The following paper deals with an investigation of the successive zones of plant remains contained in the deeper peat deposits covering areas in the Scottish Southern Uplands. The field work was carried on during the summer and early autumn of 1904, and the detailed examination of the peat in the laboratory during part of the winter. No attempt has been made to work out the detailed flora of the different zones, but attention has chiefly been directed to the dominant plant remains found at different horizons in the mosses. Whilst the list of plants from each zone is small, the general facies of the flora of any layer can be gauged from the abundant presence of a few characteristic plants such as Salix reticulata and Empetrum, or Sphagnum and Eriophorum. Thus, while the investigation is incomplete as regards any addition to the history of the British Flora, it will, I hope, throw some light upon the succession of vegetation over the older peat mosses since their origin.

A description is given of the hydrological regime and associated surface water quality recorded at a multi-disciplinary long-term investigation into the effects of acid precipitation and afforestation. The study catchment at Loch Dee is situated on the margins of the Loch Doon granite complex in SW Scotland. Annual rainfall is in excess of 2200 mm. The three main tributary burns exhibit a rapid response to rainfall with a high percentage of direct runoff. The loch with an average volume of 3650 M1 and a contributing catchment area of 15·6 km2 has an average turn-over of approximately forty days but this has varied from 15 to 100 days. Local physical variations are shown to influence both hydrological response and surface water quality. Generally stream water during spate conditions reflects rainfall chemistry. Occasionally, however, moderately acid rainfall containing large concentrations of sea salts has produced highly acidic runoff through a process of ion-exchange within the surface horizons of the soils. The quality of base flows shows a spatial variation which reflects various lithologies to the extent that pH values ranging from 4·9 to 6·9 have been observed.

Radiometrie evidence suggests a complex evolution for some parts of the Moine assemblage NW of the Great Glen fault in Scotland. Four generations of microdiorite sheet intrusions are distinguished and used as time- and strain-markers in this region. Two are found to record different tectonic episodes in the Morar and Glenfinnan divisions and their Loch Eil division cover during the c 750 Ma Knoydartian orogeny. These demonstrate that F1 and F2 (of the Grenvillian orogeny) and F3 folds (of the Knoydartian orogeny) in the Morar and Glenfinnan divisions are absent from the Loch Eil division. Two later generations of microdiorites record successive episodes (F4 and F5) of the c. 455 Ma Caledonian orogeny.

The tectonic history of the region is considered after a discussion of the use of microdiorite sheet intrusions as strain-markers. This is because, rather than fold or boudinage, they deformed as incompetent single layers and foliated, mullioned or thinned uniformly instead. The attitudes of different elements of the microdiorites and their internal foliation are used to construct strain ellipsoids for four tectonic episodes on scales of 4–400 m and >4000 m. Three of these episodes are found empirically to have involved irrotational plane strain and all are close to coaxial even though the principal axes of strain appear to have swapped one for another in space as well as time.

In all vertebrates, as the embryo develops at one pole of the egg, it sinks inwards till it becomes completely enclosed in a hood or sac filled with fluid, the amnion. When the sac or true amnion has completely closed over the embryo, it becomes separated from the outer layer, which remains in contact with the covering of the egg as the false or chorionic amnion.

Collections from the Barr Group (late Llanvirn to early Caradoc) of the Girvan district are described and occurrences of all trilobites from both the Barr and Albany groups are listed and their frequencies recorded. The close relationships with North American faunas are emphasised, and three Girvan and North American species are considered synonymous. One new species is described, Bevanopsis phyllisae. Pandaspinapyga is considered a junior subjective synonym of Acanthoparypha. The possibility that Alwynulus may be an aberrant staurocephalid is discussed.

Growth stages of several genera are illustrated; some show unexpectedly large differences in size and morphology in comparison with North American silicified species at the same general stage of development.

Cladoxylon waltoni sp. nov. is described from stems resembling C. radiatum Unger in the form of stele and absence of secondary xylem, but differing in the mode of emission of clepsydroid leaf-traces. Each leaf-trace originates as a band of xylem connecting two adjacent xylem arms. Dorsiventral axes with an ornate U-shaped bundle and 4-9 radiating arms are also included in the species. These give off alternate clepsydroid traces from two or three adjacent arms in a manner resembling a rachis. One specimen of Hierogramma mysticum Unger is described and three small rachides are interpreted as possible subdivisions of a Hierogramma frond.

