FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE. 



273 



to the low level of the valley hereabouts, the excavations have not been 

 very deep, exce^jt in parts worked for ballast. In these spots bones and 

 teeth of the Elephas primigenius, Bos primigenius, Cervus tarandus, and 

 Equus have been found : and also some fragments of a tusk of Hippopo- 

 tamus major. No doubt many valuable specimens were flung into the 

 ballast wagons, as a whole acre of gravel was excavated to the depth of 

 several feet at Summerhouse Hill, and removed by railway trucks to form 

 approaches for bridges and viaducts. At this spot the bones were all ex- 

 ceedingly brittle, and we believe but few have been preserved entire. 

 Last week some large portions of the bones of Elephas primigenius have 

 been taken out of the lowest gravel of the Biddenliam Pit, close to the 

 spot where flint-implements were found last year ; and a molar tooth of 

 that animal, which exceeds in size any that have been found whole in that 

 vicinity. This specimen has a grinding surface of eight inches in length, 

 and 3| inches in width ; and the length at the base is fifteen inches. The 

 roots of the tooth were very friable, and a great portion crumbled away, 

 but the specimen notwithstanding weighs VI \ lbs. It is in the collection 

 of Mr. James Wyatt, F.G.S., Bedford'. 



FOEEIGN mTELLIGENCE. 



* Silliraan's American Journal of Science ' for May has an abstract from 

 Capt. E-eynolds's forthcoming Keport to the United States Government of 

 Dr. Hayden's remarks " On the Period of Elevation of the Hanges of 

 the Hocky Mountains near the Sources of the Missouri Hiver and its 

 Tributaries." The evidence, Dr. Hayden considers, makes it clear that 

 the great subterranean forces which elevated the western portion of the 

 American continent were called into operation towards the close of the 

 Cretaceous period, as that the gradual quiet rising continued without 

 a general bursting of the earth's crust until after the accumulation of the 

 Tertiary lignite deposits, or at least the greater part of them ; after the 

 fracture of the surface commenced and the great crust-movements began 

 to display themselves, the whole country continued rising, or at least, 

 though there may have been periods of subsidence or repose, there 

 was a general upward tendency that has continued even up to the present 

 time. 



There is also, in the same number, a paper by Sir W. E. Logan, "On 

 the Quebec Group and the Upper Copper-bearing Hocks of Lake Su- 

 perior," and a" Notice of the E-ocks between the Carboniferous Limestone 

 of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan and the Limestones of the Hamilton 

 Group," by Mr. Alex. Wincliell, the State geologist of Michigan. 



A descriptive account of two sections made across the bed of the Scal- 

 disian system, and of the overlying strata near the city of Antwerp, 

 illustrated with plates, has been communicated by M. Dejardin, Captain of 

 Engineers to the Belgian Academy. 



In 1861, M. Dewalque described the constitution of the Eifel system in 

 the basin of Condroz. He has lately added a notice of the same system 

 in the basin of Namur.* The great series of palaaozoic rocks well known 

 under Omalin's designation of the " terrain anthraxifere," occupy a 

 large surface in Belgium, slightly elongated from east to west, and parted 

 by the uprise of the schists of the " terrain Rhenan " of Dumont into two 

 * Bulletin Acad. Roy. de Belgiqiie, 1862. 



VOL. V. 2 N 



