120 Chronicles of Science. [Jan.. 



especially as several of the others are of too technical a nature to be 

 dealt with here. 



In the first paper in the Journal, Mr. Boyd Dawkins grapples 

 with the question of the origin of our domestic races of cattle, which 

 he believes can only be solved by a careful examination of each of 

 the three European fossil animals, namely, (1) the great Urus, Bos 

 TJrus of Julius Caesar ; (2) the small Short- horn, Bos longifrons of 

 Professor Owen ; and (3) the Bison, Bos bison of Pliny. He 

 confines himself now to a consideration of the Urus, and after a 

 careful statement of the historical evidence on the subject, he infers 

 that this animal " probably lingered in the wilder parts of conti- 

 nental Europe till at least the sixteenth century."' 



Mr. Whitaker's paper " On the Lower London Tertiaries of 

 Kent/' deserves especial notice, on account of its value as a contri- 

 bution to systematic Geology. Hitherto, over the whole of the 

 London Basin, Mr. Prestwich'a classification has been adopted, 

 namely, in descending order, (1) Basement-bed of the London Clay ; 

 (2) Woolwich and Beading series; and (3) Thanet Sands. Mr. 

 Whitaker shows that the beds of East Kent (TTpnor, Becnlvers, &c), 

 until now considered identical with the Basement-bed of the London 

 Clay at Lewisharn, &c, belong to a lower series, intermediate 

 between this Basement-bed and the Woolwich and Beading series. 

 To this new division he gives the name Oldhaven Beds ; and he 

 refers to it also the pebble-bed of Blackheath, Abbey Wood, &c, 

 which have been referred to the same division as that of Lewisharn, 

 as well as some sandy pebble-beds in West Kent, hitherto considered 

 to form part of the underlying Woolwich and Beading series. 



The paper is extremely valuable for containing so many facts 

 bearing on the changes of the various members of the divisions 

 of the Lower London Tertiaries, in passing from east to west. 

 We will just mention one instance. The only constant portion 

 of the Thanet Beds is its lowest member, — the base-bed. In 

 West Kent this is succeeded by the thick mass of unfossiliferous 

 sands so familiar to metropolitan geologists; these sands, how- 

 ever, thin out towards the east, until, near Canterbury, they 

 entirely disappear ; and the base- bed is then succeeded by a band 

 of loamy clay, winch thins out towards the west beneath the 

 member just noticed. But in the eastern division of -Kent, the bulk 

 of the Thanet Beds consists of two fossiliferous members, neither of 

 which extends farther east than Bochester, beyond which the series 

 is entirely represented by the base-bed and the great mass of un- 

 fossiliferous sands already noticed. Here, therefore, is the explana- 

 tion of the fact that fossils are found in one district and not in the 

 other, — the beds are not the same, as has hitherto been supposed. 



Geologists seem to have accepted with passive submission, and 

 with one accord, Mr. Prestwich's conclusions as to the relative a?es. 



