ANNITEKSAET ADDEESS OP THE PEESIDENT. CXlii 



Eocky Mountain, near Albuquerque, in New Mexico, he describes 

 tbe Cretaceous beds which he found higher up the right bank of 

 the Missouri, at De Soto and Cuming City. There is here a re- 

 markable hill, called Pilgrim's HiU, deserving particular attention. 

 It is not above 100 feet high. The base consists of blue clays 30 

 or 40 feet thick, overlain by 30 or 40 feet of sandstone, partly 

 friable, partly compact. M. Marcou says, " In the clays I found 

 no fossils ; but in the sandstone there is a rich and well-preserved 

 flora of plants which are almost aU dicotyledonous, as laurels, 

 poplar, sassafras, walnut, oak, willow, tulip-tree, &c., a flora which 

 M. Heer considers Miocene, and which, in fact, appears to be 

 rather Upper Miocene or even Pliocene than Lower Tertiary. 

 And yet this flora is not even Tertiary, but Upper Cretaceous." 

 M. Marcou cannot adopt the views of M. Heer, because he found on 

 the banks of the Big Sioux River beds of chalk containing Inoce- 

 ramus prohlematicus and Ostrea congesta, &c. overlying the rocks 

 with the dicotyledonous leaves, without indication of faults or 

 disturbances of any kind. Moreover, on the summit of Pilgrim's 

 Hill he found the Inoceramus prohlematicus in great abundance ; 

 and in the leaf-bed below a great quantity of a freshwater bivalve, 

 Cyrena Nova-Mexicana, Marcou, which he had already found in 

 New Mexico ; and he subsequently recognized the whole Creta- 

 ceous series which he had formerly seen in the neighboui'hood of 

 Galisteo ; from which he concludes that this freshwater formation 

 and the Inoceramus-heds of Nebraska are of the same age as, and 

 in fact the prolongation of, the formation of White Chalk of the 

 neighboiirhood of Gralisteo. 



Prom these observations he concludes that the laws and rules 

 of Palaeophytology hitherto adopted must be greatly modified, 

 since we here find a flora considered as Miocene in Europe at the 

 bottom of the Chalk. It is hardly necessary to remind you that, 

 notwithstanding the extent to which Prof. Heer has availed him- 

 self of the fossil floi'as to assist him in his determination of geolo- 

 gical periods, it has long been the opinion of many distinguished 

 geologists that evidences derived from a fossd. flora are not so cer- 

 tain or so trustworthy as those derived from a fossil fauna. 



The Greological Survey of India under Prof. Oldham has also pro- 

 gressed during the past year, and I have now before me two works, 

 forming the 2nd part of vol. iii. and the 2nd part of vol. iv. of the 

 ' Memoirs,' in which much interesting information is given. The 

 first of these publications gives an account of the geological struc- 

 ture and relations of the southern portion of the Himalayan ranges 

 between the rivers Granges and E-avee, by H. B. Medlicott, P.Gr.S. 

 The subjects treated of in this memoir are, first, a general descrip- 

 tion of the area and the rocks, referring principally to the Eastei'u 

 Himalaya, essentially the Snowy Mountains of Hindostan. They 

 present as a whole three well-marked regions : 1. the range of 

 peaks ; 2. a broad band of hills commonly spoken of as the Lower 

 or Outer Himalaya ; and 3. to the South, a narrow fringing band of 

 much lower hdls, for which the name of Sub-Himalaya is appro- 



VOL. XXI. h 



