34 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



spheroidal, and in some places columnar Basalt, — a study to the Victorian 

 geologist, little, if any, less instructive than the trap- surmounted hills of 

 Ardeche or the volcanic district of Auvergne. 

 Melbourne, September 9, 1863. 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



The G-eaham Shoal. — Several notices have lately appeared in the 

 ' Times ' upon the re-discovery of Graham Shoal, off the coast of Sicily, 

 and lying nearly in the track of the mail-steamers running between Mar- 

 seilles, Malta, and Alexandria. There had been for several years rumours 

 that the shoal had sunk to such a degree as to be no longer dangerous to 

 shipping. To verify this, her Majesty's ship Argus, Captain Ingram, was 

 sent in October, 1861, and employed for several days in searching for the 

 shoal, without success ; and from the report of her survey, supported by 

 the opinions of the fishermen of Sciacca and Girgenti, it appeared that the 

 accumulation of cinders and scoriae that had been heaped up hy an erup- 

 tion of a submarine volcano, and formed the shoal, had gradually dis- 

 persed. 



When Etna was reported last summer to be in a state of eruption, Mr. 

 Almona, of the Peninsular and Oriental steamship Valetta, mentally 

 connected the fact with Graham's Shoal, considering the same causes that 

 were influencing the larger mountain might also affect the hidden crater, 

 and he determined to give the old spot of the shoal a wider berth in passing. 

 The late survey of the ' Growler ' has found the bank again ; and whether 

 the ' Argus's 5 search was in fault, or that it has newly again come to the 

 surface, must be a matter of surmise. 



Ceetaceous Teeebeatul^;. — One of the species described by Mr. Lan- 

 kester in your November number (T. Moutoniana, D'Orb.) is a common 

 shell in the Lower Greensand of Godalming. Of the other (T. depressa, 

 Lam.), I found a fine specimen at Shanklin, in 1861. The specimen figured 

 on PI. XXL Fig. 5, scarcely, however, represents T. depressa, as in that 

 species the deltidium is in one piece. — C. J. A. Meyee. 



Wasium has been described by M. Bahr as existing in Norwegian 

 orthite, in that of the island of Bsenshohni, as well as in the orthite of 

 Ytterby. He finds it in the state of oxide associated with silica, alumina, 

 iron, yttria, ceria, didymia, lime, manganese, etc., but these minerals 

 hardly ever contain more than one per cent, of wasa, or the oxide of 

 Wasium. A paper by M. Nickles is recorded in the Comptes Eendus of 

 the French Academy, in which the existence of Wasium, as a simple body, 

 is disputed, and reasons assigned for believing Wasium to be only a com- 

 plex oxide, or yttria coloured with a little oxide of didymium or terbium. 



Sections on the Lewisham and Tunbkidge Railway. — Dear Sir, 

 — In the course of last summer a tunnel was commenced on the new line 

 of railway from Lewisham to Tunbridge, in the neighbourhood of Elmsted 

 Lane, Bromley, where a very interesting and highly fossiliferous deposit 

 has been brought to light. 



A considerable tract of country around Bromley is occupied by a thick 

 deposit of rounded flint pebbles in sand, concreted portions of which have 

 long been known as the " Bromley Oyster Conglomerate." 



