Ixxii PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



to explain the many difficulties with which it is associated, but they 

 observe that these nummulitic beds contain a certain number of 

 species more recent than those of other localities which are generally 

 considered as the type of the Nummulitic formation, and that these 

 more recent species are the most abundant. This has led them to 

 consider these beds as the upper portion of the Nummuhtic forma- 

 tion, and to call them the Upper Nummulitic formation ; and they 

 think that it will turn out eventually that the nummulitic beds here 

 described are more recent than any hitherto known. 



*' Perhaps," they say in conclusion, " it may be supposed that 

 some data are given in this memoir to determine the age of these 

 upper nummulitic beds, and that they should be placed between the 

 sands of Beauchamp and those of Fontainebleau. We consider such 

 a conclusion would be too hasty, and that our work, however con- 

 scientiously carried out, is not of sufficient importance to lead to such 

 a conclusion." The object of the authors was to call attention to 

 new facts, desirous only to be of use in solving the difficulties which 

 they had pointed out. 



In the second volume of the " Memoirs of the Commission for the 

 Geological Map and Description of the Netherlands," is published a 

 list of the fossils found in the tertiary deposits of Guelderland. They 

 have been principally found in variegated marls along the frontiers of 

 Guelderland and Oberyssel, between Miinsterland and Bentheim. 

 The bottom of these marls has not been reached, but they are sup- 

 posed to rest on the chalk which crops out near Bentheim and 

 Miinsterland. They have been penetrated by borings to a depth of 

 seventy yards, and are overlaid by a thick deposit of diluvium, con- 

 sisting of sand and gravel containing fragments of granite and other 

 plutonic rocks, together with others belonging to the primary and 

 secondary periods. 



After giving the list of fossils from these clays, in some of which 

 septaria, gypsum, and iron pyrites are found, the Commissioners con- 

 clude with the follo^;vdng remarks : — " From the geographical po- 

 sition, the mineral composition, and particularly from the fossils, we 

 must conclude that the tertiary formations of Guelderland belong; to 

 the Miocene division of North Germ.any, according to the nomen- 

 clature of Bey rich. When the work of Prof. Bey rich shall be more 

 advanced, we shall see with which of the North German localities the 

 Netherland beds have the greatest connexion ; but it will probably 

 be with those of the marls of Bersenbriick, north of Osnabriick. A 

 great number of the fossils are identical with those of Dumont's 

 Tongrian and Rupelian systems of Belgium (Upper Eocene of Lyell, 

 = Miocene of Beyrich, Hebert, and others) ; but it is remarkable that 

 about a twentieth of them are the same as those of the Scaldisian 

 system of Dumont (the Antwerp crag of Lyell), and these belong to 

 the Pliocene period, a remark which has also been made by Beyrich 

 respecting the fossils found at Bersenbriick." 



It is impossible to overlook the importance of this discovery as 

 affording fresh evidence of the close connexion between the forma- 

 tions of Belgium and North Germany. The occurrence, too, of a 



