The belemnite genus Pseudohibolites Blüthgen, 1936 was erected without designation of a type species and is invalid according to Article 13b of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. The species P. nathorsti Blüthgen and P. caroli Blüthgen are reinterpreted using topotypes from Kong Karls Land and are considered species of Hibolithes Montfort, 1808.

The history of this gigantic rodent began to be written in 1809, when M. Gothelf Fischer described a skull from a sandy deposit on the borders of the Sea of Azof, to which he gave the name of Trogontherium. Since then, at varying intervals, to the present time, new chapters have been added to this history by both Continental and British workers, describing specimens of a more or less fragmentary character which have from time to time been discovered. The English specimens have been chiefly obtained from the ‘Cromer Forest Bed,’ that rich and remarkable series of beds occupying a position in time between the Crags and the Glacial deposits of East Anglia. The ‘Forest Bed’ specimens were first made known by Sir Charles Lyell in 1840, but were more fully described by Sir R. Owen in 1846 and referred to Fischer's Trogontherium Cuvieri. It will not be necessary at this time to refer specifically to each of the additions to our knowledge of this animal or to detail the varying opinions as to affinities and nomenclature, as these particulars will be found in the Memoirs of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom. Although most of the British specimens of Trogontherium Cuvieri have been found in the ‘Cromer Forest Bed’ a few examples have been met with in the Norwich and Weybourn Crags. The smaller species, which has been called T. minus, was obtained from the nodule bed below the Red Crag of Felixstowe, and an incisor tooth from the Norwich Crag was referred to the same species.

The well known Lulworth Cove, situated on the Dorsetshire coast between Mupe Bay, on the east, and Dungy Head, on the west, is generally considered to be a very good example of the result of marine erosion acting upon rocks of unequal resistance, and such indeed it is.

A number of communications dealing with the origin and composition of the material commonly known as laterite have appeared in the Geological Magazine during the past few years. That of Dr. Maclaren is an especially valuable contribution to the literature of the subject, and I think few workers in the Tropics will be disposed to question the substantial accuracy of his conclusions. I shall not attempt, therefore, to discuss the general problem presented by the widespread occurrence of laterite deposits in tropical regions. The object of the present brief communication is merely to place on record a few observations made in another area.

In 1843 Simpson published a description of a Yorkshire Ammonite previously named Ammonites trivialis in Bean's manuscript. A few years later Quenstedt described a number of small continental Ammonites of similar character as A. polymorphus, which he further divided into the varieties lineatus, costatus, interruptus, mixtus, and quadratus. The specimens he then figured must be taken as his types; in a later work he showed many more examples which he referred to the same species; all these have small, evolute shells, but few other common characters, so that the name polymorphus was fully justified. For example, the illustrations given as Ammonites polymorphus mixtus include forms with round or square whorls, with nearly straight or with curved ribs, which may pass across the venter with or without a forward bend, or may be suppressed entirely on the venter. The specimens figured probably include young examples of several different genera.

In a paper in the Phil. Mag. for March, 1864, “On the Formation of the River and other Valleys of the East of England,” I endeavoured to show by the aid of a rough map that the whole of the hill and vale system of that part of England which lies east and south of a line drawn from the Humber to the Cotteswold Hills originated in a series of concentric arcs spreading from two centres, one of which was near Canterbury, and the other just south of the western end of the Isle of Wight; the features thus produced having been rendered more apparent by the denudation to which the disturbances gave rise, and to which both at the time, and subsequently also, these gave direction.

