Comparisons have recently been drawn between the Alluvial deposits of the Irrawadi and the Ganges. Every river that discharges its waters into the sea has the character of its deposits influenced according to whether the area be in a state of subsidence, quiescence, or of elevation. Generally in every large river-basin two distinct alluvial deposits will be met with. The older of these may be either marine (estuarine) or fluviatile (lacustrine), or of a mixed and alternating character; but the newer group is essentially fluvio-lacustrine, and directly produced by the existing river. While no very great thickness of the newer stratum can anywhere have been deposited without a corresponding subsidence of the area, a very large accumulation of the older or estuarine deposit may have taken place during an elevation of the area covered by it. The Ganges and Irrawadi present examples of rivers subjected, respectively, to the former and latter conditions. The alluvium of the Ganges, as ascertained from a well-boring at Fort William, consists of 70 feet of the newer or fluviatile deposit, resting on the denuded surface of the "kunker clay." This clay is regarded as an estuarine deposit accumulated during an upward movement of the land. The Gangetic area is now considered to be undergoing depression at a rate adequately counterbalanced by the accession of sediment brought down by the river. The alluvium of the Irrawadi belongs almost entirely to the older group, this river-delta being at the present time in precisely the same condition as was the delta of the Ganges when the first layers of its alluvium, 70 feet below the present surface at Calcutta, were being deposited. The difference in the fertility of the two areas is attributed to the greater richness of the newer alluvium, and hence the inability of the delta of the Irrawadi to compare with that of the Ganges in agricultural produce. The geology of the neighbourhood of Madras is noticed in the third volume of the 'Records.' The greater part of this district is occupied by rocks of Secondary, Tertiary, and Recent ages, the remainder is taken up by metamorphic rocks, forming part of the great gneissic series of Southern India. Some time previously, beds of magnetic iron-ore were pointed out in the metamorphic gneiss rocks of the Madras Presidency, the supply of which was considered to be practically inexhaustible. The Rajmahal plant-beds consist of conglomerates, sandstones, gritty clays, and shales. The Laterite deposits are also pointed out. They comprise clayey conglomerates, gravels, and sands, which graduate one into the other. The gravels contain pebbles of quartzite and gneiss, mixed with pisiform ferruginous pellets. Other deposits called the Conjeveram gravels are noticed; they differ from the laterite beds in the absence of ferruginous matter. Both appear to contain imple ments of human manufacture in the shape of axes and spear-heads made of chipped quartzite pebbles, and of the same types as those which occur in the gravels of Western Europe. They were spread rather widely over a large extent of area in the country to the west and north of the city of Madras, and have been made of the best substitute which this portion of the country could afford for flint, namely, the very hard and semi-vitreous quartzites of the Cuddapah series. In gravel, situated near Pyton on the banks of the Godavery, an agate-flake has been found, which is undoubtedly an artificial form. It is figured in vol. i. of the 'Records.' We have but briefly and imperfectly noticed a few of the more important results arrived at by the energetic labours, in the field, of Dr. Oldham and the officers of the Geological Survey. This worksuperintended by Dr. Oldham—has been carried out by the many able assistants who have served under him, among whom we may mention H. B. and J. G. Medlicott, H. J. and W. F. Blanford, C. Æ. Oldham,* W. Theobald, jun., F. R. Mallet, A. B. Wynne, R. B. Foote, T. W. H. Hughes, W. King, jun., F. Fedden, &c. We will now turn our attention to the palaeontological work. A Museum of Economic Geology was established at Calcutta in 1840, and in 1856 it was placed in connection with and under the same superintendence as the Geological Survey of India. There are also Museums at Madras, Bombay, and Kurrachee. During the progress of the Survey numerous fossils have been collected, and specimens are being constantly added to the Museum. Indeed Dr. Oldham reports that they increase so rapidly that no room can be found for their proper exhibition, and in the examination and description of them it is