PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 



379 



heen pouring forth tlieir sulpliur, and meteoric stones (found by Berzelius 

 and others to contain two-thirds at least of all the elements) fall fre- 

 quent to the earth ; the actively combining oxygen forms with these products 

 sulphate of iron, staining red the crag, and in our oldest rocks deposit minera . 

 veins and beds of tin ; the oxygen absorbed, reducing action now ensues, and 

 the metallic salts of copper, iron, sUver, lead, and zinc form, in the veins of 

 various geologic age, metallic sulphide, just in the order of their differing solu- 

 bility or disposition for each other ; last of all, the noble metals platinum and 

 gold, refusmg to combine with such as these, are found in drifted sands with 

 the more ancient streams of tin. 



But now the elemental strife increases, some of the openings to our caves are 

 closed, bone breccias are formed, the glacial or boulder-drift and clay conceal 

 the mouths of others, and at length the earth is without form and void, the 

 waters gain the mastery, and over them in darkness moves alone the Spirit of 

 their Great Creator. 



PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 



Geological Society op London. — January 18, 1860. 



1. "Notice of some Sections of the Strata near Oxford." By John Phillips, 

 M.A., LL.D., E.il.S., Pres. G.S. &c. 



Prom the Yorkshire coast to that of Dorset, evidence of unconformity be- 

 tween the Oolitic and the Cretaceous strata is readily observed. This is 

 especially seen in the neighbourhood of Oxford, where it is difficult to trace 

 out correctly the limits of the Lower Cretaceous beds. The Oolitic rocks 

 having been deposited whilst the relative position of the land and sea was being 

 changed, many of the deposits are subject to local limitation; thus the Coral- 

 line, Oolitic, and the Calc-grit die out rapidly, and the Kimmeridge Clay comes 

 to rest on the Oxford Clay. It is on the denuded surface formed by these 

 irregular beds that the Lower Cretaceous beds have been laid dowa. Prom 

 their close propinquity, the sand-beds of different ages are scarcely to be de- 

 fined as Oolitic or Cretaceous, and the occurrence of fossils only can secure 

 their distinction. 



At Culham, near Oxford, a clay-pit is worked, which presents at the top 

 three feet of gravel; next about twenty feet of Gault with its peculiar fossils : 

 then nine feet of greenish sand, with a few fossils ; and lastly, twenty-three 

 feet of Kimmeridge Clay, with its peculiar Ammonites and other fossils. The 

 intervening sand contains 'Peden orbicularis (a Cretaceous fossil), Thracia 

 depressa, Cardium striatulum, and an Ammonite resembling one found in the 

 Kimmeridge Clay. Although this sand at first sight resembles and yields a fossO. 

 found in the Lower Greensand, yet it is probably more closely related to the 

 Kimmeridge Clay. In the railway-section at Culham, the Kimmeridge Clay 

 is overlaid by a sand equivalent to that of Shotover Hill ; whilst the Gault, 

 which lies on it unconformably, with that of the clay-pit. At Toot Baldon 

 also, though Lower Greensand probably caps the hill, yet an Oolitic ammonite 

 was found on the eastward slope of the hill, in a ferruginous sand, lyiag con- 

 formably on the Kimmeridge Clay. Prom these and other instances' the diffi- 

 culty of mapping tlie country geologically may be shown to be very great. 



2. " On the Association of the Lower Members of the Old Bed Sandstone 

 and the Metamorphic Bocks on the Southern Margin of the Grampians." By 

 Prof. B. Harkness, P.B.S., P.G.S. 



The area to which this paper referred is the tract lying between Stonehaven 



