The interesting story of the discovery of these enormous masses by Prof. Nordenskjöld is already known to the readers of this Magazine through a translation of his original memoir. While exploring in Danish Greenland in 1870, his attention was directed to the possibility that meteorites might be met with in Disko Island, by the accidental discovery of a block of meteoric iron in some ballast which had been taken in at the old whaling-station at Fortuna Bay, near Godhavn, and he urged the Greenlanders to search the district for masses of that metal.

3. Third Period of Volcanic Activity in the Lipari Islands.

Although, as we have already seen, the older volcanic formations of the Liparis present us with features of no little interest, yet it is on account of the cones and lava-streams, composed of rocks of singular beauty and almost unique character,—which are the product of the latest developments of igneous action in these islands, that the attention of geologists is most frequently directed to them.

When I commenced these notes at the beginning of this year, I expressed a regret that “I cannot include the Aptien and Neocomian species, but the collections at present open to me are too meagre to give anything like a complete account of them.

By the publication of Die Chemische Natur der Meteoriten, in 1870, Professor Rammelsberg accomplished the task which he had set himself, that of presenting to students of mineralogy a careful digest of the scattered contributions of the time to the literature of meteorites. Since that date no similar work of reference has been issued. Buchner's papers, intituled Die Meteoriten in Sammlungen, the first of which was issued at an earlier date than Rammelsberg's memoir, do not apparently continue to be published, the last one having appeared in Poggendorff's Annalen in 1869. It is from this period that I propose to take up the thread, and to give in the following pages a digest of all that has been published on the subject of meteorites since the beginning of that year.

Since the appearance of the first part of this paper, I have had, through the kindness of M. Deshayes and Prof. Gaudry, an opportunity of examining the original specimens in D'Orbigny's cabinet in the Jardin des Plantes, and am enabled to add the following to the list of species included in Group 1. They are all in the Prodrome:—

The meteor took a direction S. 45° E., and exploded with a loud noise at an altitude of about 20 miles, the cloud remaining several minutes. The inclination to the horizon was probably not less than 30° or more than 60°. The fragments of the meteorite, which have not yet been found, probably fell 20 or 30 miles N.W. of Lebanon.

No less than seven species of Cystiphyllum have already been recorded as occurring in the Devonian Rocks of North America; viz. C. vesiculosum, Goldf., C. Senecaense, Billings, C. grande, Billings, C. sulcatum, Billings, C. Americanum, Edw. and Haime, C. aggregatum, Billings, and C. mundulum, Hall. To these I have now to add the following four species, all of which have been obtained by me from the Devonian Formation of Canada and Ohio.

Greg, and likewise Heddle, found cavities in certain portions of this iron, some of the size of a pea, which are filled with metallic lead; this is the only instance where that element has been met with in a meteorite. Dr. Lawrence Smith has recently examined several specimens cut from the original mass, and is of opinion that the lead is altogether foreign to the iron, being doubtless derived from material with which the block was probably treated by the original discoverers for the purpose of extracting some noble metal from it. The lead, he finds, occurs only in cavities near the surface of the mass, which have channels of more or less size leading to the surface. In pieces of the iron detached from the interior of the block and free from fissures no lead could be discovered.

When a group of beds has well-defined boundaries above and below, and when moreover its palæontological characteristics coincide with its stratigraphical limits, it becomes a boon alike to the field-geologist and to the fossil collector. When, on the other hand, both limits and fossils fail to enable one to follow a group beyond a certain point, the sooner the series as such is relegated to the limbo of purely-local, convenient, but untrue divisions, the better. I propose to show in this paper that the important group of beds commonly known as the Yoredale Series in the North-Western parts of Yorkshire is a group of the latter kind, convenient indeed in that district, but quite incapable of being traced much further North either stratigraphically or palæontologically.

In no part of Europe, probably, can we find such striking examples of the effects which may be produced by single paroxysmal outbursts of volcanic force, as in the band of igneous rocks which stretches through nearly the whole length of the Italian peninsula, on the western side of, and parallel to the chain of the Apennines. Etna and many of the extinct volcanos of this continent constitute, it is true, mountains of vaster bulk than any in the district to which we have referred; but while the former were evidently built up by the accumulation of the products of igneous forces operating during long periods from the same centres, and with comparatively moderate violence, the enormous craters of the latter bear witness to the occurrence of single outbursts of these forces of far greater intensity.

If the line passing through those three grand centres of volcanic action—Vultur, Vesuvius, and Epomeo—be produced to the westward, it will strike the very interesting igneous masses of the Ponza Islands. These insignificant islands, which, from the early Roman times down to the present day, have figured in history only as places of banishment for criminals, possess for the geologist the very highest interest. This is due not only to the wonderful characters of the rock-masses which compose them, but also to the admirable manner in which these are exposed to our study by the extreme denudation to which they have been subjected.

