In 1894 Mr. W. A. Sanford described, in the Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeological Society (vol. xl, 1894, p. 234), the geological circumstances of the discovery of a large fossil reptile. The fossil bones were found by the Eev. Sydenham H. A. Hervey and himself in the Rhætic beds in the parish of Wedmore, in the Vale of Glastonbury; and compared to Megalosaurus in its large size and carnivorous character. The remains were generously presented to the British Museum (Natural History) at South Kensington. I have now to redeem a promise made by Mr. Sanford in his paper that I would name and describe the specimens.

Geological time, like all other kinds of time, can only be measured by the succession of events. If the events considered are constant in their recurrence and uniform in their nature, their number will afford the means of measuring the length of time. Thus the oscillations of a given pendulum, the rotation of the earth on its axis, and its revolution round the sun are sufficiently constant and uniform to afford a basis for our seconds, days, and years. Of such uniform and constantly recurring events geology affords no examples by which we could measure the length of geological time.

In 1891, Frank S. Goodwin, Esq., of Bakewell, Derbyshire, presented to the British Museum (Natural History) a pair of antlers of red-deer, with fragments of the calvarium attached, which had been obtained, with other cervine remains, from a tufaceous deposit of comparatively modern date near Bakewell, Derbyshire.

The retirement of Sir William Flower from the office of Director of the British Museum of Natural History, which took place on September 30, after fourteen years of extremely efficient and active service, will be viewed with regret by the great majority of naturalists throughout the country. That he achieved the completion of all his plans would be to claim too much in so limited a period of time, but that he succeeded in illustrating how a Natural History Museum may be rendered attractive to the general public and may also be a place of instruction to the student, no one will deny.

The first geological map of Scotland has a history not less interesting than that of Smith's famous map of England; seeing that what Smith accomplished, single-handed, for the southern part of Britain, John Macculloch did, with the same independence of all extraneous aid, for the northern half of the Island. Smith's fame has happily been long since vindicated; but, owing to a variety of circumstances, Macculloch has never received full credit for his grand work; on the contrary, his fair name and even his veracity have been too often cruelly aspersed.

Students of Palæozoic fishes are indebted to Professor A. von Koenen, of Gottingen, for two interesting memoirs on the fragmentary fish-remains of the North German Devonian formations. Owing to their incomplete character, however, the Professor is only able to suggest a provisional interpretation of most of the specimens, and the determination of their true nature must be left for future discoveries.

The wide geographical distribution of the Milleporidæ is a clearer proof of the geological antiquity of the group than any evidence yielded by palæontology. For Millepora has no known Mesozoic or certain Lower Oainozoic representative, and is thus separated by a great gap from the Palsezoic Hydrocorallinas, whence it is probably descended. But the Stromatoporoids disappear at the end of the Palaeozoic, and I am not aware that any coral has been described which helps to connect that group and the Oainozoic Milleporids.

In a previous article, a sketch has been given of what is known concerning the origin and history of the early manuscript maps of William Smith. I have shown that concerning these maps, though they were not published, in the technical sense of that term, there exists a satisfactory body of external evidence with regard to the period of their preparation, while they furnish in themselves abundant proofs that they must have been constructed at the dates inscribed upon them. These facts have been so generally recognized that—since the clear statements on the question which have been made by Fitton, Parey, Sedgwick, and Phillips—no one has ever thought of either questioning the antiquity of the maps or denying to William Smith the honour of being the first to construct a true geological map of England and Wales.

Several specimens of extinct species of the angel-fish or monk-fish (Squatina) are already known from the Lithographic Stone (Lower Kimmeridgian) of Bavaria, Würtemberg, and France; and some of these are in an admirable state of preservation. Two forms are clearly distinguishable—the one a small fish not more than 0·15 m.inlength, with a dense armour of rounded dermal tubercles on the anterior border of the head and each of the paired fins, and upon the lateral aspect of the tail; the other a comparatively large fish, attaining a length of at least a metre, without any similar development of the dermal tubercles, either in the regions mentioned or on any other part of the body.

Through the courtesy of Professor J. W. Spencer, I haveX received an early copy of his paper on the “ Great Changes ofLevelinMexico and the Interoceanic Connections,“' containing theobservations and conclusions derived from a visit paid to this regionin 1895, with the special object of determining on the spot whetherthe suggestion that the drainage of what is now the Gulf of Mexicoformerly crossed the Tehuantepec Isthmus into the Pacific.

In December, 1890, I had the good fortune to describe a new Sphasromid discovered by Mr. Thomas Jesson, B.A., F.G.S., in the Great Oolite of Northampton, which I named Cyclosphæroma trilobatum (see Geol. Mag., 1890, Dec. III, Vol. VII, pp. 529–533, PL XV). This specimen, which is redrawn on the accompanying PI. XIV (Fig- 1), is remarkable for its rounded outline, which induced me to apply to it the name Cyclospharoma.