Changes in Holocene (Flandrian) relative sea levels and coastal geomorphology in the lower Cree valley and estuary, SW Scotland, are inferred from detailed morphological and stratigraphical investigations. A graph of relative sea level changes is proposed for the area. Rising relative sea levels during the early Holocene were interrupted at c. 8300–8600 14C years B.P.(c. 9400–9900 calibrated years B.P.), when an extensive estuarine surface was reached at c. −1 m O.D., after which a fluctuating rise culminated at c. 6100–6500 14C B.P. (c. 7000–7500 calibrated years B.P.) in a prominent shoreline and associated estuarine surface measured at 7·7–10·3 m O.D. A subsequent fall in relative sea level was followed by a rise to a shoreline at 7·8–10·1 m O.D., exceeding or reoccupying the earlier shoreline over much of the area after c. 5000 14C B.P. (c. 5,800 calibrated years B.P.), before relative sea level fell to a later shoreline, reached after c. 2900 14C B.P. (c. 3100 calibrated years B.P.) at 5·5–8·0 m O.D., following which relative sea levels fell, ultimately reaching present levels. During these changes, a particular feature of the coastline was the development of a number of barrier systems. The relative sea level changes identified are compared with changes elsewhere in SW Scotland and their wider context is briefly considered.

Physiographic investigation was undertaken in the coastal belt of the Moray Firth between Golspie and Port Gordon in the hope that it would serve a double purpose. So far as was known no detailed morphological study of any large section of the British coasts had been made, and it appeared that such an investigation upon a varied coast-line would increase our knowledge of marine processes and the work they accomplish. Furthermore, since the area selected includes some of the finest and most complex examples of raised beach at several levels, it was possible by careful attention to heights, absolute and relative, to contribute evidence that may serve in future geological studies of a broader character. The exceptional wealth and variety of features of marine abrasion and deposit in these 250 miles of coast is due largely to the fact that they have been produced on a rising land margin, and so have been preserved.

Vigorous Carboniferous extensional tectonism and associated igneous activity is a feature of Ireland and the neighbouring areas of Newfoundland and Britain. In West Connacht, Ireland, dolerite dikes of late Carboniferous age are newly recognised and distinguished from Tertiary dolerites. In the N, the 320 Ma-old Logmor dike trends N–S across the Ordovician South Mayo Trough, and has an evolved, mildly alkaline basalt geochemistry. In the S, in Connemara, a diffuse and arcuate swarm of ENE–NE trending, 305 Ma-old dolerite dikes, the Teach Doite swarm, cuts the Galway Granite batholith and its envelope of Dalradian gneisses. These more tholeiitic dolerites reveal the mineralogical and geochemical effects of varying degrees of pervasive hydrothermal alteration, imposed on an original magmatic composition similar to that of mid-ocean ridge basalts. Variscan overprinting on k–Ar ages from West Connacht dolerites clusters at 300, 245 and 205 Ma. Overprinting is also a feature of much of the Galway Granite. Carboniferous diking in West Connacht may have responded to nascent opening of the proximate North Atlantic, its pattern related to domal uplift adjacent to the rifted zone.

Hydrothermal alteration at Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, is concentrated along a fault zone, which juxtaposes surface deposits and the mineralised feeder zone to the Rhynie hotspring system. Mineralisation consists of breccias and veins filled with quartz, chert, calcite, K-feldspar and pyrite. Associated pervasive alteration comprises a high-temperature K-feldsparquartz-illite facies (formed at 250–350°C), a medium-temperature mixed layered illite/smectitequartz-K-feldspar-chlorite-calcite facies (formed at 150–200°C) and a low-temperature mixed layered illite/smectite-chlorite-calcite facies (formed at 100 to +150°C). The fluids responsible for mineralisation were mainly moderate- to high-temperature (Th =91–360°C), low-salinity (<0·2 to 2·9 wt.% NaCl eq.) H2O-NaCl-heated meteoric fluids comparable to modern and ancient hot-spring systems. The migration of these fluids was mainly restricted to a major fault zone bounding the Devonian basin. Fluids responsible for mineralisation, alteration and cementation elsewhere in the basin were low-temperature (Th 57 to 161°C), low- to high-salinity (<0·2 to 18 wt.% NaCl eq.) H2O-NaCl fluids, which resemble basinal brines.

