228 Geological Society. 



these rocks have been made in the rail way- cuttings, and important 

 gold-veins have been opened up. The Laurentian rocks present a 

 remarkable uniformity of structure over all the vast territory ex- 

 tending from Labrador to the Winnipeg river, and where they reap- 

 pear in the mountains of British Columbia. They are also similar 

 to those of South America and of Europe; arid there was on the 

 table a collection of Laurentian rocks from Assouan, in Upper 

 Egypt, made by the author in the past winter, which showed the 

 reappearance of the same mineral characters there. In Egypt there 

 is also an overlying crystalline series, corresponding in some respects 

 with the Huronian. The Huronian rocks west of Lake Superior 

 are, however, more crystalline than those of Lake Huron, and may 

 be of greater age. 



The Palaeozoic rocks are exposed in places on the western side 

 of the old crystalline rocks near the Red River, and show a remark- 

 able union and intermixture of Lower and Upper Silurian forms, or 

 rather, perhaps, a transition from the one fauna to the other in a 

 very limited thickness of beds. The collections of Mr. Panton, of 

 Winnipeg, were referred to in this connexion. 



The Cretaceous and Eocene beds of the plains were then noticed, 

 and certain sections showing the coal-bearing series described ; and 

 comparisons were instituted between the Cretaceous and Eocene 

 succession in Canada and that in the United States and elsewhere. 



The Pleistocene drift deposits constitute a conspicuous feature on 

 the western prairies. Along the railway, Laurentian, Huronian, 

 and Palaeozoic boulders from the east may be seen all the way to the 

 Rocky Mountains, near which they become mixed with stones from 

 these mountains themselves. The vast amount of this drift from 

 the east and north-east, and the great distance to which it has been 

 carried, as well as the elevation above the sea, are very striking. 

 The great belt of drift known as the Missouri Coteau is one of the 

 most remarkable features of the region. It was described in some 

 detail where crossed by the railway, and it was shown that it must 

 represent the margin of an ice-laden sea, and not a land-moraine, 

 and that its study has furnished a key to the explanation of the drift 

 deposits of the plains, and of the so-called " Terminal Moraine," 

 which has been traced by the geologists of the United States, from 

 the Coteau round the basin of the Great Lakes to the Atlantic. 



2. " On the Dyas (Permian) and Trias of Central Europe and 

 the true divisional line of these two formations." By the Rev. 

 A. Irving, B.Sc, B.A., E.G.S. 



The author, having shown (in previous papers, which appeared in 

 the ' Geological Magazine ' during the year 1882) the inapplicability 

 of the " Permian System " of Murchison to the British Postcarboni- 

 ferous rocks, and having had reasons for doubting the supposed 

 conformity between the Zechstein and the Bunter in Central 

 Europe (on which Murchison and his collaborateurs have laid so 



