518 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



Chalk, and Greensand," in which he draws attention to certain minute objects 

 often found in the cavities of the tubes of fossil Teredines, but the origin of 

 which is still unexplained. 



Mr. Geors-e E. Roberts has contributed a " Notice of the Plant-bed cut 

 into by the Severn Yalley Branch of the West Midland Railway," the speci- 

 mens met with being chiefly carboniferous ferns of the genera Pecopteris, 

 Neucopteris, and Sphenopteris. Of the last a new species " with very small 

 but most elegant pinnules," resembling a delicate form of Hymenophyllum, 

 from New Zealand, was abundant. 



The Wood war dites Robertsii, Morris, was first met with in these shales. 



A long paper by Mr. Gray " On the Geology of the Isle of Portland," is 

 illustrated by one of those pieces of hacked wood far too common in modern 

 geological books. Of the short comings of the paper itself we are disposed 

 to speak lightly, for the sake of the spirit in which it is penned, but there is 

 one part to which we hope the author will devote more accurate attention. 

 After speaking of the bone-fissures in the Portland stone, he adds : — 



" Graves are frequently met with on various parts of the island, and from the 

 discovery of vases, coins, and other articles in them, are acknowledged to be 

 of Roman origin. These graves are generally sunk down into the calcareous 

 slate of the Purbeck beds, and the body was deposited within a case, rudely 

 formed of unhewn stones or slates — without the intervention of a coffin — the 

 earth being filled in upon a covering of similar material. 



" It would appear that the human remains are only found in fissures beneath 

 the calcareous slate, so that it is highly probable that the weight of the earth, 

 in the above instances, caused the heretofore undisturbed layer of slate between 

 the graves and open fissures to give way, and launch its contents into the space 

 below. Captain Manning, Her Majesty's Lieutenant of Portland, and resident 

 magistrate, has in his cabinet at Portland Castle, a good collection of fissure- 

 bones, skulls, and other human remains, as well as the bones of the deer, boar, 

 and other animals, found in fissures in the central quarries, and therefore below 

 the calcareous slate. In a cabinet, in the office of the Commanding Royal 

 Engineer, Yern Port, there are also several specimens of bones, the latter 

 having been found on the Yern Hill, where the calcareous slate is not deve- 

 loped. These bones were not accompanied by human remains. The fissure- 

 bones of Portland are generally found in good preservation, usually separate, 

 but often cemented together by carbonate of lime, the shells of land snails 

 being rarely associated with them. In some of the fissures, passed through 

 by the Yern Ditch excavation, there were discovered numbers of 

 shells, very delicate, yet well preserved, and similar to those described 

 as common in the Loess of the Yalley of the Rhine, viz., Helix ple- 

 bium, Helix nemoralis, and Cyclostoma elegans. Numbers of them were 

 detached, but they were principally cemented together with broken pieces of 

 stone, and cherty fragments, into a concretionary mass, by a filtration of car- 

 bonate of lime crystallized, and encrusting each. The specimens obtained 

 were thirty feet from the surface." 



We confess we do not clearly comprehend what the author means. If he 

 intends to say that the human bones are older than calcareous slate, we deci- 

 dedly think he is wrong. On the other hand, we do not see the value of 

 whether a fissure extends down through other strata to the calcareous shale or 

 whether it does not. 



The subject of human remains has a high interest just now, and Mr. Gray 

 should give us the exact particulars of these bone-fissures and their contents. 



Mr. Curtis contributes a note " On the Gault of Alice Holt Eorest," and 

 Mr. Pickering, Mr. Lionel Woodward, and other gentlemen have contributed 

 other papers on different subjects, the series concluding with an illustrated one 