Great interest has been excited, not only in the Transvaal, but throughout the world, by the discovery at the Premier Mine, on Wednesday, the 25th January, 1905, of the largest diamond hitherto known. The stone was found by Mr. Wells, Surface Manager, in the yellow ground about 18 feet from the surface, a brilliant flash of light from a projecting corner having caught his attention. After a preliminary cleaning it weighs 3,024¾ carats. According to Gardner Williams the South African carat is equivalent to 3.174 grains; consequently the diamond weighs 9600.5 grains troy or 1.37 lbs. avoirdupois. Through the courtesy of the Directors of the Company, we have been enabled to make an examination of the stone, with the following result:—Roughly speaking, it measures. 4 by 2½12 by 2 inches; but its size and shape will be best realized by reference to the photographs reproduced on Plates VII and VIII, which represent the diamond from four different points of view and its actual size. These beautiful photographs were taken by Mr. E. H. V. Melvill for the purposes of this description. The stone is bounded by eight surfaces, four of which are faces of the original crystal, and will be referred to in this description under the letters A, B, C, D, and four are cleavage surfaces, the cleavage being of course parallel to the face of the octahedron. In the following description these cleavage surfaces are referred to under the letters E, F, G, H. They are distinguished from the original octahedral faces by greater regularity and smoothness.

In Appendix I to the Summary of Progress of the Geological Survey for 1921, pp. 118–28, “The Retreat of the Lake District Ice-cap” is dealt with.

Before the last meeting of the British Association, held in Liverpool, Professor Edward Hull presented a paper upon “Another Possible Cause of the Glacial Epoch.”inthat paper, Professor Hull applied the writer's work on the “Reconstruction of the Antillean Continent,” which brought together evidence of great continental elevation. This elevation and its effects upon the ocean-currents, in diverting them from the West Indian regions, with the consequent reduction of their temperature as they reach the northern latitudes in conjunction with the elevation of the land, were thought by Professor Hull to be sufficient causes for the production of the glacial climate over temperate regions in late geological times. The writer has hitherto never applied his observations on high continental elevation to climatic changes; but in this paper he proposes to extend briefly his researches from the Antillean region to the higher latitudes of America and the North Atlantic regions. Something has also been learned of the date of the great elevation; consequently inferences may be drawn as to climatic changes.

The problems of life which the biologist is called upon to solve present so many and such varied aspects that they are never likely to become exhausted, or to weary by reason of their monotony. Among these the appearances and disappearances of groups in time (like the players on Shakespeare's mimic stage) are certainly not the least interesting questions awaiting solution.

When I received the invitation to open this discussion my first feeling was of diffidence, for, the interior of the earth being necessarily inaccessible to direct observation, the solution of the problems connected with it has principally been left to mathematical research, and this must remain the final court of appeal. In these circumstances it seemed verging on presumptuousness to address an audience consisting so largely of mathematicians in inauguration of a discussion on the interior of the earth. Second thoughts showed that there was much to he said against this view, for, though mathematics is the court of appeal, it can only decide on the facts placed before it by the sciences of observation, and so the discussion seems profitably prefaced by a statement of the leading facts which have been collected, and those conclusions which are so directly derived from them as to have almost the validity of observation.

In a paper entitled “Observations on Belemnites,” which was communicated to the Geological Society of London in April, 1823, J. S. Miller defined the genus Belemnites thus: —“A cephalopodous? molluscous animal provided with a fibrous spathose conical shell, divided by transverse concave septa into separate cells or chambers connected by a siphuncle; and inserted into a laminar, solid, fibrous, spathose, subconical or fusiform body extending beyond it, and forming a protecting sheath.” In May of the same year Mr. Miller contributed to the same Society another paper in which he instituted the genus Actinocamax for “spathose bodies which resemble the belemnitic guard in general appearance, but are distinguished from it by presenting, instead of the terminal cavity intended for the reception of the chambered shell, a protruding and convex base.”

Many ways of measuring geological time have been attempted by various geologists of eminence; but however diverse their methods, so far as I know, all finally hinge upon either the rates of denudation or accumulation. It is urged as an objection to this that in past ages such actions have gone on more rapidly, and therefore the calculations based upon present rates are valueless. Physicists on the other hand have sought to put a limit to the age of the earth much below what geologists generally demand. Reasoning from certain data which are necessarily more or less hypothetical, they say, that from the thermal condition of the globe at present, it cannot be more than from ten to twenty million years since it was at a temperature in which life on it would have been impossible. Geologists can hardly be blamed if they attach greater weight to their own observations and data and to reasoning that is more familiar and appears more certain and satisfactory to their minds.