490 General Notes. [May, 
stratum of the argillaceous flint-bed which everywhere underlies 
the Beauce limestone, and therefore is early miocene or even 
eocene. Only two flints were found which bore the apparent 
impress of human handiwork, but the splitting which has been 
attributed to fire, was more common. The great majority of the 
members concluded that, considering the enormous extent of the 
beds, the rarity of the peculiar flints found and their unknown 
use, and the possibility that the effects, like those of fire, were pro- 
duced by some unknown natural cause, there was nothing to war- 
rant a belief in the existence of man at so remote a period. 
A map of the environs of Blois constructed for the geological 
map of France, and presented to the Association, shows that 
the Beauce limestone was deposited in a lake, while the clay, 
with flints, passes beneath the limestone and forms the borders of 
the lake. 
GEOLOGICAL Notres.—General—It appears from Dr. R. D. M. 
Verbeek’s atlas and description of Sumatra, between 0° 14” and 
1° S. lat. and 99° 45’ and 101° 25 E. long., that productive coal 
is wanting in the explored district, and that mesozoic beds are 
also lacking. The Eocene lies upon the Carboniferous, and the 
newer Tertiary strata appear to be wanting in the same area. 
The conclusions arrived at concerning the geology of the island, 
are that at the end of the Eocene or beginning of the Miocene, an 
eruption of andesite from fissures occurred in Sumatra, Java an 
Borneo, contemporaneous with the uplifting of the highlands of 
Padang. In Bencoolen, Lower Miocene beds overlie this andesite, 
and at the same spot Middle and Upper Miocene and Pliocene 
strata also occur. The Pliocene marl shows no trace of newer 
eruptive materials, while the overlying Quaternary consists of 
clay and andesite material. In Java, also, the Eocene strata are 
broken through by andesites and basalts, and the probably Mio- 
cene strata which overlie the orbitoides limestone contain andesite 
materials. The great craters are more modern than the fissure- 
poured andesite, and between them intervened a period of com- 
parative calm. The commencement of the activity of these vol- 
canoes cannot be fixed with certainty, but was probably nearly 
quite at the end of the Tertiary period. 
Carboniferous —M. Dieulafait has conducted a series of experi- 
ments upon recent Equisetacez, with a view to ascertain the rea- 
son why coal is always impregnated with sulphur, and why coal 
ashes do not contain free carbonates of the alkalies, such as were 
general in the ashes of recent plants. He finds that modern 
Equisetaceze contain a proportion of sulphuric acid very much 
in excess of that contained by other recent plants, and arrives 
at the conclusion that, as the flora of the Coal Measures was 
a largely composed of Equisetacez, it is to them that the great ` 
_ quantity of sulphur and sulphate of lime is due. The absence of 
