Geological Notes on the Noursoak Peninsula and Disco Island in North Greenland. By Robert Brown, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.G.S., &c.

The geology of Greenland has been partially investigated, so far as the west coast is concerned, by Giesecke, Pingel, Rink, and to some extent by Inglefield, Sutherland, Kane, Hayes, and the late Mr. Olrik, so many years Inspector of North Greenland and Director of the Kgl. Grönlandske Handel in Copenhagen. More recently the author and his companions made sections and collected fossils from the vicinity of the localities named; and this paper was an account of the geological results of this voyage, made in 1867. Since then several Swedish naturalists have visited the country, and the German Expedition to East Greenland has added to our knowledge of the geology and tertiary flora of East Greenland. The formations found in Greenland are:

(1) Primitive rocks, chiefly syenite, granitic, and various gneissose rocks, very widely distributed, reaching in some places to a height of 4000 feet or more. In this formation are found the chief economic minerals of Greenland, kryolite, soapstone, &c.

(2) "The Red Sandstone of Igalliko Fjord," probably Devonian, but only a patch, now being rapidly destroyed by the sea.

(3) Mesozoic rocks: only a patch in the vicinity of Omenak, most probably

cretaceous.

(4) Miocene: confined entirely to the vicinity of the Waigatz Strait and part of Omenak Fjord, on the west coast, though most probably it once extended right over Greenland in that line, though now either destroyed or overlain by the great interior ice. It makes its appearance on the east coast, and is also found in Spitzbergen.

The next portion of Dr. Brown's paper was occupied in describing in detail the Miocene beds and sections seen at various places; the whole concluding with a criticism of the conclusions of Professor Heer, of Zurich, who had described the plants discovered by Dr. Brown and others, and in giving what he considered was a just view of the results which the paleontologist might logically deduce from the facts already observed. After giving some account of Greenland coal, its structure, chemical composition, and economic value, he furnished a list of the animal- and plant-remains already found in the Miocene and Cretaceous beds in Greenland, and indicated what points remain still to be investigated. Chief among these he instanced the Mesozoic deposits already mentioned. As the Association had already voted a sum of money for this purpose, he thought that if it was judiciously expended through means of some of the well-educated and intelligent Danish officers resident in Greenland, who were accustomed to such work, good results might be accomplished.

Note on certain Fossils from the Durine Limestone, N.W. Sutherland.
By Dr. BRYCE, F.R.S.E.

On the Vegetable Contents of Masses of Limestone occurring in Trappean Rocks in Fifeshire, and the conditions under which they are preserved. By W. CARRUTHERS, F.R.S.

The shore to the east of Kingswood End is strewn with large fragments of a limestone which Mr. G. Grieve, of Burntisland, detected to be filled with vegetable remains. This limestone was traced by Mr. Grieve to the cliffs above, where he found it enclosed in the centre of the trappean tuff. Having received from him several specimens, the author recently spent some time, in company with Prof. Morris, in investigating this important discovery of Mr. Grieve, under his direction. The specimens occur in angular masses in the volcanic ash, and are fragments of beds existing before the formation of the bed of ash. At Elie fragments of coniferous wood abound in a similar bed, and there, as at Kingswood End, the ash contains numerous fragments of shale, limestone, sandstone, &c. The author believed that the plant-remains had been enclosed in the form of peat, from a

ORITY

surface bed, where the coal-plants were growing when the ash was thrown out of the volcano, the lime abounding in the bed, and which fills the numerous amyg daloidal cavities of the rock, having speedily seized and fixed them, preserving all the details of the tissue. The plants are stems, fruits and leaves of carboniferous plants, and innumerable roots penetrate the mass in every direction. The characters of these plants are beautifully shown on the shore fragments, which are polished by blown sand. At this place the great power of air-driven sand is very evident on the black basalt, which is all smoothed and almost glazed on its western aspect. The author believed that the continuous bed of limestone containing vegetables, above Kingswood End, was different from the blocks on the shore and those in the trappean ash, because of the different mineral conditions and organic contents.

On the General Conditions of the Glacial Epoch; with Suggestions on the formation of Lake-basins. By JOHN CURRY.

