth of Forth between Queens- 
ferry and North Berwick, a distance of twenty-eight miles, and 
that portion of the east coast which lies between North Berwick 
and St. Abb’s Head, about twenty-four miles additional, have bee 
upheaved more than two and a half feet within the last fifty years. 
From the Temple of Jupiter Serapis, at Puzzuoli, I extracted 
upwards of twenty shells of dead Lithodomi, whose burrows per- 
forate the marble columns from the height of about 12 feet above 
their pedestals to at least 23 feet above high-water mark.* 
Now, Mr. Editor, if Mr. Smyth, or Mr. Charles Maclaren, or Mr. 
Robert Chambers, or Mr. Geikie, or Sir Charles Lyell, or any other 
advocate of the theory that the shores of the Forth have risen 
since the human epoch, can show me the bore of a Pholas, with a 
dead shell in it, one foot above the present limit of Pholas-life so 
abundant on our shores, I will yield the whole argument to them. 
I have looked in vain for such evidence all along the shores of the 
Forth and Clyde, but have failed to find one; and I leave those 
gentlemen to prove that the Pholadide were imported by the Romans. 
Until this proof is produced, all the other arguments are futile. 
Lam, &c., ALEXANDER BRYSON. 
Hawkui1, Epinsures. 
i 
To the Editor of the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 
S1r,—May I ask the favour of the insertion of the following cor- 
rection; or, rather, I should say, the following illustration of the 
familiar quotation, ‘ Ne sutor ultra crepidam’? 
In the ‘Geologist,’ July 1860, the Editor obliged me by publish- 
ing this note:— ; 
‘CHEMICAL EvipENCE oF THE SponcEeous Nature or Fuint 
Fossits.—If a flint coated with chalk be immersed in hydrochloric 
acid, the chalk will be dissolved and the flint will remain unaffected. 
In many instances, however, there is a point beyond which the acid, 
even if renewed, will not act, and a white coating is left which 
neither nitric, sulphuric, nor hydrochloric acid will touch. This 
incrustation I have found to consist of sulphate of lime. It is met 
with on those flints which contain fossils, such as sponges, &e. I 
have several specimens of laminated flint presenting this peculiarity. 
_ * See ‘Lyell’s Principles of Geology’ (7th edition), chap. xxx. p. 486 et infra. 
