FALKLAND ISLANDS.
I have described these islands in a paper published in the third volume of the “Geological Journal.” The mountain-ridges consist of quartz, and the lower country of clay-slate and sandstone, the latter containing Palaeozoic fossils. These fossils have been separately described by Messrs. Morris and Sharpe: some of them resemble Silurian, and others Devonian forms. In the eastern part of the group the several parallel ridges of quartz extend in a west and east line; but further westward the line becomes W.N.W. and E.S.E., and even still more northerly. The cleavage-planes of the clay- slate are highly inclined, generally at an angle of above 50 degrees, and often vertical; they strike almost invariably in the same direction with the quartz ranges. The outline of the indented shores of the two main islands, and the relative positions of the smaller islets, accord with the strike both of the main axes of elevation and of the cleavage of the clay- slate.