-is not older than the Lias; and that the Virginia and North Carolina beds are of equivalent age; the lower half of the same sandstone, which may be a mile in thickness, according to the measurements of Prof. H., are thick enough to embrace the Triassic and Permian; but no evidence has been obtained that the Permian is represented.

Since the discovery of the Permian in the west as a direct continuation of the Carboniferous beds, and as the closing part properly of the Carboniferous system, it has become more apparent, we think, that the beds on the Atlantic border from the Connecticut valley to North Carolina, belong to a later period. The elevation of the Appalachian mountains appears to have closed the Paleozoic era, and thus separates the Permian period, the last of the Carboniferous age, from the Triassic, the first of the Reptilian. The observations of Prof. Hitchcock tend to confirm this view, for the rocks all appear to belong to one system: the fossils of the upper half are as recent probably as Lias; and no trace of a Permian species has been found in any of the beds.

The footprints are referred to Marsupialoid animals (5 species); Birds (31 species); Ornithoid reptiles, or reptiles walking on their posterior feet (12); Lizards (17); Batrachians (16); Chelonians (8); Fishes (4); Crustaceans, Myriapods and Insects (19); Annelids (10)-in all 123 species, more than double the number announced ten years since. The reference of some of these species to the special division in which they occur is still quite doubtful, as Professor Hitchcock states, especially the Chelonian and Marsupialoid tracks. It is not possible to present the arguments respecting them satisfactorily in a brief notice, and they would be imperfectly appreciated without figures; we therefore refer our readers to the work. The question whether any of the tracks were made by birds has seriously come up, since it has been found that some species (placed among the Marsupialoids in the work, but probably Reptilian) had 3-toed bird-like hind feet, and hand-like fore feet. The descriptions of the species are given with much detail and illustrated by characteristic figures, which enable any that are interested to pursue the subject and work out their own conclusions, where those of the author are not deemed satisfactory. It is quite possible that some of the genera of reptiles are identical with those that have been made out from fossils in Europe. Much is to be learned respecting the tracks of living animals, and the variations for running, walking and standing, before the subject will be exhausted.

The Ichnological Cabinet at Amherst contains a magnificent display of specimens, and if Professor Hitchcock had done nothing more than collect this cabinet, he would have made his mark on the science of geology. In pronouncing the display magnificent we speak advisedly. The Cabinet is by no means fairly treated in a sketch on one of the plates. The hall is 100 feet long and 30 wide; and it is filled from one end to the other with slabs of various sizes, some eight feet and upwards in length. Of the huge Brontozoa and Otozoa there are many specimens; and one series of the latter of eleven tracks covers a slab 30 feet long. The hand-like hind feet of the Otozoum are 20 inches long. There are a few tracks of the fore-feet of this biped batrachian (?) which are a little less than half the length of the hind feet; they show that the ani

mal sometimes brought its anterior limbs to the ground though generally walking on the posterior pair.

The delicate tracks of insects or crustaceans are also remarkable. There is a specimen with impressions of what appears to be a neuropterous larve, although of doubtful relations. The Cabinet contains specimens of all the species that have been discovered in the Connecticut valley. The number of tracks on all the specimens collectively is not less than 8000, averaging 68 tracks for each species.

4. Geological Survey of Canada. Report of Progress for 1857. 240 pp., 8vo. Toronto, 1858. Sir W. E. LOGAN, Geologist. This valuable Report includes notices of the Laurentian rocks about the mouths of the French River, the Huronian and other rocks of Echo Lake, and the limestone of Bruce Mines, by A. Murray, Esq.; on the Magdalen river and Lake St. John and its deposits, by James Richardson; on the modern fauna of some localities, by R. Bell; on Canadian Graptolites, by James Hall; Paleontological Report by E. Billings; on the composition of some Dolomites, and the origin of magnesian limestone, and on Fish manure, by T. S. Hunt; and an abstract of telegraphic observations for longitude, by Lieut. E. D. Ashe, R. N., with maps, and wood-cuts illustrating the different topics.

Mr. Richardson states in his report on Lake St. John, that recent shells (Saxicava rugosa) occur on Belle river half a mile below the falls, (near lat. 48° and long. 714°,) at a height of probably 200 to 300 feet above the sea; also on River St. Alphonse, about four miles above its entrance into the upper part of Ha-Ha Bay, about 150 feet above the sea. The recent researches of Mr. Hall on Graptolites have already been noticed in this Journal. Mr. Billings describes new species of corals, and new genera and species of bivalves from the Silurian of Canada, illustrating several of the latter by figures; and besides he presents important comparisons between the rocks of Canada and New York. The researches of Prof. Hunt on dolomites are of much interest, and we propose to cite from them in another number.

