[Note, June 29, 1866.-To the foregoing I may now add, that having subsequently examined an extensive series of specimens of Serpentinous Limestones from the "Fundamental Gneiss," sent to me by Dr. Gümbel, I find in some of them the precise parallel as to Microscopic appearances with the most characteristic forms of the Connemara Eozoon; whilst from these I can trace a continuous gradation, through a series of phases which appear due to subsequent metamorphism, to specimens whose characters seem purely mineral. Appearances of precisely the same character are presented by a series of specimens of the Serpentinous Limestones from the "Primitive Gneiss" of Scandinavia, kindly transmitted to me by Prof. Lovén.— In a communication I have received from Dr. Dawson, dated March 28th, he says:-“I have lately had my attention directed to a point of importance noticed in my paper on Eozoon, but since somewhat overlooked, the occurrence of Eozoon preserved simply in Carbonate of Lime, without any Serpentine or other foreign mineral, and showing the structure (that is of the canal-system, for I have not yet seen the fine tubulation) as perfectly, though not so prettily in the matter of colour, as the Serpentinous specimens. This fact alone, which was noticed in my original Paper, and which I have now verified, is of itself a conclusive answer to Professors King and Rowney's objections." "I may also say that a careful reexamination of the Chrysotile or fibrous Serpentine, with additional specimens, enables me to reaffirm, if possible with still greater confidence, its entire distinctuess from any of the structures of the Canadian Eozoon."]

January 24, 1866.

James Mason, Esq., F.C.S., Brighton; William Nevill, Esq., of Langham Cottage, Godalming; and Henry T. L. von Uster, Esq., 3 Duke Street, Portland Place, W., were elected Fellows.

On the KAINOZOIC FORMATIONS of BELGIUM. By R. A. C. GODWINAUSTEN, Esq., F.R.S., For. Sec. G.S.

I. INTRODUCTION.

THE following notes relating to the Kainozoic or Tertiary* formations of Belgium were put together in the course of an interesting excursion through that country in the spring of 1865, in company with Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Prestwich, Captain D. Galton, Mr. W. W. Smyth, Mr. Busk, and Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys. Our route was from Harwich to Antwerp, Louvain, Hasselt, Maestricht, Liége (whence to Engis and Engihoul), Namur. Some of the party went into Brussels to see the collection in the Museum there; some to the Grotte de Han; in company with M. van Beneden I had the advantage of seeing, under the guidance of M. Malaise, the lower Palæozoic and fossiliferous rocks of Gembloux, which he considers to be of the age of the Lower Silurian series of Sir. R. Murchison.

From Dinant, where we were joined by the late Mr. H. Christy, we all visited, under the escort of MM. van Beneden, Dupont, and other Belgian geologists and antiquaries, the caves of Furfooz on the Lesse. An excursion in the neighbourhood of Mons, and a visit to the coast at Sangatte, near Calais, completed the trip.

Some of our party had been in Belgium before, even repeatedly. The points in its geology which on this occasion chiefly interested us were the Crag-formation of Antwerp and elsewhere, the Boldérien beds of M. Dumont, and the caves and recent researches at Furfooz.

To what extent the several members of our party may concur in the views here recorded is a point on which I will not venture to speculate; they are offered as my own exclusively; but I feel bound to acknowledge the great advantage I derived from visiting the district in company with so many experienced observers as naturalists and geologists; and we can all testify to the kind interest and assistance of the Belgian geologists, as also to that of the military authorities at Antwerp, for which last we were indebted to the exertions of Mr. J. Jones.

The cave-researches of Furfooz are under the superintendence of MM. van Beneden and Dupont; for this reason it would not be fitting that any comments should be made with respect to the views which were freely communicated to us, until such time as the final official report shall have been published. The question relating to some portion of the in-filling is so closely connected with that very complicated period to which the Löss, the Sables de Campine, and the Cailloux Ardennais belong, that a few short references are necessary.

