24-0 Geological Society : — 



Prof. Agassiz, to the effect that he supposed the northern hemisphere 

 to have been covered in glacial times from the pole to the equator 

 by a solid cap of ice. He described his observations made during 

 33 years, and especially those of last summer, when he travelled 

 from England past the North Cape to Archangel, and thence by 

 land to the Caucasus, Crimea, Greece, and the South of Europe. 

 His principal results were as follows : — In advancing southwards 

 through Russia a range of low drift hills occurs about 60° N. lat., 

 which may perhaps form part of a circular terminal moraine left 

 by a retreating polar ice -cap ; large grooved and polished stones of 

 northern origin reach 55° N. lat. at Nijni Novgorod, but further 

 east and south no such stones could be seen. The highest drift 

 beds along the whole course of the Volga seem to have been 

 arranged by water moving southwards. In America northern 

 boulders are lost about 39°, in Germany about 55°, and in Eastern 

 Russia about 56° N. lat., where the trains end and fine gravel and 

 sand cover the solid rocks. Ice-action, in the form either of gla- 

 ciers or of icebergs, is necessary to account for the transport of 

 large stones over the plains, and the action of moving water to 

 account for drift carried further south. There are no indications 

 of a continuous solid ice-cap flowing southward over plains in 

 Europe and America to, or nearly to, the Equator ; but a great deal 

 was to be found on shore to prove ancient ocean circulation of 

 equatorial and polar currents, like those which now move in the 

 Atlantic, and much to prove the former existence of very large 

 local ice-systems in places where no glaciers now exist. 



2. " Note regarding the occurrence of Jade in the Karakash 

 Valley, on the southern borders of Turkestan." By Dr. Ferdinand 

 Stoliczka, F.G.S., Naturalist attached to the Yarkund Mission. 



In this paper the author described the jade-mines on the right 

 bank of the Karakash river formerly worked by the Chinese. There 

 are about 120 holes in the side of the hill ; and these at a little 

 distance look like pigeon-holes. The rocks are a thin-bedded 

 rather sandy syenitic gneiss, mica- and hornblende -schists, traversed 

 by veins of a white mineral, apparently zeolitic, which in turn are 

 traversed by veins of jade. 



April 29, 1874. — John Evans, Esq., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. " On the Gault of Folkestone." By F. G. H. Price, Esq., F.G.S. 



The author divided the Gault into two great sections, Upper and 

 Lower Gault, which he again subdivided into eleven well-defined 

 zones, mostly named after characteristic Ammonites. Each of these 

 zones or beds is numbered, commencing with No. XI., the zone of 

 Ammonites interruptus, which bed forms the base of the Gault, 

 reposing upon the Folkestone beds of the Upper Neocomian. 



He found the thickness of the deposit at Copt Point to be 99 feet 

 4 inches. 



