The theory of permanent Continents and Oceanic basins, opposed as it is to the general teaching of text-books, seems to have given rise to comparatively little discussion. In the latest edition, for instance, of Lyell's Principles, we read: “It is not too much to say that every spot which is now dry land has been sea at some former period, and every part of the space now covered by the deepest ocean has been land.” The new theory has been upheld chiefly by Sir Wyville Thomson, Prof. Geikie and Mr. Wallace. The latter especially has collected every kind of evidence together that seems to support it in his latest, and most admirable work, “Island Life.” By a process of reasoning, supported by a large array of facts of different kinds, he arrives at the conclusion that the distribution of life upon the land, as we now see it, has been accomplished without the aid of important changes in the relative positions of continents and seas. Yet if we accept his views, we must believe that Asia and Africa, Madagascar and Africa, New Zealand and Australia, Europe and America, have been united at some period not remote geologically, and that seas to the depth of 1000 fathoms have been bridged over; but we must treat as “utterly gratuitous, and entirely opposed to all the evidences at our command,” the supposition that temperate Europe and temperate America, Australia and South America, have ever been connected, except by way of the Arctic or Antarctic Circles, and that—lands now separated by seas of more than 1000 fathoms depth have ever been united.

A paper by M. Barrande, which has been recently published, seems to call for some reply. M. Barrande, whilst working out the succession in Bohemia, adopted Sir R. I. Murchison's name “Silurian,” and even applied it to lower rocks than did ever Murchison himself, and in the paper under consideration he supports this classification.

In France deposits of the same kind, such as those at Menchecourt, are familiar enough. To complete our merely illustrative list of examples, I would quote the vast deposits found in the offing of the Thames, and right away to the Dutch coast. Dr. Bree says that the bones occur in such quantities on the sea-bottom off Dunkirk that the sailors call it the Burying Ground (Leith Adams's Mem. on Elephas primigenius, p. 73).

As in the previous notes (Geol. Mag. Decade II. Vol. VII. No. 10, p. 447, 1880), so in the present, it is deemed desirable to give in the first instance a complete list of all the examples of the groups under consideration, which have hitherto been recorded, and then, having examined each critically, finally to give a corrected list.

In the pages of the Geol. Mag., about a year ago, I called attention to the rapid growth of our knowledge of the sequence and fossils of the Lower Palæozoic Rocks of Sweden, through the brilliant discoveries of the officers of the Swedish Geological Survey; and pointed out what appeared to myself to be their special bearing upon certain controverted points in British Geology. During the past year the additional results obtained by the same group of earnest and unprejudiced observers are so important in themselves, and have been worked out with such care and elaboration, that we have now a tolerably complete view of the entire Lower Palaeozoic Succession in the Scandinavian Peninsula, and are, for the first time, in a position to attempt the detailed correlation of its recognized rock groups with their representatives in Britain.