237 
the Norfolk and Suffolk beds, or from strata, some of which now 
turn out to be referable to the Older Pliocene, others to the Miocene 
period. 
From an examination of some fossil shells, identical with recent 
species collected by Capt. Bayfield from the most modern deposit 
near the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and near Quebec, Mr. Lyell infers, 
that the climate of Canada was colder than now during the era im- 
mediately antecedent to our own times. Theshells, which were de- 
termined by Dr. Beck, differ in great part from those now living 
in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, agree more nearly with arctic genera 
and species, and resemble those which Mr. Lyell collected at Udde- 
valla, in Sweden; whereas, if the living shells most abundant in the 
Swedish and Canadian seas are contrasted, they differ almost en- 
tirely. From notes sent by Capt. Bayfield, it appears that at 
different depths in the stratified sand and clay containing the 
fosils shells, near Quebec, insulated boulders are numerous, which, 
it is presumed, have been brought down at distant intervals by 
drift ice, and have dropped to the bottom of the sea as the ice 
melted. 
While Mr. Lyell, by the aid of Dr. Beck’s determination of fos- 
sils, had adopted these views respecting the climate of Canada, Mr. 
James Smith, of Jordan Hill, had been led by independent observa- 
tions to a similar conclusion respecting the climate of Scotland 
during the Newer Pliocene era, arguing from the arctic character of 
the Testacea found in the raised beds of the valley of the Clyde, and 
other localities. In the first of two papers communicated by this 
author, he regarded all the deposits abounding in recent shells in 
Scotland and Ireland as belonging to one group; but in his second 
memoir he contends that there are two distinct formations on the 
Clyde, in the older of which there are from ten to fifteen per cent. of 
extinct or unknown species of shells, which he refers to the Newer 
Pliocene system of Lyell ; whereas all the species found in the 
newer, which he calls Post-tertiary, exist also in the present seas. 
During this Post-tertiary period, which is considered to have been 
anterior to the human epoch, an elevation of at least forty feet 
took place on the shores of the Clyde. Mr. Smith affirms that the 
Till, or unstratified accumulation of clay and boulders, belongs not 
to the Post-tertiary, but to the older Pliocene division. 
4 40, 
