Correspondence — Rev. Professor 8. Haughton. 91 



Machairodus and other Felines. The author suggests that Titano- 

 suchus found its prey in the contemporary Pareiosauri, Oudenodonts, 

 and Tapinocephalans of the same locality. 



3. " Notes on the Consolidated Beach at Pernainbuco." By J. C. 

 Hawkshaw, Esq., M.A., F.G.S. 



The consolidated beach at Pernambuco, which has already at- 

 tracted considerable notice, is a ridge of sandstone from 25 to 75 

 yards wide, and, as shown by borings made under the author's 

 direction, from 10 to 13 feet thick. The landward or higher edge 

 is nearly at the spring-tide high- water level, and it slopes seaward ; 

 the river (with a depth of 28 feet at low water 60 feet from the 

 rock) flowing along the former face. The rise and fall of spring 

 tides is 7 feet. Beneath the above rock is a stratum of sand with 

 shells and stones about 8 feet thick, and then a second layer of 

 sandstone rock. 



The consolidated beach is cemented by carbonate of lime, which 

 the author considers to have been deposited by the action of water 

 percolating through the rock, probably when the level of the land 

 differed somewhat from what it is at present. He thinks it possible 

 that this and other similar beaches on the Brazilian coast may mark 

 periods of repose in the slow vertical movements which the coast 

 has undergone. 



COZRIRIESIPOII^IDIEIKrCIE:. 



ON THE FORMER CLIMATE OP THE POLAR REGIONS. 



Sir, — In the Geological Magazine for December, 1878, page 

 552, in a paper by the Bev. 0. Fisher, M.A., on " The Possibility 

 of Changes in the Latitudes of Places on the Earth's Surface," 

 the following passage occurs in reference to the question of the 

 possibility of the crust of the earth slipping over a fluid substratum, 

 thereby causing changes of latitude : — " That theory belongs to 

 Dr. Evans ; and he has ably defended it against Dr. Haughton's 

 somewhat formidable objections in his recent address to the British 

 Association at Dublin. The supposition alternative to Dr. Evans', 

 by which Dr. Haughton would account for a former warm climate at 

 the Pole through residual heat in the earth, has, I think, been 

 disposed of by anticipation in Sir W. Thomson's paper on the Secular 

 Cooling." 



I am not at all prepared to admit either horn of the foregoing 

 dilemma, but shall confine myself at present to the first. 



Dr. Evans' address was delivered at the opening of the Geological 

 Section of the Association Meeting, and my paper, showing the 

 impossibility of accounting for the Tertiary plant-remains in the 

 Arctic Eegions by any change in the position at the Pole, was the 

 last paper read before the Geological Section of that meeting. 



I believe that I am correct in stating that neither the President, 

 Dr. Evans, nor any geologist present, gave anything like a satisfactory 

 answer to what the Bev. 0. Fisher has called my " somewhat for- 

 midable objections." 



