406 Notices respecting New Books. 



was tactually familiar (or which he had heard) when he saw it per- 

 formed by an intermittent gas-flame. If this be so, and it seems 

 impossible to believe that it is not, then, whatever be the source of 

 the community, the idea of rhythm, that is of succession and dura- 

 tion, is common to the various senses. 



Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 

 1882. Vol. XVI. 8vo. 1883. 

 Proe. A. Liyersidge, the editor, gives some valuable notices of the 

 Baratta and Bingera Meteorites (with plates illustrating appearance 

 and structure) ; also of some Eocks of New South Wales, namely 

 some limestones and argillaceous rocks, and granites, syenites, por- 

 phyries, felsite, dolerite, basalt, greenstone,and trachyte, with several 

 microphotographs ; and of some miscellaneous rock-specimens from 

 New Britain and New Ireland. The Eev. J. E. Tenison-Woods 

 treats of the Hawkesbury Sandstone, which constitutes much of 

 the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, and which is conspicuous in 

 Sydney Harbour at the Heads, and on the banks of the Hawkes- 

 bury Biver. He argues with great force and clearness that it is 

 an seolian formation, with the intercalated deposits of lagoons and 

 morasses, and indications of old streams and their deposits, and of 

 the results of their action on the beds through which they flowed. The 

 nature and characters of seolian formations, and of the sandy desert- 

 tracts in different parts of the world, are carefully considered, and 

 brought to bear on the origin and history of the Hawkesbury Sand- 

 stone ; and the causes of its irregular layers, its ferruginous beds, 

 its gravel, and its conglomerates, receive explanation in turn. The 

 existence of a wide arid region in Australia in Mesozoic times, 

 while to the N. and N.W. there was a Cretaceous sea, and that 

 volcanic outbursts succeeded and altered the drainage and probably 

 the climate, are suggestions advanced by the author, and supported 

 bv him in the interesting discussion, of considerable length, which 

 follows. 



Mr. Tenison-Woods also describes and figures some Carboni- 

 ferous marine fossils from Wollongong &c, and some Mesozoic 

 fossils from the Palmer Biver, Queensland (pis. 7-10). He further 

 gives an account (with pis. 11 & 12) of some Carboniferous plant- 

 remains from Central Queensland. 



Mr. H. C. Bussell's paper on Tropical Bains (with six diagram- 

 maps of New South Wales and its rainfall) will be of great interest 

 to meteorologists, so also his Abstract of the Meteorological Obser- 

 vations at Sydney for 1882, and his Bainfall-map for the same 

 year. 



The papers on the Aborigines of New Holland (New South 

 "Wales) by Messrs. J. Manning and J. Frazer are full of interesting 

 observations on the habits and thoughts of these decaying tribes ; 

 and the chemical analysis of the ashes of some Epiphytic Orchids, 

 by Mr. W. A. Dixon, completes the list of the varied and useful 

 communications made to the Society in 1882, and published in this 

 volume of the Journal. 



