CORRESPONDENCE. 



9' 



Professor Buckland stated as his opinion, that the mass of matter of which 

 the Island of Portland is composed on drying cracked and so formed 

 these fissures. But how is it these fissures did not extend up to the sur- 

 face-soil, where the evaporation must have been greatest, and where there 

 appears no trace of them? Several teeth and a tusk of an elephant have 

 recently been discovered in the dirt-bed of the Portland quarries." 



The truth of these facts mentioned in the ' Current Notes,' which, in all 

 material circumstances, are similar to the facts mentioned in the ' Times,' 

 has been confirmed to me by Captain Manning himself, who has several 

 times shown me, at Portland Castle, human and other bones, and amongst 

 them those of the elephant, which have been discovered in the fissures of 

 the Portland rock. Captain Manning stated that these fissures did not 

 extend to the surface of the rock. 



The truth of these geological facts may be easily ascertained by any 

 person visiting Portland Island. 



If human and other bones have been found in fissures which have no 

 communication with the surface of the earth and are covered with solid 

 stone, must they not have entered the rock before its consolidation, and, 

 consequently, when it formed part of the bed of the sea? And must not, 

 therefore, the men and animals to whom the remains belonged have inhabited 

 some other dry land, which probably no longer exists ? And does not this 

 render probable the opinion of M. Cuvier, expressed in the following 

 words : — " I conclude, with MM. De Luc and Dolomieu, that if there be 

 any fact well established in geology it is this, that the surface of our 

 globe has suffered a great and sudden revolution, the period of which 

 cannot be dated further back than five or six thousand years. This revo- 

 lution has, on one hand, engulfed and caused to disappear the countries 

 formerly inhabited by men and the animal species at present best known ; 

 and, on the other, has laid bare the bed of the last ocean, thus Converting 

 its channel into the present habitable earth "? 



The period of this revolution, which MM. Cuvier, De Luc, and Dolo- 

 mieu believe to have been effected by an interchange of land and sea, 

 synchronizes very nearly with the one usually assigned to the Mosaic 

 Deluge. Your obedient servant, 



Thos. D. Allen. 



Rectory, North Cerney, Cirencester, Jan. 23, 1863. 



Glyptolepis — Dura Den. 



Dear Sir, — The Rev. Mr. Mitchell, in his communication regarding 

 this genus in your number for February, omits to mention that the dis- 

 covery that what formerly used to be named Iluloptychius Flemingi is 

 in realit} 7- a species of Glyptolepis, is by no means quite new. 



The attention of Professor Huxley, Mr. Robert Walker, of St. Andrew's, 

 and myself, having been directed to the Dura Den fishes, in consequence 

 of rather extensive excavations in the Den, which, through the kindness 

 of Mrs. Dalgleish, w T ere allowed to be made in the summer of 1861, for 

 furnishing specimens to the St. Andrew's Museum, we seem indepen- 

 dently to have arrived at that conclusion. Towards the end of last 

 summer, in writing me, of date 21th September, 1Si*>2, Mr. "Walker states. 

 "What was rather a curious coincidence," etc., " 1 left the Museum with 

 a pretty strong conviction that the scales of lIoloptychiiLS Flemingi and 

 Glyptolepis appeared to be one and the same, when here comes your letter 



