449 



quakes could produce these effects, as the shocks are scarcely trans- 

 mitted to the plains at the western foot of the Cordilleras. Hence, he 

 concludes, that the earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and sudden ele- 

 vations on the coast line of the Pacific, ought to be considered as ir= 

 regularities of action in some more widely extended phenomenon. 



January 18. — Benjamin Tucker, Esq., of Mecklenburgh Square; 

 Csesar Coldough, Esq., of Tintern y\bbey in the county of Wexford, 

 Ireland ; George Such, M.D., F.L.S., New Street, Dorset Square ; 

 Travers Twiss, Esq., B.C.L., Fellow of University College, Oxford ; 

 Joseph Henry Barchard, Esq., of Putney Heath, Surrey; Gilpin Gorst, 

 Esq., of the Old Trinity House, and William Edmund Logan, Esq., 

 of Swansea, were elected Fellows of this Society. 



A paper entitled, " An Account of a deposit containing land shells 

 at Gore Cliff, Isle of Wight," by J. S, Bowerbank, Esq., F.G.S., was 

 first read. 



During a recent examination of the greensand of Gore Cliff, Mr. 

 Bowerbank discovered on the top of the cliff and overlying the chalk 

 marl by which it is capped, abedconsistingof detritus of chalk andchalk 

 marl, and inclosing, in every part examined by him, numerous spe- 

 cimens of existing species of land shells. The deposit extends from 

 nearlytheedge of the cliff to the foot of St.Catherine'sDown, a distance 

 of about 660 yards. The range of the deposit he could not ascertain, 

 as at a short distance from the spot examined, the cliff assumed 

 its usual perpendicular form ; but he is of opinion that it is consider- 

 able, or else that there are many such deposits, as he found fallen 

 masses of a similar bed near St. Lawrence and between Ventnor 

 and Bonchurch. 



A letter addressed to Dr. Buckland by J. Wyatt, Esq., respecting 

 a trap dyke in the Penrhyn Slate Quarries near Bangor, Carmarthen- 

 shire, was then read. 



These quarries were opened fifty years since, and the excavation is 

 now about 700 yards in length, 300 in breadth, and 90 below the 

 natural surface. In carrying on the highest opening of the quarry, 

 the men, a few months since, came suddenly in contact with a trap 

 dyke, which has since been cut through and proved to be 11 feet in 

 width. Its direction appears to be between W.N.W. and N.W., and 

 it intersects the bedding of the slate nearly at right angles. The dip 

 at present is almost 90°, the slight inclination being to the N.E. The 

 " cheeks " of the dyke on the N.W. side, are broken conformably with 

 the natural joints of the schist. The slate immediately in contact with 

 the trap is, in some parts, quite flinty, having lost its fissile properties, 

 and the colour is changed from purple to bla^ck 5 but at the distance 

 of two or three feet the slate recovers its natural colour and cleavage. 



A notice of a successful attempt at boring for water at Mortlake in 

 Surrey, by William Richardson, Esq., F.G.S., was next read. 



