Resting upon these, is another bed of clayey marl, without fossils. "Overlaying the last, is another bed of the large saddle-shaped oyster, which appears to have lived on the spot. The height of the two last strata is seventeen feet. "The next stratum varies from fifteen to twenty feet in height, and consists of fine loose quartzose sand, with sharp angles, intermixed with ferruginous matter. In this deposit are to be found nearly all the varieties of fossils the bluff contains, in great abundance, amounting to nearly three hundred species. "Next succeed several strata of carbonate of lime, with a few species of shells like the preceding, ten feet high. Above these, is a stratum of silicious sand and marl, with a large portion of hydrate of iron, containing Echinae and Pectens. "Alternating above the latter, are several strata of common and shell limestone, intermixed with green sand, remarkable for a new species of Turbinolia; their height varies from fifteen to twenty feet. Then succeed various strata of red clay, gravel and shingle, to the upper surface of the escarpment. "These strata may easily be identified, both by their mineral properties and fossil contents, along the eastern bank of the Alabama, for the space of a mile. I have, indeed, found them persistent in almost every direction from this point, as may be seen in many places on Limesstone Creek, also, in the interior of the country, and more especially on the river, at Mr. Barefield's plantation, five miles below Claiborne, where there is a similar deposit, as regards both its mineral properties and organic remains. "In Clark County, ten miles west of Claiborne, the same strata appear again, approaching even to the limits of the chalk formation. This is on the plantation of my friend Mr. F. Bettis, in a valley at the bottom of a brook, perhaps one hundred and fifty feet below the horizontal level of a cretaceous deposit, half a mile distant. Other places may possibly be found here, where the peculiarities of both systems may be studied to advantage, in the immediate vicinity of each other. "It is highly probable that these older strata of the tertiary system, underlying the more recent deposits, extend throughout the southern section of the State, retaining, with but little variation, the same normal characteristic they exhibit at Claiborne. This opinion is corroborated by the dis covery in this city of ferruginous sand and marl, obtained by boring, from a depth of fifty feet and more; which, on examination, I found to correspond in most respects with that of the Claiborne strata. "The fossil contents of these beds could not have been deposited in a very tranquil sea, for many of them are broken, their parts in separate situations, and much waterworn. In different parts of the series there are to be seen certain genera and species, which have been deposited in great abundance, and in groups; but the same genera and species, both in anterior and posterior situations, are to be found scattered, more or less profusely, throughout the series. It is probable, therefore, that these fossils were contemporaneous, forming but one system of organization, and would have been equally numerous in every part of the series, if the proper circumstances had existed. "Some important changes have, however, occurred during the lapse of time in which these beds were formed. One is very manifest in regard to a certain species of Turritella, which, in the lowest bed, is found to be three inches in length, but in the middle beds its standard dimension is only one-and-a-half inches. "It is, moreover, observable that there are no remarkable derangements in the sequence of geological events here exhibited so as to require the admission of any extraordinary agency to explain their occurrence. With the exception of a few terrestrial mammalia these fossils are all of a marine kind. The lower beds, which more especially abound with oysters, were evidently formed in comparatively deep water; higher up in the series, as it became more shallow, we find a predominance of littoral shells; still higher in the succession, we discover an evident preparation. for the dry land to appear. "I obtained from these deposits, last summer, upwards of fifty new species of fossils, in addition to those whien had been previously obtained. "Some of these belong to extinct genera of terrestrial mammalia, consisting principally of spinal bones. One is a single vertebra, from a stratum of chalky limestone, three and a half inches in diameter, with the spinal process and a portion of the ribs attached: it probably belongs to one of the larger Mastodon species. "I also obtained from the same place a naked vertebra, about half the size of the former, but of a very different species. "In the ferruginous sand deposit, I found the lower jaw of a diadelphis, with the frontal teeth, also, a portion of the alveola process of an unknown quadruped. Besides these, there are stags' horns and several kinds of ribs; likewise, the cranium of the Darypus grandis, with detached fragments of its bony armour, and numerous teeth and vertebrae of sharks, sawfish, and of several other unknown species, peculiar in their kind. The new species of Testacea, which I obtained at this place belong to the genera Lucina, Cytheræa, Nucula, Ostrea, Hypponix, Infundibulum, Natica, Scalaria, Solarium, Turbo, Turritella, Pleurotoma, Cancellaria, Fusus, Murex, Nassa, Mitra, Voluta, Oliva, and