45(5 
THE OEOLOGIST. 
certain old sea-beds whicli arc scattered at intervals over some of the western 
departments of France, extending inland along the valley of the Loire, as far 
eastward as hcyond Blois, to be met with in some of its branches northwards 
— an old arm of the Atlantic, with dimensions nearly e([nal to those of onr 
English Ciianncl, long since laid dry. These old sea-beds are the ' Faluns of 
Tonrainc' " 
Ijower down to the south, from the Island of Oleron across to the Adour; 
was another great indent of the Atlantic — an eastern extension of the Bay of 
Biscay. Over this once dey)ressed area there are sea-beds which contain an 
assemblage like that of the Tonrainc dejiosits, the Faluna Jrimmoi Gratelonp." 
lie further regards the fauna of tlu; Atlantic as primarily composed of a 
northern and a southern element, and " It is to be remarked," he says, " that 
the northern constituents of our |)rcsent Atlant ic fauna are not met with in the 
older fauna of the Faluns, nor in the equivalent assemblages further south. 
Northern forms had not, at that time, extended into that ])art of the Atlantic 
which lies west and south of the British Islands. Their great migration south- 
wards took place subsequently to those great physical changes which converted 
into dry land those portions of western France abovercfcrred to, and which changes 
were trifling in amount when compared with those of the same date in other 
parts of the Atlantic, and within the Mediterranean area. The physical change 
whicli liberated the northern fauna has been indicated on independent consi- 
derations. It has been shown that there is good evidence of the former conti- 
nuity of a eoast-Kne from the north of Greenland to the nortli of Lajiland, and 
that, consequently, the Atlantic did not then communicate with the Ai-ctic 
basin ; it was only when tliis barrier was removed that a free passage soutli 
was opened out io Arctic forms." 
With the exception of a linjitation at its northern extremity, "the Atlantic 
is an old area of depression. Tiiere was an Atlantic Ocean for tlie nummulitic, 
cretaceous, and palaeozoie jieriods, during each of which it had its distinct 
zones of distribution in latitude, as well as its corresponding provinces of 
representative forms on its opposite sides." 
With other equally interesting topics and reflections, the remaining chapters 
conclude a book which, from its intrhisie value and moderate price, will doubt- 
less meet with an extensive sale, and prove a nseful foundation as well as an 
encouragement to further investigations by nat-uralisis of the uitcresting sub- 
ject to which it is devoted. 
Dura Ben : A Monograph of the YeUow Sandntone, and its rcmarlcahlf. Fossil 
Remains. By John Anderson, D.D., F.G.S., F.P.S., &e. Edinburgh : 
Thomas Constable and Co. Loudon : Hamilton, Adams and Co., 1S59. 
Fifeshire, the general contour of which, in its gentle and undulating outUnes, 
partakes more of the aspect of the English downs than of t he bolder and more 
rugged features of the Scottish mountain-tracts, forms the eastern portion of 
the great central coal-district of Scotland. The Ochils, a chain of t rap-hiUs 
varying in the extent of tiieir range from four hundred feet in height to nearly 
three thousand in Bencleugh and Dalmyatt, traverse its northern boimdary, 
and with the short but elevated table-land of the Lomonds rumiing through 
the central portion, separate the county into three well-defined subordinate 
regitms corresponding to three eqnaUy-marked geological distuietions. From 
the Lomond-heiglits the view is spoken of as charming. " Overlooking the 
whole county, and the two noble rivers by which it is encompassed, with tlie 
German Ocean to the East, tlie town of Stirling and the ' lofty Ben Lomond' 
to the west, the rugged serrated outline of the Grampians to the north, and 
