The constitution and origin of anthracite has long been a question of absorbing interest, but until very recently the theories which were brought forward dealing with this subject, owing largely to the insurmountable difficulty of preparing thin slices upon which micropetrological work could be done, have lacked substantial evidence either to support or refute them. Lately, however, a new method which will materially widen our knowledge and advance research on the anthracite problem has been evolved.

The presence of pre- and post-Carboniferous structures in Murrisk is noted. Warping of the sub-Carboniferous surface in the eastern part of the Partry Mountain area is ascribed to NE-trending normal faults.

Since the British Eocenes, especially of the Hampshire Basin, were mapped by the Survey, a portion of them have been separated by several writers as Oligocene. The utility of the change is not apparent in our country, where the break is seen to be purely artificial; but in other parts of Europe the Oligocenes, which embrace formations previously known as Lower Miocene, are of great importance. This change, absorbing the entire Upper Eocene fromation of the Isle of Wight, would seem alone to necessitate a reconsideration of the classification of the remainder. But the classification of the Eocene formation, invented and often modified when the beds composing it were imperfectly known, is throughout arbitrary and artificial, and scarcely yet on a scientific basis. Most of the present divisions comprise under one name the very distinct deposits formed by river, sea, or estuary, though these have been brought from quite opposite directions, and are perhaps by no means contemporaneous.

An unusual appinitic sill intrudes and thermally alters regionally metamorphosed Dalradian sediments near Killin, Perthshire. The sill is composed of ultrabasic, basic, dioritic, and acid varieties, the last two being present only in minor quantity. The dioritic intrudes, and is chilled against the ultrabasic type. The appinitic varieties and contact Dalradian rocks are described together with their field relationships.

Included in a large series of marine fossils which I collected from the Cisco Beds of Uralian or Upper Coal-measure age at a well-known locality on the west bank of the Salt Creek at Graham, Young Co., Texas, are several fragments of a single very large nautiloid shell. These fragments had lain so long on the sea-floor before they were covered by mud that they have in many cases been much eaten into by sponges and worms, and are covered by adherent organisms, mostly Bryozoa. Attached to them, however, are twenty specimens of the remarkable Brachiopod which forms the subject of this paper. These specimens are in general perfectly preserved, and are easily freed from their surrounding clay by washing with a tooth-brush.

The British Museum collection has lately been enriched by two Cephalopods from the Chalk of Lincolnshire that seem to be worthy of notice; one being a new species of Pachydiscus (P. farmeryi), the other being referable to the genus Heteroceras.

Turbidite sandstones interbedded with argillites are cut by veins composed of quartz and ankerite derived from host sandstones during successive phases of deformation.

The existence of the oldest phase of deformation (F1) is established by the presence of its widespread vein system, which is folded by the F2 folds and cut by quartz veins of the later deformation phases.

The nature of the veining, its mode of origin and regional significance are considered.

Biplanispira Umbgrove is closely related to Pellatispira Boussac, from which it probably arose by the subdivision of the median chambers by the rapidly expanding marginal crest and the development of planispirally arranged secondary chambers on both sides of the peripheral flange. The genus appears to be polyphyletic, its species having been derived from different representatives of Pellatispira. Illustrated records of Biplanispira are confined to the region between eastern India and Eua, Tonga, and the genus appears to be restricted to the middle and upper parts of the Upper Eocene. In the Upper Eocene of the Garo Hills, eastern India, it is represented by B. hoffmeisteri (Whipple) and in the Andaman Islands by B. mirabilis (Umbgrove). This is the first record of the genus from mainland India.

Professor Reynolds has recently described from one of the Arnold Quarries, Chipping Sodbury, a section in which several beds of the Carboniferous Limestone were seen individually to be thrust over, or underthrust by, Rhaetic deposits (Text-fig. 2).1 No decision was made as to the origin of this structure.

Specimens of Parabrograptus and Sinograptus from western Canada are described for the first time. An amended diagnosis of Parabrograptus is given. One pyritized fragment of a sinograptid stipe exhibits characters intermediate between Holmograptus and Sinograptus.

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.

During the past two years the teaching collection of rocks in the Geological Department of the Imperial College has been underre-arrangement, and in the course of the work the writer has had occasion to consider very carefully the principles on which igneous rocks should be classified. He is aware that in the present state of our knowledge any such classification must be tentative and experimental, and should be judged according to its general convenience, both for teaching purposes and for understanding the various problems that arise from petrological studies. The following article summarizes the conclusions arrived at, and while the writer must be held entirely responsible for all expression of opinion, he wishes to acknowledge his gratitude and indebtedness to Professor Watts and Dr. Evans, both of whom, in numerous discussions, have freely offered suggestions and criticism which have proved to be of the greatest value.

An area of high, north-eastward plunge of b-axes has been mapped in Silurian greywackes around the mouth of Strangford Lough, N. Ireland. Reconnaisance over a wider area to the south-west is consistent with the hypothesis that this steep plunge is due to the upward push exerted during the emplacement of the Newry Granodiorite. A near surface extension of the intrusion towards the east-north-east is inferred.

At the conclusion of my last paper on the Cheviot andesites and porphyrites (Geol. Mag. Vol. X. p. 262), I called attention to the close resemblance between the Cheviot hypersthene andesite (or porphyrite) and a rock from Steinerne Mann, Nahe, which has been called a proterobase. Both rocks are black in colour and consist macroscopically of glassy felspars (Mikrolin) imbedded in a groundmass which has a resinous or semi-resinous lustre. Microscopically they consist of two generations of felspar, pyroxene mostly rhombic, magnetite, and a glassy base with various devitrification products.