40 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
course of a river during the time 'of deposition of some of the later Tertiary- 
beds ; and a flood probably swept into the layers of broken fragments of 
chalk and clay, too'cther with the numerous land-shells with which they 
are studded." About 300 or 400 yards from the spot is a light buff- 
coloured sand, and on the south side of the pit are hardened blocks of 
sandstone. The writer thinks this sand w^as once a part of the Plastic i 
Clay series, at one time covering the district, and of which there are saidi 
to be still some remains in the south-east part of the forest. This appears j 
to be, according to the subsequent description, a section showing the " grey 
weathers " in situ. These " boulders " are stated to occur in great numbers 
in the valleys, especially at Lockeridge and Clatford Bottom, " where they 
are heaped upon one another in the most promiscuous manner, as if they 
had been dropped by icebergs." I\Iany are of large size, 90 to 100 tons. 
An outline of the Bagshot sands and cla3^s also occurs in the Savernake 
Forest. Of the flora we can only say that it is conspicuously and con- 
cisely recorded in separate paragraphs, Avith bold headings, and is sub- 
stantially upon the plan adopted by Professor Babington for hi? ' Flora of 
Cambridge.' The book is illustrated with a small photographed map of 
the district, reduced from the ordinary 1-inch survey to within the space 
of a double page. It wants a scale to indicate distances, and this might 
be usefully added. 
TJiilosophical Transactions of the 'Royal Society. Part I. Vol. CLIIT. 
1863. 
This part is a highly important one, containing papers " On the Eelation 
of Eadiant Heat to Vapour," by Professor Tyndall ; " On the Strains of the 
Interior of Beams," by the Astronomer Eoyal, Mr. Airy ; " On tlie Re- 
flection of Polarized Light from Polished Surfaces, Transparent and Me- 
tallic," by the Eev. Professor Haughton ; "On the Exact Forms of Waves 
near the Surface of Deep Water," by Dr. Eankine ; " The Photo-Chemical 
Eesearches of Professors Bunsen and Eoscoe ; " " On the Immunity of the 
Stomach from Injury from its own Secretions," by Dr. Pavy ; " On Thallium," 
b}^ Mr. Crookes ; and other very valuable papers ; but the chief interest to 
our readers will be the appearance in it, in full, of Professor Owen's memor- 
able paper, read in November, 18G2, and briefly reported in our columns. 
The present memoir is perhaps the most complete that ever was given at 
first hand of any specimen approaching in novelty and singularity to the 
present Solenhofen fossil, a drawing of which is given of natural size, 
executed with great care and skill by Mr. Dinkel. Other illustrative 
plates accompany the paper, A=s hich must be read by those who are inter- 
ested in the subject, as no abstract would convey more information than 
the notices and articles we have already printed ; and the greatest value 
of Professor Owen's description lies in the minuteness and details of the 
numerous comparisons he has made with the bones of recent birds and 
fossils, Pterodactyles, and the logical conclusions he has deduced from them. 
The Professor admits the cast of the brain, to which we drew attention in 
our opening number of last year ; but he assigns to a fish a portion of organic 
substance in the slab upon which Mr. Mackie has made some comments 
in the ' Popular Science Eeview,' for the purpose of showing that it is as 
like a bird's beak with teeth as a fish's jaw. The portion is, however, too 
obscure for any positive determination, and it will be better not to believe 
it either a fish's jaw or the Archfeopteryx beak at present, but to con- 
tinue to search diligently for further specimens. 