The paper contains a detailed topographical account of glacial drift in the north of England, from which the author passes on to discuss the general conditions of the glacial epoch. Increase and diminution of a polar ice-cap is the cause, in the author's judgment, of the movements of subsidence and elevation of sea-level of the glacial period. He maintains that the submerged forests of many parts of the coast have been preserved by being imbedded in a sheet of ice. Remarks on the origin of lake-basins follow. The author cites evidence to show the power of ice and débris to dam up streams, and bases his conclusions largely upon facts quoted from Mr. Jamieson's paper in vol. i. of the Geological Journal.

On the General Geology of Queensland. By R. DAINTREE.

This paper was illustrated by a series of photographs; a number of fossils and rock specimens had been collected by the author, but they were, unfortunately, all lost in the wreck of the 'Queen of the Thames.' The author recognized in Queensland metamorphic and igneous rocks, and the equivalents, to some extent, of our Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Liassic (?), Óolitic, and Cretaceous formations. A still higher series of sandstones occurred, but their precise age had not yet been determined. Alluvial deposits fringed all the water-courses, and had yielded remains of extinct marsupials. It was in these alluvial deposits that the miner met with his chief supply of "free" gold. In the beds which Mr. Daintree refers with doubt to the Lias, coal-seams of varied quality occur. They are only employed for local purposes, and no attempt has yet been made to ascertain their number and relative position. This coal-field occupies a certain district in the south of Queensland, but another coal-field, belonging to the Carboniferous formation, is met with in the north. None of the coals there have been worked, owing to the want of railway communication. In the passage-beds between the Carboniferous and Devonian formations, auriferous lodes occur, all the mineral veins of the country appearing either in Upper Palæozoic or Metamorphic rocks. Copper and lead-ore also abound. The author believes there is a close connexion between the occurrence of veins and the appearance of Trappean disturbance.

The Relation of the Quaternary Mammalia to the Glacial Period.

By W. BOYD DAWKINS, F.R.S.

The animals fell naturally into five distinct groups, the first of which comprises those now living in the temperate regions of Europe and America, including the Grizzly Bear, the Lynx, the Bison, and the Wild Boar, and binds the Quaternary to the present fauna. The second group comprises those animals which are now confined to cold regions, such as the Glutton, Reindeer, Musk Sheep, and the Tailless Hare; they constitute the Arctic division of Quaternary Mammalia, and imply a cold climate. The third group consists of those animals which are now only found in hot regions, the Hyæna and Hippopotamus; and they indicated

a hot climate. The only mode of getting over this discrepancy is to suppose that in those days the winter cold was very severe, and the summer heat intense, so that in the summer time the animals, now found in warmer regions, migrated northwards, and in the winter time those now found in the Arctic regions went southwards. The fourth group consists of such extinct forms as the Cave Bear, the Stag, the Mammoth, and the Woolly Rhinoceros. The fifth group includes the Sabre-toothed Tiger, the Irish Elk, Rhinoceros megarhinus and R. hemitœchus, and they, with some others, show that there is no great break between the Quaternary and the Pliocene, such as would warrant any sharply defined division of great value. The interest centered more particularly in the Arctic group; and so far as the evidence went, it seemed to be extremely probable that they were in occupation of the areas in Great Britain in which they were found during the time the other areas, in which they were not found, were covered with glaciers; and this period may be put down to that of the latest sojourn of the glaciers in the highest grounds of our islands, and even so far south as the districts of Auvergne and Dauphiné,

On the Progress of the Geological Survey in Scotland. By Prof. GEIKIE, F.R.S. When the British Association last met in Scotland, I had the honour of bringing before this Section a report upon the progress of the Geological Survey, from the time of its commencement here in 1854 by Professor Ramsay, under the direction of the late Sir Henry De la Beche, up to the year 1867, under the supervision of the present Director, Sir Roderick Murchison. During the four years which have since elapsed, considerable advance has been made in the survey of the southern half of Scotland; and I propose now, with the sanction of Sir Roderick, to present to you a brief outline of what has been done, and of the present state of the Survey.

At the time of my previous report rather more than 3000 square miles had been surveyed. Since then we have completed 2700 square miles additional, making a total area of nearly 6000 square miles. Of this area 3175 square miles have been published on the one-inch scale, and three sheets, representing in all 632 square miles, are now in course of being engraved. The whole country is surveyed upon the Ordnance Maps on the scale of six inches to a mile, and from these field-maps the work is reduced to the one-inch scale, which is the scale adopted for the general Geological Map of the country. In addition to that general map, however, maps on the larger or six-inch are published of all mineral tracts. In this way five sheets of the six-inch maps have now been published, embracing the whole of the coal-fields of Fife, Haddingtonshire, and Edinburghshire, with a large portion of the coal-fields of Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Ayrshire, and Dumfriesshire.

