142 Correspondence — J. R. Dakyns. 



acceptecl, Mr, Wickham King having shown the materials to 

 have been derived from land-masses in the neighbourhood, and 

 Mr. R. D. Oldham having pointed out their resemblance to certain 

 Indian breccias. 



The so-called Dolomitic Conglomerate of the South- West of England, 

 which exhibits similar characters, though on a smaller scale, and 

 the remarkable breccias in the Upper Oolite of Caithness described 

 by Professor Judd, are next noticed, after which the author passes 

 on to the breccia-beds in the Alpine Flysch, taking as examples 

 those of the Habkerenthal and of the Val des Ormonts. The 

 former apparently are more sporadic in character, and are suggestive 

 of the intervention of floating ice ; the latter are more regularly 

 interbanded, and that with true marine deposits : their occurrence 

 is extremely difficult to explain, without assuming the existence of 

 a mountain range or a great highland district in their immediate 

 neighbourhood. 



When we seek for parallels to these breccias in deposits of late 

 date or in process of formation, we find some resemblances to them 

 in the breccias of Gibraltar described by Sir Andrew Ramsay and 

 Professor James Geikie, in the stone-rivers of the Falkland Isles 

 described by Sir Wyville Thomson, and in the breccias of Persia 

 and other parts of Central Asia described by Dr. Blanford. The 

 author accordingly infers the Rothliegende (and probably the Triassic) 

 breccias to be indicative of a continental climate, due to a great 

 extension of land or more probably the existence of a mountain region 

 on the west — winters with severe cold and snow, but rather hot and 

 arid summers. The Caithness breccias were perhaps more analogous 

 to the stone-rivers of the Falkland Islands, but they also indicate 

 a rather low temperature ; while the Flysch breccias land us in the 

 following dilemma, namely, that either similar temperatures existed 

 in Switzerland, and that there was also an important highland 

 district, of which no remnant can be found, within a short distance 

 of the breccia-beds ; or they must be the product of a range not 

 inferior to the present Alps, which also has completely disappeared, 

 and would be (for reasons given) very difficult to locate. But, even 

 in the latter case, we seem forced to admit that a temperature, if 

 not lower, at any rate not higher than the present, prevailed in 

 Central Europe late in the Eocene Period. 



GOiaiaESi^oisrnDiEiiTCJE- 



EFFECTS OF LIGHTNING NEAE SNOWDON. 



SiK, — I found last November on the hills between Cynicht and 

 Nant y Mor two crags that had been struck by lightning. The 

 scars on one of them were so fresh that I felt sure they had been 

 made during a heavy thunderstorm which passed over the district 

 on the 29th of last July, the only thunderstorm there was in this 

 part of Wales last Summer. On asking Mr. Roberts of Gelli lago, 

 who farms the land, I was told that such was the case, and that the 



