Notices of Memoirs — Natural History Transactions. 215 



I. — SkURINGSM^RKEK OG MORiENEGRUS EFTERVIST I FiNMARKEN FRA 

 EN PERIODE MEGET ^LDRE END "' ISTIDEN." Udgivet af Dr. HaNS 



Keusch. (Med " An English Summary of the Contents.") 

 Norges geol. undersogelses Aarbog for 1891, pp. 1-11. 

 Glacial-stri^ and Boulder-clay in Finmark, belonging to a 



PERIOD MUCH older THAN THE " ICE Age." By Dr. HaNS 



Reusch, Director of the Geological Survey of Norway. 



THE northern shores of the interior of the Varangerljord, at the 

 far north of the Scandinavian Peninsula, consist of a low range 

 of hills, mainly of sandstone and conglomerate, the beds of this 

 latter rock reaching a thickness of 50 metres. The conglomerate is 

 entirely unstratified ; it is composed of stones and small boulders, 

 about the size of one's head, of Archsean gneiss, granite and diorite, 

 with a sliglit admixture of fragments of dolomite and quartz, which 

 are irregularly scattered in a ground-mass of reddish clayey sand- 

 stone. The general appearance of this rock so much resembled 

 Boulder-clay that Dr. Eeusch was induced to search the stones in it 

 carefully, and he found definite well-marked scratches on some of 

 the fragments of dolomite, whilst the surfaces of some of the pieces 

 of harder rock were smooth and even, with traces of strise. These 

 markings were precisely similar in character to those produced 

 by ice-action on the same kinds of rock in comparatively recent 

 Boulder-clay, and could readily be distinguished from slickenside 

 markings which were found to be present in the conglomerate as 

 well. The evidence of ice-action was further shown by the presence 

 of strice and grooves on the surface of a hard sandstone immediately 

 beneath the conglomerate, which had been laid bare by the weathering 

 away of this latter. The striee appeared to belong to two systems, 

 and they could be traced up to and beneath the conglomerate. 



The geological age of these ice-marked sandstones and con- 

 glomerates has not yet been satisfactorily determined ; by Dr. Dahll 

 they are considered as Permian, but Dr. Reusch thinks that thny 

 belong more probably to some portion of the Cambro-Silurian series, 

 which prevails so extensively in Scandinavia ; hitherto no traces 

 of fossils have been found in them. If this view is correct, the 

 discovery of what appears to be satisfactory and conclusive evidence 

 of the presence of glacial action at this far distant period is a matter 

 of considerable geological interest. In the paper Dr. Reusch gives 

 figures of the scratched stones, with profiles and sketches of the 

 rocks in which they occur. G. J. H. 



II. — Natural History Transactions of Northumberland, Durham, 

 AND Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Vol. X. Part II. (1890.) 



TWO important contributions to the Geology of Northumberland 

 and Durham, by Mr. Richard Howse, are comprised in the 

 latest part of these Transactions. The first is a short paper on the 

 South Durham Salt Borings, with remarks on the fossils found in 

 the Magnesian-Limestone cores, and the geological position of the 



