animals were found in much older rock, of the oolite formation. The discovery of this monkey overset all previous notions connected with the appearance of man upon the earth; and he was glad to take this opportunity of retracting his previous opinions on the subject.-Proceedings of the British Association; Literary Gazette.

For farther details of these important discoveries, illustrated with engravings, the reader is referred to papers by Messrs. Wood, Owen, and Charlesworth, in the Magazine of Natural History, Sept. 1839; and to papers by Messrs. Lyell and Owen, in the Annals of Natural History, Nov. 1839.

There has been also read to the Society, - A paper, "On the Fossil Remains of a Mammal, a Bird, and a Serpent, from the London Clay." Until a few months since, the highest organized animal remains known to exist in the London clay, were those of reptiles and fishes; but, during the last summer, there were discovered in the collections of Mr. W. Colchester, of Ipswich, and the Rev. Edward Moore, of Bealings, near Woodbridge, teeth of a quadrumanous animal, of Cheiroptera, plantigrade and digitigrade carnivora, and of a species probably belonging to the marsupial order; all of which were obtained from the London clay of Suffolk. To this important list, Mr. Owen is now enabled to add the remains of a new and extinct genus of pachydermatous mammals, of a bird, and a serpent. The first of these curious fossil relics was discovered in the cliffs of Studd Hill, near Herne Bay, by Mr. W. Richardson; and consists of a small mutilated cranium, about the size of that of a hare, containing the molar teeth of the upper jaw nearly perfect, and the sockets of the canines. The molars are seven in number on each side, and resemble more nearly those of the Chæropotamus than of any other known genus of existing and extinct mammalia. The sockets of the canines, or tusks, indicate that these teeth were relatively as large as in the Peccari. The other portions of the head, preserved in the specimen, are then described: the general form of the skull partakes of a character intermediate between that of the hog and the hyrax, but the large size of the eye must have given to the physiognomy of the living animal a resemblance to that of the Rodentia. Mr. Owen has adopted for this new extinct genus the name of Hyotherium, suggested by Mr. Richardson.

The remains of fossil Birds, included in the second part of the paper, consist of two specimens, a sternum with other bones, and a sacrum, both obtained from the London clay at Sheppey. The sternum forms part of the collection of fossils made by the celebrated John Hunter. The sacrum is in Mr. Bowerbank's collection of Sheppey fossils. After minute examination, which we have not space to detail, Mr. Owen finds the Hunterian specimen to bear the greatest number of correspondencies to the skeletons of the Accipitrine species, and closest with the vultures, though of a smaller species than is known to exist at the present day; and belonging to a group of Accipitrine scavengers, so abundant in the warmer latitudes of the present world. Mr. Bowerbank's specimen consists of ten sacral vertebræ anchylosed together, as is usual in birds with a continuous keel-like spinal ridge;

S

and in five of which there is a resemblance to the corresponding part in vultures, in the non-development of the inferior transverse processes. One of the specimens of the extinct species of Serpent, described in this paper, forms likewise part of the collection of fossils left by John Hunter, and consist of about 30 vertebræ; the others, one of which presents a series of 28 vertebræ, are in the cabinet of Mr. Bowerbank. The author considers that all the specimens are referable to the same species; and they were all obtained at Sheppey. The vertebræ are equal in size to those of a Boa constrictor 10 feet long. From the agreement, in some points with the Boæ and Pythons, and the absence of all those which might have prevented the living animal from entrapping its prey, and from the length which it may be inferred that the creature attained, Mr. Owen concludes the fossil was not provided with poison-fangs. Serpents of similar dimensions exist in the present day only in tropical regions, and their food consists of cold as well as of warm-blooded animals; he therefore, in conclusion, states, that had there been obtained no evidence of birds and mammals in the London clay, he would have felt persuaded that they must have co-existed with the Palæophis toliapicus, which Mr. Owen proposes conditionally to name this interesting fossil. - Athenaum ; abridged.

Fishes near Manchester. - Mr. Bowman has exhibited to the British Association specimens of fossil Fish found in the vicinity of Manchester; and read a paper from Mr. Binney upon them. There were scales and teeth of Megalichthus from the coal shales, in the Manchester coal-field, lying above the millstone grit; and remains of Diplodus, Ctenoptychus, Holoptychus, and Palæoniscus, up to the fresh-water limestone formation of Ardwick. The shells of Cypris, &c., among which they were found, seem to prove a calm and gradual deposit; and the condition of the fish indicated their sudden destruction, which Mr. Binney attributed to water charged with the gas from decayed vegetation. None of the fossils had been detected in the coal, though they approached to the very edge of it.-Literary Gazette.

