Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 27.djvu/58

 cially due to ice-action; and he points also to the existence of Roches moutonnees and moraines in British Kaffraria and adjacent districts.

Mr. C. L. Griesbach has given an excellent account of Natal, and describes the succession of beds, commencing with the granitic and gneissic rocks and mica-schists, overlain by great plateaux of undisturbed sandstone, often capped by basalt. The sandstone is succeeded by the Karoo formation, containing occasionally subordinate beds of coal, and then near the coast by beds of Cretaceous age. Reference is made to various interesting theoretical questions connected with the former distribution of land and water between Africa and India, and to the economical mineral products (graphite, coal, gold, and copper) of Natal.

Some notes on the Diamond districts of the Cape of Good Hope have been given us by Mr. Gilfillan.

We have had only one communication from Australia, by Dr. Krefft, on certain of the later fossil Mammalia, including several species of Wombats and Wombat-Kangaroos of that remarkable continent.

The relations of the two gneissoid series of rocks of Nova Scotia have been discussed by Mr. H. Youle Hind, who believes them to be of Laurentian age, and covered in patches only by the Huronian or Cambrian rocks. The gold is found in Lower Silurian rocks, which formation is there 1200 feet thick, and is destitute of any great beds of limestone.

The Rev. T. G. Bonney describes the general appearance of the Lofoten Islands. Instead of being composed of granite, he thinks that, with few exceptions, the strata consist of highly metamorphosed rocks — quartzites and gneiss.

Foreign Palaeontology.

Professor Owen has described some fossil mammals of late Tertiary or Quaternary age found in China. Among them are new species of Stegodon, Hyoena, Tapir, Rhinoceros, and Chalicotherium.

Principal Dawson has sent us the result of his further examination of the structure of the Sigillaria, Calamites, and Calamodendron of the Nova-Scotia Coal-field. A specimen of Sigillaria was described having a transversely laminated pith of the Sternbergia- type, the immediately surrounding tissues much resembling those of Cycads. He agrees with the opinion generally held with regard to Calamites, that their affinities were with Equisetacece, as