48 Correspondence—Rev. O. Fisher. 
seems to me to fail in putting to the front a word like “ Trans.,” a 
comparatively unimportant part of the title, and also a word common, 
as just pointed out, to many different Societies. 
A better method would, I think, be to put the most important, 
and at the same time least-frequently used, word first, and the others 
in descending order, as follows: 1. Place of meeting: 2. Name of 
society : 3. Name of journal: e.g. Glasgow, Geol. Soc., Trans. 
I may remark, in passing, that this system is used in the library 
of the Birmingham Philosophical Society. It possesses the advantage 
that the book-shelves form an alphabetical index to their contents. 
Obvious exceptions to the rule will occur at once, some as neces- 
sary, others as desirable. The British Association Reports cannot be 
classed under the name of any town; and it would hardly be advis- 
able, for instance, to subordinate the well-known Transactions of 
the Seismological Society of Japan under the less-known heading 
“Tokio.” The name of the country should clearly be used when it 
occupies the leading place in the title. 
Date of papers.—The date of a paper contributed to a society may 
be taken as that of its reading, or as that of the publication of the 
volume in which it appears: these dates often differing considerably. 
The latter, I believe, is the method usually adopted. But, in a case 
of priority, this rule would not be followed; and a paper may also 
become widely known by means of ‘authors’ copies” printed off 
before the complete volume is published. On these accounts, it seems 
to me desirable that the day ou which a paper is read should be 
accepted as its date in bibliographies. 
CuarLes Davison. 
Kine Epwarp’s Hieu Scuoor, Brrmincuam, 
Dec. 7, 1888. 
THE BEDS OF THE LONDON AREA. 
Srr,—In the short abstract of Mr. Whitaker’s paper on the Streat- 
ham boring, read before the Geological Society on the 21st November, 
the question is raised as to the horizon which the generally red 
beds met with beneath the Mesozoic in many of the deep borings 
around London occupy between the Trias and the Devonian. It has 
appeared to me that they probably belong to the former, because the 
rocks met with at Meux’s Brewery in Tottenham Court Road, and at 
Turnford, are distinctly of the Devonshire type. Now, so faras I know, 
the “ Devonian” does not assume the Red Sandstone type in Devon- 
shire. If this is so, then it offers a presumption that, where these 
older beds are found of the Devonshire type, as is the case under 
London, they are not likely to be found also of the arenaceous 
type, which belongs to those in the Mendip and South Wales district. 
In fact the two types are not likely to be found together in the same 
area, unless it happens to have the exceptional position of being 
situated where two distinct conditions of deposition succeeded one 
another during one and the same geological period. For these 
reasons I think these red beds newer than the Carboniferous. 
Harton, CaAmMBripGE, Dee. 11, 1888. O. FisHer. 
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