SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
421 
counties. In this opinion Professor Phillips coincided. Mr. Godwin 
Austen, F.R.S., protested against discouraging a boring, and thought there 
might be a continuity over Norfolk of the great central coal-fields. He 
concluded a long address by expressing his opinion that eventually a con- 
siderable coal area would be worked beneath the secondary strata. A paper 
by Professor Path was next read on a remarkable block of lava ejected by 
Vesuvius during the great eruption of April 1872, proving the formation of 
silicates by sublimation. Mr. Gwyn-Jeffreys, F.R.S., followed with some 
remarks on submarine explorations. Afterwards, Dr. Adams read a report 
on the Fossil Elephants of Malta; and Professor Boyd-Dawkins, F.R.S., a 
very interesting communication on the Physical Geography of the Me- 
diterranean during the Pleistocene age. Mr. Charles Moore also read a 
valuable paper on the Presence of Naked Echinodermata in Oolitic and 
Liassic Beds ; after which Mr. J. E. Lee noticed some veins or fissures in 
the Keuper-filled Rhaetic Bone Bed at Goldcliff, in Monmouthshire. Dr. 
Sim’s paper on Quartz Nodules in the Crystalline Schists of Perthshire 
was next in order. There were many others of importance read, but our 
space does not admit of giving them all. 
Professor NordenskiolcC s Expedition to Greenland . — Professor Norden- 
ski'old himself gives an admirable description of his excursion in the 
a Geological Magazine ” for August, and in the preceding and following 
numbers. The paper is too long for abstract, but should be read by all 
who are interested in the subject. 
Our London Coal-Jields as they may be almost termed, were again the. 
subject of consideration at one of the excursions of the British Association.. 
At the excursion to Battle Abbey, Mr. Prestwich, F.R.S., gave a most- 
interesting address on the more theoretical subject. He showed that long- 
before the formation of any member of the secondary formations, there had 
extended over North Europe an immense land surface, broken up, like that 
before them, into hills and dales. This area, on which the vegetation of 
the coal period grew, extended certainly from South Wales to Belgium. 
It was eventually submerged, and covered over with the later secondary strata. 
It was originally thought that the latter extended from Bath into France,., 
and that it would be useless to bore through them for coal. But subse- 
quent researches found that these rocks thinned out in the direction of' 
London. They had to eliminate some of the members, so that this, 
circumstance, and their general thinning out, caused geologists to expect 
that the primary rocks would be found at no great depth. This proved 
true, for under London the tertiary and chalk strata had been found at 
Kentish Town resting on the old red sandstone. In Herefordshire, again, 
the chalk reposed on beds of the same age. At Harwich, in a well- 
boring, the lower carboniferous rocks were reached, and at Calais, across 
the sea, the chalk was found lying on the mountain limestone. Thus, 
positive evidence of the extension of these ancient Palaeozoic or primary 
rocks had been afforded. At Calais, they reached at a depth of 1,300 feet, 
at Harwich 1,100 feet, and at Kentish Town about the same depth. This 
furnished the hope that the primary rocks would be found elsewhere under 
the chalk at a similar depth. The question was, where to go and look for 
them ? All their efforts were only tentative, and many experiments like 
