Very little is known of the early history of the non-marine Gastropoda; hence the discovery in the coal-bearing strata of Scremerston (Northumberland) of a small species closely resembling certain modern fluviatile operculate shells is of considerable interest. My thanks are due to Mr. J. Pringle for bringing the specimens in question to my notice; to Mr. R. G. Carruthers, to whom their discovery is due, for sending me particulars; and to Dr. F. L. Kitchin for permission to borrow them from the Museum of Practical Geology, where they are deposited.

I have been favoured by Mr. G. E. Roberts with the inspection of a fossil from the London Clay of Sheppey, which indicates a genus of mammals distinct from Pliolophus and Hytacotherium, to both of which it is nearly allied. It consists of so much of the upper jaw (Plate X., fig. 1 ) as includes the six sockets of the molar series of each side, with the intervening bony palate and the anterior piers of the zygomatic arches: the upper part of this portion of skull has been crushed and filled up with compact septarian stone. The last, m 3, and penultimate, m 2, molars of both sides, and the last right premolar, p 4, remain in their sockets. In point of size they differ from those teeth in Hyracotherium leporinum in about the same degree as do those of Hyracotherium cuniculus, but exhibit a modification of generic value.

The following carefully and elaborately prepared list of the fossil Brachiopoda of the Lower Boulonnais has been forwarded to the Editor for publication by his esteemed friend and frequent contributor Thomas Davidson, Esq., F.R.S., who writes as follows:— “At my request M. E. Rigaux (51, Grande Rue, Boulogne-sur-mer, France) has been engaged for more than two years in drawing up complete summary of all the Brachiopoda that are to be found in the various formations composing the Lower Boulonnais.

It has long been recognized by geologists that rock-masses which have undergone movement, and have thereby been subjected to internal stresses, exhibit, as the consequence of the action upon them of such mechanical forces, unmistakeable evidences of having been greatly modified, alike in their mineralogical and in their structural characters. That the most complete and striking examples of such changes are to be found in the rock-masses which constitute mountain-chains—rock-masses which have actually been made to “flow,” and in so doing have been subjected to shearing movements of the most intense character—was clearly pointed out by Scrope, Darwin, Sharpe, Naumann, and Dana; all of whom referred the foliated structure exhibited by such rock-masses to this cause.

The field relations and petrography of the Grantown Newer Granite are described. The structure of the country rocks—Moine gneisses—is compared with that of the numerous blocks included in the granite, the results being synoptically presented. The blocks originally bore the same orientation as the country rocks and have been rotated in the granite during its emplacement. From east to west three zones of orientation, showing increasing rotation of blocks from their original position, are recognized in the granite. As the granite lacks an internal penetrative structure the kinematics of the blocks in the granite remains uncertain. All the evidence suggests that the granite did not form in situ, but was emplaced in a plastic state by dilation of the country rocks mainly along their foliation.

The fossils described in the following pages were collected by Mr. James L. Begg, The Elms, Mount Vernon, Glasgow, fromthe Poolvash Limestone, Balladoole, Isle of Man. The fauna of these limestones, according to Dr. Wheelton Hind, indicates an upper Dibunophyllum age. The most recent and most complete list of Carboniferous Limestone fossils from the south of the I.O.M. is that published by Mr. John Smith, and compiled from the Survey list, from Dr. Hinde's list, and from Cuming's list, as well as from Mr. Smith's own collection.

In examining the remarkably fine series of examples of Cœlonautilus cariniferus, mostly from the Carboniferous Limestone of Ireland, contained in the Geological Collections of the British Museum (Nat. Hist.), some were found to exhibit upon the cast of the body-chamber distinct marks of the shell-muscles. In one specimen (No. 50190) these are so perfect as to give a very clear outline of their form, and some of the test having been removed, their entire course can be made out.

Examining the Cambridge sands, fresh from a remembrance of the Undercliff and the grand developement of the cherty rock of the Upper Greensand in Southern sections, perhaps its most marvellous character is that here it no longer makes a feature in the land, but has dwindled away to barely a foot in thickness, and yet is to be traced through several counties. Blending insensibly into the chalk, resembling in structure beds that sometimes occur in the Gault, it appears but as a parting seam between those deposits. Yet so soon as Dr. Fitton made clear the sequence of the Cretaceous beds, Professor Sedgwick recognised in the film of black nodules, glauconite and chalky marl, the analogue of the sands of the Vale of Wardour and the Isle of Wight.

In the Geological Magazine115 (5), 1978, Lane & Thomas proposed the name Rhax for a scutellid of probable late Llandovery from Queensland, Australia.

Fossil megaspores of the aquatic fern Azolla tegeliensis Florschütz have been recovered from sediments of early Pleistocene age at Great Blakenham, Suffolk, England. This discovery is the first record for this taxon in the British Isles. The find reinforces a recently suggested correlation of the British early Pleistocene sediments with those from con tinental northwest Europe. In the long continuous Pleistocene sequences in The Netherlands the megaspores of A. tegeliensis have been recovered from early Pleistocene sediments, where they are restricted to the Tiglian Stage. Sediments at Great Blakenham can now be correlated with the Tiglian sediments of The Netherlands.