5. The Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. xiv, Part 4, No. 56.-This new number contains the conclusion of the annual address of the President, also the important papers reviewing the Geology of the United States by Dr. J. J. Bigsby, (which, were it not for their great length, we should be pleased to reproduce in this Journal,) and a paper by Mr. H. C. Sorby on the microscopic structure of some crystals, besides other shorter papers.

We cite here the conclusions to which Dr. Bigsby has arrived, without wishing to endorse all as they stand. They relate to the central Palæozoic basin or area of Middle North America. They are in part similar to what has before been presented in this Journal and elsewhere, by other writers.

1. That, whatever may be the case elsewhere, the Silurian and Devonian systems of New York are parts of one connected and harmonious period-the product of successive and varying Neptunian agencies, operating in waters which deepened westward from the Atlantic, and southwards from the Laurentine chain on the north.

2. That from the Catskill group (Old Red Sandstone) downwards through the whole series, to the Potsdam Sandstone, there is perfect and close conformability, and no such unwonted change in fossil life as to constitute a systematic break, except at one place the Oriskany Sandstone, the base of the Devonian in New York, there being no break of like importance at the Oneida conglomerate period, contrary to an opinion towards which able geologists are now inclining, an opinion which leads them to consider the break at the Oneida conglomerate as systematic.

3. All the paleozoic groups of New York slowly pass one into the other by gradation of mineral and organic characters, with easily explained exceptions.

4. The palæozoic strata of New York are comparatively thin. They seem to have lost in thickness what they have gained in extension.

5. De Verneuil rightly divides the New York groups into two great classes, the "constant" and the "local." Among the former are Potsdam Sandstone, Trenton Limestone, and Niagara. Among the latter are the four lower Helderbergs, and perhaps Oneida conglomerate, &c. This is a useful division.

6. That it is both convenient and natural to divide the Silurian and Devonian systems of this State each into three stages, the division being based on change of sediment and their fossil contents.

7. The Middle Silurian stage is a period of especial transition-from the coarseness of some of its sediments, from their innumerable and minute alternations, and from the organic poverty prevailing.

8. That the presence of Oneida conglomerate in New York does not necessitate a change of name for all the strata below it (of "Cambrian" for instance ;) because a conglomerate does not always indicate systematic change, not even if there be volcanic intercalation, provided there is conformableness, and some community of fossils.

The Oneida conglomerate seems to be local, is supernumerary, and only found at present on the east of Middle North America.

9. The hardening and crystallizing effect of metamorphism is seen only in the neighborhood of hypogene rocks.

10. The New York basin exhibits few uplifts, and those of limited magnitude; no uplifts dividing it into a series of deep basins contained in hypogene beds, as in Bohemia, Wales, &c. Neither has it sheets of alternating volcanic grit (conformable,) save in the Potsdam rock on Lake Superior.

This basin has a "lay" or position of its own, as a number of undulating sheets of sediment, dipping slightly to the southwest, here and there pierced by a peak of crystalline rock, and in certain regions raised into three broad low domes of great length.

11. The sedimentary rocks of this basin have submitted to two kinds of plutonic disturbance, independent of each other, and acting at distant intervals: 1st, that of secular or slow oscillation during deposition; 2nd, that of disturbance arising from paroxysmal uplifts long after their completion.

12. The whole Silurian and Devonian series of strata having, during deposition, sunk to the depth of 13,300 feet, it is submitted as a query whether it does not seem necessary to suppose that they were elevated

into their present position by the post-carboniferous uplift,-such agency being sufficient to produce all the observed phenomena, and the effects diminishing westwards from the central line of disturbance. No other agency is known to me, although hinted at by [some] American geologists.

13. It is a remarkable fact that brine-springs exist in considerable quantity in the middle stage of the Silurian system, a group or two below the Onondaga salt-springs of the upper stage, and three palæozoic systems below any salt deposits in Europe.

14. That the form and direction of the five great Canadian lakes are not due originally and mainly to the passage of loaded waters over their site, but that they follow the outcrops of their containing sedimentary rocks; changes in shape and size having, nevertheless, occurred since.

