240 Correspondence — Mr. William Vicary. 



pavilion of the Pierre Pointue, and on the right-hand side of the 

 Mont Blanc route, as you ascend, I got a capital view of the glacier's 

 rocky floor, partly laid bare ; and made a rough diagram of the form 

 of the ground, which it is not necessary to reproduce. The bed of 

 the glacier was seen to be scooped out transversely to the glacier's 

 length. It was evident that the rocky floor beneath the ice consisted 

 of a wave-like series of ridges and hollows running along the hill- 

 side across the line of ice-flow. The reason of this, and the mode of 

 formation of the hollows or troughs, was obvious. The rocks over 

 which the ice is moving consist of a series of crystalline schists, of 

 varying degrees of hardness, dipping into the hill at a high angle. 

 Accordingly, as the ice descends, it will wear away the softer 

 strata more than the harder, and thus scoop out a series of troughs 

 along the strike of the schists. In the case of the Mont Blanc 

 range this strike is across the glacier, and thus the latter's rocky floor 

 gets furrowed across the direction of ice-flow. 



In my sketch is represented in one spot a mass of moraine stuff 

 caught in a deep hollow in the rocks below the ice. 



Another point interesting to geologists, which 1 may mention, is 

 that the lateral moraines of the Glacier des Bossons are rudely but 

 distinctly stratified. The layers, as might be expected, dip down 

 the valley, very much with the fall of the ice. J. K. Dakyns. 



Bridlington Quay. 



MIOCENE OB EOCENE ? AGE OP THE BOVET LIGNITES. 



Sir, — If it be necessary to remove the Bovey beds from the 

 Miocene to the Eocene, why not carry them back at once to the 

 Cretaceous age ? 



According to Professor Morris, the Floras of the Tertiary and 

 Cretaceous have been mistaken one for the other. 1 Dr. Duncan 2 says 

 the mean temperature required for the growth of the Corals now 

 found in the Haldon Greensand would be equal to 74° Fahrenheit, 

 which must have been a climate equally favourable to the plants of 

 the Bovey beds. In fact the Sequoia, a very characteristic fossil in 

 these beds, also occurs in the Coral bed on Haldon. There would 

 then be no need of going eighty miles for its nearest neighbour. 



The Priory, Colleton Crescent, Exeter, WlLLlAM VlCARY. 



April 13, 1879. 



MISCELLAITEOTJS. 

 Geological Survey oe the Territories.— The United States Congress has 

 sanctioned a scheme for the reorganisation of the American Surveys. It is understood 

 that the Geological Survey will be placed under the control of Mr. Clarence King, 

 ■who has so long had charge of the Geological Exploration of the 40th Parallel ; hut 

 no details have yet reached us. — Nature, April Ylth. 



OBITUARY. 

 We regret to record the death of James Nicol, F.B.S.E., P.G.S., late Professor 

 of Natural History in the University of Aberdeen. He published a Guide to the 

 Geology of Scotland ; a Geological Map of Scotland ; and is the author of many 

 original contributions to its Geology. 



1 Prof. Morris, on Cretaceous Flora, vol. xv. p. 47, of Popular Science Beview. 



2 Prof. Duncan, Journal Geol. Soc. Feb. 7, 1879, page 96. 



