Mevieivs — Tertiary Fossils of Portugal. 41 



This second Eeport of the Natal Geological Survey is a valuable 

 addition to our knowledge of South African geology, and it furnishes 

 a strong argument in favour of Mr. Anderson's appeal to the Natal 

 authorities for further assistance to enable him to continue his 

 arduous undertaking. 



IV. — MoLLUSQUES TERTiAiREs Du PORTUGAL. Planches de Cephalo- 

 podes, Gasteropodes, et Pelecypodes laissees par F. A. Pereira 

 DA Costa ; accompagnees d'une Explication sommaire et d'une 

 Esquisse geologique par G. F. Dollfus, J. C. Berkeley Cotter, 

 et J. P. Gomes. Commission du Service geologique du Portugal. 

 4to ; pp. 120, 1 tab. stratigr., 1 portrait, and 28 pis. (Lisbonne, 

 1903-1904.) 



WHEN the Geological Commission of Portugal was instituted in 

 1857 to investigate the geology and to produce a geological 

 map of the country two Directors were appointed, one for the 

 geological work and the other for the palseontological studies and 

 the care of the collections. To the latter post F. A. Pereira da 

 Costa, then Professor of Mineralogy and Geology at the Polytechnic 

 School of Lisbon, was appointed. In the following year all the 

 collections of natural products from the Museum of the Academy 

 were combined with those belonging to the Polytechnic School 

 and constituted the National Museum of Lisbon ; this was divided 

 into two sections, mineralogy and zoology, and Pereira da Costa 

 was made Director of the former department. 



His appointment on the Geological Commission led him to decide 

 to publish his researches on the Tertiary fossils of Portugal. Under 

 the title Molluscos fosseis. — Gasteropodes das depositos terciarios de 

 Portugal two fascicules only were issued, dated respectively 1866 and 

 1867, the two comprising 252 pages of text and 28 plates. But 

 besides these, 28 other plates of Cephalopoda, Gasteropoda, and 

 Pelecypoda had been drawn and printed off (to the number of 

 seven or eight hundred) for succeeding fascicules. At the conclusion 

 of the Geological Commission in 1868 Pereira da Costa resumed his 

 duties at the Polytechnic School, and these unpublished plates were 

 deposited in the Library of the Mineral Section of the National 

 Museum, which contained the specimens that Pereira da Costa had 

 studied. But there was no text with them, and unfortunately no 

 descriptions of the fossils that had been drawn were found amongst 

 Pereira da Costa's papers after his death in 1889. 



The plates having been handed over to the Geological Survey by 

 the present Director of the Mineral Section of the National Museum, 

 M. Ferreira Eoquette, they are issued in the work now before us. 

 With the assistance of M. J. C. Berkeley Cotter, of the Geological 

 Survey, and M. J. P. Gomes, naturalist at the Museum, the ex- 

 planations of the figures have been prepared by M. Gustave F. 

 Dollfus, the French palgeontologist, and are based upon the original 

 specimens whenever possible, or upon authenticated examples of the 

 species ; whilst an original and extremely interesting sketch of the 



