IXXVUl PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



known in almost every state of Europe, as well as in Asia and Africa. 

 The analogy of the Burmese tertiary fossils appeared to be with those 

 of the London clay and Calcaire grossier, so that the Eocene For- 

 mation was even then beginning to assume an importance which is 

 daily augmenting ; as on the one hand it more and more presses on 

 the miocene from below, whilst the pliocene in a similar manner 

 encroaches upon the miocene from above. May 2nd, 1828. — It may 

 be well to observe also, that Mr. J. B. Pentland enriched the fossil 

 fauna of India by an Anthracotherium, or ruminant allied to Mos- 

 chus, a very small Pachyderm, and a carnivore of the genus Viverra, 

 June 6, 1828. — In a paper read on this day. Dr. Buckland again 

 became the expounder of the records collected by another labourer 

 in the field, Mr. H. H. Henley, and described the Cycadeoidtse of 

 the Oolite freestone quarries of the Island of Portland. Assisted by 

 Dr. Brown and Mr. Loddiges, Dr. Buckland was enabled to establish 

 a new family by the name of Cycadeoidese, or " allied to Cycadese," 

 as one of the extinct species resembled a recent Zamia and the other 

 a recent Cycas. To these species he gave the names Cycadeoidea me- 

 galophylla and C. microphylla ; and it is only further necessary to 

 observe, that, as other observers had also discovered fossil plants of 

 a similar character in other portions of the oolitic system, this section 

 of the geological series of formations became impressed with a floral, 

 as it has since been with an animal characteristic, which appears to 

 assimilate it much more to the present organic condition of remote 

 portions of the earth's surface than to that of the countries in which 

 the fossils have been found. 



January 16, 1829. — At this date Dr. Buckland read a paper on 

 the ** Secondary Formations between Nice and the Col de Tendi," 

 which may be considered an appendix to the paper of Sir H. De la 

 Beche on the same subject of the year before. 



Later investigation has corrected some of the opinions stated in 

 these papers, such, for instance, as the supposed occurrence of true 

 Nummulites in association with fossils of the cretaceous system, — a 

 statement subsequently repeated, as regards Brianza in Lombardy, 

 where it was imagined that beds of nummulites had been discovered 

 alternating with beds of Inoceramus-limestone : this view, however, 

 has been shown to depend on an erroneous estimate of the stratifica- 

 tion ; the red marly limestone which alternates with the nummulitic 

 conglomerate having no other relation with the cretaceous limestone 

 of that locality than that of colour. 



Sir H. De la Beche had expressed his belief that the gypsum de- 

 posit was common to several members of the geological series of for- 

 mations, and in like manner that the dolomitic condition of a lime- 

 stone afforded no test of geological age ; opinions which, sound as 

 they were in separating physical and chemical conditions from the 

 consideration of the age of rocks, were accepted only with caution 

 and considerable limitation by Dr. Buckland ; so hard is it to dis- 

 charge from our minds those ideal data upon which we have been 

 accustomed to rely as the basis of our practical deductions. 



February 6, 1829. — Dr. Buckland described and named the PtC" 



