Notices of Memoirs — Vanden Broeck's Geology of Antwerp. 405 



the Niemen ; and at Wilua, the station following, where, on De- 

 cember 13th, six months after, Napoleon united his retreating force, 

 reduced to less than 25,000 men, — the Russians, desertions and the 

 cold disposing of the remainder. 



After describing the terrible passage of the Beresina, Labaume, 

 one of Napoleon's staff, writes : — " Arrived at the opposite bank, 

 like ghosts returned from the infernal regions, we fearfully looked 

 behind us, and beheld with horror the savage countries where we 

 had suffered so much." 



itTOTicss OIF nycEnycoii^s. 



Sketch of the Geology and Paleontology of the Pliocene 

 Beds of the Antwerp District. By E, Vanden Broeck. 

 Fasc. II. (Brussels, 1878.)' 



THE first fascicule of this work was published in 1876 and noticed 

 in the Geologicai, Magazine for July, 1877. With the fascicule 

 now issued, it forms a stratigraphical introduction to MM. Vanden 

 Broeck and Miller's Foraminifera of the Belgian Pliocene, being 

 Part I. of that work. 



The first fascicule dealt with the Lower Sands of Antwerp, the 

 second takes up the Middle and Upper Sands of the same district, 

 concluding with a general resume of the entire work, a table of 

 stratigraphical equivalence, here reproduced, a list of works on the 

 subject, further data and corrections, and a topographical chapter 

 explanatory of the map (not geological) of the area under discussion. 



The Middle Sands have been designated as follows : 



Scaldesian (in part) ... ... ... ... Dumont, 1849. 



Grey or Middle Crag Lyell, 1852. 



Grey Sands (in part) Nyst, 1861. 



Isocardia cor Sands and Bryozoan Eock ... ... Cogels, 1874. 



They consist generally of fine sand, more or less clayey, and very 

 rarely coarse or pebloly : the glauconite grains in them are less 

 abundant and smaller than in the Lower Sands. They have been 

 divided into Grey and Yellow Sands, and correlated with the White 

 and Eed Crags of England respectively on the strength of this 

 difference in colour. The fallacy of applying such a test is abun- 

 dantly shown by the author, whose remarks on this important subject 

 may be summed up as follows : — 



Percolating water charged with carbonic acid and oxygen acts 

 on both glauconite and carbonate of lime. Where percolation is 

 rapid, it oxidises the glauconite ; where slow, it dissolves away the 

 fossils. Thus the surface of any glauconitic or shelly deposit 

 vfhether exposed directly or covered by permeable beds, is deprived 

 of fossils and oxidised to a greater or less extent, the capricious 



1 Les Foramiaiferes des Couches Pliocenes de la Belgique. Par E. Vanden 

 Broeck et H. Miller. Ire partie : Esquisse Geologique et Paleontologique des 

 Depots Pliocenes des Environs d'Anvers. Par Ernest Vanden Broeck. Estrait 

 des Annales de la Soci^le' Malacologique de Belgique, tome ix. pp. 83-379 [both. 

 fascicules], pi. iv. 



