88 Reports and Proceedings— 
Spherothallium Swedenborgi. Next the Meteoric Iron of Toluca was 
examined, “it was plants, and nothing but plants ;” the name 
Astrosideron Quenstedti is proposed for these. Again, “ Pallas Iron, 
particularly remarkable—the Olivines are the calyx-cells, the iron- 
sulphide is the infilling substance, the dark iron is the wood (if the 
expression may be allowed), the white iron is the cell membrane of 
the plant,” it is termed <dlewandrea. Fearing lest this passage— 
which gives us some inkling of the author's idea of cell and plant— 
should be too much for our readers, we may perhaps spare them the 
remainder of his effusions. Of the state of the author’s mind there 
cannot be much doubt, but it is indeed surprising that any publisher 
should have been found to issue such outrageous nonsense. 
E. B. T. 
REPORTS AND PROCHEHDIN GS. 
GroLocicaAL Society or Lonpon. 
I.-—Dec. 17, 1879.—Henry Clifton Sorby, Esq., LL.D., F.RB.S., 
President, in the Chair.—The following communications were read : 
1. “A Contribution to the Physical History of the Cretaceous 
Flints.” By Surgeon-Major G. C. Wallich, M.D. 
The author described the origin, the mode of formation, and the 
cause of the stratification of the Chalk flints. Taking as the basis of 
his conclusions the fact brought to notice by him in 1860—namely, 
that the whole of the Protozoan life at the sea-bed is strictly limited 
to the immediate surface-layer of the muddy deposits—he pointed out 
in detail the successive stages of the flint-formation, from the period 
when the chief portion of the silica of which they are composed was 
eliminated from the ocean-water by the deep-sea sponges, to the 
period when it became consolidated in layers or sheets conforming to 
the stratification of the Chalk. In relation to this subject the author 
claimed to have sustained the following conclusions :—1. That the 
silica of the flints is derived mainly from the sponge-beds and sponge- 
fields, which exist in immense profusion over the areas occupied by 
the Globigerine or calcareous “‘ ooze.” 2. That the deep-sea sponges, 
with their environment of protoplasmic matter, constitute by far the 
most important and essential factors in the production and stratifica- 
tion of the flints. 3. That, whereas nearly the whole of the car- 
bonate of lime, derived partly from Foraminifera and other organisms 
that have lived and died at the bottom, and partly from such as have 
subsided to the bottom only after death, goes to build up the calca- 
reous stratum, nearly the whole of the silica, whether derived from 
the deep-sea sponges or from surface Protozoa, goes to form the flints. 
4, That the sponges are the only really important contributors to 
the flint-formation that live and die at the sea-bed. 5. That the flints 
are just as much an organic product as the Chalk itself. 6. That 
the stratification of the flint is the immediate result of all sessile 
Protozoan life being confined to the superficial layer of the muddy 
deposits. 7. That the substance which received the name of “ Bathy- 
bius,” and was declared to be an independent living Moneron, is, in 