Fishes in Yorkshire and Lancashire. There has been read to the Geological Society, a paper "On the Fossil Fishes of the Yorkshire and Lancashire Coal-Fields," by Mr. W. C. Williamson. Within the last four years, the coal measures of these counties have assumed a zoological importance which previously they were not supposed to possess. In Lancashire, ichthyolites have been lately found to pervade the whole of the series from the Ardwick limestone to the millstone grit, and in Yorkshire they have also been * obtained in great abundance. On comparing the specimens procured at Middleton colliery, near Leeds, with the fossil fishes of Lancashire, the author detected the following as common to both coal-fields, viz.Diplodus gibbosus, Ctenoptychus pectinatus, Megalicthus Hibbertii, Gyracanthus formosus; also remains of apparently species of Holoptychus and Platysomus: but he has obtained some ichthyolites in the Yorkshire field which he has not seen in the Lancashire; and he is of opinion that the latter deposits are characterized by the greater prevalence of Lepidoid fishes, and the former by Sauroid. These remains, except in the case of the Ardwick limestone, always occur in highly bituminous shale; and they are most abundant where it is finely grained, and in general where plants are least numerous. This distinction in the relative abundance of ichthyolites and vegetables, Mr. Wilkinson conceives may throw some additional light upon the circumstances under which the coal formations were accumulated. The fishes are found chiefly in the roof of the coal, rarely in the seam itself, and not often in its floor. - Athenæum.

Infusoria in Ireland. Dr. Drummond has communicated to the Magazine of Natural History a notice of fossil Infusoria received from Newcastle, at the base of the Mourne Mountains, County Down; and consisting of a very light, white, earthy substance, which had been found in considerable quantity in the above neighbourhood. This Dr. Drummond found to be the same kind of substance as Prof. Bailey had found in a bog at West Point, in America, and which consisted of the siliceous remains of organized microscopic beings, either animal or vegetable.* Dr. Drummond is not aware that fossil Infusoria have hitherto been found in the British Islands.

The substance referred to is, when dry, of the whiteness of chalk, but becomes brownish when wet; it is as light as carbonate of magnesia, which it much resembles, but it is not acted on by nitric, muriatic, or sulphuric acids, and is indestructible by fire. The specimen was a compact mass, of the shape, and nearly the size, of an ordinary building brick; it could easily be rubbed down into powder, and had a coarse and somewhat fibrous fracture; when a portion was rubbed between the finger and thumb, it had no grittiness, but felt like an impalpable powder, and when it was then blown into the air, it flew about almost like wood ashes.

On examining many times small portions of the fossil mixture with a little water, on a slip of glass, the whole was found to be composed of the bodies, of which long linear spicula formed, at least, four-fifths. Occasionally confervoid fragments were seen, and frequently minute annular portions. There was no admixture whatever of unorganized matter, and no medium of cement whatever.

The spicular bodies are joints of the Diatoma elongata, (Engl. Flora, vol. v., pt. i., p. 406.) This species grows abundantly in a small drain of clear water in the grounds of the Royal Belfast Institution, and its joints in the microscope are seen to be precisely similar. to the spicular bodies. When the loricated Infusoria are burned to ashes, the latter are found to be their siliceous coverings unchanged; and the same thing occurs in the Diatoma, as was discovered by De Brebisson and Prof. Bailey. On burning the Diatoma to a red heat, when cold, it was found to be unchanged in form, appearance, and sharpness of outline. The Navicula tripunctata was found to be equally unaffected by heat, as also some other Infusoria.

The deposit here described is evidently of the same description as that found in the New World, by Prof. Bailey, and analogous to that

* See the abstract of a paper on Fossil Infusoria discovered in peat-earth at West Point, in Year-Book of Facts, 1839, p. 232.

found in several places of the Old World; viz., the Kieselguhr of Frauzenbad, and the deposit in peat-bog near the same place, the Bergmehl of Santa Fiora, &c., which are formed of fossil Infusoria remains.