impossible to keep pace. During the year 1869 more than 20,000 specimens passed through the hands of the curator and his assistant. A suitable building is, we are informed, now in course of erection at Calcutta, where the fine collections already brought together will be properly arranged and exhibited. One of the more richly fossiliferous tracts is at Spiti and Rushpu in the Himalayas, where representatives of Silurian, Carboniferous, Triassic (Lilang series), Rhætic (Para limestone), Lower and Middle Lias, and three subdivisions of the Jurassic period, and also Cretaceous rocks are believed to occur. In order to figure and describe the species of organic remains collected by the Survey, the 'Palæontologia Indica' was instituted. This quarto publication is issued in fasciculi, each containing about six plates, and published once every three months. Five series of these fasciculi have been published. *This able geologist died 30th March, 1869, aged 37 years. See Obituary, 'Geol. Mag.,' vol. vi., p. 240. The first series was printed in 1861, and treated of the Fossil Cephalopoda of the Cretaceous rocks of South India, containing the Belemnitida and Nautilide, by H. F. Blanford; the Ammonitidæ, by Dr. F. Stoliczka, formed matter for the third series. The Cephalopoda were found to include 146 species, of which nearly one hundred were Ammonites, three only Belemnites, whilst of Nautilus there were 22 species, &c. Thirty-seven of these species were found identical with species known in Europe and other countries. Ninety-six quarto plates are devoted to the illustration of these fossils. The Gasteropoda of the Cretaceous rocks form the subject of the fifth series; they are illustrated with sixteen plates, and are described by Dr. Ferdinand Stoliczka. Two hundred and thirty-seven species of Gasteropoda are described. Among them, four species of Helicidæ are deserving of special attention from the rarity of land-shells in these Cretaceous rocks, and particularly as they are said to belong to types still found living in the same or neighbouring districts. Dr. Stoliczka considers that the South Indian Cretaceous deposits only represent the Upper Cretaceous strata, beginning with the Cenomanien. The larger number of representative species were found to agree with the Turonien. The original notion of representatives of Neocomian beds existing in South India loses support from the more complete examination and comparison of the species. The second series of the Paleontologia Indica' is devoted to the Fossil Flora of the Rajmahal series (Jurassic), six fasciculi of which have been published. The descriptions are by Dr. Oldham and Professor Morris. The Rajmahal beds occur near Madras, in Bengal, and Kutch. At Madras the beds contain no carbonaceous matter, which in their equivalents in other parts of India occurs so largely as to form coal-seams. The plant-remains occur chiefly in a white shale. They include Palæozamia, Dictyopteris, Tæniopteris, Pterophyllum, Pecopteris, Stangerites, Poacites, &c. The fourth series on the Vertebrate Fossils of the Panchet rocks is by Professor Huxley, and is illustrated with six plates. These remains consist of numerous fragmentary and sometimes rolled bones, the majority being vertebrae, with a few teeth, portions of crania, &c. They were discovered in a stratum of conglomerate sandstone exposed by the Damuda river near Deoli, fifteen miles west of Ranigunj, and they are of great interest as being the first remains of vertebrata discovered in the great group of rocks associ ated with the coal-bearing formations of Bengal. They proved to belong to a peculiar group of fossil reptiles (Dicynodontia) hitherto only known from South Africa. The strong analogy which these South African rocks offer to some of the Indian rocks had been insisted on by Dr. Oldham, before this discovery, on the strength of the plant-remains alone, and this has been strangely confirmed by the discovery of reptiles of the same type (Dicynodontia). Very many years must necessarily pass away before the Geological Survey of India is completed, nor can Dr. Oldham and his present staff hope to see its accomplishment, but they have done sufficient already to indicate the great geological features of the country, and we may hope to see in one of their future publications, a table of succession of the Indian strata as far as at present determined, with their probable European equivalents. IV. RAINFALL IN ENGLAND. By W. PENGELLY, F.R.S. As regularly as the new year comes, and very speedily afterwards, come Mr. Symons's 'British Rainfalls,' containing the well-tabulated results obtained by many hundreds of rain observers whose gauges are spread over Great Britain and Ireland, as well as the adjacent isles. The data contained in these annual publications are of great interest, not only in themselves and as they stand, but because they are capable of being worked up and discussed in various ways, some of which I will now proceed to illustrate. The Rainfall of England and Wales.