Reviews — Belgado's Palceozoic Rocks of Portugal. 89 



III. — Terrains Paleozoiques du Portugal. Etude sue les 



BiLOBITES ET AUTRES FoSSILES DES QuARTZITES DE LA BASE 



DU Systems Silurique du Portugal. Par J. F. N. Delgado, 

 Chef de la section des travaux Geologiques. 4to. pp. 113, with 

 43 phototjrpe plates. (Lisbonne, 1886.) 



IN central and northern Portugal the problematical bodies known 

 as Bilohites or Cniziana are the most ancient fossils known; 

 they occur in great abundance in beds of grit and quartzite, at 

 an horizon probably corresponding to the Arenig grits of this 

 country, and to the " gres armoricain " of Normandy and Bretagne. 

 M. Delgado, in this elaborate memoir, discusses in detail their 

 characters and probable oi-igin, and gives full descriptions of the 

 varieties of form which they present. A striking feature of the work 

 is the magnificent series of plates, in which the fossils have been 

 phototyped, for the most part natural size, and they represent very 

 clearly and faithfully their peculiar features. 



M. Delgado maintains the same views respecting these bodies 

 as MM. de Saporta and Marion, and upholds, with much skill, the 

 opinion that they are the impressions of algfe. It cannot be said, 

 however, that these Portuguese examples afford any fresh evidence, 

 sufficiently decisive to decide the question as to their origin, and 

 whilst giving due weight to the arguments so skilfully brought 

 forward by the author, we do not think they are sufficient to counter- 

 balance those which ^ Dr. Nathorst has lately re-stated, viz. that the 

 impressions have been produced by the infilled tracks and burro wings 

 of marine animals. Gr. J. H. 



s-iEi^'Os.TS j^JSiiD :FI^oc:E]s^DIl^^\3-s. 



L— December 15, 1886.— Prof. J. W. Judd, F.K.S., President, 

 in the Chair. — The following communications were read : — 



1. " Notes on Mmimdites elegans, Sow., and other English Num- 

 mulites." By Prof. T. Kupert Jones, F.R.S., F.G.S. 



The author finds in the " Sowerby Collection," now in the British 

 Museum, the original specimens on which Sowerby founded his 

 Mmmularia elegans (1826, Min. Conch, vol. vi. p. 76). These are 

 partly specimens from that part of the bed " No. 29 " of Prof. 

 Prestwich's section of Alum Bay ^ (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. ii. 

 (1846) p. 257, pi. ix. fig. 1), which is known to be the lowest of the 

 Barton series ; and partly some in a stone said to be from Emsworth, 

 in Hampshire. The former are the same as those named Nummu- 

 lites planidata, var. Frestwichiana, by Rupert Jones in 1852 ; and 

 the latter are K planidata, Lamarck (1804), and probably foreign. 

 Thus N. elegans has priority over Presticichiana ; and as this last was 

 determined by De la Harpe to be a variety of N. loemmelensis, Van 

 den Broeck and De la Harpe, this variety should be var. elegans. 

 The author thinks that, on broad zoological principles, N. planidata 

 might still be regarded as the species ; but, in view of the careful 

 differentiation worked out by De la Harpe, he accepts the "specific" 



1 Geol. Mag. 1886, p. 409. ^ gee Mr. H. Keeping's Article, ante, p. 70. 



