Near San Sebastian, northern Spain, are outcrops of a system of deep-water fans deposited beyond the mouth of a submarine canyon from southward flowing currents. The sandstones consist of mixed siliciclastic detritals and carbonate fragments. The latter includes a derived heterogeneous marine fauna. Carbonate content varies and has played a major part in diagenesis. Early cementation by limited quartz and to a greater extent calcite involved local expansion. Later compaction has led to prominent pressure-solution phenomena of calcite and quartz with formation of microstylolites. Leaching owing to weathering has led to removal of some carbonate and formation of kaolinite from micas.

In 1830 Pander proposed the genus Porambonites for a remarkable group of Lower Silurian Brachiopoda, which abound in the neighbourhood of St. Petersburg, in Esthonia, and other parts of Russia; as well as in rocks of a similar geological age in Great Britain, Portugal, and other countries.

Every geologist is familiar with the name of Storeton Quarry, which may fitly be termed the “home of the Cheirotherium”, celebrated as being the scene of the earliest discoveryinEngland of the fossil footprints, first described by Messrs. John Cunningham and James Yatesin1839.

Fifty years' study of these footprints has left their origin, so faras exact identification with any known animal is concerned, a matter of as much mystery as when Sir Eichard Owen gave attention to the subject in his classical work on “Palaeontology”.

The cordierite–sillimanite rocks first reported from Joan Lake Area, Labrador, show some unusual mineral associations and textures. Two myremkitic intergrowths, one among cordierite, potash feldspar and quartz, and the other between potash feldspar and plagioclase feldspar, are observed. The presence of microcline–microperthite and the textures described in the sequel indicate that these rocks were recrystallized at high temperature.

A study of the geological history of a small dioritic mass near Gairloch has revealed the presence of rock types and structural elements not represented in most of the Lewisian of the district. Coarse grained diorite, showing intrusive relations to granulitic rocks of possible sedimentary derivation, has been foliated and subsequently intruded by microdiorite during pre-Laxfordian episodes. The Little Sand mass has subsequently been involved, probably as a thrust slice of basement, in the sequence of Laxfordian (about 1,500 m.y.) structural and metamorphic episodes which affected the more common Lewisian metasediments and metabasites.

It seems to be one of the chief objects of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in changing the place of meeting every year, to bring more prominently before the members of its respective sections such points of interest in their own department of Science as are afforded by the various localities. In accordance with this principle, I beg to lay before you some observations concerning the geology of a district not more distant than about two hours' railway journey from Dublin, which will, I trust, be of peculiar interest on the present occasion. The district I refer to is the hill country north of Dundalk, of which Slieve Gullion forms the most prominent feature. This mountain is a somewhat isolated mass, attaining an elevation of about 1900 feet, and is situated to the north-west of the hilly and picturesque country lying between the bays of Dundalk and Carlingford, or due west of the more remarkable group of the Mourne Mountains.

In the month of May, 1861, there occurred a curious subsidence of the soil in a field on the ‘Malting Farm’ at Lexden in Essex. The cavity thus produced was about twenty-five yards in circumference, of an elliptical form, and about twenty feet in depth, with the sides slightly overhanging. The subsidence took place quite suddenly; some workmen, who were in the field in the forenoon, finding the pit fresh formed on their return from dinner. The ground in which the pit is situated consists of a slightly rising bank of valley-gravel, and is about fifty yards to the south of the little River Colne, which runs past the spot, and gives its name to the ancient town of Colchester. The surface of the field cannot be more than five or six feet above the stream when full.

In the broad Alluvial tract which borders the Ouse between Oakley and Clapham, north of Bedford, there is a gravel-pit in which a small anticline of the Great Oolite was abruptly encountered amidst the regularly stratified river-deposits. The pit is situated immediately north of the Oakley road and east of the Midland Railway.

A Controversy apperas to be carried on between geologists as to the causes of the excavation of valleys, and the degree in which marine denudation on the one hand, or the eroding power of rain and rivers on the other, have been concerned in the process. To this controversy Mr. D. Mackintosh has contributed two papers, in recent numbers of this Magazine. I am desirous of recalling to the recollection of its readers certain facts which demonstrate, beyond the possibility of doubt, how vast is the error of those writers who, like Mr. Mackintosh, speak of “the impotence of rain as a denuding agent.”

Among the most notable features of the geology of Yorkshire are two parallel structures known as the Cleveland and Market Weighton anticlines. Although they are parallel and not far distant, it has often been pointed out, and especially by Kendall and Lamplugh that these structures differ in almost every possible way. The Market Weighton axis has now no topographical expression at the surface, whereas the Cleveland axis forms the watershed of one of the most clearly developed river-systems of the country. The first and most obvious meaning of this is that the Cleveland axis moved during the Tertiary, while the Market Weighton axis did not. But the real fundamental difference goes much further back than that.

In the year 1841 Sir R. Owen described and figured a slab of rock from the Lower Lias of Barrow-on-Soar which showed the impressions of the bones and integuments of a pelvic paddle of an Ichthyosaurus, probably referable to the typical I. communis. In this specimen it appears that the integuments were produced to a greater extent on the posterior than on the anterior side of the bony framework; and that while the anterior margin of the soft parts showed evidence of squamation, the larger posterior flap was marked by oblique striæ extending from the bones to the periphery which appeared to have been caused by parallel bundles of muscular fibres. The distal extremity of the soft fin terminated in a sharp point far below the distal bones.

Within blueschist facies rocks it is common to find that mineral assemblages represent a series of attempts to arrive at changing states of equilibrium. To interpret such rocks it is necessary to study how the mineral constrains and determines chemical interaction. The gradual process of chemical exchange between minerals, during changes in conditions, is interrupted by the nucleation of a new mineral species. Mineral reactions are instigated by the nucleation of one new mineral species, though when a reaction is seen at an equilibrated completion the reaction path cannot be traced. In low temperature metamorphism the preservation of partial mineral reactions is very widespread. The growth, adaptation and resorption of a mineral are considered in order to demonstrate: (1) how and why a mineral should zone during growth: (2) the competitive reaction paths that may allow a mineral to change composition, even across and internal solvus; and, (3) through the consideration of a few simple parameters, the prediction of a variety of resorption textures. It is proposed that through an understanding of the way in which the mineral can store information on the chemical history of the rock it is possible to obtain a metamorphic analysis without recourse to the conventional phase equilibrium metamorphic model - a frequent misapplication in the blueschist facies.

A small collection of fossils from the Upper Ordovician of Quarrel Hill, Girvan, made recently by Mr. James L. Begg, is remarkable for the number and character of the lamellibranchs, several of which appear to be new. Their affinities are chiefly with those of the Ordovician of the United States and are consequently of special interest.

An enhanced concentration of phosphorus has been found at the stratigraphic level of the disappearance of Ediacaran taxa in two areas, the Cis-Dniester region and the Moscow syneclise, on the East European Platform (EEP). The isotope composition of neodymium was determined in Fe sulphide and phosphorite in the same beds. Measured εNd(t) values in diagenetic phosphate nodules are similar to those in iron sulphide from the same layer. During the Ediacaran − Early Cambrian, accumulation of radiogenic Nd in the epeiric basins on the EEP increased progressively from −17.9 and −19.4 in pyrite from the sequence bottom to −7.9 and −8.5 in the Early Cambrian pyrite of the central part of the EEP. The Ediacaran phosphate nodules show εNd(t) ranging from −12.9 to −15.0, while that in the Early Cambrian nodules is typically c. −9.0. These data indicate the secular change in Nd isotope composition of the water reservoir on the EEP from Ediacaran to Cambrian.