-During 1869, there were in Great Britain south of the Tweed and Solway no fewer than 1093 gauges at work, giving an average of about 21 for each county, but, as may be supposed, without any approach to uniformity of distribution. They were most thickly strewn in Middlesex, and most sparingly in Montgomeryshire, there being one gauge for every 5973 acres in the former, and for every 284,060 acres in the latter; that is relatively about forty-seven times as many gauges in the one as in the other. On the average, there was in the entire kingdom one gauge on every 34,149 acres; hence, were the distribution uniform, each gauge in England and Wales might be supposed to occupy the centre of a square measuring 7.3 miles in the side. It is eminently creditable to the zeal and perseverance of their meteorologists that the mountainous and thinly-populated counties of Carnarvon, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, were amongst those in which the relative number of gauges exceeded the average for the entire country; thus for every ten gauges in England and Wales as a whole, there were 10.5 in Carnarvonshire, 18 4 in Cumberland, and 25.5 in Westmoreland. In the last, moreover, there were no fewer than twelve gauges on ground upwards of 1000 feet above the sea, three upwards of 2000 feet, and one at the height of 3200 feet. Westmoreland had five gauges more than 1000 feet high; and though Carnarvon had none exceeding 850 feet in height, the returns from every gauge in the county were in every respect complete, as they contained full information as to height above the sea and the ground, the total annual rainfall, the number of wet days, and therefore of the average wet-day rate of rain. The stations varied in height from the sea-level, at Hull, to 3200 feet above it, at Scafell Pike in Cumberland. The least county average height was 53 feet, in Cambridgeshire; the greatest was 715 feet, in Radnorshire; whilst that for the entire kingdom was 297 feet. This general average was surpassed in twenty-five counties, but not reached in the remaining twenty-seven. The tops of the gauges were by no means at one uniform height above the ground on which they stood. In several cases they were level with the surface, whilst one at Cockermouth was 100 feet above it. Taking the counties as separate wholes, the least average height was 13 inches in Leicestershire, and the greatest 7 inches in Cambridgeshire; while the mean height for the entire country was 2 feet 9 inches. This general average was exceeded in twenty-four counties, but not reached in twenty-six. During the four years ending with December 31st, 1869, the least annual rainfall at any station was 7.84 inches-the receipts in 1869 of a gauge at Sheerness, the top of which was 70 feet above the ground and 79 feet above the sea; whilst the greatest was 207 49 inches, received in the same year, in a gauge 6 inches above the ground, and 1077 feet above the sea, at the Stye in Cumberland. During the four-year period just named the average annual rainfall in the different counties as separate wholes varied from 68.91 inches in Cumberland to 22.55 inches in Bedfordshire; the average for the entire kingdom being 35 37 inches. The three numbers were as 195: 63: 100. The general average was exceeded in eighteen counties but not reached in thirty-four; the former, or "wet" counties, being to the latter, or "dry" ones, as 1:2 nearly. According to the Registrar-General, England and Wales contain 37,324,915 statute acres; hence, with an average rainfall of 35 37 inches, they every year receive 4,792,261,544,086 cubic feet of rain; that is, a quantity sufficient to fill a canal having an uniform breadth and depth equal to those of the Thames at low water at London Bridge (700 x 12.5 feet), and a length of 103,721 miles, or more than four times the circumference of the earth. Taking the weight of a cubic foot of water at 1000 oz. av., England and Wales annually receive 133,712,677,011 tons of rain. Were the entire rainfall of the year converted into a hailstorm it would be a globe having a diameter of 4730 feet 9 miles. = The eighteen "wet" counties are, in descending order, Cumber |