Conus. "In addition to these, under the head of Radiatæ, I obtained an extraordinary species of Galerites and of Turbinolia, which completes the catalogue of my discoveries at this place. If opportunity had admitted, these researches might have been pursued further with much success. "At the west, in the interior of Clark County, as already observed, the cretaceous beds crop out from beneath the tertiary. They may also be traced again in the vicinity of each other, at the distance of twenty miles, in a north-east direction, near the Alabama river. The northern limits of this formation extend through Greene and Perry counties, by an irregular line, to the falls of the Coosa. "Within these limits, they may be studied to advantage, more especially by means of their fossil contents, which in many places are very abundant. At Prairie Bluff, Wilcox county, I collected upwards of a hundred different genera and species, all more or less characteristic of the cretaceous system. Among these is a costal bone of a large animal, but being only a fragment, it is difficult to identify the species. The characteristic kinds, such as Nautili, Ammonites, Bacculites, Scaphites, Exogira, and Griphæa, particularly the four last, are very numerous. Other genera, as Terebratula, Inocerami, Turrelites, Belemnites, Galerites, &c., though not so numerous, are sufficiently so to distinguish the deposits. "Forty miles south of this place, in Clark County, I obtained a single vertebra of some one of the large reptile species, about six inches in diameter, and the same in length, in a very perfect state of preservation, and also found here, Griphæa, Pectens, Galerites, hin Spatangi, Turrelites, and Turbos. It was not convenient to visit the great Saurian deposit, in the same latitude near the Tombeckbe river. This undertaking I must defer to future period. The re "The Claiborne fossils in the box are principally described in Lea's Contributions to Geology. The Unios are fresh water shells from the Alabama river. mainder are fossils from the cretaceous system, which is more particularly developed at Prairie Bluff. "Of the bivaloe marked 'pliocene,' there are inexhaustible beds, scattered round the shores, at the head of Mobile Bay." Mr. Higginson stated, that the Natural History Society had also been presented with a stone found at Bremen, evincing footsteps of the Chirotherium, similar to the vestiges discovered at Storeton. Mr. Higginson was requested to endeavour to have the stone conveyed to Liverpool, without expense to the Society. Dr. Trench (in reference to the paper read by Mr. Heath, at the previous meeting,) read a most interesting letter from a lady, dated Teneriffe, Nov., 1844. It gave an account of an enormous flight of locusts, which settled in the sea in such numbers, that the master of a vessel had steered towards them, under the impression that he was nearing land. THE PAPER FOR THE EVENING WAS, AN ANALYSIS OF DR. PRITCHARD'S RESEARCHES, IN THE The Natural History of Mankind forms an interesting subject for investigation, and it has of late years received the careful study which it merits. Dr. Pritchard in his able researches which have added so much to our knowledge of this department of natural History, has, with the view of determining whether there be one or more species of men, adopted two modes of investigation, viz., the analogical founded on the laws of the animal economy, and the historical or ethnographical. In carrying out the latter mode of investigation, he has followed a method which he has himself termed analytic, and which consists of a survey of the inhabitants of the countries to be examined in local order, and from the facts furnished by such a survey he has afterwards drawn inductions as to the relations of kindred between nations. This plan he has adopted in preference to that of most other writers, who have traced the tribes as branches coming off from the great parent stems or races. He divides the tribes occupying Europe and Asia into the three following groups and families. First Group.-The Syro-Arabian race, by other writers called the Semeitic. Second Group.-The Indo-European or Iranian nations, between the languages of which an affinity may be traced, so that they have all been referred to two closely allied branches. To the one, the Median or Northern, belong the Persian and Germanic languages; to the other, the southern, the Sanskrit, and the Classic languages of Greece and Italy. The Third Division constitutes the Allophylian races, the different groups of which, including the Turanian nations of Asia, and some tribes in Spain, and in the North of Europe, are all aliens to the stock and lineage of the Indo-European races. The Celtic race, which forms a branch of the Indo-European group, occupied the greater part of Spain, ancient Gaul; also extensive districts about the Alps, in Noricum, Pannonia, Illyricum, and on the lower Danube. The Cimbri, the ancient inhabitants of Denmark, were probably also Celts. "It has been generally considered as certain, that the "whole population of Britain was derived from Gaul. An"cient writers however, have afforded us no direct testimony "that may be looked upon as conclusive upon this subject, "and such an inference can only be collected from topogra"phical names, from the history of languages, and from the |