256 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
quaternary beds containing remains of Elephas primigenius, yields nu- 
merous bones of Elephas meridionalis and other of the great kinds of mam- 
malia characteristic of the Pliocene beds. 
From these facts, then, it is possible to conclude with a strong appearance 
of probability, that man inhabited the soil of France before the great and 
first glacial era, contemporaneously with tlie Elephas meridionalis and the 
other species of fossil mammals of the Tal d' Arno, in Tuscany, which 
are identical with those of Chartres, and which species are TertiaiT, and 
more ancient than the Elephas primigeniiis found with the relics of man 
in the diluvial beds of valleys and caverns. 
The Saiut-Prest bed offers the most ancient example yet given in Europe 
of the vestiges of man with the extinct beasts. It diminishes in no way 
the interest and importance of the Abbeville and Amiens discoveries, but, 
on the contrary, confirms their reality by a new argument, and by totally 
independent observations the evidence recently obtained by M. Boucher 
de Perthes and verified with so much care by the naturalists of England 
and France. 
PEOCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 
EoTAL Institutiox OF Geeat Bkttatx. — Junehth. — " On the Forms 
of the Stratified Alps of Savoy." By John Euskin, Esq., F.G.S. The 
purpose of the discourse was to trace some of the influences which have 
produced the present external forms of the stratified mountains of Savoy, 
and the probable extent and results of the future operation of such in- 
fluences. 
The subject was arranged under three heads : — I. The Materials of the 
Savoy Alps. II. The Mode of their Formation. III. The Mode of their 
subsequent Sculpture. 
I. Their Materials. — The investigation was limited to those Alps which 
consist, in whole or in part, either of Jura limestone, of IS'eocomian beds, 
or of the Hippurite limestone, and include no important masses of other 
formations. AH these rocks are marine deposits ; and the first question to 
be considered with respect to the development of mountains out of them, 
is the kind of change they must undergo in being dried. Whether pro- 
longed through vast periods of time, or hastened b}^ heat and pressure, the 
drying and solidification of such rocks involved their contraction, and 
usually, in consequence, their being traversed throughout by minute fis- 
sures. Under certain conditions of pressure, these fissures take the aspect 
of slaty cleavage ; under others, they become irregular cracks, dividing all 
the substance of the stone. If these are not filled, the rock would become 
a mere heap of debris, and be incapable of establishing itself in any bold 
form. Tliis is provided against by a metamorphic action, which either ar- 
ranges the particles of the rock, throughout, in new and more crystalline 
conditions, or else causes some of them to separate from the rest, to tra- 
verse the body of the rock, and arrange themselves in its fissures ; thus 
forming a cement, usually of finer and purer substance than the rest of the 
stone. In either case the action tends continually to the purification and 
segregation of the elements of the stone. The energy of such action de- 
pends on accidental circumstances. First, on the attractions of the com- 
ponent elements among themselves ; secondly, on every change of external 
temperature and relation. So that mountains are at diflerent periods in 
difierent stages of health (so to call it) or disease. We have mountains 
