1885.] Geology and Paleontology. 295 
upper trias exist, the latter commencing with well-developed beds 
of red and white dolomite. At Cape Taormina Rhætic beds are 
seen. The various stages of the Lias can be identified by their 
fossils, and the series is completed by the chalk, which appears 
only at one spot (Coll. Re. 
Silurian —At a recent meeting of the Paris Academy of 
Sciences, M. Daubrée called attention to the discovery, by M. 
Buneau, in coal belonging to the Lower Carboniferous, of tne re- 
mains of a species of Equisetum, a genus not previously known 
to occur below the middle coal measures, The remains of the stems 
occurred with various Diplothemema and Calymmatotheca, which 
proved the stage to be the upper grauwacke. The species has 
been named Æ. antiquum. A. Milne-Edwards announced 
the discovery in the Silurian of Scotland, of a new scorpion abso- 
lutely identical with that which had previously been found by M. 
Lindstrom in the upper Silurian of the island of Gothland. The 
only difference is one of sex, the one being male, and the other 
female. M. Brongniart recently called the attention of the Paris 
Academy of Sciences to a fragment of rock belonging to the 
middle Silurian, and containing: the impression of an insect’s 
wing, that of a cockroach, differing from all other blattidian 
wings, recent or fossil, in the length of the anal nerve, and the 
width of the axillary field. M. Brongniart called this ancestor ot 
the cockroaches Paleoblattina penvillei,and stated that it was 
more ancient than the scorpion found by M. Lindstrom, since it 
belonged to the middle instead of the upper Silurian. The in- 
sect fauna of Carboniferous age is already known to be large; 
the beds of Commentry alone have furnished thirteen hundred. 
Carboniferous —M. Ed. Bureau states that the basin of the 
Lower Loire is probably the only part of France which presents 
at once the three stages of the Carboniferous formation. The 
great Silurian depression between Brittany an La Vendee is 
formed into parallel furrows, of which the central contains coal of 
Surassic-—M. Cotteau has presented to the Paris Academy 
central Apennines. 
