142 



TUE GEOLOGIST, 



ISTo uric acid, nor any other organic matter besides those named, is 

 present. When treated with soda a slight trace of ammonia is evolved, 

 ■w-hich comes probably from the remains of mosses. The latter, whose 

 weight may amount to about 4 or 5 per cent, of the whole, are in so per- 

 fect a state of preservation that the teeth of the seed-caps and indenta- 

 tions of the leaves, as well as the internal tissue of the same, are most dis- 

 tinctly seen under the microscope. 



Tiie bitumen belongs to the species known to mineralogists as MaltJie. 

 It dissolves in alcohol and in caustic soda, but is insoluble in water. When 

 the whole mass is submitted to heat it swells and gives out much smoke, 

 which has rather an agreeable odour. It is impregnated with a small 

 quantity of petroleum, which causes it to stain paper like oil. 



The mineral matter, which amounts to nearly 60 per cent., is cemented 

 together by the bitumen. 



It will be seen by what precedes that this peculiar substance is made up 

 of natural hydrocarbons, which have cemented together a certain amount 

 of mineral matter. It has nothing to do with the animals which infest 

 the wan-ens, except perhaps that by boring into the rock they have given 

 it a means of exit. 



Yours, etc., 



T. L. Phipsox. 



PEOCEEDINGS OP GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 



Geological Society of Lo^vdon. — FehrvMry 21. — Annual General 

 Meeting. — Sir E. I. Murchison, V.P.G.S., in the chair. The Secretary read 

 the Eeports of the Council, of the Museum and Librarj^ Committee, and 

 of the Auditors. The Society was shown to be in a satisfactory state, as 

 to finances and the number of Eellows. The WoUaston Gold Medal was 

 awarded to Mr. Eobert A. C. Godwin-Austen, E.E.S., F.G.S., for his long- 

 continued and valuable researches in Geology, particularly into the ancient 

 geographical and hydrographical conditions of the Western European area 

 in the Palseozoic, Mesozoic, and Csenozoic periods ; and also for his acute 

 and judicious elaboration of the theory of the presence of Carboniferous 

 rocks at a moderate depth beneath the south-east of England. The Wol- 

 laston Donation-fund was given to Professor Oswald Heer, of Zurich, in 

 recognition of his valuable labours in the elucidation of the Fossil Plants 

 and Insects of the Tertiary strata of Switzerland and Croatia, and espe- 

 cially of the Fossil Flora of Bovey-Tracey, in Devonshire. 



Tiie Chairman next, having read a letter from the President, regi'etting 

 his unavoidable absence in Italy, expressed his sense of the great services 

 rendered to the Society since its foundation by Mr. Leonard Horner. He 

 then proceeded to read an obituary notice of the late Dr. Fitton. Mr. W. 

 W. Smyth, secretarv, read obituary notices of the late Eev. J. S. Henslow, 

 IVlr. J. Mac Adam, Mr. Eaton Hodgkinson. Sir C. Fellows, Prof. Necker, 

 and others. Finally, Prof. Huxley, secretary, read an Address, the prin- 

 cipal objects of which were — to urge upon Geologists and Palaeontologists 

 the necessity of reconsidering the logical basis of several of their most ge- 

 nerally accepted conceptions," such as the doctrine of Geological Contem- 

 poraneity, and the assumption that the fossiUferous rocks arc coeval with 

 the existence of life on the earth.— and to test the ordinary hypotheses of 

 the progressive modiiication of living forms in time by positive evidence. 



