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SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



GEOLOGY 



CONDUCTED BY EDWARD A. MARTIN, F.G.S. 



To whom all Notes. Articles and material relating to Geology, 



and intended for Scif.nck-Gossip, are, in the first instance, to 



be addressed at 69, Bensham Manor Road, Thornton Heath. 



Pleistocene Beds at Carshalton and 

 Hendon. — An interesting discovery was announced 

 at the meeting of the Geological Society on 

 November 3rd, that what is apparently a Pleistocene 

 bed has been discovered at Carshalton, in Surrey, 

 during the making of a new sewer. The bed lies 

 beneath about fourteen feet of pebbly sand, and is, 

 itself, a carbonaceous loam of between three and 

 four feet thick. It stands higher than the existing 

 alluvium, and probably represents the work of the 

 Wandle when it was a river of greater influence. 

 One of the many streams which feed the Wandle 

 has its origin in Carshalton Park. The bed has 

 been examined by Mr. W. W. Watts, F.G.S. A 

 description was furnished by Mr. E. T. Newton, 

 F.R.S., of some animal remains found therein. 

 These consist of the skull of Rhinoceros antiquitatis, 

 which measured 31 inches long, in which the teeth 

 were lacking, and some leg-bones, together with 

 horse-remains and a portion of an elephant's tusk. 

 These interesting objects have been lodged in the 

 Jermyn Street Museum. In the discussion which 

 followed, Mr. W. Whitaker, F.G.S., added some 

 interesting remarks in regard to the mapping of the 

 district for the geological survey. The President 

 (Dr. Hicks, F.R.S.) pointed out that a similar bed 

 had been discovered at Hendon, N.W., during 

 sewerage operations, containing animal remains. 



Interstratified Quartzite. — Mr. H. B. 

 Woodward exhibited at the Geological Society, on 

 November 3rd, a block of quartzite from Criccieth, 

 North Wales, in which a layer of clay had become 

 interstratified, and had been peculiarly altered and 

 contorted by heat and pressure. Mr. Lamplugh, 

 F.G.S., considered it as a crushed conglomerate. 



Sussex Pleistocene Cliff - Formation. — 

 Visitors to the South Coast, by travelling from 

 Brighton to Rottingdean in the sea-car of the 

 recently constructed over-sea railway, can obtain a 

 very satisfactory and comprehensive view of the 

 cliffs east of Brighton. This is specially so in 

 regard to the remnants of the formerly more exten- 

 sive Brighton Cliff Formation. From the distance 

 of about 200 yards seaward the Chalk is seen at the 

 base of the cliff, intersected obliquely and hori- 

 zontally by tabular flint. At ten feet from the 

 present beach is seen the raised beach of completely 

 rounded stones, and of about eight feet in thickness 

 at some places. During the last two years there 

 have been numerous falls of the Chalk and the face 

 of the cliff has retired considerably. The result 

 conveys the impression that we are approaching 

 the northern limit of the formation. For whereas 

 when I described the cliffs in 1892 there were 

 between three and four feet of sand beneath one 

 and a-half feet of beach, now the sand is repre- 

 sented by but a trace, and the raised beach has 

 ncreased in thickness to no less than eight feet. 



The large rounded stones of the ancient beach rest 

 in fact almost upon the Chalk. The " Elephant 

 Bed " above is seen to be distinctly stratified, and 

 as the top of the cliff is reached the flints contained 

 in the loam become more jagged and less rounded, 

 until one might almost imagine that " Flint Jack " 

 himself had even thus early been at work. On the 

 existing beach are strewn boulders of sandstone of 

 all sizes, which are in marked contrast to the flints, 

 their companions in the raised beach and in the 

 loam. One large sub-angular, ruddy-brown sand- 

 stone boulder, which had an exposed surface at 

 least two feet long, was seen in situ half-way up the 

 cliff, whilst at the foot was a mass measuring five 

 feet in its longest dimensions, others of smaller 

 measurements being plentiful. These must have 

 been transported from beyond the escarpment of 

 the South Downs to their present positions. 



Fossil Club-Mosses. — All our Carboniferous 

 club-mosses, of which we know the fruits, were 

 hetorosporous, that is, had spores of two kinds, 

 and thus were related rather to Selaginella than to 

 Lycopodium. In the Sela°inellaceae the female 

 " macrospores" produced the archegonia, and the 

 male "microspores," the antheridia, this arrange- 

 ment, according to Carruthers, foreshadowing 

 amongst the cryptogams the embryo-sac and pollen- 

 grain of the phanerogams. 



Correlation of Ancient Faunas. ■ — Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer pointed out many years ago 

 that the causes which have changed faunas in 

 different parts of the world have been local 

 and not universal causes, and that, therefore, 

 it would be contrary to all possibility to expect 

 to find even in identical geological ages a simi- 

 larity in animal and vegetable life in widely- 

 scattered deposits. Similarity in the fades of two 

 faunas, as evidence of synchronism, was therefore 

 an assumption contrary to all probability. Huxley 

 followed on in 1862 by saying that even absolute 

 identity of fossils is no proof of the synchrony of 

 deposits, while absolute diversity is no proof of 

 difference of date. Yet although theoretically 

 these views are almost universally adopted by 

 geologists, one constantly hears, at the present 

 day, of attempts to correlate widely-existent 

 formations by means of their fossil remains. In 

 fact, such a means of correlation is, one would be 

 led to think, almost the only reliable means 

 available. Yet how great is the danger of doing so 

 has been pointed out over and over again by 

 distinguished geologists. 



An American Mediterranean. — A study of 

 North American geology reveals the fact that in 

 mid-Tertiary times the Gulf of Mexico extended 

 northward beyond its present boundaries, filling up 

 the depression east of the Rocky Mountains as far 

 as the junction of the Ohio with the Mississippi. 

 For a long time previous to this, there is reason to 

 believe that it extended so much farther northward 

 as to allow of communication between the Gulf of 

 Mexico and the Arctic Ocean, but this northward 

 extension disappeared only within comparatively 

 recent geological times. In this mid-American 

 sea were laid down successively representatives of 

 our geological systems, the sea-board varying 

 extensively from age to age, now extending and 

 now retiring, until in Tertiary times the great 

 inland sea had disappeared, leaving mighty 

 tributaries of a mighty river to drain the 

 area over which the sea at one time held so great 

 a sway. 



