240 Geological Society. 



plants accompany the entire series of the Coal-measures, from the 

 topmost to the lowest seam. The workable seams of coal were 

 stated to be about eleven in number ; and the author remarked that 

 towards the two lowest seams Pachydomus, Bellerophon, &c. 

 w r ere found ; Spirifer abounds near the lowest seam, as well as 

 Fenestella and Orthoceras ; but the Vertebraria and Glossopteris, 

 occur throughout, while Lepidodendron has been found in coarse 

 grits below the Coal-measures. 



Mr. Keene then described a lower fossiliferous limestone uncon- 

 formable to, and much older than, the Coal-measures; and gave 

 a sketch of the geology of the Peak Downs Range, in Queens- 

 land. He concluded by referring to his large collection, sent to 

 England some time ago, and now in the Bath Philosophical Institu- 

 tion, for further evidence of the age of the Coal-beds of New South 

 Wales, which he believes to be as old as those of Europe. 



2. " On the Drift of the East of England and its Divisions." Bv 

 S. V. Wood, jun., Esq., F.G.S. 



In this paper the author divides the Drift of the country extend- 

 ing from Flamborough Head to the Thames, and from the Sea on 

 the East to Bedford and Watford on the West, as follows : — a, the 

 Upper Drift, having a thickness of at least 160 feet still remaining 

 in places, b and c, the Lower Drift, consisting of an Upper series 

 (b), having a thickness from 40 to 70 feet, and a Lower series (c), 

 with a thickness, on the coast near Cromer, of from 200 to 250 feet, 

 but rapidly attenuating inland, c comprises the Boulder-till, and 

 overlying contorted Drift of the Cromer coast, which along that 

 line crop out from below b a few miles inland, c also, in an at- 

 tenuated form, ranges inland as far south as Thetford, and probably 

 to the centre of Suffolk, cropping out from below b by Dalling, Wal- 

 singham, and Weasenham, and appearing at the bottom of the 

 valleys of central Norfolk, b consists of sands, which on the east coast 

 overlie the Fluvio-marine and Red Crag, but change west and south 

 into gravels, which pass under a and crop out again on the north, 

 south, and centre of Norfolk, and west of Suffolk and Essex, ex- 

 tending (but capped in many places by a) over most of Herts. The 

 Upper Drift (a) consists of the widespread Boulder-clay, which 

 -overlaps b, for a small space, on the south-east in Essex, and again at 

 Horseheatb, near Saffron Walden, but overlaps it altogether on the 

 north-west, resting on the secondary rocks in Huntingdonshire and 

 Lincolnshire. The distribution of b indicates it as the deposit of an 

 irregular bay, afterwards submerged by the sea of a, which over- 

 spread a very wide area, a now remains only in detached tracts, 

 having been extensively denuded on its emergence at the beginning 

 of the post-glacial age, so that wide intervals of denudation (sepa- 

 rating the tracts) indicate the post-glacial straits and seas which 

 washed islands formed of a. The author considers the so-called 

 Norwich Crag of the Cromer coast as not of the age of the Fluvio- 

 marine Crag of Norwich, but as an arctic bed forming the base of c, 

 into which it passes up uninterruptedly. The author regards the 

 beds b as identical with the fluvio-marine gravels of Kelsea, near 



