Notices of Memoirs—J. Joly— Radium in Simplon Rocks. .469 
ft. ins. 
Sand with black carbonaceous bands 4 0 
Peat a 0 6 
Blue clay with rootlets 3 4 0 
Sand with thin bands of bea 2 10 
Boulder-clay 3) 
8 O+ 
Bunter pebble beds 
The upper peat was entirely nosed. of marine lant laminaria 
predominating. On the fronds were numerous encrusting organisms, 
such as polyzoa, hydrozoa, the fry of young molluscs, ete. 
The lower peat, while consisting mainly of marine plants, contained 
a few drifted pieces of oak and other land plants. 
The sands accompanying the peat resemble those of the Mersey Bar, 
and besides the quartz which makes up the bulk of the deposit, 
contain zircon, garnet, tourmaline, dolomite, kyanite, rutile, staurolite, 
orthoclase, felspar, biotite and muscovite, shell fragments, foraminifera, 
sponge spicules, and polyzoa. 
The deposit was probably accumulated in a sheltered bay in the old 
estuary of the Mersey. 
The chief interest lies in the fact that peat may be formed from 
marine as well as from land plants. 
XI.—Tue Drisrrisution or Rapium in tHE Rocks oF THE SIMPLON 
TunneL.! By Professor J. Jory, Sc.D., F.R.S. 
7|VHE principal classes of material which enter into the composition 
of the massif of the Simplon are: (a) The Jura-Trias sediments, 
lithologically often much alike and much interfolded; (0) the 
Paleozoic crystalline schists ; and (¢) the gneiss of Monte Leone and 
the Antigorio gneiss, both stated to be of Archean age. These rocks 
throughout contain radium, and for the most part in quantities much 
above what hitherto has been ascribed to sedimentary or igneous rocks. 
Some thirty-six typical samples, taken from various points in the 
tunnel, have been examined. The poorest in radium are certain 
anhydrite rocks. Certain amphibolite schists go very high. The 
Antigorio gneiss rises from 10°5 x 10—” and 8:0 x 10—” grams radium 
per gram of rock at the Italian entrance to 23:7 x 10~-™ at 4,000 
metres inwards. Some of the Archean gneisses yielded very high 
results. 
Such quantities of radium if generally distributed throughout the 
rocks of the massif would be sufficient to disturb any forecast of the 
temperature which under normal conditions would be encountered at 
the level of the tunnel. It is suggested that the radium was, in fact, 
the source of the discrepancy between the predicted and the observed 
rock temperatures. 
As it is improbable that these results are unique and apply only to 
this particular sedimentary accumulation and locality, they appear to 
point to hitherto unsnspected quantities of radium (and its parent 
elements) in the immediate surface materials of the earth. It seems 
impossible to avoid the conclusion that these elements were precipitated 
1 Read before Section C (Geology), British Association, Leicester, 1907. 
