﻿Rei'ieivs — Belfs Glacial Period in S. Hemisphere. 519 



Cretaceous deposits prevail in the southern portion of the chain. The 

 older sediments are represented there only by Palasozoic conglo- 

 merates and schists, and by the red sandstones near Berilovce, over- 

 lain by limestones and marls with Orhitidina lenticular is, two other 

 species of the same genus, Spongia Vola, Mich., and other Spongice, 

 one Craticularia, one Sporadiscina, some Corals and Polyzoa, and 

 fragments of Ostrea, Terebratulina, Terebrirostra, and Natica. 



Cretaceous sandstones rest on these beds ; and beneath them, near 

 Isvor, are fossiliferous, sandy, and locally somewhat oolitic Neoco- 

 mian limestones, abounding with Polyzoa (ainong them a new 

 species, Heteropora Isovriana), together with numerous joints of a 

 Pentacrinus belonging to the series of astralis, Quenst., abundant 

 spines of Cidarites, a Peltastes (near stellulatus, Ag.), and a new 

 small Crustacean, Prosopon inflatum. 



Friable Cretaceous sandstones then follow almost to the descent 

 into the Nisova Valley, where Caprotina-limestones, resting on marls 

 with Pijrina pygmcea, Ag., appear. Enormous deposits of rolled 

 blocks and gravel cover the slope up to a considerable height. 



laiBAT-IIE^WS. 



I. — The Gtlacial Period in the Southern Hemisphere. By 

 Thomas Belt, F.G.S. (Quart. Journ. of Science, July, 1877.) 



IN all his former papers on the Glacial Period, the author has dealt 

 mainly with phenomena connected with the glaciation of the 

 northern hemisphere, a great part of which he has travelled over 

 himself, and has therefore been able to bring his personal experience 

 to bear upon the subject; but in treating of the southern, he is obliged 

 to rely for his data on the observations of other geologists. This 

 compilation of the recorded facts that relate to the subject-matter is 

 undertaken, Mr. Belt says, with the view of refuting the idea which 

 seems of late to have arisen in the minds of some geologists, that 

 there is no evidence of a glacial period south of the equator ; and to 

 show that the phenomena there found agree with those of the northern 

 hemisphere. 



The first authority cited is Prof. Agassiz, whose theories concerning 

 the Amazon valley are considered by the author to be mistaken ones. 

 The Pdmpean mud, it is argued, owes its origin to the same causes 

 as the loess of Central Europe and the silt of the Siberian steppes, 

 viz. the formation of a freshwater lake through the damming back 

 of the drainage by the advance of the south polar ice up the basin of 

 the South Atlantic; and a similar explanation is hinted at for the 

 plains of gravel and silt in New Zealand. 



The icy barriers to these lakes would themselves be melting and so 

 contribute to their formation, and there would, it is maintained, be 

 no more reason for the lakes they caused being frozen than that the 

 Maiijalen Sea, which is formed in a similar way, should be so. 



This advance of the ice in both hemispheres simultaneously towards 

 the equator would result not from a flow of the ice in that direction, 

 but from ridges being formed which intercepted the moisture travelling 



