Geological Society of London. 371 



Congress, whicli will be followed by two other reunions of ex- 

 clusively geological interest, at whicli Fellows of the Society may 

 be jjresent. Announcements of an intention to attend the Congress, 

 or to send memoirs to be laid before it, and applications for further 

 information, may be addressed to the Secretary of the French Asso- 

 ciation, 76, Eue de Eennes, Paris; or direct to the Comte de Saporta, 

 Aix-en-Provence, Bouches-du-Ehone. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. " On the Section of Messrs. Meux <fe Co.'s Artesian Well in the 

 Tottenham Court Eoad, with Notices of the Well at Crossness, and 

 another at Shoreham, Kent ; and on the probable range of the 

 Lower Greensand and Paleeozoic Eocks under London." By Prof. 

 Prestwich, M.A., F.E.S., V.P.G.S. 



The well-known boring at Kentish Town in 1856 showed the 

 absence at that point of Lower Greensand, the Gault being im- 

 mediately succeeded by hard red and variegated sandstones and 

 clays, the age of which was at first doubtful, but which were finally 

 considered by the author to approach most nearly to the Old Eed 

 Sandstone near Frome, and to the Devonian sandstones and marls 

 near Mons, in Belgium. The existence of some doubt as to this 

 identification rendered the boring lately made at Messrs. Meux's 

 brewery particularly interesting, and the method of working adopted 

 by the Diamond-boring Company, by bringing up sharply cut cores 

 from known depths, gave special certainty to the results obtained. 

 The boring passed through 652i- feet of Chalk, 28 feet of Upper 

 Greensand, and 160 feet of Gault, at the base of which was a seam, 

 3 or 4 feet thick, of phosphatic nodules and quartzite pebbles. 

 Beneath this was a sandy calcareous stratum of a light ash-colour, 

 passing into a pale or white limestone, and this into a rock of oolitic 

 aspect. Casts and impressions of shells found in this bed showed it 

 to be the Lower Greensand, whose place it occupied. The boring 

 was carried further in the hope of reaching the loose water-bearing 

 sands of this formation, but the rock became very argillaceous, and 

 when 62 feet of it had been passed through, the bore entered into 

 mottled red, purple, and greenish shales, dipping at 35° in an 

 unascertained direction. These beds continued through a depth of 

 80 feet, when, their nature being clearly ascertained, the boring was 

 stopped. The fossils of these coloured beds, which included Spiri- 

 fera disjuncta, Bhynchonella cuboides, and species of Edmondia, 

 Chonetes, and OrtJiis, show them to be of Devonian age. Thus, the 

 existence of Palaeozoic rocks at an accessible depth under London, 

 and the absence of the Jurassic series, as maintained long since by 

 Mr. Godwin-Austen, is experimentally demonstrated. 



These facts are of interest in connexion with the question of the 

 possible extension of the Coal-measures under the Cretaceous and 

 Tertiary strata of the south-east of England. The beds found at the 

 bottom of Messrs. Meux's boring are of the same character as the 

 Devonian strata which everywhere accompany the Coal-measures 

 in Belgium and the north of France, being brought into juxtaposition 

 with them by great faults and flexures. The author refers especially 