Au retour de sa belle campagne de 1902 à 1904 dans l'Antarctique, M. le Dr. WILLIAM S. BRUCE m'a fait l'honneur de m'offrir l'étude des Spongiaires recueillis à bord de la Scotia. Voici de quoi se compose cette collection qui, à certains égards, offre un intérêt considérable.

The Dalradian terrane of Connemara was thrust southsoutheastwards about 460 Ma ago (Rb–Sr and K–Ar ages). It rides on a major thrust of post-D age over mylonitised acidic volcanic rocks of putative lower Ordovician age and contains a number of thrusts of similar age. Several major S- to SE-directed thrusts also limit the southeastern margin of the Dalradian rocks in Mayo and Tyrone. It is suggested by analogy with Ireland that during mid-Ordovician times the Highland Boundary fault in Scotland could have been a thrust zone which carried the Scottish Dalradian rocks over a lower Ordovician basement now represented only as fragments in the Highland Border Complex.

A series of extensive temporary exposures in glacial deposits, partially filling an abandoned valley of the River Dee immediately south of Torry Hill, Aberdeen, has thrown some light on the late glacial history of the Aberdeenshire coastal strip. These deposits consist of rather more than twenty feet of fine, well-stratified sediments, similar to sediments recorded in other parts of the city of Aberdeen, and at a number of points along the coast almost as far as Peterhead.

These sediments, which were first mentioned by T. F. Jamieson (1858), were not differentiated by him from the red boulder clay found also in this area. A. Bremner (1915), the only worker to publish important communications on the glaciology of the area since Jamieson, has explained the sediments as deposits formed in glacial lakes when an ice-sheet filling the North Sea dammed the natural drainage. Bremner (1931) believed that three separate ice sheets had succeeded one another in North-East Scotland. The ice sheet responsible for damming up the waters in which the sediments under discussion were formed was the second of these. It moved in a northerly direction in this area, bringing with it erratics from the Old Red Sandstone of Strathmore. The third ice sheet was local. Movement was eastwards from the high ground towards the sea. According to Bremner, this ice failed to reach the coast at some points, as, for instance, immediately south of the Bay of Nigg. However, in the area of Aberdeen city this ice is supposed to have given rise to the morainic topography which backs the beach.

The present paper is the third of a series recording the results of investigations into the relations of the structures present in the oocyte during the growth period, particularly in their bearing on yolk formation. A Crustacean was selected for various reasons: firstly, as representing a large class about the oogenesis of which little is known, this in contrast to most other Arthropod groups which have been studied by several authors; secondly, in the hope that it would prove to have no yolk nucleus, and would exhibit nucleolar extrusion, a hope which has been fairly satisfactorily justified; thirdly, for the utilitarian reason that it is a common animal, easily obtainable, and able to live under laboratory conditions during considerable periods.

Five new fossil species of the Recent genus of blood-feeding sand flies Lutzomyia (Psychodidae: Phlebotominae) are described: L. filipalpis, L. miocena, L. paleopestis, L. schleei, and L. succini. All are preserved in Miocene amber from the Dominican Republic; today Hispaniola harbours only two known species of this genus. Recent Lutzomyia feed on a wide variety of terrestrial vertebrates, including reptiles, birds, and mammals. Three rare pieces of the amber are reported, two described in detail, which preserved assemblages of Lutzomyia swarms with strands of mammalian hair, indicating that at least some of the fossil species were mammal feeders. Microstructure of the fossil hair offers little diagnostic evidence, but is very similar to that of insectivores in the Solenodontidae. Further preserved evidence indicates that the fossil midges swarmed about an arboreal nest or site of decayed wood that was worked by a mammal, but at very specific times during formation of the amber. Other very rare Dominican amber pieces containing a flea and an ixodid tick also contain mammalian hairs of similar microstructure, together with Lutzomyia sandflies, possibly reflecting the ectoparasite community of a Miocene mammal. This parasitic association has implications regarding the evolution of vectors of mammalian pathogens like Leishmania and the study further reveals the extent of palaeobiological inference that is possible with amber.

