Xlvi PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



son and others in the East. In the second account published by Sir 

 Charles Fellows of his antiquarian discoveries in Asia Minor, will be 

 found an appendix by Mr. D. Sharpe, on the Syrian language, as shown 

 on the tombs at Xanthus. 



He was actively engaged in business all his life, and a regular 

 attendant every day at his counting-house. He was never married. 



Such is the simple record of the life of a man who, amidst all the 

 cares of business, found time to master the most abstruse difficulties 

 of literature and science ; nor did he neglect his social duties as a 

 Christian philosopher, as for many years, and till his death in 1856, 

 he was Secretary of a School in Harp Alley, Fleet Market, for the 

 education of the poor, an object in which he took an interest scarcely 

 secondary to that he felt for his favourite science, geology. Let 

 me now endeavour to give some idea of the loss which geology ex- 

 perienced by the death of Daniel Sharpe, by passing in re\'iew his 

 works done and his papers presented to our Society. 



Of the papers read in 1832, 1839, and 1840, the second enlarges 

 and corrects the first, and describes the geological structure of the 

 neighbourhood of Lisbon. The upper portion of the deposits de- 

 scribed forms a rather remarkable tertiary deposit of considerable 

 extent, extending from the mouth of the Tagus, 80 miles in length, 

 from Lisbon, and 50 miles in breadth, only a small portion of this 

 basin being to the north of the Tagus. The tertiaries are divided 

 into three sections : the Upper Tertiary sand without fossils, consist- 

 ing of 100 feet of fine quartzose sand and 150 of coarse quartzose 

 ferruginous sand and gravel. It is remarkable for exhibiting, near 

 St. Ubes, a rock consisting of irregular perpendicular tubes, from 

 -J" to 1 foot in diameter, formed of a very ferruginous sandstone, 

 connected together by horizontal layers of the same substance, the 

 cement being phosphate of iron. The centres of the tubes and the 

 spaces between them are filled with ochreous sand passing into the 

 ordinary sand of the country. This curious phr^ iiomenon is seen 

 only in a very limited space, namely 20 feet in height and depth, 

 but how far it might be traced inland cannot be determined. Quick- 

 silver has been found in this deposit as well as gold. 



The middle or Almada beds, consisting of alternating sands, clays, 

 and limestones, contain fossils, and are about 350 feet thick. Of 

 43 species identified by Mr. Sowerby, 10 were recent, 10 Bordeaux 

 species, 3 Paris basin, 3 London clay, 2 Crag fossils, 1 London clay 

 and Bordeaux, 4 Subapennine ; or of the shells corresponding to 

 those of well-recognized localities, 26 were from the higher sections, 

 and only 6 from the decidedly lower sections of the tertiaries, one of 

 which was neutral, being common to the London clay and Bordeaux. 



The Lower Tertiaries consist of a conglomerate without fossils, 

 about 200 feet thick. 



The Secondary formations consist of a limestone, sometimes soft 

 and argillaceous, sometimes in the form of a beautiful hard marble 

 containing fossils belonging to the family Rudistes, and nearly re- 

 lated to the genera Hippurites and SphcBi'ulites, about 300 feet thick : 

 a red or ferruginous sandstone, containing lignite and various im- 



