Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 27.djvu/56

 there is a perfect physical gradation between the first two. He considers that the New Red Sandstone and New Red Marl were formed in inland waters — the latter in a salt lake of great extent. These conditions, and the abundance and peculiar condition of the oxide of iron, would, Prof. Ramsay thinks, be in accordance with those chemical characters of the waters, while he considers that the fossil footprints occurring in these beds are evidences of the absence of tides in the waters. He gives stratigraphical and palaeontological reasons in proof of the New Red Marl being more closely related to the Rhaetic beds, and even to the Lias than to the Bunter, and traces the sequence of events during the accumulation of these several formations.

Palaeozoic and Metamorphic Rocks.

From Dr. Nicholson we have a paper on a part of the " Lower Green-slates and Porphyries" of the Lake district. They were so named by Prof. Sedgwick, and underlie his Skiddaw Slates. Over these are felspathic rocks, succeeded by a series of ash-beds, breccias, and amygdaloids, which are often worked as slates.

Mr. Jamieson divides the older rocks of Banffshire into three groups : — first, a lower arenaceous series more or less altered by metamorphic action into quartz-rock, gneiss, and mica-schist ; next, a series of clay slates, with a subordinate bed of limestone ; thirdly, an upper group of arenaceous strata. A main object of his communication is to give his reasons for considering that the granites of Banffshire are due to the fusion and recrystallization of the arenaceous beds.

Palaeontology.

In the palaeontological papers, —

Mr. Busk has pointed out that the Oreston fissure- cavern Rhinoceros is not the R. tichorhinus, but R. leptorhinus.

Three species cf Elephant are now ascertained to have lived in Malta during the Cave-period. Dr. Caruana draws attention to the abundance of their remains in a particular part of the island, including one new locality.

Mr. Hulke has described an Ichthyosaurus supposed to have been found in the Isle of Gozo ; and if so, it is the first one discovered in beds of Tertiary (Eocene ?) age. He has also described two species of Plesiosaurus from the Kimmeridge Clay of Dorsetshire ; one of these is a slender -necked species 16 feet in length, and with Pliosaurian-like limbs, which are much larger, compared with the whole length, than those of the typical Liassic forms of this genus.