474 PROCEEDIiSrGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Juiie 7, 



supposing the present form of the ground in the Weald to have been 

 produced entirely by these agents. 



With regard to the time which has elapsed since this denudation 

 commenced, nothing can as yet be said with certainty save this, that 

 the plain of marine denudation was formed after the deposition of the 

 Pocene beds, and that, therefore, the present valleys of the Weald 

 have been formed since that period. Should the doubtful beds 

 occurring at intervals along the top of the North Downs turn out to 

 be Crag*, as believed by some geologists, "then," to quote again 

 Prof. Ramsay f, " the bay-like denudation of the Weald has proba- 

 bly entirely taken place since that epoch ; implying another lapse of 

 time so long that, by natural processes alone, in rough terms, half 

 the animal species in the world have disappeared, and been as slowly 

 replaced by others. This may mean little to those who still believe 

 in the sudden extinction of whole races of life ; but to me it signi- 

 fies a period analogous to the distance of a half-resolved nebula — so 

 vast that if it were possible to express it in figures the mind would 

 refuse to grasp its immensity." 



June 7, 1865. 

 The following communications were read : — 



1. Note on Ovibos moschattjs, Blainville. By Mons. E. Labtet, 

 Por. Mem. G.S. 

 [Translated by the late H. Christy, Esq., F.R.S., F.a.S.] 

 Ctjvier has given the history of three skulls of Ovibos moscliatus 

 discovered in Siberia, and figured by Pallas and OzeretskovskyJ. 



In 1846 M. Giebel§ noticed the existence, in the Museum of Halle, 

 of part of a skull found in the neighbourhood of Merseburg. 



In 1852, Sir John Richardson, in the ' Zoology of the Herald,' 

 gave a list and some figures of some remains of Ovibos moscha- 

 tus brought from the Bay of Eschscholtz, with bones of Elephants, 

 Reindeer, and other Mammals. 



In 1855 Professor Owenl] described, under the name of Bos 

 moschatus, a fine fragment of skuU of Ovibos moschatus, discovered 

 by the Rev. Mr. Kingsley and Mr. Lubbock at Maidenhead, in Berk- 

 shire, on a bed of low level-gravel, of which Mr. Prestwich gave at 

 the same time a description^, with a sketch of the bed, in which he 

 afterwards found an Elephant's tooth. 



In the third edition of the 'Antiquity of Man ' Sir Charles Lyell 

 further cites a skull of Ovibos moschatus found by Mr. Lubbock, near 



* Prestwich, ' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc' vol. xir. 1858, p. 322. Sir Charles 

 LyeU (Elements of Geology, 6th edit. 1865, pp. 232 and 368) considers these 

 beds to be Upper Miocene. In the last edition of Mr. Greenough's Map (1865) 

 they are coloured " Crag." 



t ' Physical Geology and Geography of Great Britain,' 2nd edit. p. 84. 



t Oss. Poss. 4to, vol. iv. p. 155-159. 



§ Leonhard and Bronn's Neues Jahrbiich, 1846, p. 460. 



II Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 1856, vol. xii. pp. 124-31. 



% Ibid. pp. 131-33. 



