Though the genus Lepidophloios, in regard to species, is a comparatively small one, yet it derives considerable importance from its occurring throughout the whole of the Carboniferous Formation, as well as in the peculiar characteristics of the plants comprised in it.

The fragmentary condition in which the specimens are usually found has given rise to the creation of several genera, which can all be shown to merely represent different conditions of growth and preservation of one generic type. There are, also, other points in the structure of Lepidophloios which require further investigation, and the object of the present paper is to attempt to clear up some of these, about which much confusion still exists.

Although the amount of active research that has been carried on during the past few years on the question of chromosome reduction and relative problems has been very great, the nuclear activities here concerned are still far from being understood. We are not yet in a position to draw general conclusions in regard to meiotic phenomena. It therefore seems to me desirable that all observations of fact and rational interpretations should be placed on record, so that when it becomes possible to generalise, all lines of evidence may be available.

An Ordovician subvolcanic intrusive complex hosted by Neoproterozoic metasediments crops out at Souter Head about 6km S of Aberdeen, Scotland. The complex is composed mainly of two-mica red granite and breccia with minor dykes of pegmatite, quartz porphyry, felsite and dolerite, and widespread quartz veining, hydrothermal alteration and minor molybdenite mineralisation. Anomalous levels of bismuth (Bi), arsenic (As) and gold (Au) occur in quartz–pyrite veins. The complex has been mapped and the major- and minor-element geochemistry, including rare-earth elements of intrusives and mineralisation, has been determined. These data reveal a complex tectonic, intrusive and hydrothermal history. The intrusives are peraluminous and magnetite-, muscovite- and garnet-bearing. The youngest member, a quartz porphyry, is highly fractionated. There are two stages of hydrothermal activity: the first is linked to the explosive release of volatiles from a granite cupola and breccia formation; and the second, widespread quartz veining. Mo is associated with both stages, and Bi–As–Au anomalies are found in late quartz–pyrite veins. The mineralisation is classified as a granite-related vein-type Mo system. The unique preservation, in the Grampian terrane, of an Ordovician subvolcanic complex may be attributed to pre-Devonian movements on the nearby Dee fault and possibly also the collapse of the magma chamber following the explosive release of volatiles. The combination of large size, poor exposure and abundant multi-stage hydrothermal activity suggests that there is potential for further Mo and possibly Au mineralisation in this complex. Further mineralisation of this style may be present in the NE Grampian terrane.

In the autumn of last year Sir Archibald Geikie, F.R.S., Director-General of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom, Kindly placed in my hands for determination a number of specimens of Cephalaspis, collected by his officers in the Lower Old Red Sandstone of the neighbourhood of Oban. On examining them, I found that they all belonged to one species, which was, however, new to science.

Accordingly I drew up a brief diagnosis of this new form, which was included by Sir Archibald in his Summary of Progress of the Geological Survey for 1897, and it is now my privilege, with his sanction, to offer to this Society a more detailed description of the species, accompanied with figures.

This research evaluated the variability of current characteristics and seawater properties in the middle part of the southern shelf of the Caspian Sea. The effect of the coastal flow on marine debris dispreading was assessed in the southern Caspian Sea for the first time. The findings showed the existence of thermal stratification containing seasonal thermocline with thickness of about 40 m in the water column. Maximum monthly along-shore current velocities around 1.3 m s−1 were observed in November and December. Monthly variations were clearly found in both flow velocity and local wind components. However, no significant levels of correlation between wind and current speeds were observed during the study in the region. In some cases, the mean monthly cross-shore component velocities were measured at about 29 cm s−1 in November. The findings indicated that there was no upwelling phenomenon associated to the regional wind in the study area. In situ current measurements indicated dominant east and north-northeast directions, presumably related to the effect of general circulation in the southern basin. Current profiles in the water column displayed similarity in directions at 10, 15 and 20 m depths over the continental shelf. The field samples and analysis revealed that the soft and smaller-scale seawater litters can be carried long distances by the current along the coast. Most coastal based and marine litters originated from the tourist activities (in the middle and western parts of the shores) and waste emanated from the river (Tonekabon-Nowshahr).

