574 Corres^jondence — Professor E. Hull. 



fathoms by old river-valleys, must have extended far eastward as 

 well as westward ; and may be expected to have left their effects 

 on the submerged Mediterranean border slopes. Such, indeed, is 

 the case, as shown by the isobathic contours, but far less distinctly 

 than in the case of the submerged borders of the Atlantic. In the 

 first place, the great continental shelf of the Atlantic is in the 

 case of the Mediterranean, narrow, and not well defined ; and is 

 represented generally by a broken slope, continuous with the 

 bordering lands down to a depth of about 1,000-1,200 fathoms, 

 ■when it gives place to the gradually shelving floor of the abyssal 

 region, which descends to depths of over 1,500 fathoms. As 

 a consequence of this, and as we might a priori expect, the sub- 

 merged river-valleys are also less clearly defined than those off the 

 ■coasts of France, Spain, and Portugal. Where, as in these cases, 

 there exists a gently sloping terrace, extending for 100 to 200 

 •miles out to sea, and traversed by deep channels with steep, some- 

 times precipitous, sides (as in the case of the Loire, the Adour, and 

 the Tagus), it is easy to identify their courses by means of the 

 soundings on the Admiralty charts ; but where such channels only 

 traverse for a short distance a steeply sloping surface, the conditions 

 are entirely altered, and they are consequently less clearly recog- 

 nizable. Notwithstanding this, however, the submerged channels 

 of the Rhone and the Ebro can be clearly recognized by the inward 

 bend of the contours opposite the mouths of these rivers, extending 

 from about the 50 to the 1,000-fathom contours at the margin of the 

 abyssal floor. 



I may add, in conclusion, that I have succeeded in tracing 

 Admiral Spratt's channel, between Adventure Bank and Cape Bon, 

 by which the waters of the Levant Basin were connected with 

 those of the Tyrrhenian Sea during the uplift of the entire area to 

 the extent of 250 fathoms (1,500 feet), as explained by Admiral 

 Spratt himself.^ Edward Hull. 



DR. HENRY HICKS, F.R.S., F.G.S. 



BoEN IN 1837. Died November 18, 1899. 



The mournful news has just reached us (November 21st) of the 

 death of our genial friend and warm-hearted colleague, Dr. Henry 

 Hicks. The son of the late Thomas Hicks, surgeon, of St. David's, 

 Pembrokeshire, he was born in 1837, and was educated at the 

 Collegiate and Chapter School in that city, and at Guy's Hospital, 

 London. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons 

 and a Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries in 1862, and M.D. 

 of the University of St. Andrew's in 1878, practising medicine at 

 St. David's from 1862 to 1871. During that time he commenced 

 his geological researches amongst the older rocks of that neighbour- 

 hood. His first paper was communicated to the Liverpool Geological 

 Society in 1863. In the followiiig year, in conjunction with the 

 date Mr. J. W. Salter, Palaeontologist to the Geological Survey, 

 1 QJ.G.S,, vol. xxiii, p. 292. 