Great was my joy when, in March last, I received from my friend Mr. E. J. Garwood, M.A., F.G.S., another Jurassic Isopod, of which both the intaglio and the, relievo had been obtained by him in the Purbeck beds near Aylesbury. This remarkably beautiful Crustacean proves to be a more perfectly preserved example of the same Sphseromid which I had described in 1890, from the Great Oolite of Northampton, and it needs but to compare Figs. 1 and 2 upon our Plate to perceive that in Fig. 1 the thoracic segments are much compressed together posteriorly, and that the hinder part of the telson is wanting; otherwise the resemblance between it and the newly-found and much more perfect example from the Purbeck beds of Aylesbury (PI. XIV, Fig. 2) is unmistakable.

A reference to the diagnosis of the genus (as given in Geol. Mag., 1890, p. 530) will show that it must now be amended in consequence of the discovery of the more complete specimen by Mr. Garwood.

The collection of fossils belonging to the Geological Survey of Egypt which has been sent to England for description by Capt. H. G. Lyons, E.E., contains a series of forty specimens of corals, including representatives of nine genera and eleven species.

The first collection of Egyptian fossils sent for determination by Captain Lyons, R.E., Director of the Egyptian Geological Survey, to the British Museum, includes an interesting series of Echinoidea, which has been intrusted to me for examination. It is hardly necessary to state that our knowledge of the fossil echinid faunas of Egypt is mainly due to M. P. de Loriol-le-Fort, who has described a large series in two admirable monographs.

During the past summer, it was my privilege to attend the International Congress of Geologists at St. Petersburg, as an official delegate from the United States, and this gave me an opportunity to see a number of museums and collections in Europe which I had not before visited. I thus had the privilege of inspecting personally many interesting reptilian remains that I had not previously known, and of examining others which were more or less familiar to me from figures and descriptions.

This note deals with a very simple matter, which is perhaps J_ familiar to many workers with the microscope. I believe, however, that it is not referred to in ordinary text-books, and a word or two in reference to it may be useful.

Professor Charles S. Prosser Geological Department, JL Union College, Schenectady, N.Y., having sent me some specimens of Estheria found in the Red Beds or Cimorron Series of Kansas, with the request that I would determine the species, my notes on them are here offered to the GeologicalMagazine, in which other fossil Estheriæ from North America have been illustrated and described.

The substance of the following paper was given at a meeting of the Geological Society of Edinburgh on January 20th this year. Its object is to show that the group of Lower Scottish Limestones about Dunbar and round the Midlothian Coalfield does not represent any part of the Mountain Limestone of Yorkshire, but is the equivalent of the upper part of the Yoredale Series of Phillips, while the Edge Coals and Upper Limestones of Midlothian represent a series of beds which in Yorkshire and Northumberland lie above the true Yoredale Series of Phillips, and which were included by him in the Millstone Grit. It necessarily follows from this correlation that the lower part of Phillips' Yoredale Series, together with the Scar or Mountain Limestone of Yorkshire, are represented in Scotland by the Calciferous Sandstone Series, which is mainly a fresh-water deposit.

In the year 1857, or thereabouts, a remarkable fossil egg was discovered in the Government of Cherson, in South Russia. The circumstances of its being brought to light were peculiar, and its subsequent history is instructive enough to repay a brief recapitulation, which we give as follows.

From America and from many different localities on the continent of Europe the occurrence of Orthite or Allanite as an accessory mineral in crystalline rocks of different kinds has been frequently described. But so far it does not seem that its occurrence in Great Britain has been recognized, or at any rate I have failed to find any mention of it. Quite recently two instances of Scottish orthitebearing rocks have come under my notice which I wish to describe briefly in the present communication. Both are in acid holocrystalline rocks—granites and gneisses—and in both it is associated with the closely allied mineral epidote, as is usually the case. For specimens of the granite of Fell Hill I am indebted to Mr. James More, jun., M.Inst.C.E., Edinburgh, who sent sections of this rock for microscopic examination to Professor James Geikie, Edinburgh University. Although only two in number, the sections contain at least eight recognizable crystals of orthite, besides smaller pieces about the identity of which there might be room for doubt, and some of these are fortunately so cut as to render possible not only a certain identification of the mineral, but also a fairly complete account of its optical properties.

When recently examining a series of igneous rocks for the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom, I required a ready method for the determination of potassium in the felspars, whether they occurred as porphyritic crystals or as microlites in the groundmass. The ordinary flame-reaction has always been recognized as unsatisfactory in the presence of sodium, and the use of blue glass has been long recommended, of a sufficient thickness to cut off a sodium flame, the potassium flame then coming through alone.