PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 
379 
been pouring fortli their siilpliur, and meteoric stones (found by Berzolius 
and others to contain two-tiiirds at least of all the elements) fall fre- 
quent lo tiic eartii ; the actively comljining oxygen forms with l licse produets 
sulphate of iron, staining red the crag, and in our oldest rocks deposit miuera 
veins and beds of tin ; the oxygen absorbed, reducing action now ensues, and 
tiie nietidlic salts of copper, iron, silver, lead, and zuic form, in the veins of 
various geologic age, metallic sul])hidc, just in the order of their differing solu- 
bility or disposition- for each other ; last of all, the noble metals platmum and 
gold, refusing to combine with such as these, are found in drifted sands with 
the more ancient streams of tin. 
13nt now the elemental strife increases, some of the openings to our caves are 
closed, bone breccias are formed, the glacial or boulder-drift and clay conceal 
the mouths of others, and at length the earth is without form and void, the 
waters gain the mastery, and over them in darkness moves alone the Spirit of 
their Great Creator. 
PROCEEDINGS OP GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 
Geological Society of London. — January 18, 1860. 
1. "Notice of some Sections of the Strata near Oxford." By John Phillips, 
M.A., LL.D., Y.R.S., Pres. G.S. &c. 
Prom the Yorkshire coast to that of Dorset, evidence of unconformity be- 
tween the Oolitic and the Cretaceous strata is readily observed. This is 
especially seen in the neighbourhood of Oxford, where it is difficidt to trace 
out correctly the limits of the Lower Cretaceous beds. The Oolitic rocks 
having been deposited whilst the relative jjosition of the land and sea was being 
changed, many of the deposits are subject to local limitation ; thus the Coral- 
line, Oolitic, and the Calc-grit die out rapidly, and the Kimmeridge Clay comes 
to rest on the Oxford Clay. It is on the denuded surface formed by these 
irregular beds that the Lower Cretaceous beds have been laid down. Prom 
their close propinquity, the sand-beds of different ages are scarcely to be de- 
fined as Oolitic or Cretaceous, and the occurrence of fossils only can secure 
their distinction. 
At Culham, near Oxford, a clay-pit is worked, which presents at the top 
three feet of gravel; next about twenty feet of Gault with its peculiar fossils : 
then nine feet of greenish sand, with a few fossils ; and lastly, twenty-three 
feet of Kimmeridge Clay, with its peculiar Ammonites and other fossils. The 
intervening sand contains Fecten orbicularis (a Cretaceous fossil), Thracia 
depressa, Cardium striatulum, and an Ammonite resembling one found in the 
Kimmeridge Clay. Although this sand at first sight resembles and yields a fossil 
found in the Lower Greensand, yet it is probably more closely related to the 
Kimmeridge Clay. In the railway-section at Culham, the Kimmeridge Clay 
is overlaid by a sand equivalent to that of Shotover HiU ; whilst the Gaiilt, 
which lies on it unconformably, with that of the clay-pit. At Toot Baldoii 
also, though Lower Greensand probably caps the hiU, yet an Oolitic ammonite 
was found on the eastward slope of the hill, in a ferruginous sand, lying con- 
formably on the Kimmeridge Clay. Prom these and otiier instances' the diffi- 
culty of mapping the country geologically may be shown to be very great. 
2. "On the Association of the Lower Members of the Old Red Sandstone 
and the Metamorphic Rocks on the Southern Margin of the Grampians." By 
Prof. R. Harkness, P.R.S., P.G.S. 
The area to which this paper referred is the tract lying between Stonehaven 