The affection of Half-vision, or Half-blindness as it has been called, was first distinctly described by Dr Wollaston, in a paper “On Semidecussation of the Optic Nerves,” published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1824. “It is now more than twenty years,” he says, “since I was first affected with this peculiar state of vision, in consequence of violent exercise I had taken for two or three hours before. I suddenly found that I could see but half the face of a man whom I met, and it was the same with every object I looked at. In attempting to read the name Johnson over a door, I saw only son, the commencement of the name being wholly obliterated from my view. In this instance, the loss of sight was towards my left, and was the same, whether I looked with my right eye or my left. This blindness was not so complete as to amount to absolute blackness, but was a shaded darkness, without definite outline. The complaint lasted only about a quarter of an hour.” In 1822, Dr Wollaston had another attack of hemiopsy, with this difference, that the blindness was to the right of the centre of vision, and he has referred to three other cases among his friends; but in these, the affection was accompanied with headache and indigestion.

Alexander Tytler was born at Edinburgh, 15th October 1747. He was the eldest son of our late venerable associate William Tytler, Esq. of Woodhouselee, in the county of Mid-Lothian, and of Anne Craig, daughter of James Craig, Esq. of Costerton, in the same county.

If the most important education is that which is received beneath the paternal roof,—if it is there that the principles and tastes of future life are chiefly formed, the education of Mr Tytler began under fortunate auspices. His father was a man of high honour, of generous affections, of cultivated taste, and of distinguished eminence in his profession.

1. The Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh having, on my application in 1832, entrusted me with Hansteen's Magnetic Intensity Apparatus, in their possession, I feel it to be my duty to communicate to the Society the results then and subsequently obtained with it.

2. The instrument consists of a mahogany box 5 inches long, 4 broad, and 2 deep, with sides and top of glass, having also a wooden tube, screwing into the top, for containing a silk-worm's fibre about 5 inches long, by which the magnetic needle is suspended so as to place itself horizontally, and after being caused to deviate from its point of rest, the time of any given number of oscillations in a horizontal plane is measured,—whilst a graduated circle in the bottom of the box indicates its arc of vibration.

In the years 1823 and 1826 I communicated to this Society two papers “On the Existence of Two New Fluids in the Cavities of Precious Stones and other Minerals.” These two fluids were generally found together in the same cavity, though sometimes the cavities were occupied only by one of them. They were perfectly transparent and immiscible. The denser of the two occupied the angles of the cavities, or the necks, or narrow passages, or canals which united two or more larger cavities; while the rarer fluid floated, as it were, on the other in deep cavities, or filled the body of shallower ones, with the exception of a circular vacuity, which diminished and disappeared with the slightest increase of temperature, or enlarged itself and disappeared in consequence of the fluid being converted into vapour.

Previous to the voyage of the Endurance in 1914–1915, the depth and extent of the Weddell Sea were either based on or surmised from the deep-sea soundings made on the Scotia by Dr Bruce in 1903 and 1904; on Dr Otto Nordenskjöld's ship Antarctic in 1901–1902; and on the German Expedition ship Deutschland under the leadership of Lieut. Filchner in 1912–1913. The first set are confined to the eastern and north-eastern portion, and may be said to run diagonally across the mouth of the sea; the second set were made in the extreme north-western area; whilst those of the Deutschland are disposed right down the centre of the sea, and consist mainly of a south-to-north series approximately along the meridian of 43° W.

Benguella is a province of Angola, the chief Portuguese colony in western Africa. From the chief town, Benguella (lat. 12·35° S.) and from Catumbella (lat. 12·25° S.) old-established trade routes go inland on to the Benguella plateau, and across it along the watershed between the Congo and the Zambesi to Katanga and the Upper Congo. The geographical pioneers in this part of Africa showed that the land rises in steps from the coast to a high plateau, which consists of a foundation, of ancient crystalline and sedimentary rocks, and is flanked by younger marine beds along the coast.

In this series of papers it is proposed to describe new or interesting Palæozoic plants, many of which were collected several years ago. Some of these are in the possession of the Geological Surveys of England and Scotland, others belong to personal friends or are in the collections of public museums, while the remainder are in my own collection. They come from various localities and horizons, and a few from coalfields of which papers dealing with their fossil plants have already been published, and they are, in many cases, additions to these lists.