All trilobites known from the Ardwell Group, Craighead Inlier, Girvan district are listed and frequencies recorded. Encrinuroides lapworthi n. sp. from the Sericoidea Mudstones, and Bumastoides fornax n. sp. from the Kiln Mudstones, are described. The Sericoidea Mudstones constitute a deeper water interlude in the complex succession which comprises the Craighead Limestone Formation; graptolites from this horizon indicate low Dicranograptus clingani zone. The closest resemblance of the trilobite assemblage as a whole is to faunas of Trenton age in North America. The occurrence of forms allied to Boda Limestone (Ashgill) species suggests that these are long-ranging, carbonate associated, trilobite stocks.

The subfamily Koneprusiinae is revised as part of a larger study of the Odontopleuridae, and Laethoprusia gen. nov. is described. The type species L. salax sp. nov. is from the Wenlock of Gotland, Sweden, and the genus is known also from the Wenlock of the Montagne Noire in south France, and from the Lower Devonian of Australia. The type species is most unusual among trilobites in possessing large fenestrae perforating the exoskeleton on segmental boundaries from the cephalic posterior margin to within the pygidium. The fenestrae were probably covered with soft tissues. Their function is enigmatic. Laethoprusia gen. nov. is the sister taxon to Isoprusia and/or Koneprusia. These genera are revised, and a review of all species assigned to them is given. A cladistic analysis of the best known taxa of Laethoprusia, Isoprusia, and Koneprusia is presented. Laethoprusia is the most derived genus of the subfamily, although stratigraphically it is the earliest.

The sponges in the following report were collected in the North and South Atlantic during the Scotia's voyages to and from the Antarctic regions in the years 1902–1904.

All the sponges in the collection were obtained off the south-west coast of Cape Colony, with the exception of five well-known species which were taken off St Helena, the Cape Verde Islands, and the Princesse Alice Bank. Only one specimen was dredged in deep water, namely, in 350 fathoms off the Princesse Alice Bank, while the remainder were taken between tide-marks to a depth of 30 fathoms.

The collection contains thirty-five species, of which fifteen are described as new.

To complete the list of sponges obtained by the Scotia in Atlantic waters, mention may be made here of one species which is not contained in this report. This species, Cladorhiza thomsoni, dredged in deep water between Gough Island and the Cape of Good Hope, has been described by Professor Topsent (24 and 25). It was taken at Station 468, 39° 48′ S., 2° 33′ E., depth 2770 fathoms.

The five species above referred to, Leucandra crambessa, Aphrocallistes beatrix, Tethya lyncurium, Chondrosia plebeja and Chondrosia reniformis, call for no special remark. They have all been previously obtained in, or fairly near, the areas for which they are here recorded.

Although, from the careful descriptions which have been given by several competent naturalists, we may now consider ourselves tolerably well acquainted with the structure of the dainty siliceous skeletons of this and several allied Hexactinellid Sponges, this is by no means the case with their soft tissues ; and the great cause of our imperfect knowledge of these interesting structures is that no observer has hitherto succeeded in procuring a really well-preserved Sponge of this group. It was with pleasure, therefore, that I accepted the offer of the Director of the Challenger Expedition to place some well-preserved examples belonging to different genera in my hands for investigation. Of all the specimens which have been sent to me, some fragments of Euplectella aspergillum in absolute alcohol are much the best preserved, and therefore the best suited for thorough examination. I commence with the description of the soft parts of this well-known and beautiful form, following the classification which has been adopted by Sir Wyville Thomson in his descriptions of the species.

The results of a series of experiments to study the physical processes governing the evaporation from upland vegetation in Scotland, i.e. coniferous forest, heather and grass, are described. Particular attention is given to the interception process occurring in heather, one of the dominant indigenous species in Scottish upland catchments. Attention is also given to the interception of snow precipitation which in the Scottish uplands is a significant proportion of the total precipitation. A comparison of the parameters describing the efficiency of the transport process of water vapour for coniferous forest and heather indicates that the process is more efficient than predicted by classical diffusion theory: additional transport mechanisms are considered. A simple model, based upon the results of the process studies, was applied to data from the Monachyle catchment (Balquhidder) and the model predictions compared with observations. This study, in conjunction with recent results from the Balquhidder catchment experiment, illustrates the necessity of further investigations to give a fuller understanding of the evaporation from high altitude grassland.