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of a length of 350 yards, spring-tide high-water mark had receded 15 yards, 
and at the other end 5 yards. The author estimated that the deposit of 
sand that had accumulated in eight years amounted to an average of 10 yards 
wide and 2 yards deep. Allowing a further depth of one yard for sand that 
may have been blown over the top, he finds 10,500 cubic yards as the 
quantity of sand deposited in eight years on a shore-frontage of 350 yards, or 
3‘75 cubic yards per yard of frontage per annum. Applying this unit of 
measurement to the 16 miles of coast forming the western boundary of the 
deposit, he gets 105,600 cubic yards as the quantity of sand annually 
moved; 22 square miles of sand, 12 feet thick, give 272,588,800 cubic 
yards of sand accumulated, which, divided by the annual quantity, will 
give 2580 years as the age of the whole deposit of blown sand. The author 
adduced other evidence in support of his view, and concluded that if the last 
change of level in south-west Lancashire was a downward one, it could not 
have taken place within 2500 years. 
The Proteacece. — Count G. de Saporta has lately communicated to the 
French Academy an important note on the subject of the supposed presence 
of Australian forms of Proteacese in the European tertiaries. The Protea- 
cese are at present limited to the Southern Hemisphere, and form two 
natural associations, — an Australian, including the genera Petrophila , 
Grevillea, Lomatia, Banksia, Dryandra, &c., which do not occur in Africa ; 
and a South African represented by Protea, Leucadendron, Leucospermum, 
&c., which are not found in Australia. The plants which have been 
regarded as Proteacese in European deposits, from the late cretaceous of Aix- 
la-Chapelle upwards, have been referred to Australian genera such as 
Grevillea, Lomatia, Banksia, and Dryandra. Ad. Brongniart with some doubt 
indicated a Stenocarpites among the species brought from Koumi by Gaudry. 
M. de Saporta notices certain examples which render the identification of 
European fossil plants with the Australian types of Proteacese at least very 
doubtful. Stenocarpites anisolobus, Brongn., named by Saporta Grevillea 
anisoloba, has been recognized by Unger as representing the detached leaflets 
of a large Araliaceous leaf (Cussonia poly dry s, Ung.), Nearly all the fossil 
leaves referred to Grevillea have a venation such as occurs in the Thymelese. 
Unger’s Dryandroides and most of his Banksites are referred to the Myricese. 
Dryandra Schrankii (or Comptonia dry andrcef olid) shows Myricaceous 
fructification. Dryandra Contzeniana and primceva , Deb. from the Seno- 
nian of Aix-la-Chapelle are probably Comptonice. Dryandra Michelotii, 
Wad. of the Paris Eocene and the Arkose of Brives, still, however, pre- 
sents the characteristic physiognomy of Dryandra ; but as M. de Saporta 
remarks, this shows how the evidence in favour of the Australian element 
in the European fossil flora has fallen off in value. No authentic fruit or 
seed has ever been found. 
In the gypsum of Aix, in Provence, the Lomatites, especially L. aquensis, 
Sap., present a great resemblance to Lomatia linearis and longifolia of 
Australia, but this argument loses much of its force after comparison with 
the leaves of Baccharis semiserrata, De Cand. var. glabra, a Brazilian plant, 
of the order Compositae. These leaves so closely resemble those of Lomatites 
aquensis , Sap., that it is hardly possible to resist the conclusion of a general 
affinity between the fossil and this living plant. Nevertheless there are 
