It is well known to all students of the history of geology that, although the date of publication of William Smith's “Map of the Strata of England and Wales” was the year 1815, yet even before the commencement of the present century the “Father of English Geology” had not only established the principle that strata can be identified by their organic remains, but had actually applied that important principle in the construction of a number of geological sections and maps. Conclusive documentary evidence of the truth of this statement is fortunately in the possession of the Geological Society.

AMONG the Echinoids from the Limestone Lenticles of Shenley Hill (Leighton Buzzard), sent to me from the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge (see Geol. Mag., Vol. LVIII, 1921, p. 57), one specimen of the many Pyriniform examples at once attracted attention by its preservation, relatively large size, and superficial resemblance to Holectypus. A brief comment on the specimen (No. 3 of the series) was made in the note already cited; further and more detailed examination, preceded by removal of matrix, has revealed additional features of much interest. Though averse to diagnosis of new genera or species based on single specimens, I have felt compelled to adopt that course in this case, in default of acquaintance with any described types to which the Shenley Echinoid could be assimilated. It is quite likely that other specimens, congeneric if not conspecific, may exist in collections; according to their preservation or the idiosyncrasy of individuals they may be labelled Holectypus, Conulus, or Pyrina with equal probability. It is even possible that some of the numerous species of Pyrina (including Pseudopyrina and Globator), already described, may be referable to the genus here introduced; but more details of morphology than are often supplied in systematic diagnoses and figures are needed before order can come out of the chaotic series of Cretaceous Echinonëidæ.

The petrography of the Plateau Deposits has been determined. They yield species both of local origin and of the general Haldon types.

The kyanite and staurolite present have been derived from the north.

The planation of the limestones was initiated during the Cretaceous period.

The raised beaches are of slightly different types, the Thatcher raised beach being later. They furnish evidence of a former greater thickness of the Plateau Deposits.

Modern beach deposits furnish some evidence of the distributive powers of certain minerals, and point to the existence of Triassic and Cretaceous sediments outside the Bay.

II. (8) Kent.—1862. Mr. W. H. Bensted, in the Geologist, vol. v (1862), pp. 449, 450, states: “The Druid Sandstone, of which Kit's Coty House, Stonehenge, and many other Druidical remains are composed, is found scattered in great blocks over the surface of the Chalk Hills, or buried superficially in beds of clay retained in the hollows on the summits of the escarpments.” These stones, he added, are the same as the Greywethers of Berks and Wilts; and are occasionally pebbly, like the Hertfordshire Puddingstones.

The Upper Westphalian succession in the National Coal Board's Eastling Wood Borehole, 1976 ‘TR 6303 1472’ has been analysed in terms of upward-fining and upward-coarsening semicycles, transition probabilities and entropies. This analysis confirms that the succession can be divided into a lower coal facies, which like the earlier Westphalian deposits of Kent was laid down dominantly in deltas but which includes numerous channel-fills, and an upper channel facies laid down in a more upstream fluvial environment.

Patterns of joints in flat-lying Permian rocks have been compared with those of folded Mathinna beds, of Siluro-Devonian age, across an exposed unconformity, and with those of a nearby Late Devonian granite. The patterns of the Permian rocks and the granite are similar, and each joint set appears to be related to parallel-trending post-Permian faults in the region. However, there is no representation of the joint sets of the Permian rocks in the Mathinna beds, considered to be due to shear failure either along bedding up to 18 degrees from the expected position, or along pre-existing open joints up to 65 degrees away. Lack of apparent order in the deflection and termination of joints against one another in the Mathinna beds indicates contemporaneity of formation of the open continuous fractures of differing attitudes, suggesting that the initial form of joints is as minor discontinuous cracks, which later develop into the open joints examined in surface outcrops.

Calymene quadrata King is re-described. Two new species of similar age and provenance are erected and considered to be closely allied to quadrata; all three forms are thought to be best placed in genus Gravicalymene Shirley. G. pontilis sp.nov., the stratigraphically oldest form suggests derivation of the group from an ancestor such as G. deani Ingham. G. arcuata sp.nov. is the youngest form. Variation in the preglabellar area between the three forms argues for an expansion of the diagnosis of genus Gravicalymene; this would allow it to contain forms previously placed in genus Sthenarocalymene Siveter.

In the February Number of the Geological Magazine, there is an article by Messrs. B. N. Peach and J. Home, answering the doubts expressed by me regarding the soundness of their views on this subject.

The geology of Jamaica compared with that of some areas of the earth's crust is neither very involved nor very difficult of interpretation. Considering the length of time that has elapsed since it was first studied and the easy accessibility of many parts of the island, it should be fairly well known and should form a key for the interpretation of the structure of the larger and less well-known islands of Haiti and Cuba, and also of Porto Rico and the smaller islands forming the group of the Greater Antilles.

Precambrian rocks throughout most of the southern part of the Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming, are dominated by a biotite-bearing plagioclase–quartz gneiss containing hornblende-rich or microcline-rich layers locally. Compositional and/or optical data are presented for plagioclase, biotite, and hornblende as well as optical and X-ray data for microcline and preliminary morphologic data for zircon in the gneiss. These data, supplemented by field and petrographic observations, suggest that the gneiss was formed under conditions of the low amphibolite facies, that late-occurring potash metasomatism accompanied the metamorphism, and that the gneiss was derived from a relatively chemically uniform parent rock.

