368 Notices of Memoirs — Short Notices of Scientific Papers. 



des alluvions pliocenes de la vallee du Rhone, par M. F. Fontannes. 

 Bull, de la Soc. Geol. de France, t. xiv. 1885-6, p. 246. 



Dr. Nathorst notices the various opinions held by German and 

 Scandinavian geologists respecting the origin of pebbles with dis- 

 tinctly facetted surfaces, and he points out that, before they had been 

 particularly remarked in Europe, attention had been called to them 

 in New Zealand by Mr. Travers, 1 in 1869, and their facetted surfaces 

 had been rightly attributed to the action of wind-driven sand. The 

 author records the interesting fact that pebbles with facetted surfaces, 

 precisely similar to those from New Zealand and elsewhere, had been 

 lately discovered in the Eophyton sandstone of Lugnas, Sweden. 



M. Fontannes brings forward, in the paper cited, several objections 

 against the sufficiency of wind-driven sand to produce the facetted 

 surfaces of the quartzitic pebbles found on the slopes of the Rhone 

 valley, and attributes the phenomena to the current action of water 

 and sand. 



5. — On the Minute Structure of Stromatopora and its Allies. By 

 Dr. C. Rominger, Broc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Bhil. 1886, pp. 29-56. 



This paper is a criticism of the joint essay by Brof. Nicholson and 

 Dr. Murie on the structure of Stromatopora, which appeared in the 

 Journal of the Linnsean Society in 1879 ! It is certainly peculiar to 

 read this review on a paper published six years ago, and one wonders 

 what Dr. Bominger has been doing in the interval. He does not 

 even now seem to be aware that one of the authors of the paper, 

 with which he can see so much to disagree, has in the meantime 

 further studied the subject, and has himself considerably altered his 

 previously-expressed views. It seems somewhat presumptuous on 

 Dr. Rominger's part to propose to substitute some names of his own, 

 which he brought forward in an unpublished paper unluckily rejected 

 by the Smithsonian Institution, for those given by the authors of 

 the paper he criticizes. 



6. — Eeview of the Brogress of North American Invertebrate 

 Balasontology for 1885. By J. B. Marcou. American Naturalist 

 Extra, June, 1886, p. 505. 



This paper gives a list and a short precis of the various works 

 which have appeared on the subject. The author remarks that there 

 is a distinct increase in the number of articles on palaeontology, and 

 that the tendency to publish new species without any illustrations is 

 also diminishing. 



7. — A List of the Cretaceous Foraminifera of Keady Hill, County 

 Derry. By Joseph Wright, F.G.S. Broc. Belfast Nat. Field Club 

 Appendix, 1885, p. 327. 



Mr. "Wright published in 1 874 a list of the Cretaceous Microzoa 

 of Ireland obtained from the material in the interior of flints, and 

 the present paper contains a list of 94 species and varieties of 

 foraminifera from the base of the White Chalk at Keady Hill. 

 Twenty-seven of these are additions to the Cretaceous Fauna of 



1 See also a paper by J. D. Enys, " On Sand-Worn Stones from New Zealand." 

 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. 34, 1878, p. 86. 



