Notices of Memoirs. 265 



has led Th. Fischer to include Tunis in the lists of rising coasts, 

 with Sicily, Sardinia, and South-Eastern France. Dr. J. Partsch, of 

 Breslau, questions this conclusion, and alleges the cause to be delta 

 growth in combination with wind action, by which sand has been 

 blown inland from the shore {Science, vol. ii, p. 142). The 

 position of Dr. Partsch seems refuted by the same arguments used 

 by Reclus, in the case of Sicily and coasts of Italy, Greece, Malta, 

 Rhodes, Cyprus, Crete, Asia Minor, Lisbon, Issa, Antissa, etc. In 

 all these cases the silt carried by the rivers is entirely inadequate to 

 explain the facts ; it is necessary, thei'efore, to invoke either upheaval 

 of the ground or recession of the sea (see " The Earth," p. 542). 



" The Cimbrian Deluge (submergence of Jutland) is supposed 

 to have happened about three centuries before the Christian era " 

 ("Principles," 9th ed., p. 331). A portion of the walls of the 

 city of Utica washed by the sea at siege by Scipio Africanus about 

 205 B.C. (Livy, Book xxix, chap. 34). Sea now many miles distant. 

 "Scipio was obliged to transfer his camp to an adjoining tongue of 

 land (Ghella), then washed by the sea, but now far inland, which 

 was known for centuries afterwards as the Castra Cornelia. So 

 ended the year b.c. 204 " (" Carthage and the Carthaginians," p. 296). 

 Lake Mareotis in the time of Alexander the Great a large body of water 

 navigable for the largest vessels, but now little more than a swamp 

 (Professor Wheeler in Century Mag., May, 1899, p. 28). In the 

 time of Alexander great inundations in Arem (Arabia) compelled 

 eight tribes to fly their dwellings in Yemen and migrate to other 

 lauds ("The Cottage Cyclopedia," p. 61). Helice and Bura in 

 Greece were swallowed up by the sea during an earthquake in 

 373 B.C. ("The International Atlas," p. 11). At the capture of 

 Tarentum by Hannibal, about 213 B.C., the sea washed the greater 

 part of the citadel (Livy, Book xxv, chap. 11). 



IsTOTIOIES OIF ns^:EDVEOi:RS- 



I. — Petroleum in California. Professor E. W. Claypole : 

 The American Geologist, vol. xxvii, pp. 150-159, March, 1901. 



THE Californian oil-wells supplied the amount of 12,000 barrels 

 in 1870 ; but a progressively larger quantity has been 

 obtained, until in 1899 it was 2,665,709 barrels. It is remarkable 

 that the wells are relatively shallow, and that none of the oil- 

 bearing strata are older than the Cretaceous age : thus, at Stockton 

 they are Quaternary ; at Puente, Los Angelos, and Kern Co. they are 

 Pliocene ; at Ventura, Los Angelos, Kern Co., and Newhall they 

 are Miocene ; at Ventura, Fresno, and Kern Co., Eocene ; at Colusa 

 Co. and Sacramento Valley they are of Cretaceous age. The strata 

 of California have been greatly disturbed in comparatively recent 

 times. The final elevation of the Sierra Nevada and the Coast-range 

 is apparently of not eai'lier date than the Pliocene period. The 

 oil-bearing beds usually consist of sandstone interlamiuated with 



