In his admirable essay on the Devonian Fishes, in the Tenth Decade of the Geological Survey, Professor Huxley has clearly indicated and described the differences and the resemblances of the genera Holoptychius and Glyptolepis. In the interesting work of the Rev. Dr. Anderson on ‘Dura Den,’ in which its exquisitely-preserved fossils are described, no mention is made of Glyptolepis. In the November part of the ‘Journal of the Geological Society of London,’ Mr. Powrie lias called attention to the occurrence of Glyptolepis in slabs recently disinterred, for the St. Andrew's Museum, from Dura Den. Through the kindness of Dr. Anderson, a slab was presented to the Montrose Museum in 1859; and it is now apparent from it that Glyptolepis is not of rare occurrence at Dura Den, and that either this genus has been passed over altogether, or confounded with Holoptychius. The fishes in the Montrose Museum are smaller, and do not in all points correspond with those described by Mr. Powrie, but we think they emphatically demonstrate that the Holoptychius Flemingii must now be denominated Glyptolepis.

On the slab in the Montrose Museum there is one fine specimen of Holoptychius and six specimens of Glyptolepis, not regarding fragmentary portions of fishes. At the first glance there is a resemblance in size, in general aspect, and outline, among the fishes. Their average length is about nine inches, and their breadth at the thickest part of the body nearly three inches.

In the Report on the Geology of Trinidad the Government geologists described a series of sandstones and shales extending across the island from east to west, and occupying an extent of about 97 square miles. The distribution of the formation, which has been named the “Older Parian,” is in the manner of an irregular band of from 1 to 4 miles in breadth, traversing the island in an easterly direction from the Gulf of Paria at Pointe à Pierre. This band terminates rather abruptly before reaching the east coast, but the formation reappears here and there near the south coast along a line parallel to the main band. The formation is only exposed for a short distance on the shores of the Gulf of Paria; but it has been found to cover a large area, and to be extensively developed on the continent of South America. The fossils found by the geologists in Trinidad seem to have been few, and for the most part indeterminable. They however obtained fossils from the same formation at Cumana, in Venezuela; and these remains led to the belief that the Older Parian was probably of Neocomian age. During a short visit to Pointe à Pierre I obtained several fossils, which have enabled me to make the observations detailed in the present paper.

The section given by the Government geologists of the Older Parian deposits at Pointe à Pierre is taken on the south side of the point, which I have not had an opportunity of examining carefully. The geologists do not seem to be able to give much attention to that portion of the deposits which is exposed on the north side of the point, and I hope that the present paper, in so far at least as it relates to the fossils, may in some measure supply the deficiency.

My friend Mr. Mackie has handed me an interesting little fragment of jaw, derived from the Gault at Folkestone. The length of the broken fragment of jaw measures 1⅛ inch; its absolute breadth of an inch. It contains three teeth, of which the largest is conical, incurved, exhibiting around its thickened base a series of sculptured linear depressions, parallel with the axis of the tooth, the interior of which has been converted into phosphate of lime; the second and the third also exhibiting similar characters, the third especially being acuminate, and exhibiting the natural apex of the tooth in an uninjured state. The conformation of such a tooth led my friend Mr. Davies to compare it with the homologous structure in the teeth of the Pachyrhizodus basalis of Agassiz, which is described by Sir Philip Egerton, F.R.S., in Mr. F. Dixon's ‘Geology of Sussex.’ The specimen figured in that work was obtained from the Lower Chalk at Steyning. The characters, which are given, are—” apex very brittle, slightly curved inwardly, and solid; the base is hollow, and extends into the substance of the jaw.” It is further stated that in Sir Philip Egerton's cabinet there is a specimen of this fish, exhibiting an unusually thick and strong humerus, as well as large and circular scales, covered with asperities so minute as to be indistinguishable without the aid of a glass.

There are many points of distinction, however, between the Pachyrhizodus basalis of Agassiz, and Mr. Mackie's specimen. Apart from the absolute size of Mr. Dixon's specimen, which is at least double that of the one before me, I am wholly unable to detect in the former any trace of that curious sculptured channelling which is so prominent in the latter specimen. This comparison failing, Mr. Davies showed me some most interesting specimens, also from the Folkestone gault, which exhibited equally perfect evidences of this sculpturing. I would therefore suggest that some temporary or provisional name should be given to this form, which differs from the Pachyrhizodus basalis of Agassiz, both in its stratigraphical habitat and its odontological conformation.

The thick folio book of Athanasius Kircher is an extraordinary one in many respects, and chiefly in respect to the numerous subjects it treats of, and the number of its woodcut illustrations. Rough as these are, they give us a better idea than mere descriptions of the objects he speaks about. Like other of these old authors, he copies a great deal from his predecessors and contemporaries; indeed one gets wearied of this eternal copying by these, for the most part, old doctor-naturalists, and of the endless cross-references from one to another. Still, for our purpose, which is to give all the literature on the subject, we must submit some few more extracts from old books.