The purpose of the present note is to give a synopsis of the most important differences between assemblages of small foraminifera from rocks of Upper Cretaceous, Eogene, and Neogene age respectively, in the Middle Eastern region.

The costellae of a population of brachiopods can be quantitatively described by plotting the total number of costellae on a valve against the length of its margin. The resultant curve describes the continuous change of the average distance between adjacent costellae during growth. When costellae first appear, this distance has the value of about 0·06 mm and it increases during growth to various degrees in different brachiopod species.

If it is assumed that costellae mark the sites of setae, then the magnitude of the distance between adjacent costellae can be discussed in terms of the function of setae.

The magnitude of the parameters of the distribution of setae and punctae are compared to the silt/sand dividing line.

During the last two years the Coventry City Corporation has put down three boreholes, for water supply purposes, near Mount Nod Farm, on the north side of Broad Lane, 2 miles 5 furlongs W. 6° N. of the centre of the city.

In the February and March issues of the Geological Magazine for 1908 I published a general account of the underground water-supply of the óasis of Kharga, in the Libyan Desert, and briefly referred to the influence of one bore on another.

Trend surface analysis has been used widely in geology and geomorphology but only rarely has it been applied to directional data. This neglect stems from the inapplicability of normal trend surface procedures to such data. An adaptation of normal trend surface procedures specifically designed for use with directional data is, however, available as a FORTRAN IV computer program. This technique is described and its usefulness in generalizing regional patterns of flow is illustrated by applying it to data representing ice flow direction in Central Scotland.

The New Red gravels of the Tiverton type extend from Warbrightsleigh and Chimney Down on the north to Thorverton and White Down Copse on the south. Further south they are replaced by breccias and sandstones or covered by the higher beds of the New Red series. Throughout the whole of this area of nearly 100 square miles the gravels contain fragments of sandstone and grit with Upper Devonian fossils. These Devonian fragments are most common in the north-east of the district, and are comparatively rare further south. They are found at the entrance of the Crediton valley, but do not appear to be present further west.

All the fossils that have been identified are known to occur in the Pilton and Marwood Beds of North Devon. The only Trilobite found (Phacops latifrons, Bronn) is practically the only Trilobite occurring in the Pilton Beds, where it is very common. Spirifer Verneuili, Murch., Spirifer Urii, Flem., Rhynchonella (Camarotæchia) Partridgiæ, Whidb., and Productus prælongus, Sowerby, are the commonest Brachiopods both in the gravels and in the Pilton Beds. The little Gasteropod Euomphalus vermis, Whidb., is also common in the gravels and Pilton Beds. Bellerophon subglobatus, M'Coy, is a characteristic fossil in the Marwood Beds of the Barnstaple district; it is also common in the grits that occur further east near Wiveliscombe, and in the grit fragments found in the gravels.

At Chimney Down, in the north-east of the district, fossiliferous fragments of Upper Devonian sandstone and grit are extremely common, whilst trap fragments appear to be absent. This fact, as well as the wide distribution of the fossiliferous fragments, completely disposes of the Rev. W. Downes' theory of volcanic ejection. The facts tend, rather, to prove a drift from the north-east during the period of deposition of the gravels. The grit and sandstone matrices suggest a derivation from the Wiveliscombe end of the Pilton Beds rather than from the more slaty beds found further west. The Devonian fragments in the gravels may even have been derived from a still more easterly extension of the Pilton Beds, now buried under Triassic deposits.

Two graptolites with associated grooving in the sediment are recorded; these structures are thought to be caused by the thecae grooving the sediment during movement of the graptolite by a flow of overlying mud.

The late Prof. Louis Agassiz, whilst on a visit to Halifax with Prof. John Phillips, during the years in which he was preparing his “Recherches sur les Poissons fossiles,” identified the caudal extremity of a large species of Cœlacanth fish to which he appended the name of Cœlacanthus Phillipsii in honour of his friend. The specimen is from a large “baum-pot,” as the calcareous nodules are locally termed, obtained from the Lower Coal-measures. This specimen was found at the Swan Bank Pit at Halifax, and, so far as I know, is the only one which has been discovered. The surface exposed by splitting the nodule is 0.295m. diameter, and the part of the fish preserved extends across it; it consists of the caudal portion of a large individual, which, had it been perfectly preserved, would have been between four and five feet in length.

Since a “shear” is mathematically the same as a compression in one direction with a compensating expansion in a direction atright angles to it, the consideration whether slaty cleavage can be ascribed to movements of this character resolves itself into the question whether the cleaved rocks have or have not suffered a total diminution of bulk. The most convenient way of treating thequestion is by discussing, as I did in my former paper (p. 15), the form of the “ellipsoid of distortion.” The ellipsoid produced by a pure shear would be one of three unequal axes, of which the second or mean axis would be a geometric mean between the other two: whereas, if the expansion did not compensate the compression, the second axis would be greater than this geometric mean, and if the expansion were slight, the second and greatest axes would be nearly equal. The facts seem to accord with the latter supposition, and the diminution of bulk thus indicated agrees with what might be a priori expected.