Ixxiv PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



separated by an intermediate diluvial period, during which the gla- 

 ciers, which had not only covered up a great portion of Switzerland, 

 but the vast lowlands of Northern Europe, disappeared even in the 

 principal valleys of the Alps to a height of at least 3000 or 4000 

 feet above the present level of the sea. And this diluvial period 

 after a long duration was again succeeded by a second glacial period, 

 during which the alpine valleys were again taken possession of by 

 the glaciers, though to a much more limited extent, the great glacier 

 of the Rhone not extending beyond Geneva, and standing at Vevay 

 full 2500 feet lower than the first glacier. The principal proof of 

 this statement the author finds in a section discovered by himself in 

 the neighbourhood of Clarens, where the superincumbent diluvium, 

 7 or 9 feet thick, forming part of a terrace 100 feet above the lake, 

 rests upon the glacial deposit at least 40 feet thick, consisting of com- 

 pact blue clay containing worn and scratched alpine boulders, thus 

 showing the existence of the first glacial period before the diluvial 

 drift was deposited, while evidence of the second glacial period is 

 found in the abundant deposits left on the diluvial terraces. 



The subject is one of great interest, but at the same time of consider- 

 able difficulty, nor is it quite clear how the author makes out that 

 the deposits of the second glacial period have been left on the dilu- 

 vial terraces which overlie the first glacial deposits, when he endea- 

 vours to show that the second glacier stood so much lower than the 

 first. 



Prof. F. J. Pictet has published during the past year the third 

 number of his work called ' Materiaux pour la Paleontologie Suisse,' or 

 Collection of Monographs of the fossils of the Jura and of the Alps. 

 It contains, 1st, the Eocene vertebrated animals of the Canton de 

 Vaud, and 2ndly, the fossils of the Aptian system, giving in the first 

 instance the bivalves and univalves. We may congratulate ourselves 

 on the progress of a work which, by uniting together all the fossil re- 

 mains of Switzerland, with good descriptions and accurate engravings, 

 will be of great assistance in promoting the study of Palseontology. 



Germany. — It was stated in my address last year that Sir R. 

 Murchison and Mr. Morris had communicated to the Geological 

 Section of the British Association at Liverpool a short notice of their 

 observations on the palaeozoic rocks of the North of Germany, viz. in 

 the Hartz and Thuringerwald ; and that a full account of them 

 would shortly be laid before this Society. This plpdge has been 

 fully redeemed, and we have had laid before us from these gentlemen 

 a most interesting and valuable communication "On the Palaeozoic 

 and their associated rocks of the Thiiringerwald and the Hartz." 

 Although I then gave a slight sketch of some of their observations, 

 I cannot now omit giving a short summary of the recapitulation with 

 which the authors have concluded this important paper. 



They have shown that of the two districts described, the Thiiringer- 

 wald alone exhibits any of the oldest sedimentary rocks, the strata 

 containing the lowest Silurian fossils being there underlaid, as in 

 Great Britain and Bohemia, bv vast masses of slate and sandstone, in 



