158 Bigsby— On the Laurentian Formation. 
Kansas, Texas, &c., also in South America(Brazil).* The Laurentian 
or fundamental gneiss of Scandinavia, with its companion beds, so 
singularly resembles that of Canada that, although in another hemi- 
sphere, it may be said to be idertical in every particular of any 
moment ; and, to avoid useless repetition, we shall be content only 
to announce the fact, on the authority of Durocher, Keilhau, 
Scheerer, Naumann, and Macfarlane.t 
Nearly the same may be said of the fundamental gneiss of North- 
west Scotland and the Hebrides. It, too, has its marble bands, 
talecose and micaceous schists, its quartzites, hornblendes, &c. ‘The 
eneiss which predominates and characterizes the group is usually 
massive and intensely crystallized. It is both micaceous and horn- 
blendic, as in Canada; the younger and very different palzozoic 
eneiss of fhe same part of the Scottish mainland is unconformable to 
it; and here are eruptive masses similar to those America, in the 
same attitudes. 
France contains much Laurentian, although hitherto that horizon 
has not been claimed for any of its crystalline deposits. It may turn 
out that one of the two granites of Brittany, the fine-grained and 
the porphyritic, is of this age, from its position and behaviour. ‘The 
relations of the granite of La Vendée I cannot as yet master; but 
the hill-ranges of Foréz and Tarare in Central France seem to be 
Laurentian very distinctly,|| according to the descriptions of Elie de 
Beaumont and Griiner. Paleozoic fossiliferous beds (the Carboni- 
ferous, for instance) rest upon it unconformably, and are never 
penetrated by it; and this, while waiting for further information, 
entitles me to treat of the underlying rock as Laurentian. Similar 
conditions take place in the mountains of the Vosges, where we have 
again the fine and coarse granites of differentages. . The first form is 
contemporaneous with gneiss, leptinite, and some schists, which 
support unconformably Coal-measures, Trias, &c.; while the newer 
and coarser rock breaks through every bed here named, and has 
engulfed masses of the gneiss.4] 
TRANSLATIONS AND NOTICES OF 
M EBMOtTRS. 
THe Fossitir—Erous NODULES IN THE Post-TERTIARY CLAY OF 
Norway. By Dr. M. Sars, Professor of Zoology, Christiania. 
[Translated by the Rey. Roprrr Boog Watson, B.A., F.R.S.E.] 
ee following is a summary of part of a paper by the celebrated 
Norwegian naturalist, Dr. M. Sars. It was published in the 
Nyt Magazin for Naturvidenskaberne (Christiania) for 1868, under 
* D’Orbigny’s Amér. Mérid. vol. iii. p. 222. 
+ Norway, Sweden, Lapland, and Finland. 
{ See also D. Forbes and Dahll, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soe., vol. xi. p. 166, & Mise. p. 9. 
§ Murchison, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soe., vol. xiii. p. 30; vol. xvi. p. 216; and Mur- 
chison and Geikie, op. ctt., vol. xvii. p. 176-187. 
|| Explic, Carte Géol. France, vol. i. p. 130; Griiner, Géol. Loire, passim. 
@ De Beaumont, Explic. Carte Géol. Fr., vol. i. p.£327. 
