364 Notices of Memoirs — Prof. De KoninclvS 



Mr. Burns wholly misapprehends me in supposing me to believe 

 that the heat enters the glacier at its lower end and travels upwards. 

 A glacier receives its heat from the sun on its upper surface, and 

 that heat must of course pass downwards from the surface to the 

 bed of the glacier. In representing the downward motion of the 

 molecules, it is true, I began by considering the lower molecule 

 and passed upwards, but I never meant to convey the idea that 

 the heat took that path. Mr. Bums appears also to misapprehend 

 me in regard to the origin of '^' Crevasses." I need not, however, 

 enter into these points, as the criticism relates wholly to my 

 first and imjjerfect representation of the theory, so that it is of 

 no importance whether his conclusions be correct or incorrect. 



liTOTICIES OIF nVCiEnVEOIIKS- 



♦ 



KeCHERCHES SUR LES FoSSILES PALEOZOlQrES DE LA NoUVELLE- 



Galles du Sud (Australie). Par L. G. de Konince, A.M. 

 Texte pp. 140, 8vo. ; Atlas pis. 4, 4to. (Bruxelles, 1876.) 



IN this memoir we have presented to us one of those careful and 

 comprehensive works for which the pen of Prof, de Koninck 

 has become celebrated. The structure of the Palasozoic rocks of 

 New South Wales is familiar to us through the writings of the Eev. 

 W. B. Clarke, the late Samuel Stutchbury, William Keene, and others ; 

 but with the fauna of these old rocks our knowledge was of a very 

 limited nature. There are, it is true, the fine memoirs of Messrs. 

 Morris, McCoy, and Dana ; but they comprehend only the fossils of 

 the Carboniferous formation of New South Wales, and do not to any 

 extent touch upon those of the Lower Palgeozoic rocks. Under these 

 circumstances the appearance of the present memoir is particularly 

 acceptable. 



Prof, de Koninck's studies lead him to the conclusion that Prof. 

 McCoy's view, expressed in 1861, as to the general specific identity 

 of the marine fauna of the whole world in the earlier portion of the 

 Palaeozoic epoch, is also applicable to the Devonian and Carboniferous. 



As it is to be remarked in connexion with a large number of 

 Indian and Chinese Carbonifeous species, so with the Australian, they 

 attain a size rarely equalled by their European or American repre- 

 sentatives. 



The memoir treats separately of the Devonian and Silurian forms 

 respectively. Of the 59 Silurian species, 13 are considered by Prof, 

 de Koninck to be new, and 8 doubtful. They are all of Upper 

 Silurian type, and do not appear to differ in form and size from 

 species of the same age in other quarters of the globe. The new 

 species all belong to genera represented in Europe or America by 

 closely allied forms. Two well-defined horizons are recogziable, a 

 lower composed of argillaceous rocks, corresponding to the Upper 

 Llandovery, and an upper of very hard quartzites, usually coloured 

 red from the presence of oxide of iron, and white or grey crystal- 

 line limestone, corresponding to the Ludlow series. The species 

 are nearly equally divided between the two groups, 32 oc- 



