CVm PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



the earth's surface-temperature became materially mfluenced by the 

 sun. 



In a letter to M. Elie de Beaumont, Professor iVngelo Sismonda 

 mentions, that in a descent from the Col des Encombres, towards the 

 Tarentaise, he had found numerous fossils in the schistose black 

 limestone of that locality. He considers this limestone as a little 

 above the schists of Petit-Coeur (remarkable for the mixture of or- 

 ganic remains in them, as above noticed). The fossils found are 

 considered by M. Sismonda to prove the correctness of the opinion 

 given by M. Elie de Beaumont, that the belemnite beds of the Ta- 

 rentaise are referable to the lias*. 



M. Talavignes, referring to the memoir of M. Elie de Beaumont 

 on the most ancient systems of European mountains, and to the recent 

 classification of the nummulitic rocks in the eocene series, considers 

 that he was the first to show that the received opinion as to the date 

 of the elevation of the Pyrenees should be modified, there being two 

 distinct deposits of nummulitic rocks (as above noticed), one named 

 by him the Iberian system, the other the Alarician system . In reply, 

 M. Elie de Beaumont saw no objection to the nummulitic rocks of 

 the Mediterranean being viewed as eocene. He considered that the 

 fossil molluscs of the Mediterranean nummulitic limestone are divi- 

 sible into three groups, of which the first only is found in the num- 

 mulitic limestone of Soissons (above the plastic clay, and forming the 

 base of the calcaire grossier of the Paris basin), while the second is 

 confined to the Mediterranean deposit, and the third, composed of at 

 least fifteen or twenty species, is found in the cretaceous rocks, pro- 

 perly so called. 



In addition to these communications there were notices and papers 

 on floating ice, by M. Desor ; on the snows of the Vosges, by M. Ed. 

 Collomb ; on new analyses of Predazzite and the products resulting 

 from its decomposition, by M. Damour ; on an estimate of certain 

 emanations caused by natural and artificial heat, by M. H. Daubree ; 

 on the occurrence of stratified diallage rock {gabbro) between serpen- 

 tine and granite, resting on the latter, in the mountains of the Zobten, 

 Silesia, by M. Gustave Rose ; on the mountain of Cetona, by M. Ezio 

 de'Vecchi, in which the red ammonitiferous limestone is mentioned, 

 and the author agrees in its geological position wdth M. Pilla ; on the 

 lacustrine formation of La Bresse, by Dr. J. Canat ; on the geological 

 structure of the low part of Guadaloupe, named Grande-Terre, by Dr. 

 Pierre Duchassaing ; on the stratified rocks of the Venetian Alps, by 

 M. de Zigno ; on the folding of the tertiary rocks in the valley of the 

 Dronne, and on the beds traversed by the railway between Libourne 

 and Angouleme, by M. d'Archiac. There were also communications 

 on the causes which appear to influence the growth of certain plants 



* Part of these fossils were determined by M. Bayle, at the Ecole des Mines at 

 Paris. Those added to the others noticed are, Ammonitea fimbriatus (Sow.), A. 

 amaltheus (Schlot,), A. planicostatus (Sow.), A. radians (Schlot.), Pholadomya 

 Hasina (Sow.), Avicula incpquivalvis (Sow.), A~ costata (Sow.), Lima decorata 

 (Munster), Cardinia concinna (Agassiz), Terebratula incpquivalvis (Sow.), T. va- 

 riabilis (Sow.), Area, Pecfen, and Belemnites (abundant). 



