Miscellanies. 371 



The above enumeration of species comprises the contents of the 1st 

 Livraison of thirty two pages of description and five plates. Each species 

 described is illustrated by eight figures on stone by M. Nicolet, very 

 beautiful, but still small, although some of the parts are much magnified. 

 We could vi^ish that he may be cheered in his noble exertions for the ad- 

 vancement of Geological Science, not only by the liberal patronage of 

 his work among our countrymen, but also by the transmission of spe- 

 cimens in this branch of Natural History, which will then be accu- 

 rately figured and ably described earlier than we can hope to do it at 

 home. 



44. Solid impressions and casts of Drops of Rain. — Mr. Cunning- 

 ham communicated to the Geological Society, Feb. 27, 1839, an account 

 of impressions and casts of drops of rain in the quarries at Storeton Hill, 

 Cheshire, England. The effects of a shower falling on very fine ashes 

 of Vesuvius in 1822, are seen in the rounded globules like those that 

 arise from sprinkling water on a dusty floor ; these accumulated globules 

 formed a mass in some places a foot or more thick, and they became af- 

 terwards so firm as to require a smart blow with a hammer to break the 

 mass. 



In the Storeton quarry, where the footsteps of the chirotherium were 

 found, "the under surface of two strata at the depth of thirty two and 

 thirty five feet from the top of the quarry, presents a remarkably blistered 

 or watery appearance, being densely covered by minute hemispheres of 

 the same substance as the sandstone. These projections are casts in 

 relief of indentations in the upper surface of a thin subjacent bed of clay 

 and due in the author's opinion to drops of rain. On one of the layers of 

 clay they are small and circular, as if produced by a gentle shower ; on 

 the other, they are larger, deeper, and less regular in form, indicating a 

 more violent operation possibly accompanied by hail. On the surface of 

 these layers of clay there are also impressions of the feet of small ani- 

 mals, which appear to have passed over the clay during the showers or 

 not long before. Ripple marks are also exhibited on the surface of many 

 sandstone strata in the same quarries." Prof Hitchcock of Amherst, 

 Mass., is also disposed to believe that he has found similar appearances 

 in the sandstone of the Connecticut river valley, and we understand from 

 him that a specimen of the stone has been taken to England by Prof. 

 Shepard for the purpose of comparison. — Lond. and Edin. Phil. Blag. 

 sup. July, 1839, 



45. 3Iegatherium. — Mr. Owen, after a careful examination of the re- 

 lated animals fossil and recent, and especially of the armadillo, concluded 

 that the Megatherium had not a bony armor, and states that in no case 

 among twelve skeletons of that animal of which he gives a table, did any 