The value of the Chronometer for finding the Longitude at Sea, being, by the experience of many years trial, fully established, I am induced to offer to the Royal Society some remarks on the change of rate observed in this instrument, when on ship-board. This change of rate, that had usually been supposed to arise from the motion of the ship, has recently heen attributed, by Mr Fisher, who accompanied Captain Buchan in his Voyage towards the North Pole in the year 1818, ‘to the magnetic action exerted by the iron in the ship upon ‘the inner rim of the Chronometer's balance, which is composed of steel.’ I apprehend, however, that it will be very easy to show, that although the alteration of rate may be, and most probably is, owing to magnetism, yet the magnetic action of the iron in the ship, excepting in cases where chronometers are placed in immediate contact with large masses of iron, can contribute but in a very small degree to the error in question.

It is readily seen that the two differential equations

which play an important rôle in Professor Chrystal's mathematical theory of the Seiches, are special cases of the more general type

With regard to the first, the Seiche-equation, this becomes at once apparent by writing a= − ½. Equation (2), on the other hand, which we may briefly call the Stokes equation [see Professor Chrystal's paper on “Some further Results in the Mathematical Theory of Seiches,” Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xxv.] will be recognised as a special case (a = + 1) of the equation

which is transformed into (3) by the substitution .

The lower Meitan Formation (Floian, upper Lower Ordovician) at the Dajiaosi section, Zunyi District, northern Guizhou Province of South China, contains a moderately rich and diverse Sinorthis Fauna, with 22 species attributable separately to 15 families and seven orders of brachiopods. The fauna can be differentiated into three associations: the Paralenorthis serica, the Sinorthis typica, and the Tarfaya intercalare associations. These occupied a relatively wide palaeoecological range from lower BA3 to upper BA2 settings and from silty to clay substrate conditions. In South China, the Early Ordovician brachiopod radiation was marked by the diversification of the orthide-dominated Sinorthis Fauna, which first appeared and diversified in the middle part (relatively deep water) of the Upper Yangtze Platform in the Didymograptellus eobifidus Biozone, but rapidly declined in the succeeding Corymbograptus deflexus and basal Azygograptus suecicus biozones. During the latest Floian and early Dapingian, it expanded into comparatively shallow-water settings in the onshore direction (Changning area, southern Sichuan), offshore carbonate platform (Yichang, Hubei), and areas adjacent to the submergent Qianzhong Arch (such as the Zunyi area). The first appearance datum of the Sinorthis Fauna in shallower-water settings generally postdates that in the deeper-water environment in the central Upper Yangtze Platform, probably as a result of the fauna tracking a favoured BA3 setting during a gradual marine transgression.

Study of the residues of organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) can assist with the assessment of the contamination level, distribution, sources, transportation and trends in these selected OCPs. We investigated the concentration levels of hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCHs), dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), chlordane, which is currently used, and the never-used aldrin and dieldrin in the Ningbo region – a heavily industrialised and urbanised area in East China. OCPs were found in all soil samples and were predominantly composed of HCHs, DDT and its metabolites. The concentration of DDTs in the soil ranged from 2.2 to 566.6ngg–1, with a mean value of 55.6±94.8ngg–1, while the concentration of HCHs ranged from 2.7 to 28.2ngg–1, with an average of 4.6±2.9ngg–1. Aldrin, dieldrin, endrin and heptachlor were detected at much lower concentrations. The wide distribution of these never-used OCPs indicates that they have been input via long-range atmospheric processes. The results from analysis suggest that HCHs and DDTs were mainly derived from use in historical times.

The recovery of a new partial cranium of Decennatherium rex Ríos et al. 2017 bearing two anterior and two posterior ossicones from the Late Miocene deposits of the site Batallones-10 (MN-10, Cerro de los Batallones, Madrid Basin) sheds light on the complex variability of the cranial appendages of these extinct giraffids. The special features of the anterior ossicones of BAT10’18-C6-40, each formed by two bosses and separated by a septum increase the range of morphological variability found in the anterior ossicones of giraffids. Posterior ossicone variability has already been described in several sivatherine taxa as Sivatherium maurusium (Harris, 1974) but anterior ossicone variability has never been discussed for four-ossicone taxa. This new specimen accounts for the third morphotype found in D. rex anterior ossicones. BAT10’18-C6-40 is identified as an adult D. rex male on the basis of the development of the posterior ossicones. These are large and already show the first large bump which in this taxon is always located on the middle of the dorsal surface at a similar height on the right and left ossicones which agrees with Solounias (1988) who stated that these small irregular protuberances have a somewhat fixed position, suggesting a genetic basis. This new specimen represents a new example of cranial variability in D. rex, and makes it the extinct giraffid with the largest anterior ossicone variability found so far.