Mr. W. Carruthers, F.R.S., lately called my attention to the resemblance between some drawings I was showing to him of Hyalostelia fasciculus, M'Coy, sp., and the supposed fossil plant, described and illustrated by Dr. Henry Hicks, F.R.S., in the Geological Magazine for 1869, Vol. VI. p. 534, PL XX. Figs, la-e, under the name of Eophyton? explanatum.

Many years since, Mr., now Prof., Ralph Tate gave me a small slender coral, which he had obtained from the Pea Grit of the West of England. I had just completed the Supplement to the British Fossil Corals, Pal. Soc., so the fossil has remained undescribed.

Since the article on Mesozoic Angiosperms was written, a very important Sketch History of “Pateobotany,” by Lester F. Ward, has appeared in the Fifth Annual Eeport of the U. S. Geol. Survey, a brief outline of which cannot fail to prove of interest in connexion with this subject. The object of the sketch is to collate and reduce the fragmentary and desultory mass of information collected by previous writers into a system that will enable geologists to use the testimony of fossil plants, in the same way that they habitually use that of fossil animals. The author laments that botanists and palaæobotanists have worked and classified almost wholly independently of each other, the former having consequently missed such important data for classification as the order in time in which each type appeared, while the latter have failed to harmonize their work with the more elaborate and best botanical systems, and hence greatly lessened its practical value. “Every candid palæobotanist must admit that he can understand fossil plants only as they resemble living ones, and that the botanist, studying the perfeet specimen with all its organs of reproduction as well as of nutrition, can alone declare with absolute certainty upon its identity or affinity.” This mutual dependence requires recognition at the hands of scientific men.

In the present communication I propose to describe the petrographical characters of some hornblende-bearing rocks which occur as intrusive sheets and bosses in the limestones and quartzites of the Assynt district. These rocks have been referred to under various names by the different writers on the geology of the district. Prof. Nicol speaks of them as greenstone and trap, and Sir R. Murchison, as syenitic greenstone. Mr. Hudleston indicates their character more definitely by speaking of them as a “kind of diorite.” Prof. Bonney, in an appendix to Dr. Callaway's paper “On the Newer Gneissic Eocks of the Northern Highlands,” describes the microscopic structure of a specimen from the Traligill Burn near Inchnadampf, and designates the rock a hornblendic porphyrite. Dr. Hoddle gives some valuable information as to the distribution of the rocks, and calls attention to the perfection of form exhibited by the hornblende in certain varieties. He gives a figure of the hornblende which shows the forms (110), (010) and (011). With regard to the relations of the rocks to the associated strata he speaks somewhat doubtfully, but evidently inclines to the view that they are intrusive. That this is the case seems proved by the absence of vesicular structure and associated tuffs, and by the fact that although they keep as a rule parallel with the bedding, cases occasionally occur in which they can be seen to move from one horizon to another.

This section, which was completed last year, appears of such value and interest to students of the Tertiary strata of the London Basin, that I have thought it worth while to offer a description of it to the readers of the Geological Magazine. Through the courtesy of Dr. Barton, the Governor of the Asylum, I have had free access to the specimens preserved of the various strata passed through, and very careful use of them has been made in the preparation of the tabulated statement which follows; much of the information having been kindly furnished from the engineers who were employed. The Asylum is situated at Knap Hill, about a mile and a quarter from Brookwood Station on the South-Western Eailway, and is on the Upper Bagshot Sands. The mouth of the well is in the valley just below, about 140 feet above O. D., and about the same level as that at which the Middle Bagshot Beds occur in the famous Goldsworthy section, which furnished Prof. Prestwich, some forty years ago, with the clue to the succession of the beds of the Bagshot Formation. It is about a mile and a half distant therefrom. The evidence as to the horizon in the Bagshot Series, at which the well commences, is very clear to those who are familiar with the stratigraphy. The widely-extended pebble-bed at the base of the Upper Bagshot Sands occurs here very near the top of the well, and I saw it exposed again at about the same level in an excavation made by the side of the high road which runs along the western side of the Asylum Estate. The same greenish loamy sand was intermingled with the pebbles in both cases. In the ploughed field a stiff yellow loam, such as so commonly occurs above this pebble-bed in the Bagshot area, crops out in the valley where the well is situated. The ‘brown sandy bed’ which occurs at the top of the section is probably a portion of this, re-constructed by later drift action, and mingled with more sandy materials washed down from the sandy strata situated at higher levels on the slopes of the valley.

A few years since I received from a correspondent in Paris several fragments of a meteorite, which my informant stated fell at Bois de Fontaine on the estate of the Marquis de la Touane, near Mung, in the department of Loiret, France, in 1825, but no precise date was given. It was said to be unknown and undescribed. My informant also stated that it was presented to the physician of the Marquis de la Touane, from whom he, my informant, received it in exchange. Of the specimens that I received, two had some of the original crust on them, one a small fragment only, and the other a specimen of 254 grammes, but with only a small amount of crust. I had also five or six other specimens without the crust.

My argument that at Porthalla there is a “passage” from hornblende-schist to serpentine; or rather that some beds of a common series have been changed into serpentine, others into hornblende-schist, and others again into a substance of intermediate character, is, I think, much strengthened by the fact that many such “apparent passages” are admitted to exist by all those who have examined the Lizard Coast with any degree of detail. De la Beche's description of that seen near the Lizard Town is as follows, and it would apply equally well to the others. “The hornblende slate,” he says, “supports the great mass of the Lizard serpentine with an apparent passage of the one into the other in many places—an apparent passage somewhat embarrassing,” that is, from his point of view; from mine it is perfectly natural. He goes on to say: “Whatever the cause of this apparent passage may have been, it is very readily seen at Mullion Cove, at Pradanack Point, at the coast west of Lizard Town, and at several places on the east coast between Landewednack and Kennick Cove, more especially under the Balk … and at the remarkable cavern and open cavity named the Frying-Pan, near Cadgwith.” At Kynance some of the laminse of serpentine are not more than one-tenth of an inch in thickness for considerable distances.