TUE GEOLOGIST. 
No uric acid, nor anj^ other organic matter besides those named, is 
present. When treated with soda a slight trace of ammonia is evolved, 
which 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. 
Tlie bitumen belongs to the species known to mineralogists as Ilalthe. 
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 GO 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 warrens, except perhaps that by boring into the rock they have given 
it a means of exit. 
Yours, etc., 
T. L. Phipson. 
PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 
Geological Society of London. — February 21. — Annual General 
Meeting. — Sir E. I. Murchison, V.P.G.S., in the chair. The Secretary read 
the Reports of the Council, of the Museum and Library Committee, and 
of the Auditors. The Society was shown to be in a satisfactory state, as 
to finances and the number of Fellows. The Wollaston Gold Medal was 
awarded to Mr. Robert A. C. Godwin- Austen, F.R.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 Palaeozoic, Mesozoic, and Csenozoic periods ; and also for his acute 
and judicious elaboration of the theory of the presence of Carboniferous 
rocks at a moderate deptli 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 Bove3^-Tracey, in Devonshire. 
Tile Chairman next, having read a letter from the President, regretting 
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, secretary, read obituary notices of the late Rev. J. S. Henslow, 
Mr. J. MacA-dam, 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 fossiliferous rocks are coeval with 
the existence of life on the earth, — and to test the ordinary hypotheses of 
the progressive modification of living forms in time by positive evidence. 