The area over which the field-work of the Survey has extended lies between the mouths of the Firths of Tay, Forth, Clyde, and Solway, eastwards to the borders of Roxburghshire and the mouth of the Tweed. It includes the counties of Fife, Kinross, the Lothians, Lanark, Renfrew, Peebles, Ayr, Wigton, Kirkcudbright, Dumfries, and Selkirk, with parts of Stirling, Dumbarton, and Perth.

Of the geological formations examined, the Lower Silurian rocks of the southern uplands cover a considerable space upon the published maps. Until three years ago the mapping of these rocks continued to be most unsatisfactory, owing to the want of any continuous recognizable section from which the order of succession among the strata could be ascertained, and to the great scarcity of organic remains. Our more recent work among the Leadhills, however, has at last given us the means of unravelling, as we hope, the physical structure and stratigraphical relations of the uplands of the south of Scotland. The rocks there are capable of division into several well-marked groups of strata, characterized by distinct assemblages of fossils. We have a lower or Llandeilo series, with a suite of graptolites, and forming probably an upper part of the Moffat group, and a higher or Caradoc set of beds, with a considerable assemblage of distinctive fossils. This higher group we believe to be on the same general horizon as the limestones of Wrae and Kilbucho in Peeblesshire.

The Lower Old Red Sandstone has now been mapped completely over the whole of its extent between Edinburgh and the south of Ayrshire. Fossils have only

been met with at one locality in the latter county, where Cephalaspis occurs. The most characteristic feature of the formation is the enormous development of its interbedded volcanic rocks. Between Edinburgh and Lanarkshire, also, there occurs in this formation a local but violent unconformability, connected probably with some phase of the contemporaneous volcanic activity of the region.

Most of the detailed work of the Survey has lain upon Carboniferous rocks. In the lowest formations of this system, known as the Calciferous Sandstones, the Survey has now been able to trace a twofold division completely across the country, from sea to sea, viz. a lower group of red sandstones, and a higher group of white sandstones, green, grey, and dark shales, cement-stones, limestones, and occasional coal-seams. All these strata lie beneath the true Carboniferous Limestone. They are becoming daily more important from their containing in some places highly bituminous shales, from which paraffin oil can be made. The Carboniferous Limestone series, with its valuable coals and ironstones, has been mapped, and in great part published, for the eastern and south-western coal-fields; and this is also the case with the Coal-measures. Much additional information has been obtained regarding the development of volcanic action in central Scotland during the Carboniferous period.

The Permian basins of Ayrshire and Thornhill have been surveyed and in great part published. Much fresh light has in the course of this Survey been thrown on the interesting Permian volcanoes of the south-west of Scotland.

Attention has been continuously given to the superficial accumulations. These are now mapped in as great detail as the rocks underneath, and plans are being prepared with the view to an issue of maps of the surface geology.

By a recent order of the Director-General, each one-inch map is now accompa nied at the time of its publication, or as soon thereafter as possible, with an explanatory pamphlet, in which the form of the ground, geological formations, fossils, rocks, faults, and economic minerals are briefly described, and such further information given as seems necessary for the proper elucidation of the map. These pamphlets are sold at a uniform price of 3d. Detailed vertical sections are pubfished for each coal-field. For the construction of these sections, records of boring operations are procured and recorded in the register-books of the Survey. Since 1867 more than 312,200 feet of such borings have in this way been entered in our books. Sheets of horizontal sections on a large scale are likewise issued to form, with the maps and explanations, a compendium of the geological structure of each large district.

Another feature of the work of the Survey is the collection of specimens of the rocks and fossils of each tract of country as it is surveyed. Since my previous Report to this Section of the British Association, we have collected 1011 specimens of rocks, and 7500 fossils. These are named and exhibited, as far as the present accommodation will permit, in the Museum of Science and Art at Edinburgh.

