Owing to the great increase of the population of the Eastern parts of London, the East London Water Works Company have been engaged for several years past, in constructing most extensive Reservoirs for the storing and filtering of Water.

At the date of publication of my “British Fossil Mammals” (1846) I had not obtained satisfactory evidence of the Elk as one of them. But shortly after that period the Tyne-side Naturalists recorded in their instructive ‘Transactions’ the discovery of a fine antler of an Elk (‘Alces palmatus fossilis’ of the ‘Club’) in a Peatbog, near the North Tyne Eiver, Northumberland. I am now able to add to that notice evidence of the extension of the localities of true Elk-remains as far south as Walthamstow, Essex. The excavations of the East London Waterworks, now in progress, have exposed sections of an old bed of the Eiver Lea, near Walthamstow. In this bed, at from five to eight feet in depth, have been obtained remains of Bos longifrons, Capra hircus, with remarkably fine horncores, part of an antler, two feet eight inches long, of a Reindeer (C. tarandus), and in another kind of deposit, as evidenced by the darker colour of the bones, and a thin partial coating of limy matter, were obtained the humerus, antibrachium, and metacarpus of an Elk, closely corresponding with those of the existing Scandinavian species (Cervus Alces, Linn.; Alces palmatus; Auct., and Alces Europæus, Hamilton Smith).

The number of the Geological, Magazine, for September last, contained a description, by Mr. James Geikie, of stratified beds of sand and mud intercalated with Boulder-clay, which occur in the Cowdon valley, near Crofthead. His reference to some contained vegetable débris induced me to make an examination of the strata, which has resulted in revealing an abundance of organic remains quite exceptional in such deposits.

No other part of Sweden affords more favourable opportunities for studying the earliest fossiliferous deposits and their relations to each other than Vestrogothia, with its unusually complete, undisturbed, and, in many natural sections, exposed series of strata. Its two lowest principal layers, consisting of sandstone and alum-slate, are to be referred to the Cambrian system, if that system, as proposed by Sir Charles Lyell, Salter, and others, be extended over the “Primordial zone,” which is easily distinguished by its organic remains from the overlying Silurian deposits. This sandstone has long been known as the oldest stratum of Vestrogothia above the Fundamental Gneiss. Traces of seaweeds were found in it by our earlier geologists, and caused it to receive the name, still commonly used, of Fucoid sandstone. Deposits of the same period are distributed over large parts of Scandinavia; and Professor Angelin, who, like his predecessors, had found them to be the oldest portion of the whole “Transition formation” of Scandinavia, included them all in his regio Fucoidarum, no other Fossil having as yet been found in them. Norwegian authors have proposed the denomination “Sparagmite stage,” for the rock prevailing in Norway, which has not as yet afforded any fossils, a term also adopted by Professor Torell.

It is not unusual in drift deposits, banked on hill slopes, to find a deep cut occupied by a very minute stream. These outs or ravines are supposed to be due to the streams; having been excavated by them in the banks of drift. If a ravine of this class is formed in one of the older drifts—namely, the Boulder-clay-drift or the Moraine-drift—it must apparently have been cut by a stream, but much of the drift banked on hill slopes is quite recent; that is formed by meteoric abrasion, and being added to at the present day. In these recent drifts, ravines are of common occurrence, and I would suggest that, instead of the stream cutting its ravine, meteoric abrasion has heaped up the banks, and the only action capable of being done by such a stream, is to keep its channel clear. Such accumulations of drift are very frequent in association with Maums, or connecting gaps across mountain-ranges, and there are always ravines in the banks,—yet by no arrangement of the water-supply, could streams be formed that would have the power to excavate them. In the accompanying sketch of Maumgeeha, Yar-Connaught, there is a maum, below which is a recent drift-bank with a ravine and its accompanying stream. None of the surface drainage of the hills on either side of the maum can get into the stream, it being fed by a spring, while the surface drainage of the mountains flows as represented by the arrows, and yearly the shed from the hills adds to the height of the banks.

The object of the accompanying list of Fossil Fishes is merely to record, for future palæontologists, the depository of a few specimens which have furnished the materials for descriptions and figures of species recorded in the publications of the day. They are available for inspection to any one who may be interested in their examination, and I am only too happy when I can induce any geological or palæontological students to come and see them.