15. The contours of the valley of the St. Lawrence generally (to which much of New York belongs), and its increasing elevation southwestwards, inland from Montreal, are due to the successive altitudes assumed westward, in slopes and plateaux, by the Silurian and Devonian strata, the lowest or most ancient being on the east. This is beautifully evidenced in the rocks forming the basins of the great Canadian lakes.

16. That some of the groups, during and after deposition, were subatmospheric, presenting the conditions of dry land and shallow waters for long and varying periods, and that, together with the marine life they supported, they enjoyed the influences of the sun and other meteorological agencies. This is indicated by animal tracks, sun-cracks on ancient shores, the short ripple-marks of a chopped sea, impressions of reeds waving in running water, and by the presence of bog-iron-ore. This is conformable with what took place in the carboniferous, permian, triassic, liassic, oolitic, wealden, and later periods. Denudations also occurred to most of the groups to a large extent.

17. That in New York, as elsewhere, there is an intimate connexion between fossils and their sediment or habitat. The calcareocolous animals are always found in limestone more or less pure, and the arenicolous in sandstone more or less pure,-with exceptions, such as usually happen with respect to locomotive animals. The calcareocolous are everywhere the most numerous. It is true that molluscs are the principal agents in the deposition of calcareous sea bottoms; but these latter greatly favor afterwards the multiplication of individuals.

18. That the iron-ore which we so frequently see investing invertebrate remains, had access to them after their death and sepulture.

19. Every group, as established by the State Geologists of New York, is a distinct centre of life, a separate realm or community of animated beings, which may be called epochal, so marked are the differences.

The majority of these existences always perished at the end of the group when certain deposits ceased, because the new sediment, with its new and peculiar flora (and for other reasons,) was only able to nourish a few, if any, of the old molluscs.

20. In New York the species of fucoids occupy and are typical of only one group.

21. All the individual existences are perfect at once, from the earliest dawn of life, in their organization and social relations.

22. It is a great thought, that throughout the incalculably long succession of fossiliferous deposits, palæozoic or more modern, all animal and vegetable life was constructed upon the same idea of innervation, organs of sense, supply and waste, fecundation, &c.

23. There is another kind of life-centre-the geographic, belonging to one and the same group. This forms numerous separate provinces linked together by a few common fossils, and displaying extraordinary variety. This principle or regulation is carried out abundantly everywhere. Bohemia and Scandinavia have scarcely a Silurian fossil in common. One half of the Russian and Irish fossils, and two thirds of those of New York, are new and peculiar. Even the east and west sides of the small districts in Wales and England investigated by Prof. Philips, differ remarkably in their population. We see this in the American Tertiaries and in the recent seas.

24. Contrary to the opinion of Mr. D. Sharpe, the mollusc having the greatest vertical range has the greatest horizontal extension, being found in the most distant regions.

25. There is no evidence of multiplication of species by transmutation. 26. Fossils may be contemporaneous in geological age, without being contemporaneous in time as commonly understood.

Geological age is partly determined by fossil evidence. Now, the presence of living beings (subsequently fossil) depends on mineral and other conditions, such as temperature, depth, currents, &c., which were nowhere the same for large spaces, but were always undergoing changes from plutonic and other causes-changes always more or less local and limited, the deposits being thick or thin in places: so that the universal scheme of paleozoic life was not everywhere worked up to the same point; here preparations were making for Lower Silurian deposits,-there for the Upper, or Devonian, and so on. Thus isochronism was perhaps not

common.

27. The principles of recurrency, succession, increment, and relative abundance of fossil species are the same in New York, Wales, and elsewhere, modified by local circumstances.

28. Recurrency, or reappearance in different strata, is at the same time the measure of viability in the species, and of connexion in the groups of strata. It is a kind of living nexus, pointing out that the groups belong to one and the same order of things. It may have been partly caused by migration.

Recurrency is not so common in New York as in Wales,-in other words, vertical range is longer in Wales. Great depth is an obstacle to the existence or transmission of living creatures.

29. Everywhere, on the eastern as well as on the western continent, the same fossils, of all orders and kinds, appear in the same succession. A very few Crustacea and a Lingula or Obolus or two, amid a dense matting of fucoids, appear at what now seems to be the dawn of life; then some Gasteropoda, a few Cephalopoda, and a few Brachiopoda in the third group from below (Chazy). But in the fifth group from below (Trenton,) multitudes of Zoophyta, Bryozoa, Brachiopoda (save Spiriferi,) Orthocerata, and Trilobites spring forth; but not a Lamellibranchiate. As species, they nearly all perish with the advent of a new deposit; but,