240 proceedings of the geological society. [feb. 25, 



February 25, 1857. 



John Calvert, Esq., C.E., Rosbrin Castle, Co. Cork, was elected 

 a Fellow. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. Notice of the Za^eEARTHCiuAKE at Crete. By H. S. Ongley, 

 Esq., H.M. Consul in Crete. 



[Forwarded from the Foreign Office, by order of Lord Clarendon.] 



This notice was communicated in three despatches relating to 

 the occurrence of the earthquake in Crete, in October 1856, which 

 was accompanied with much destruction of property and loss of life 

 at Canea, Retimo, and the neighbouring villages. 



2. On some Remarkable Mineral Veins. 

 By Professor D. T. Ansted, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S. 



In a previous memoir (Quarterly Geological Journal, vol. xii. p. 144), 

 I have described the conditions of the great copper lode of Cobre in 

 the island of Cuba. I have now to offer remarks on three lodes, or 

 rather groups of lodes ; one in the central part of the same island 

 (Cuba), and the others situated in the United States of North 

 America. 



1 . On the San Fernando Copper Lodes, near Cienfuegos hi Cuba. 



The central part of the island of Cuba is not unknown as a mineral 

 district, although up to the present time no great development of any 

 lodes has been recorded. 



This district may be described, geologically, as consisting of granites 

 and syenites (passing into other crystalline rocks of a porphyritic 

 nature), partly covered with a brecciated and highly calcareous 

 conglomerate. The crystalline rocks form the mountain-chain of 

 Trinidad on the south coast of Cuba, and occupy a valley beyond this 

 range towards the north, where the bed of a river lays bare a fine 

 surface of syenite, crossed by systems of veins of felspar, spotted 

 occasionally with silver-ore*. 



Beyond this valley towards the north is the range of hills contain- 

 ing the San Fernando lodes. The hills are of moderate elevation 

 (not generally reaching 1000 feet above the sea), somewhat scarped 

 towards the south, and having moderate slopes towards the north. 

 They are composed of a rock not unlike that described in my previous 

 memoir on the Cobre mines, and widely distributed in some form or 

 other throughout Cuba. Here also, as elsewhere, the passage from 

 a true porphyry into a calcareous conglomerate of angular stones, is 



* I observed in one place a striking instance of the intersections and heaving 

 of a vein of felspar, and some cross-veins laid bare on the bed of a river for an 

 area of several acres. I have not seen a more perfect example of its kind in any 

 part of the world. 