II. OLDER KAINOZOIC OR CRAG BEDS OF ANTWERP.

1. General Remarks.-By permission of the Belgian war department, we were enabled to examine at leisure the deep sections connected with the extensive military works in course of execution around Antwerp; in addition we received the cordial assistance of Captain Cocheteux and other Engineer officers.

The monograph of Mr. Searles Wood † had long since informed In this paper the author restricts the application of the terms Kainozoic and Tertiary to deposits of the age of the Faluns and of more recent date.-EDIT. + Palæontographical Soc. 1848-1850.

geologists how close an agreement existed between the marine fauna of the Suffolk Crag and that of Antwerp. At the same time it was evident from the work of M. Nyst that there were many forms met with in one area which were apparently wanting in the other, and rendering it a matter of some interest in comparative geology that such a difference within such narrow limits should be accounted for; this difficulty has long been a point of special interest in Tertiary geology. The solution has been heretofore attempted by various applications of the percentage test, as by the proportion of recent forms to such as are unknown as living, or again by the proportion which a given parcel of shells might contain, either of Arctic or of more Southern forms. There has been so little agreement in the results thus arrived at that some fresh solution should be attempted. Percentage results, from their very nature, must ever be fluctuating; the process when first proposed seemed specious, inasmuch as it had the appearance of possessing arithmetical accuracy, but in reality it is the very reverse of this, in consequence of the uncertainty of all the elements of the calculation and of their negative character.

M. Dumont proposed a twofold division for the Tertiary or Kainozoic series of Antwerp, an upper or Scaldésien, a lower or Diestien. Sir Charles Lyell's account of the Antwerp Crag was prepared under disadvantageous circumstances. At that time a few detached excavations afforded the only attainable stratigraphical information, and hence it became necessary to give the fossils collected at each locality in separate lists, thus producing the impression that the Cragformation there was both complicated and of considerable vertical thickness, but such is not the case.

66

At the time of our visit an examination of the Antwerp beds was extremely easy by means of two long artificial sections, one passing along the main ditch of the new enceinte," 14,000 metres in length, the other along the ditch of the detached Forts, with a length of 17,000 metres; thus giving 31,000 metres of continuous section. These sections formed the subject of a short but very useful memoir by M. Dejardin, Capt. de Génie, one of the officers engaged on the workt.

In the excellent Memoir by Sir Charles Lyell‡, which has done so much to make English geologists acquainted with the relations of the various subdivisions of the Nummulitic and Tertiary formations of Belgium to those of this country, the Tertiary series is arranged as follows:

§3. Antwerp Crag.

1. Yellow Crag=Upper Crag 2. Crag gris-Middle Crag

3. Crag noir-Lower Crag

§ 4. Sands and Iron Sandstone of Diest-" Système Diestien" of Dumont.

§ 5. Bolderberg Sands

"Système Boldérien."

* Coquilles Tertiaires de la Belgique.

+ Bull. de l'Acad. R. des Sc. de Belgique, t. xiii. p. 470.
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. viii. p. 277, 1852.

Of this arrangement it may be remarked that the "Crag noir" of the local Antwerp geologists is distinguished from and made superior to the Système Diestien of Dumont, whose S. Diestien at that place (see Map, small edition) is described as consisting of "sable glauconifère coquillier” *.

M. Nyst's latest subdivision of the Belgian Kainozoic series is as follows:

1. Yellow Sands, Steuvenberg, Calloo. 2. Argillaceous Sands, Deurne.

3. Grey Sands.

4. Grey running Sand.

Cyprina, Isocardia, Astarte.
Cetacean bones, Pecten, Cyprina, As-

tarte.

Pecten Gerardii, broken shells abundant.

Bryozoa, shells scarce, same as 3.

5. Black Sands, Edeghem, Berchem, Includes Pectunculus-band. Ft. Herenthals.

In 1861 M. Nyst published a very interesting paper †, to which is appended a list of 146 species of fossil shells and four Zoophytes; of these, 58 had not been previously noticed as occurring in the Kainozoic beds of Belgium.

