SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
89 
d’Omalius d’Hallov and M. Dewalque. The former expressed his belief 
that the views of the author were not in opposition to the more generally 
accepted opinions of geologists, i.e. that coal has been found in fresh-water 
marshes to which the sea has occasionally, owing to changes of level, gained 
access. Mr. Dewalque, in his report, is rather more severe on the author. 
He declines to discuss the author’s opinions, or the results of his analyses, 
but contents himself with remarking that the author deserves to be 
encouraged. 
The Arctic Fossil Flora. — Professor Oswald Heer, whose recent researches 
are familiar to geologists, read a report upon the above subject at a late 
meeting of the Societe Helvetique. He stated that he had examined plants 
from North Canada, near the Mackenzie district ; from Banks’ Land, North 
Greenland, Iceland, and Spitzbergen. The fossil Arctic flora thus investi- 
gated contains 162 species. Of these, 18 are cryptogamic, 9 being very 
large ferns. It is noticed, too, that many of the leaves of the plants contain 
parasitic fungi like those of the present day. Of the phanerogamia, 31 are 
coniferae, 14 are monocotyledons, and 99 are dicotyledons ; 78 were trees 
and 50 were shrubs. 
The Iron Mines of the Weald are thus described by Professor W. Boyd 
Dawkins, F.R.S., in a paper in the Transactions of the International Congress 
of Prehistoric Archceologists (3rd Session). The mine-pits are small circular 
or oval depressions, from 3 to 6 ft. wide and from 6 to 8 ft. deep. They 
consist of partially filled-up shafts, which varied in depth according to the 
thickness of the clay above the ironstone from 7 or 8 to 40 ft. They lie 
very close together, and are now very generally overgrown with trees ; and 
as the ground they occupy is very much broken up, it is not yet brought 
under cultivation. The method of mining was to sink a shaft down to the 
ironstone, to remove as much ore as was within reach, then the shaft was 
partially filled up, and the operation repeated ; and for this reason the mine- 
pits are so numerous and so close together that they bear a strong resem- 
blance to the hut-circles within Celtic and Roman forts, such as those of 
Penknowle near Wells, Worle Hill near Weston-super-mare, Brentknowle 
in Somerset, and Penselwood on the Somerset border of Wilts. 
The Classification of the Dinosauria. — In a paper read before the Geo- 
logical Society on November 24, Professor Huxley commenced by re- 
ferring to the bibliographical history of the Dinosauria which were first 
recognised as a distinct group by Hermann von Meyer in 1830. He then 
indicated the general characters of the group, which he proposed to divide 
into three families, viz. : — 1. the Megalosattridae, with the genera Terato - 
saurus, Pakeosaurus, Megalosaurus, Poikilopleuron , Lcelaps , and probably 
Fuskelosaurus ; 2. The Scelidosaurid^, with the genera Thecodontosaurus } 
Hylceosaurus, Pholacanthus, and Acanthopholis j and 3. The Ig UANODONTiDiE, 
with the genera Cetiosaurus, Iguanodon, Hypsilophodon , Hadrosaurus, and 
probably Stenopelys. 
Albite in the Leinster Granite. — In some rambles during the past summer 
Mr. W. H. S. Westropp made the above discovery in some blocks of granite 
in the wall of the west pier at Kingstown, County Dublin. As the pier is 
built of rock from the Dalkey quarries, the mineral can be referred, with 
tolerable certainty, to its original locality. He was induced to look closely 