Berghmehl.-Dr. Trail has analyzed a Berghmehl from the north of Sweden, and found it to be composed of the minute shields of Infusoria, about one-thousandth of an inch in size, consisting chiefly of siliceous earth and alumina. Proc. Wernerian Society.

Brazil.-M. Lund, of Lagoat-Santa, has made a voluminous report to the French Academy of Sciences concerning the fossil mammiferæ of that country, from which the following is an extract: Of this class of animals he has found 75 distinct species, belonging to 43 genera, most of which abound in caverns. The part of the country studied by him lies between the Rio das Velhas, one of the tributaries of the Rio San Francisco, and the Rio Paraopeba. This district forms a plain 2,000 feet above the level of the sea, and is traversed by a chain of mountains only from 300 to 700 feet high. This chain is composed of secondary limestone, stratified in horizontal layers, having all the characters of the zechstein and hochleu kalkstein of the Germans. It is entirely hollowed out into caverns, and crossed by cracks in every direction, and its interior more or less filled with a red earth, identical with that which forms the superficial stratum of the country, and which is from 10 to 15 feet thick. This is often so ferruginous, that its particles of iron are transformed into a pisolithic mineral, like that of the Jura. This earth has undergone some modifications in the caverns, for it contains angular or rolled fragments of the calcareous rock, particles of lime deposited by the water which filters through the cracks, and it is impregnated with saltpetre. The fossils lie in this earth, and are disposed pell-mell in the middle of it. They are all fragile, of white fracture, often petrified, adhere closely to the sockets in which they lie, frequently present calcareous spath, are broken, crushed, or otherwise mutilated, and bear marks of teeth, showing that they have been carried there by the ferocious animals which inhabited those caverns, and also by a species of diurnal bird.

Athenæum.

Vegetable Skeletons. -Mr. Bowman has read to the British Association a paper on some skeletons of fossil Vegetables, found by Mr. Binney, in white impalpable powder, under a peat-bog near Gainsborough, in a stratum four to six inches in thickness, and covering several acres. It remained unchanged by the sulphuric, hydrochloric, and nitric acids, and by heat, and was concluded to be pure silica, in a state of extremely minute subdivision. On submitting it to the highest power of the compound microscope, it was found to consist of a mass of transparent squares and parallelograms of different relative proportions, whose edges were perfectly sharp and smooth, and the areas often traced with very delicate parallel lines. On comparing these with the forms of some existing Conferve, Mr. Bowman found the resemblance so strong, that he entertained no doubt they were the fragments of parasitical plants of that order, either identical with, or nearly allied to the tribe Diatomaceæ, which grow abundantly on other Alge, both marine and fresh water, but are so minute, that individually they are invisible to the naked eye. They are the counterparts of the fossil Infusoria of Ehrenberg, and occupy the same place in the vegetable kingdom as those do in the animal. -Athenæum.

SAND-PIPES IN THE CHALK NEAR NORWICH.

MR. LYELL, V. P. G. S., has communicated to the Philosophical Magazine, No. 96, an important paper "On the tubular Cavities filled with Gravel and Sand called Sand-pipes,' in the chalk near Norwich:" which communication was of such interest as to afford the principal topic of discussion and observation during nearly two days at the late meeting of the British Association.

The white chalk with flints in the neighbourhood of Norwich, is covered with a mass of variable thickness of irony sand and gravel, with some intermixture of red clay, the sand passing occasionally into a ferruginous sandstone. The surface of the chalk, when the gravel is removed, presents sharp ridges, deep furrows, and pits, and protuberances larger at the summit than the base. In a word, it is impossible to conceive that so soft a rock as chalk could have acquired such an outline simply by ordinary denudation, or could have retained it, if once acquired, during the accumulation of the mechanical deposit now superimposed. It is equally difficult to refer to any known mode of denudation those deep and narrow hollows, filled with sand and gravel, which are the same as those called in France "puits naturels," and which form the subject of this paper.

The localities of these Sand-pipes are three; 1. at Eaton, about two miles west of Norwich, where they are very symmetrical, having the form of inverted cones, which, at their upper extremity, vary in width from a few inches to more than four yards, while at their lower, they taper down to a fine point: see fig. 1. The smaller ones, usually about 1 foot in diameter, seldom penetrate to the depth of more than 12 feet, while the larger are sometimes more than 60 feet deep.