Reports and Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 237 



this will surely not now be withheld, seeing its great utility, which 

 each succeeding year of publication enhances. 



The present issue is conducted on the same lines as the last, "with 

 the exception of the greater brevity of the notices of publications 

 of a text-book nature"; a wise improvement, and we only wish 

 Prof. Blake could be also induced to forego the section " Foreiga 

 Geology (published in Britain)," for reasons explained on previous 

 occasions. 



The book is a wonderful piece of work, and a monument of 

 patient industry (730 papers read and abstracted !), and though we 

 sympathize in his resentment at its being called " a compilation," 

 •we think Prof. Blake does himself injustice when he says "it is as 

 l^ure a piece of original research as I have ever been guilty of"; 

 surely he does not wish it to be inferred that, to take a single 

 example, his monograph on the Corallian Rocks of England was 

 nothing more than a digested abstract of the work of others ? 

 Slips there are undoubtedly in places, but how can such be avoided 

 in a work of this description ? Gratitude for its production would 

 blind all but the most captious i-eviewer to far more serious defects. 



The heartiest thanks of all geologists should be Prof. Blake's. 



I^E!:E'OI^TS j^^istjd ip-iaooiKisxDiisrca-s- 



Geological Society of London. 



March 20th, 1895.— Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., President, 

 in the Chair. The following communications were read : — 



1. "On Fluvio-Glacial and Interglacial Deposits in Switzerland." 

 By C. S. Du Riche Preller, M.A., Ph.D., F.G.S., F.C.S., A.M.I.C.E., 

 M.I.E.E. 



This paper is the outcome of one published in the Geological 

 Magazine of January 1894, on the " Three Glaciations in Switzer- 

 land," in which the author described various glacial deposits near 

 the lake of Zurich. He now describes a series of fluvio-glacial 

 conglomerates and interglacial lignite deposits near the lakes of 

 Ziirich, Constance, Zug, and Thun, which, together with analogous 

 deposits at the base of the Eastern, Western, and Southern Alps, 

 constitute further evidence of two inter-Glacial periods, and thei-efore 

 of three general glaciations, the oldest of these being of Upper 

 Pliocene, and the others of Middle and Upper Pleistocene age 

 respectively. As regards the origin, age, and the time required for 

 the formation of several of the Swiss deposits referred to in the 

 paper, the author arrives in several respects at conclusions differing 

 from those recently enunciated by others. The author also argues 

 that the first inter-Glacial period was probably of shorter duration 

 than the second ; and in confirming his former conclusion that 

 every general glaciation marks a period of filling-up, and every 

 inter-Glacial period marks a period of erosion of valleys, he avers 

 that, if this conclusion be correct, it must needs be destructive of 

 the theory of glacial erosion. 



