Aug. 1, 186.5.] 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



187 



GEOLOGY. 



In how little lies the Past. — History tells 

 us of populous nations, now extinct, tliat flourished 

 for ages : do we not find their remains crowded 

 into a few streets of sepulchres ? 'Tis but a thin 

 layer of soil that covers the ancient plain of Mara- 

 thon. I have stood on Bannockburu, and seen no 

 trace of the battle. In what lower stratum shall 

 we set ourselves to discover the skeletons of the 

 wolves and bears that once infested our forests? 

 Where sh.ill we find accumulations of the remains 

 of the wild bisons and gigantic elks, their contem- 

 poraries? They must have existed for but com- 

 paratively a short period, or they would surely have 

 left more marked traces behind them.— Miller's 

 " Old lied Sandstone." 



Relations betvteen the Present and Past. 

 — In the collection brought to Europe from the 

 caves of Brazil by MM. Lund and Clausen there 

 are extinct species of all the thirty-two genera, 

 excepting four, of the terrestrial quadrupeds now 

 inhabiting the provinces in which the caves occur ; 

 and the extinct species are much more numerous 

 than those now living. There are fossil ant-eaters, 

 armadillos, tapirs, peccaries, guanacoes, opossums, 

 and numerous South American gnawers and mon- 

 keys, and other animals. This wonderful relation- 

 ship iu the same continent between the dead and 

 the living will, I do not doubt, hereafter throw 

 more light on the appearance of organic beings 

 on our earth, and their disappearance from it, than 

 any other class of facts. — Darwiu's "Journal of 

 Researches" 



Sponges and Corals. — While the green sand, 

 the upper chalk, and the Kentish rag were forming, 

 corals and sponges grew ia every sea. One beau- 

 tiful variety, shaped like a toadstool, is found in the 

 upper chalk of Sussex. The Kentish rag is so full 

 of them that the hands of the quarrymen are often 

 fretted with their fossil flint splinters. At War- 

 minster, cup-shaped sponges swarmed in myriads, 

 and a peculiarly fine pear-shaped sponge is found in 

 the green sand of Blackdown. The Brighton 

 pebbles and the Wiltshire flints are principally 

 petrified sponges. At the first glance it seems as 

 though it must have required ages on ages for the 

 climate to have so changed from the times when the 

 sponges of tropic seas grew in our blue lagoons, 

 fringed with coral reefs ; yet so brief is the space in 

 the history of the crust of our earth, that in the 

 fields about Steeple Ashton every stone turned up 

 by the plough is a coral, and the structure of coral 

 banks may be studied in the lofty cliffs of Cheddar 

 as well as in the upheaved islands of southern seas. 

 — Milton's " Stream of Life." 



EoBAMiNiFERA.— Plaucus collected 6,000 shells of 

 Eoraminifera from an ounce of sand from the shore 

 of the Adriatic. Soldani collected from less than an 

 ounce and a half of rock from the hiUs of Casciana, 

 in Tuscany, 10,454 fossil shells. Several of these 

 were so minute that 500 weighed only a grain. And 

 D'Orbigny found 3,840,000 specimens in an ounce of 

 sand from the shores of the Antilles. 



Abnohmal Eossil Eerns. — I bave a partiality 

 for " bad specimens," just as I have for abnormal 

 plants, and 1 believe they are much more likely than 

 good ones to reveal something not previously noticed 

 — to bring to light some little peculiarity which in 

 better specimens might not be observed. It would 

 bring to light another link between the past and 

 the present, if we could prove that the ferns of the 

 carboniferous period shared this propensity to 

 become crested with the plants whicb stfll exist. I 

 confidently believe, that with care in searching for 

 examples this will be found to be the case. — MacMe's 

 " Geological Repertory." 



Mountain Limestone op Shropshire.— At the 

 May meeting of the Severn Valley Eield Club, a 

 paper was read by G. Maw, E.R.S., on "the relation 

 of the mountain limestone of Shropshire to its deve- 

 lopment in other parts of the kingdom." The points 

 noticed were, 1, the total absence of the limestone 

 from large areas in the Midland counties ; 3, its ex- 

 ceptional thinness in the Wrekin district and South 

 Shropshire as compared with other districts ; 3, the 

 prevalence of mountain limestone fossils in the lower 

 coal-measures of Shi-opshire, and the synchronism of 

 these deposits with the mountain limestone of other 

 districts ; and 4, whether the carboniferous rocks 

 rest directly on the north-west line of basalt, or whe- 

 ther they are separated by beds of the Devonian 

 age. After reviewing the existing evidence on these 

 points, Mr. Maw said they must be still considered 

 as questions in suspense, lithological character being 

 not always reliable as indicative of age, and only of 

 importance when existing in connection with the 

 surer testimony of organic remains. 



Bhinoceros at Ileord. — A very fine skull of 

 the Rhinoceros leptorhimis, Cuv., has recently been 

 found in the UphaU brickfield, llford, and iu close 

 proximity to the spot where the skull and tusks of 

 the Mammoth were discovered. 



The memories of some men are Hke the buckets 

 of the daughters of Dauae, and retain nothing] 

 others have recollections like the bolters of a mill, 

 retaining the chaff, and letting the flour escape. 



Many minds kegp tavern; they entertain every 

 thought that chances to come along; like the pro- 

 mise of the old road-side signs, they make welcome 

 man and beast. 



