Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles, 553 



Of sixteen determinable species, only three (or 19 per cent.) are 

 now known to exist, the remainder being new species ; but Mr. 

 Jenkins showed that the fossils were probably more recent than this 

 small percentage of living species would appear to indicate, in con- 

 sequence of there having occurred an emigration eastwards of at 

 least a part of the Southern- and Middle-European Miocene and 

 Eocene fauna. This emigration was proved by the identity of many 

 species which occur fossil in the European Miocene, and now exist 

 in the Eastern seas, and also by certain genera being represented in 

 that formation and the Eocene, and confined in the living state to 

 the Indo-Pacific region. 



One of the Javan species being closely related to Vicarya Ver~ 

 neuilii from Scinde, the author was induced to investigate the claims 

 of the Nummulitic Formation of India to be considered altogether 

 of Eocene date; and he inferred that there was a probability of 

 some of the beds belonging to a less remote period. This inference 

 was supported by Dr. Duncan in a Note upon the Scindian fossil 

 Corals, many of which (unnamed by M. Haime) were shown to 

 have Miocene and recent, but not Eocene, affinities. 



Mr. Jenkins next referred to the diminutive character of many 

 of these Javan fossils, and then reviewed the opinions of former 

 writers upon the Tertiary Formation of that island, coming to the 

 conclusion that the Mount-Sela shells were probably of late Miocene 

 date, and that the plants described by Dr. Goeppert were probably 

 newer than the Eocene. 



The fossil Coral from Mount Sela was shown by Dr. Duncan, in a 

 Note to this paper, to be allied to Astrcea quadrangular is, Edwards 

 and Haime, the habitat of which is unknown. 



LXXVIII. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



ON THE COMPOSITION OF THE WATER OF THE DEAD SEA. 

 BY M. ROUX. 



HPHE water was taken from the northern part of the Dead Sea,not far 

 •*- from the mouth of the Jordan, on the 24th of April 1862. It was 

 slightly alkaline to turmeric paper, became of a red colour by the 

 addition of a few drops of solution of logwood, and when heated for 

 some minutes was not appreciably turbid. The residue after evapo- 

 ration, heated to a tolerably high temperature in a retort, gave a 

 white sublimate which had all the characters of sal-ammoniac. 



Treated by Boussingault's method, the water of the Dead Sea 

 gave appreciable quantities of ammonia. Carefully evaporated at 

 100° C, 100 grms. left a greyish- white residue weighing 23*576 grms. 

 This, when deprived of its water of crystallization by heating it to 

 dull redness for some time, and allowing for the hydrochloric acid 

 liberated by the decomposition of the chloride of magnesium, weighed 

 20* 60 grms. The analysis showed that this residue was constituted 

 as follows :— 



Phil. Mag. S. 4. No. 178. Suppl Vol. 26. 2 