In the September Number of the Geol. Mag. pp. 425, 426, there are some remarks by Mr. G. H. Kinahan on the nomenclature of certain igneous rocks, on which I should like to offer a few observations. The rocks referred to belong to the acidic group, and are mentioned under the various names of granite, nevadite, granitic rhyolite, liparite, trachyte, elvanite, siliceous elvanite, felstone, bottleite, trachalite; the two last being synonymous, for it appears that bottleite is the local name for a vitrioid rock pronounced to be trachalite; but several of the other names are also synonymous or useless, for we are told that nevadite—a proposed new addition to our granitic rocks—is characterized by a more or less crystalline felsitic matrix inclosing crystals of quartz, one or two felspars with mica or amphibole.

It is probable that the history of this fall has unfortunately been lost to science. Vom Rath has recently endeavoured, but without avail, to gather information from Gemrnellaro, of Palermo, respecting what now appears to have been a shower of stones rather than the fall of a single meteorite, as hitherto supposed. Gemmellaro was unable in 1869 to discover any persons who witnessed the fall; as, however, it appears that two years after the occurrence Greg was informed that an account had been printed in a Sicilian scientific journal, more particulars of the fall may yet be obtained.

A meteoric iron, weighing 407 tolas (about 10 lbs.), fell at Nidigullam, and penetrated the ground to the depth of twenty inches. Those who saw the meteor describe it as very large and beautiful, and as exhibiting increased brilliance when it burst. The explosion was followed by a series of rumbling noises. The meteorite passed over Parvatypore from N. to S.; the people of the village were greatly alarmed, and one man, near whom it fell, was stunned. The villagers “carried it off to their temple, and, much alarmed, were found making púja to it.” The author of the notice in the Proceedings considers that this aerolite contains no stony matter, and he states that it is marked with striæ lying obliquely to its greatest length, which is 6½ inches. The lamented Dr. Stoliczka, however, was of opinion, from the description of the striation, that it is a stone containing much iron, “like the Mooltan aerolite which fell some short time ago.”

Much has been written on the relations of the Devonshire Trias as observed in the south-coast section. The subject itself is associated with many names of high scientific repute, so that, were the following epitome the result of partial examination, or in any way aided by preconceived notions arrived at from the perusal of the labours of those who have gone before, I should not feel justified in differing in many points from men infinitely my superiors in general geological information.

Mr. T. Beesley, in a “Sketch of the Geology of the Neighbourhood of Banbury,” 2nd edit., 1873, published a very extensive list of Liassic fossils, and having been honoured by the loan of many of them, the majority in an excellent state of preservation, I beg to record the presence of a few interesting forms, and to describe some new species.

Mr. R. Mallet’s paper on this subject, of which an abstract appears in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, as read January 21, 1875, lays claim to a certain amount of originality in the views propounded by him, to which, as well as to the correctness of some portion of them, exception must be taken; though it may be that the conciseness of an abstract will to some extent account for what appears imperfect in its reasoning.

On my return to civilization, after an absence of nearly three years, I observe in the GeologicalMagazine for 1874, New Series, Decade II. Vol. I., pp. 404 and 433, a paper by Mr. R. J. L. Guppy, of Trinidad, describing new species of fossils from the West Indian Tertiaries, to which is appended a list of the fossils known to him up to that date. Unfortunately Mr. Guppy has overlooked my Memoir on the Geology af Santo Domingo, published in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society more than a year before the date of his paper. In that paper I nearly doubled the list of known fossils in the West Indian Miocene, basing my determinations on a collection of unprecedented magnitude, made during the prosecution of the Geological Survey of the Dominican Republic.

It is not a little remarkable that, while almost every part of England and Scotland, and particularly the district of “the Lakes” and North Wales, has been abundantly studied and written about,—and while Ireland also has been almost completely surveyed,—the Isle of Man should not only have been left untouched by the Geological Survey, but, latterly at least, should have well-nigh escaped the attention of geologists altogether. With the exception of three or four papers by the Rev. J. G. Cumming, published in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, and their embodiment in a more popular form in his History of the Isle of Man, and Guide Book, scarcely anything appears to have been written upon the geology of the island, besides some Memoirs published in the infancy of the science, or a few brief notices of special points since.

The late Professor John Phillips requested us to draw up, for an Appendix to his new edition of “The Geology of Yorkshire,” a generic list of the Foraminifera of the English Oolites. He had himself, indeed, supplied us with some good material from the clays near Oxford. We have noted the following Foraminifera from the Lower Oolite, Oxford and Kimmeridge Clays, and the Portland Limestone, in our collection.