Since the publication of my paper “The Genesis of the Gold Deposits of Barkerville,” the frequency with which it has been suggested to me that the gold in the placers spoken of might have been precipitated in sitû has led me to place before you the reasons for ascribing to it the origin therein stated.

Although the volcanic rocks of the English Lake District have received notice from time to time, any systematic account of them from the petrographical side has yet to be written. The most recent contribution, by the late Mr. E. E. Walker, treated especially of the mode of occurrence of the garnet, which is so common a constituent, not only of the lavas and tuffs, but of the associated intrusive rocks, probably referable to the same Ordovician age. There can be no doubt that this mineral is sometimes a primary constituent, but very often a product of metamorphism. The object of the present note is to record the occurrence in one instance of a rarer mineral, which has not hitherto been observed in this series of rocks. Cordierite is found as a product of thermal metamorphism in the Coniston Flags near the Shap Granite, and in the Skiddaw Slates of the Skiddaw granite area. In the latter it is remarkably abundant and wide-spread. The mineral is now found to occur, as an exceptional constituent, in the volcanic series.

Downwashed sand and mud much obscured the section, but the clay appeared to be definitely continuous, while the chalk might be continuous under the mask of mud, but did not seem likely to be so. The section suggested very strongly a flat sheet of clay pushed at a level some way below the beach against a backward sloping and then overarching surface (e.g. the side of a cave), which it had followed until doubled back upon itself.

The very uniform trend of all these ridges will have been noted, but my previous remarks on the general strike of the foreshore chalk require considerable modification. The whole of the chalk so far exposed may be divided into four sections. Each of these comprises an exposure in or close to the cliff of what appears to be the highest part of a ridge running down the beach in a direction from 10° to 30° south of east (and sinking as it goes) to about the half-tide level. Here three of them (the exception being the brickfield chalk) turn and run for some way roughly parallel to the shoreline, and then resume their original direction and run out to sea. The brickfield chalk only varies from this plan by running out to sea with practically no change of direction on the way. Except where a ridge is running up to the cliff, the substratum of the beach is invariably glacial clay down to about half-tide level. Here it is either banked against what appear to be vertical faces of chalk or else (between the foreshore exposures.) disappears under the sand. It has never been seen to run out to sea, and every time a fresh bit of the foreshore below the half-tide level is cleared of sand it is chalk that is revealed. In the case of the section attached to the north bluff there is below the half-tide level a continuous mass of chalk with perfectly regular bedding exposed for at least 1,000 yards along the shore, and directly opposite the north bluff I have myself seen chalk continuous from the foot of the bluff for over 200 yards straight out to sea (except about 20 yards close up to the bluff, which, however, are covered by Mr. B. B. Woodward's letter in the October (1905) number of the GeologicalMagazine), the regular sequence of the beds being only broken by one fault. The section attached to the ridge coated with a sheet of flint is a good second in size, showing chalk in regular sequence for a length of over 400 yards, and maximum (exposed) breadth of about 45 yards.

The remains of a Palæoniscid fish from the Lower Carboniferous rocks of Flintshire, submitted to me by Mr. J. T. Stobbs, are unfortunately not sufficiently perfect to afford material for a complete diagnosis. The specimen shows the impressions of the outer surface of both mandibular rami and of the left maxilla, and beyond this we have only a mass of dislocated scales—the general form of the fish, the position of the fins, and the condition of the fin-rays being entirely lost.

Having been asked by Dr. Smith Woodward and Dr. Bather to look over the collection of Irregular Echinoids from the English Chalk in the British Museum with a view to bringing the exhibition up to date, it appears a favourable opportunity to say a few words as to the nomenclature and distribution of these animals.

IN his Presidential Address to the British Association, South African Meeting, 1905, Professor G. H. Darwin points out that the presence of radio-active materials in small proportion in the sun would serve to explain the present radiation, and “that concentration of matter is not the only source from which the sun may draw its heat.” Professor Darwin goes on to explain how this enables us to extend the possibilities of geological time beyond that to which some physicists would limit us.

The chemical classification of igneous rocks is rendered difficult by the large number of substances which are present in them. H. S. Washington, who based his system of classification upon the composition of standard rock-forming minerals, found it necessary in his great work to divide his 2,880 rocks into no less than 167 final groups in order to ensure a close proximity between the rocks within each group.