The work of the Geological Survey is carried on, as I have said, under the guidance of its Director-General, Sir Roderick Murchison, a name which has long been a household word at the meetings of the British Association, and one to which I am sure you will permit me to make on this occasion more than a passing reference. While the Survey advances, as I have shown, steadily over the face of the country, unravelling piece by piece the complicated details of its geological structure, to Sir Roderick belongs the rare merit of having himself led the way, by sketching for us, boldly and clearly, the relations of the older rocks over more than half of the kingdom. Much must undoubtedly remain for future investigation, but his outline of the grand essential features of Highland geology will ever remain as a monument of his powers of close yet rapid observation and sagacious inference. At one time I had hoped that the Chair of this Section might be filled by him, and that we should be permitted to listen anew to his expositions of the rocks of his native country. There is no one among us who does not regret the absence of the familiar face and voice of the veteran of Siluria. We meet once more on Scottish ground, and for the first time we have not here with us the man who has laid a deeper, broader impress on Scottish geology than any other geologist either of past generations or of this. There is, however, on the present occasion, a special cause 1871.

for regret. Only within the last few months he founded a Chair of Geology in the University within whose walls we are now assembled-the first and only chair of the kind in Scotland. It would have been a fitting and grateful duty on the part of the University to welcome one of its most distinguished benefactors. I am well aware, indeed, that this Section-room is no place for the obtrusion of personal sentiments; yet I would fain be allowed to add in conclusion an expression of my own deep regret at the recent illness and consequent absence of one to whom, over and above the admiration which we all feel for his life-long labours and his personal character, many years of friendly intercourse have bound me by the closest ties of affection,

Fossiliferous Strata at Lochend near Edinburgh By D. GRIEVE.

The strata to which this notice refers are situated on the east side of the Loch, and appear in the Trap precipice, on which stand the ruins of the ancient Keep of the Logans of Restalrig. Although it was conjectured, it was not known, until Mr. Grieve found distinctive fossils in these strata, that the Carboniferous formation, so largely spread over the site of Edinburgh and its neighbourhood, extended so far to the eastward; and it would now appear that these form a continuity of the strata and shales found some years ago on the north side of the Calton Hill. They are of the Lower Carboniferous formation, and seem to be equivalents of the sandstones and shales of Burdiehouse on the south, and Wardie and Granton on the north and west of Edinburgh.

The fossils found by Mr. Grieve at Lochend he enumerates as follows:-Of Plants, Calamites of a large and well-marked species, a Lepidodendron and Lepidophyllum, with various Sphenopterites. Of Fishes, a beautiful specimen of the genus Palæoniscus; also scales, teeth, spines, and coprolites. Lastly, a Crustacean, Cypris Scoto Burdigalensis, or of an allied species.

It is to be regretted that the quarry from which the above fossils were obtained has now been obliterated in the course of agricultural improvements.

On the position of Organic Remains near Burntisland. By G. J. GRIEVE.

On "The Boulder Drift and Esker Hills of Ireland," and "On the position of Erratic Blocks in the Country." By Sir RICHARD GRIFFITH, Bart., F.R.S. Sir Richard commenced by giving a short description of his geological map, and mentioned that the direction of the mountain-ranges generally, as well as the strike of the strata, ranged from north-west to south-east. He stated that the position of Ireland with respect to Europe was further to the west into the Atlantic Ocean, and that on the west side were numerous deep bays, guarded by promontories composed of hard rocks, while on the east side the coast was only slightly indented on any part. He mentioned that the coast of Ireland all round was composed of mountains, while the interior was nearly flat, and that the rock of that plain was altogether composed of Carboniferous limestone. He stated that a line drawn from Sligo Bay on the west to Drogheda Bay on the east, would form the northern boundary of the great plain, while the southern boundary might be shown by a line drawn from Galway Bay on the west to Dublin Bay on the east, comprehending an area of 5000 square miles. This large district was divided into nearly two equal parts by the river Shannon, whose source was near Lough Allen, in the county of Cavan, elevated 160 feet above the level of the sea, while the length of its course to the sea, at Limerick, was 140 miles, giving an average fall of 1 foot 2 inches in a mile; and he further stated that this fall was not equally distributed, as between Limerick and Kildare, a distance of 12 miles, was a fall of 98 feet, showing that from the distance of 128 miles between Lough Allen and Killaloe, there was an average fall of less than 6 inches in a mile. The great centre plain, already described as containing 5000 square miles, contained 1,000,000 acres of bogs, each of which was surrounded by drift resting on the top of the