Igneous Rocks — Paleontology. 519 



We have a notice by the Rev. W. B. Clarke of a shower of ashes 

 that fell on board the Roxburgh off the Cape de Verd islands in 

 February, 1839,- the cause of which was not apparent. The sails 

 were covered with a fine powder, resembling the ashes of Vesuvius, 

 which was probably derived from an eruption in the Cape de Verd 

 group. 



PALEONTOLOGY. 



In the department of Palaeontology Prof. Owen has, during the 

 past year, contributed many papers, with his usual zeal and ability, 

 to the elucidation of this most essential and perhaps most generally 

 interesting branch of our subject. At the head of these we must 

 place his determination of a tooth and part of a jaw of a fossil mon- 

 key, of the genus macacus, with part of the jaw of an opossum, and 

 the tooth of a bat, in Eocene strata of the English tertiary forma- 

 tion. These remains were found at Kingston, near Woodbridge in 

 Suffolk, by Mr. Colchester, in strata which Mr. Lyell has referred 

 to the London clay ; thus proving the existence of quadrumanous, 

 marsupial, and cheiropterous animals in this country during the 

 Eocene period. We have now evidence of fossil Quadrumana in 

 the tertiary formations, not only of India and Brazil, but also of 

 France and England ; respecting which Mr. Owen has observed, 

 that they appear under four of the existing modifications of the 

 quadrumanous type : viz. the tailless ape (Hylobates), found fossil in 

 the South of France ; the gentle vegetable-feeding Semnopithecus, 

 found fossil in India ; the more petulant and omnivorous Macacus, 

 found in Norfolk ; and the platyrrhine Callithrix, found in Brazil. 

 This genus is peculiar to America, and its extinct species is of 

 more than double the stature of any that exists at the present day 

 This geographical distribution of Quadrumana adds further weight 

 to the arguments derived from the tropical aspect of vegetable re- 

 mains that abound in the London clay at Sheppy, showing that 

 great heat prevailed in the European part of the world, as well as 

 in India and South America, during the Eocene period. 



The probability of high temperature is further corroborated by 

 Mr. Owen's recent recognition of four petrified portions of a large 

 serpent (Palceophis Toliapicus), eleven feet long, and in several 

 points resembling a boa, or python ; and also of a bird allied to 

 the vultures (Liihornis vulturinus), all from the London clay of 

 the Isle of Sheppy ; wherein the occurrence of fossil Crocodilians 

 and Testudinata, and of fossil fruits, having a tropical aspect, allied 

 to cocoa-nuts and many other fruits of palms, has been long known. 

 Can we account for these curious facts without supposing that at 

 the Eocene period of the tertiary epoch, the very clay on which 

 London now stands was in the condition of a nascent spice-island, 

 its shores covered with basking reptiles, and the adjacent lands 

 waving with cardomums and palms, and thuias and cypresses, with 

 monkeys vaulting and gamboling upon their branches, and gigantic 

 serpents entwined around their trunks ; the seas also swarming with 

 sting-rays and saw-fishes, with chimasras and enormous sharks ? for 



