318 NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



Mr. MacFarlane's paper is a great step in advance, more especially 

 in the large number of facts which he chronicles, and which, but 

 for his careful collection of them in the progress of the workings, 

 would have been forever lost. 



Making a sudden leap from these ancient rocks to the most 

 modern formations, our proceedings show several valuable con- 

 tributions to the geology of the post-pliocene deposits. In this 

 field, Mr. Billings' paper on the remains of fossil elephants found 

 sn Canada is of especial value, as for the first time giving accurate 

 descriptions and figures of these remains, and identifying our spe- 

 cies with that known to American naturalists as Elephas Jacksoni. 

 In this paper, Mr. Billings has worthily followed up, with reference 

 to the extinct elephantine animals of Canada, the able investiga- 

 tions of Dr. Falconer on the general distribution of these animals. 

 The society has also received valuable contributions in the field of 

 Canadian post-tertiary geology from Mr. Robb, Mr. Bell, and Mr. 

 Whiteaves. We have not yet succeeded in Canada in tracing 

 man back to the post-pliocene period, as is claimed to have been 

 done in Europe ; but, as I have pointed out in papers on this sub- 

 ject, read before the society on former occasions, the researches in 

 the superficial geology of Canada, will have important bearings on 

 many disputed questions as to the distribution and supposed 

 changes of plants and animals which have survived from the post- 

 pliocene to the modern period. 



On points of the geology of the United States connected with 

 Canadian geology, we have had important contributions from Prof. 

 Hall and Col. Jewett. The paper of the late lamented Moses 

 Perley on Newfoundland, presents a valuable picture of the 

 geology and topography of that island ; and the paper of Mr. 

 Matthews on the geology of St. Johns, New Brunswick, is an 

 excellent piece of stratigraphical geology, bearing on the solution 

 of some most important and difficult questions. In this connection 

 I shall take the liberty to apologise for the great length to which 

 my own papers on the Reptiles of the coal period have extended, 

 and to mention the ray of light which the footprints of the modern 

 King-crab have enabled me to throw on the Protichnites of the 

 Potsdam sandstone. 



In chemical and economical geology, I need merely mention 

 the profound generalisations of Dr. Hunt in his paper on the 

 chemistry of the earth ; the practical information contained in the 