The following is taken from a MS. by the late Mr. John Brown, F.G.S., of Stanway, Essex, and given by him to ProfessorHenslow, who gave it to me. The actual measurements are not mentioned, but I believe the scale to be about an eighth of an inch to a foot. It is valuable as having evidently been made when the beds were better seen than usual. Moreover, the constant waste of the cliff alters the section continually.

A previously unrecognized specimen of Protoichthyosaurus prostaxalis, LEICT G142.1991, from the Lower Jurassic of Barrow-upon-Soar, Leicestershire, UK, includes an almost complete three-dimensional skull that provides new information on the configuration of the skull roof. The position of the pineal foramen (between the frontals and the parietals) and an elongated internasal foramen in a depression along the midline of the nasals are clearly shown. The maxilla makes up a significant portion of the external naris ventral margin, an unusual character for the genus/species. This reflects intraspecific variation, not evidence of a new taxon. The specimen enables comparisons of skull roof morphology with Ichthyosaurus and Stenopterygius, two common Early Jurassic taxa. In particular, the position of the pineal foramen is similar to Stenopterygius, but distinguishes Protoichthyosaurus from Ichthyosaurus. The lack of a frontal–prefrontal contact and the posteriorly wide nasals distinguishes Protoichthyosaurus from Stenopterygius. We also present a revised reconstruction of the skull roof morphology of Ichthyosaurus. Three additional specimens of Protoichthyosaurus are referred to the genus: another partial skull, referred to P. prostaxalis, and two isolated forefins, identified by their unique morphology.

This paper is an attempt to review briefly the progress of geological research in an area familiar to zoologists as the classic ground covered by Alfred Russel Wallace, but which is also the field where Dutch geologists have for many years been carrying out valuable work on a much larger scale than has been possible in the smaller areas under British control in the Malay Peninsula and Borneo. There is a considerable amount of geological literature dealing with the Peninsula and Archipelago. In The Geology of Malaya (1931) is a bibliography of that concerning the Malay Peninsula, and in F. H. Hatch's translation of Posewitz's Borneo (1892) will be found lists of the earlier literature dealing with both the British and Dutch portions of that island. In the Malay Peninsula the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society has included scientific papers since the appearance of their first number in 1878; and in 1927 C. E. Wurtzburg produced an index, including an earlier index by W. D. Barnes, of the Journal up to 1915, when the title of the society was changed to The Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. In 1930 the Malayan Branch published an exceptionally interesting number containing a translation by H. V. Mills of Manoel Godinho de Eredia's Description of Malacca, Meridional India and Cathay, originally written about 1600 in Portuguese. This is the earliest known publication that can be called scientific about this part of Asia and contains information about tin and gold, also “traces of diamonds and emeralds as Pliny points out” which later workers have not been able to find.

Little is known of the Upper Jurassic Fish-fauna from discoveries in British Formations; and though considerable information upon the subject has already been acquired, this has been chiefly obtained from the fine Lithographic Stones of Bavaria, Würtemberg, and France. In these deposits, as is well known, fishskeletons are found in an almost complete state, with the bones remarkably well preserved; and the only obstacle to the satisfactory determination of the various elements is the extreme compression to which the fossils have been subjected and the hardness of the matrix in which they are enveloped.

Just half a century ago, the Geological Society was engaged in passing through the press a very remarkable memoir—a memoir that was destined to revolutionize one of the branches of the science which the Society had been founded to promote. Yet on its appearance this memoir, “On the Microscopical Structure of Crystals,” was met with ridicule on the part of some, with scepticism by others, and by a neglect that was almost universal. Nevertheless, its author, Mr. Sorby, lived to find Microscopical Petrography recognised all the world over as one of the most important branches of geological science, to see appearing year by year an enormous mass of literature devoted to this branch of science, and to be himself hailed by the geologists of all lands as the pioneer in this new and fruitful field of scientific research.

The Pioneer Formation of southwestern British Columbia (Canada) is composed predominantly of middle to late Triassic pillow basalts. These rocks are an integral part of the Cadwallader and the Bridge River terranes that were delaminated from the oceanic lithosphere and stacked against the continental margin of the North American craton by middle Jurassic time. The basalts are underlain and locally intercalated with ribbon cherts and argillites that range in age from Mississippian to Triassic. The Triassic basalts are conformably overlain by clastic sediments containing late Carnian–Norian conodont fauna. The tholeiitic basalts have enriched and depleted REE patterns, and have been emplaced in an oceanic environment. The compositional variations of the basalts are attributed to dynamic partial melting of source rocks that are believed to have been part of the rising mantle diapir. According to our model, after initial melting in the garnet stability field, the mantle diapir rose up to the spinel stability field where it underwent subsequent melting. The reconstructed stratigraphy of the Bridge River area may be interpreted in terms of an oceanic plate moving over a mantle plume and into a trench where offscraping preserved tectonic lenses of the subducting plate in an accretionary prism.