1885.] Geology and Paleontology. 793 
n we compare the Gampsonychide with the Syncaride 
(Acanthotelson), we see that both groups have the same number 
of body-segments, and that both lack a carapace; and thus while 
the Gampsonychide are the ancestors of living schizopods, the 
group as a whole probably descended from Acanthotelson, which 
is thus a truly synthetic form, standing in an ancestral relation to 
all the Thoracostraca, while it also suggests that the sessile-eyed 
and stalk-eyed Crustacea may have had a common parentage. 
GEOLOGICAL News.—Si/urian.—Various studies b 
Brogger, upon the Silurian strata of Norway and their contained 
fossils, are published in the Magazin fur Naturvidenskaberne, 
Christiania, 1878—1882-1884, and furnish new data for a compari- 
son between the Scandinavian, German and English Silurian. 
Devonian.—P. Wenjukoff has published (in Russian) a work 
upon the Devonian strata of European Russia, with a table of 
comparison with the beds of Belgium and Eifel. It appears that 
the Russian beds belong to the Middle and Upper Devonian. 
Carboniferous —MM. B. Renault and E. E. Bertrand have 
found incontestable proof of the existence of fungi in Carbonifer- 
ous times. In the tissue of the seed of a conifer of this epo 
(Spherospermum oblongum) the mycelium of a fungus was found, 
consisting of threads which were lengthened out or irregularly 
bunched together, according to the size of the cellules in which 
they were developed. The cellules of the hypla may be entirely 
or totally transformed into sporangia, in the latter case the part 
which touches a sporangium is furnished with a cuticle. Two 
sporangia are often thus separated by a cuticle cellule. The 
sporangia are ovoid, are swollen upon the side of the orifice. 
They are usually empty. The Grilletia are thus remarkable for 
thei rangia without a neck and without an operculum, and 
for their habitat in the seeds of gymnosperms. They must be 
placed near Aphanistis, Catenaria and Ancylistis. The annals 
of the Belgium Royal Museum of Natural History, 1883, contain 
the fourth part of De Koninck’s studies of the fauna of the Car- 
boniferous Limestone of Belgium. This part is devoted to the 
Gastropods. Among new species are numerous Calyptreide, 
four of Helminthochiton, four Dentaliidz and a small Hyolithes. 
Mesozoic.—M. Bleicher (Bull. Soc. Geol. de Fr.) gives a strati- 
graphical study of the iron beds of Lorraine, belonging to the 
Upper Lias and Lower Oolite. From a comparison it appears 
that there is a great agreement between these beds in France and 
Germany and the corresponding ones in England. M. Neu- 
meyer (Denksch. d. kais. Acad. Wien, 1883) contributes his views 
upon climatic zones during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. 
In the first chapter, “Theory of the Climate of the Past,” he com- — 
bats the usual idea that before the beginning of the Tertiary the 
entire earth enjoyed an equable warm temperature through the 
