147 



occasion from Calcutta to Bombay, and thence to Odeypoor, will 

 be found in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society, of which he 

 was also a member. In 1830, he made a voyage round the Indian 

 Archipelago, with a view to the recovery of his health. He passed 

 six months at Java, and paid much attention to the geology of that 

 island. On his return to Scotland he presented his collection to the 

 Museum at Edinburgh. Professor Jameson recommended him to 

 the East India Company as a fit successor to the appointment held 

 by the late Dr. TurnbuU Christie. Mr. Hardy repaired to Paris in 

 1833 for the purpose of prosecuting his geological studies, and died 

 there in May following at the age of 31. 



In reviewing the geological labours of the year I shall advert prin- 

 cipally, but not exclusively, to those of our own members, and the 

 order of precedence will be regulated by the nature of the respective 

 papers, without any reference to date. 



Mr. Murchison, in prosecution of the work in which he has been 

 so long and actively engaged, has communicated to us his observa- 

 tions on the detritus that covers the old red sandstone in Hereford- 

 shire and its vicinit}'. All the detritus, he says, seems to be derived 

 from neighbouring rocks. Granite boulders are nowhere found within 

 its area, but they occur of large dimensions and of various sorts upon 

 its northern confines ; he states generally that they appear to have 

 come from the North. Many, if not all them, may I believe be 

 identified with the granitic rocks of Westmoreland and Cumberland. 

 Several of those I have observed on the north of Shrewsbury have 

 the character of the Irton rather than of the Shap granite. The de- 

 tritus of the old red sandstone is ascribed to the operation of dif- 

 ferent causes^ some of which may perhaps require further study. 



From Mr. Strickland we have received three communications re- 

 specting certain bones of extinct quadrupeds associated at Crop- 

 thorne in Worcestershire, with existing species of shells. On a base 

 of lias clay reposes a layer of fine sand containing twenty-three 

 species of land and freshwater shells, together with rolled and broken 

 bones of the Ox, Deer, Dog, Bear, and Hippopotamus. Upwards 

 this sand passes into gravel undistinguishable from the so-called di- 

 luvium. These shells are found at five or six different localities 

 within the Vale of Evesham. Two of the species are thought to be 

 extinct. The inference drawn from all the phsenomena is that this 

 deposit occupies the site of a former river-bed or lake ; that since 

 its formation mammiferous animals have migrated more than mol- 

 luscous, and that the climate has remained nearly stationary. 



Mr. Edward Charlesworth has placed in our Museum some valu- 

 able specimens collected at Sutton in Suffolk, valuable because they 

 establish the existence of similar phaenomena there also. The spe- 

 cimens consist of bones, (one of which appears to belong to the ele- 

 phant,)andof freshwatershells,including an extinct species of Cyclas. 

 Five or six feet below the surface a layer of calcareous nodules may 

 be traced, he says, for about half a mile along the banks of the 