The title of Kircher's book is ‘Mundi Subterranei,’ and the first reference we meet with is, in Tom. ii. lib. viii, de Lapidibus, sect. 1, cap. ix. p. 34, fig. “avium in lapidibus expressio,”—of birds expressed on stone. (See Vol. VII. Pl. II. Fig. 6.)

We next come to numerous figures of other “flying creatures” at p. 35, etc. Tab. I. is headed, “Figuræ Volucrum, quas Natura in lapidibus depinxit, ex variis Museis decerptæ et aliunde transmissæ.”

“Figures of winged creatures, painted by nature on stones, taken from various museums, and otherwise transmitted.”

Though our science has risen above the stage from which she taught that all granites are parts of the original crust of the earth; though she has advanced so far as to doubt whether, in all cases, the granitic was the first phase of rock-existence which the materials composing it assumed, and to entertain the question whether such rocks may not be the extreme form of metamorphism, which has obliterated all traces of an earlier condition; and though she may prudently decline to point out, in the large circle of her rocky acquaintances, one mass of crystalline unstratified rock which, as such, can be proved to be older than some known beds of mechanical origin; it remains to be the rule rather than the exception to meet with persons, frequently veil-informed, and not without an interest in geology, who still cling to the notion, or allow it to cling to them, that every mass of granite is a primitive rock, in the strict chronological import of the term; and represents a period in the earth's history prior to the possible existence of sedimentary strata, or of organized beings. Indeed the opinion that granite is, in all cases, a primary rock, has so large a place in the public mind, that one might prudently hesitate before throwing such a question as “What is the age of the Dartmoor granite?” before any audience having a very large admixture of the popular element.

The low cliffs stretching from Gorleston, south of Yarmouth, towards Lowestoft, are mainly composed of boulder drift, and are well described by the late Mr. Trimmer in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society for 1857. As an independent confirmation of his observations on the intercalation of the whole boulder-clay double series, between the fluvio-marine and forest bed beneath, and the local marls and marsh and estuary beds occasionally above, I send the following note, made without having had the benefit of Mr. Trimmer’s paper.

In the Plate accompanying this paper are figured three species of Terebratulæ, which the writer lately obtained from the Lower Greensand beds of the Isle of Wight. Two of them are interesting as being entirely new to these strata in Britain, whilst the third is a remarkable deformity of a rare species. In Fig. 1, 2, 4, a shell is drawn which appears to be identical with the Terebratula Moutoniana of D'Orbigny, a species not uncommon in France, associated with T. sella in the Upper Neocomian and Aptian beds of that author. It is somewhat oval in shape, depressed and elongated; surface entirely smooth. The perforate valve is rather more convex than the other, truncated by a foramen of moderate size; deltidium very short and small. Nine specimens of this species were obtained from the ferruginous Greensand beds, at Dunnose Point, near Shanklin. This shell, on external examination, is easily distinguished from T. sella, which it somewhat resembles, by the absence of any biplication on the frontal margin. Its internal structure proves it to belong to the section Waldheimia of King, which precludes all doubt as to its specific distinctions from T. sella. It is easily distinguished from Waldheimia Celtica, Morris, by its less elongated and gibbous outline.

The classification given in the sequel is based on the following premises:—

1st. The entire area of the British Isles has undergone at different times, during the Glacial and Post-Glacial periods, a succession of secular elevating and subsiding movements.

2nd. At the close of the Pliocene period, the relative level of land and sea over the British area was approximately the same as at present.

3rd. The edge of the two-hundred-fathoms submarine plateau, on the east side of the North Atlantic, formed the west coast-line of a continent (now represented by Europe) during the earliest time (epoch) of the Glacial period.

4th. The climate of the British area was frigid in the extreme during the Glacial period, allowing epochs of amelioration.

5th. Rock-surfaces undergo enormous degradation when they are above the sea-level, during the prevalency of glaciation.

Five stone “celts” have been submitted to me, from the collections of antiquarian objects from Chiriquí formed by my friends William Bollaert, Esq., F.R.G.S., Corr. Mem. Univ. Chile, etc., and W. Duprée, M.D., F.R.G.S., of Panamá.

No information has been given to me respecting the locality, condition, or probable age of these “celts.” I understand, however, that they were obtained from the same graves in Chiriquí whence have been derived the various objects wrought in gold and moulded in pottery, some of which have been lately described in the United States, and in this country by Mr. Bollaert.

All the celts exhibited the well-known scalpriform sharpening of the larger end, and are sharpened laterally by a succession of blows, producing facets, analogous to those of the chipped flints which have been found at Abbeville, at the Kjökkenmöddings in Denmark and in various European localities, and which probably belong to a period antecedent to the known historical era.

Four of the celts, marked B 2, B 3, D 1, and D 2, are composed of the porphyritic stone found in great abundance on the Isthmus of Darien. One only, marked B 1, is hewn more roughly than the others from an indurated clay, and closely resembles some of the European worked flints.