38 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
The Brackleshara beds seen at Whitecliff Bay were first treated of, and 
Mr. Prestwich's section referred to in detail. No. 6 (a pebble-bed) of this 
published section is regarded by Mr. Fisher as the base of the Brackle- 
sham series ; the upper limit being somewhere in No. 19. Descriptions 
followed of the beds seen at Bracklesham Bay ; the eastern side of Selsea ; 
at the Mixen Eocks ; at well-sinkings near Bury Cross ; at Stubbington 
(including the Cerithium-bed at.Hillhead, discovered by the author in 
1856) ; Netley, Bramshaw, Brook, and Hunting Bridge (where H. Keeping 
has lately found a fossil-bed high in the series), in the New Forest. 
Indications of the western range of the marine shells of " Bracklesham " 
age were quoted as occurring at Lychett, near Poole, and as very rare 
(one Ostrea) near Corfe. 
Bracklesham beds, containing marine forms, seen at Alum Bay, Isle of 
Wight, and at Highcliff, near Christchurch, were then described in full. 
The Bracklesham series is regarded by Mr. Fisher as commencing in both 
these sections a few feet beneath a dark-green clay (part of No. 29 of 
Mr. Prestwich's section of Alum Bay) containing a peculiar variety of 
Nummulina jplanulata and many shells of the Barton Fauna. 
Eemarks were also made on the estuarine condition of the lower 
Bracklesham beds in their western area ; on the probable sources of their 
materials ; on the successive deepenings of the old sea-bottom, and the 
formation of the pebble-beds ; and lastly, on the fitness of the Brackle- 
sham and Barton series as a field for research in the history of molluscan 
species. 
The paper was illustrated by a eeries of specimens from the author's 
collection. 
Specimens of gold in quartz-veins, of gold-dust, and of gold-ingots, 
from Nova Scotia, sent by Mr. Secretary Howe, were exhibited by Pro- 
fessor Tennant, F.G.S. 
COEEESPONDENCE. 
Nortliam'pton Sands. 
Deae Sir, — The November number of your valuable journal contains 
a paper by Mr. J. H. Macalister, on " The Fossils of North Bucks and 
the adjacent Counties," in which, I believe, reference is made to myself in 
the following passage, page 481 : — " The identity of the Northampton 
Sands (formerly classed with the lias) with the Stonefield Slate of Oxford- 
shire and Gloucestershire, and constituting the lower zone of the Great 
Oolite;" and in a note it is added, "so classed by Dr. Wright, being 
separated by him from the inferior oolite, which they formerly were sup- 
posed to represent." 
To this statement I have simply to say, that Mr. Macalister is altogether 
incorrect, as I have nowhere classed the Northampton Sands with the 
lias, nor made any reference to them. If that gentleman will refer to 
my memoir on " The Palseontological and Stratigraphical Eelation of the 
so-called Sands of the Inferior Oolite" (Quart. Journal of the Geol. Soc. 
vol. xii. p. 292), for 1856, he will find a full statement of the case, as 
regards the counties of Gloucester, Somerset, and Dorset, but no reference 
whatever to Northampton ; and in the preface to my ' Monograph on 
the Oolitic Echinodermata,' p. ix., he will find it stated that "in every 
