476 Chronicles of Science. [July, 



not the representative of the ' gres dit infra-liasique,' and that while 

 the fossils of the former are altogether Liassic in character, those of 

 the latter are almost entirely Triassic ; and, moreover, he states that 

 there is less analogy between these two faunas than between the fauna 

 of the Hettange beds and that of the zone of Gryphcea arcuata above 

 them. In view of the facts he enumerates and the inferences to 

 which they have led him, M. Levallois suggests that the term ' infra- 

 liassic ' should be abandoned, as far as concerns the zone of Avicula- 

 contorta, and that the term ' supra-keuperian ' should be used in its 

 stead. 



The geological results of the voyage round the world of the 

 Austrian frigate ' Novara,' are being published with praiseworthy 

 rapidity and in a remarkably liberal style. The ' First Part of the 

 First Volume of the Geological Report ' has just appeared, and it 

 alone is a quarto volume of 274 pages, illustrated by six coloured maps, 

 several chromo-lithograph views and sections, sixty-six woodcuts, and 

 a beautifully executed j>hotographed frontispiece, showing the glacier- 

 district round Mount Cook, in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. 

 The whole of this book is taken up with a description of the geology 

 of New Zealand, the fossils having been described in several mono- 

 graphs, which have also been very recently published.* 



The author of the " Geology " (Dr. Hochstetter) remarks that at 

 present it is impossible to refer the strata of these islands to their 

 exact European equivalents, but that he believes all the great forma- 

 tions known to us to be represented in them, from the oldest meta- 

 morphic rocks to the youngest sedimentary beds. 



In the Southern (middle) Island, metamorphic rocks are exten- 

 sively developed, and are evidently of great antiquity ; then Dr. Haast 

 has found fossils which he considers Silurian, in the slates of 

 Mount Arthur (Nelson), and others in the Southern Alps, most pro- 

 bably Devonian. Next to these formations comes, in point of age, the 

 oldest coal-formation, which contains plants corresponding with those 

 of New South Wales, and is, therefore, most probably Palaeozoic. 

 The ages of the Secondary rocks admit of more exact determination, 

 the fossils having been examined by European palaeontologists in one 

 of the parts of the " Palaeontology " just enumerated. Their researches 

 have proved the existence of the Trias near Nelson, one member of the 

 formation (the Richmond sandstone) having yielded a variety of 

 Monotis salinaria in immense numbers, Halobia Lommeli, Wissm., 

 Mytilus prdblematicus, Zitt., Spririgera Wreyi, Suess, and other fossils 

 of a less distinctive character. The occurrence of Jurassic rocks had 

 before been stated by two or three observers, and Professor Owen 

 four years ago described the remains of Plesiosaurus australis from 

 beds near Waipara, inferred to belong to that period. Dr. Hoch- 

 stetter gives now a number of most interesting details, especially 



* ' Fossile Mollusken und Eckinodermen aus Neu-Seeland.' By Dr. Zittel, 

 Fr. Ritter von Hauer, and Professor Suess. ' Die Forarriniferen-Fauna des Ter- 

 tiaren Griinsandsteines der Orakei-Bay, bei Auckland.' By Herr F. Karrer. 

 ' Fossile Bryozoen aus dem tertiaren Griinsandsteine der Orakei Bay, bei Auckland.' 

 By Dr. F. Stoliczka. 



