284 Correspondence — The Geological Congress. 



contour. From their resemblance in shape to an elliptical con- 

 vex lens, Professor Hitchcock has called them lenticular hills. The 

 trend of their longer axis is always approximately parallel with the 

 stria? marked upon the bed-rocks of the same region. These accu- 

 mulations are scattered without any apparent order quite abundantly 

 upon areas five to ten miles wide, and ten to twenty-five miles long. 

 One of these areas includes Boston and its harbour, and extends five 

 to fifteen miles on all sides of that city ; while North-eastern Massa- 

 chusetts and Southern New Hampshire have three belts of territory 

 upon which these lenticular hills abound. These areas are separated 

 by others of equal extent, which are entirely destitute of such 

 accumulations of till, or show only occasionally one, quite typical 

 and prominent, but isolated from all others of its kind. 



These hills, like the valleys and the whole of New England, are 

 overspread by the nearly universal mantle of the upper till, which is 

 commonly between one and five feet in depth, but sometimes reaches 

 to ten or twenty feet. 



As this Magazine has formerly presented instructive comparisons 

 of the superficial deposits in Great Britain and in America, I would 

 like to inquire through its pages whether British geologists have 

 noted accumulations of till like our lenticular hills. 



Nashua, New Hampshire, April 14, 1879. Warren Upham. 



THE GEOLOGICAL CONGRESS AT PARIS. 



Sir, — I am requested by an eminent foreign geologist to make the 

 following additions and corrections with regard to the article on the 

 International Geological Congress signed " A. L.," which appeared in 

 the Geological Magazine for this month. 



The Committee on Nomenclature included Professor Dewalque of 

 Liege as Secretary, Professor Hebert being its President. Since 

 then, Professor Ferdinand Komer, of Breslau, has occupied the office 

 of German representative. 



Professor Hughes, of Cambridge, is entered as member of both 

 Committees ; this double appointment has been made since the 

 Congress, and is contrary (as I am informed by the eminent geologist 

 aforesaid) to the principles of the Congress. The complete absence 

 of non-colonial Englishmen at the Congress was much discussed at 

 the time, and the fact that a country like England should be unable 

 to provide two geologists to join in the Universal Congress augurs 

 but poorly for the success of the meeting at Bologna. F. G. S. 



April 28th, 1879. 



BEEKITE FROM THE PUNJAB, INDIA. 

 Sir, — In a paper read before the Geological Section of the British 

 Association held at Cheltenham, in 1856, Mr. W. Pengelly brought to 

 notice a very remarkable and somewhat unique form of chalcedony, 

 found plentifully in Torbay among the Triassic conglomerates, to 

 which the name of Beekite has been given from Dr. Beeke, a former 

 Dean of Bristol, by whom they were first publicly noticed. These 

 Beekites consist of calcareous nuclei in a more or less advanced 