The object of this paper is to state the result of that particular enquiry which was of chief interest in connexion with the Antwerp sections, namely the Zoological value of the subdivisions of the crag beds there, and whether the proposed vertical order of arrangement was correct in fact. Mr. Lankester visited Antwerp in 1864, and a memoir communicated to this Society‡ served to revive the interest of these questions.

2. Système Scaldésien.-In order that the position of the Kainozoic series about Antwerp may be understood, it must be borne in mind that from the North Citadel on the Scheldt, as far as Deurne (about half the extent of the "enceinte "), the level of the country is below that of the river at high-water, which now rises 4:50 metres; low-water being 0·15 metre above that at Ostend. At this, the north end of the section, where the Crag beds have been laid bare beneath polder mud, its upper surface is at about low-water level, and at nearly the same level are the beds so rich in shells, out of which the Docks have been excavated, from beneath peaty beds and polder mud. We collected largely from these shell-beds, or rather from the spoil-banks. The assemblage is that given by Sir Charles Lyell, tab. ii. and iii., and by M. Nyst, list 34, p. 601§.

North of Deurne the glacis has been formed out of the spoil from the main ditch, and shows that it has been excavated out of an extension of the same mass of sands, gravel, and broken shells, as above. South of Deurne the ground rises somewhat, and as the works were then in progress, good sections were to be seen from 4

* Tabl. des Terr. &c. de la Belgique.

Notice sur un nouveau gîte de fossiles, se rapportant aux espèces faluniennes du Midi de l'Europe, découvert à Edeghem près d'Anvers. Bull de l'Acad. R. des Sc. de Belg. t. xiii. p. 29. See also Lyell's Elements,' 6th edit. p. 232. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxi. p. 221, 1865.

Omalius, Abrégé de Géologie, 7e édit. 1862.

to 6 metres deep. The blocks left for measuring the work done show such sections as the following:

-

Yellow sands, gravel and broken shells.

a. Système Scaldésien... Grey sands, numerous broken shells.

Brown sands.

Pale-green sands, shells few, not much broken.

b. Système Diestien...... Dark-green sands, Pectunculus-band.
Very dark compact beds.

The relative thicknesses vary much from place to place, the whole not being more than 12 feet thick, of which the upper brown and yellow sands form about 6 feet. In the Dock-sections these upper beds may have been somewhat thicker, but at no place do they probably exceed 8 feet.

The upper series (a) constituting the "Système Scaldésien" of M. Dumont, viewed as a marine accumulation, presents a very common condition of sea-bed, consisting of dead-shell gravel, mostly forming banks, and heaped up under inconsiderable depths of water. This is a good division of the series, inasmuch as it marks a change in the depth and moving power of the water at this particular spot, the result, doubtless, of a physical change of wider extent; the effect of which was the disturbance of previously formed sea-beds and their rearrangement. At the same time there was an outward distribution of the materials of a higher or sublittoral zone, as seen in the gravel.

The "Système Scaldésien," as exhibited at Antwerp in the form of "couches remaniés," very closely resembles both in the condition of its materials and fossils, the Red Crag beds of Suffolk; nor is there any reason why the physical change which caused the Red Crag to succeed the Bryozoan should not be referred to the same geological change which made the Scaldésien follow on the Diestien.

3. Système Diestien.-In the section given above, which is just such as is to be seen everywhere from the Porte de Tournhout to that of Malines, the Scaldésien beds, or yellow and grey coarse series, contain either fine pale-green, somewhat loose sands, or else darkgreen, almost black, and compact sands; these are the Diestien beds of Dumont. With reference to condition of sea-bed, it is that form well known as deep-water sandy and muddy ooze, and was the deposit of tranquil depths.

Although the whole thickness of this lower series has not been cut through within the area of the fortifications, even in the section above referred to, which presents the deepest cuttings, yet it has been proved, as we were informed by the Engineer officers on the spot, that the Diestien beds extended only a few feet below the excavations for the main ditch, and that within the area as well as without, the dark-green Diestien beds overlie compact Rupellien clay.

A maximum thickness of about 4 metres may be assigned to the Diestien beds; generally they are less, and small as are the vertical