When I first drew attention to this genus at the Bath Meeting of the British Association in 1864, only one nearly perfect specimen was known. Mr. Salter was acquainted with this form, so long ago as 1857, and referred to it, among other new and undescribed Crustacea, in a paper “On some New Palæozoic Star-fishes” found at Leintwardine, Shropshire, under the name of Limuloides. Portions of several others had also been met with, to which Mr. Salter attached MS. names in (the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn-street, but they have not been heretofore described. The most perfect of these Limuloid forms was described by me in a paper read before the Geological Society in June, 1865.3 (See Plate X. Fig. 1.)

It is now twelve months since I had the pleasure to record, in the pages of this Journal, the discovery of Eophrynus Prestvicii, a new genus of Arachnides from the Coal-measures of Dudley. (See Geol. Mag., 1871, Vol. VIII., p. 385, Pl XI.) This remarkably perfect specimen is perhaps unequalled in the condition of its preservation by any Palæozoic fossil known. Although the fossil Arachnide, which forms the subject of this notice, cannot claim such distinction as Eophrynus, yet it is well deserving of being placed on record in the pages of this Magazine, as a new genus of airbreathers from the English Coal-measures.

Among the very few known instances of fossil hydroids, the genus Hydractinia must be included. Under the name of Cellepora echinata, M. Michelin has described a fossil from the Subapennine group of Asti, and from the Superior Fallunian of Bordeaux and Dax (Michelin, Icon. Zooph., p. 74, pl. xv., fig. 4). M. Fischer has drawn attention to the fact, that the Cellepora echinata of Michelin is really a Hydractinia encrusting a Murex or a Nassa, while he has himself added another fossil Hydractinia from the Upper Greensand of Mans (Fischer, Bull, de la Soc. Géol. de France, 2me sér. t. xxiv., p. 689). This he found in the collection of M. Alc. d’Orbigny, where it encrusted numerous specimens of Natica tuberculata, d’Orbig., from that formation. M. Fischer has assigned to this species the name of Hydractina cretacea, while to Michelin's species he has given that of Hydractina Michelini.

The general object of this paper is to draw attention to the apparently close connexion between the configuration of the surface in a glaciated country like Norway, and the disposition of the principal planes of division of the rocks, whether these planes be caused by stratification, cleavage or joints.

In the Häberlein collection there is a slab containing the remains of a branch, of which portions are figured in Pl. V., Fig. 1. It belonged, there is little reason to doubt, to a species of Pinus, in which, as in the section Larix, the leaves were borne in fascicles on abortive lateral branches. Traces of these leaves appear to exist at a and b. The specimen affords, unfortunately, no more information than this; nothing of the kind, however, appears to have been recorded from Solenhofen, and it has therefore appeared desirable to call attention to its existence.

There is perhaps no better collecting-ground in England for Lower Cretaceous Fossils than Folkestone, nor any which has been more industriously explored. The last fossil from this locality recorded in our Journal was in 1867 (Geol. Mag., Vol. IV., p. 65, PI. V.), when Prof. Huxley described the remains of a new reptile from the Chalk-marl east of Copt Point, Folkestone, under the name of Acanihopholis horridus. In the same Journal will be found (at p. 67) an interesting notice by Mr. Robert Etheridge, F.E.S., Patæontologist to the Geological Survey of Great Britain, of the stratigraphical position of the Cretaceous series at this locality, from whence Mr. Griffiths, the intelligent collector, obtained these and the many other fossils with which the cabinets of the Rev. Thomas Wiltshire, M.A., F.G.S., Mr. J. Starkie Gardner, F.G.S., and those of so many other private collectors as well as of our public Museums are stored.

It is known that the friends of the late distinguished palæontologist and naturalist, Hugh Falconer, established a Fellowship in memory of himself, and in connexion with the University of Edinburgh. This Fellowship is especially intended to encourage the study of palæontology. To give to botanical students who may devote their attention to the investigation of fossil plants a fair opportunity of securing a Falconer Fellowship, Professor Balfour intends, as he informs me, to devote more time in his lectures to vegetable palæontology, and he has prepared a carefully revised and enlarged edition of that portion of his Class-book devoted to this subject, which will be published separately, and will supply a long desiderated manual, not only to the students of his own class, but to students in all institutions in which botany is treated in a scientific method. Having obtained Prof. Balfour's permission to use one of the plates and some wood-cuts which have been prepared under my direction, to illustrate this separate publication, I now employ them for the purpose of recording some notes bearing upon the subjects figured, and which I have not yet published.

The Botanical Department of the British Museum possesses amongst its collection of fossilized vegetable remains, sliced for microscopic examination, a series of specimens of wood from Herne Bay and the Isle of Thanet. These exhibit a structure which has not hitherto been properly understood, but which proves to be quite comparable with what is to be found in some recent plants.

The Island of Arran has long been celebrated among geologists for the variety and extensive development of its igneous rocks. The basaltic group is well represented in its various forms of structure and modes of occurrence; the more highly silicated series by felsites and porphyrites, forming dykes and huge amorphous or columnar masses; while the glassy varieties are illustrated by dykes and veins of pitchstone. All these rocks may be readily studied in the small area comprised within the southern half of the island, the greater part of which consists of eruptive rocks, and sandstones of the Carboniferous period. It is among these sandstones that most of the igneous rocks have been intruded. Some, however, are evidently interbedded and contemporaneous, forming great sheets of melaphyre between the Carboniferous strata.

The information gained by us during the first three Swedish expeditions to Spitzbergen having, either directly through our own experience, or indirectly through conversation with most of the intelligent and bold whalers and walrus-hunters of Northern Norway, fully confirmed the observations of Scoresby, Phipps, Tschitschagoff, Parry, Buchan, Franklin, Clavering and others, respecting the impossibility of penetrating by ship during the summer through the crowded ice-masses to the north of Spitzbergen, far beyond the 80th degree of latitude, an Arctic Expedition was sent out from Sweden in 1868, having for its object, among other things, to renew during the autumn months the attempt to sail towards the pole from the northern coast of Spitzbergen. I have, in a report of the expedition of 1868, given a brief accountable result of that undertaking, which showed that even at that period of the year, when the water is most free from drift-ice, the polar basin, at least to the north of Europe, and doubtless also to the north of America and Asia, is so full of drift-ice that all possibility of passing through it in a ship is out of the question.

Few amongst the many remains of Fossil Fishes hitherto discovered have excited more interest than the remarkable fossil Ray, found about forty years ago by Miss Anning in the Lower Lias at Lyme Regis.

In a paper, “On the Geology of the South Coast of England,” published in the Transactions of the Geological Society, vol. i., 2nd ser., pl. iii., fig. 2, p. 42, Sir H. de la Beche has figured a crustacean from the Greensand of Lyme Regis, to which he has not applied any name, or given any other description than that it is “the back of a singular fossil crab.” The specimen is, imperfect, and not very accurately drawn; but Prof. Bell, in his monograph, published by the Palæontographical Society (1862), expresses his opinion that it is an “unmistakeable figure” of Necrocarcinus tricarinatus.

The ironstone of Cleveland is a repository for a number of interesting species of Mollusca, amongst which a Trigonia deserves especial notice, representing as it does the oldest form of the genus, and now recorded for the first time as British.

The Eruptions of Vesuvius naturally create a wider and deeper interest than those of any other volcano, owing to the mountain lying within sight and hearing of one of the most populous and frequented eities of Europe. And in these days of telegraphs and newspaper correspondence the mingled feelings of alarm and admiration which these phenomena excite at Naples are rapidly spread over the civilized world, tinged with all the exaggerations and embellishments that the imagination of writers, who, probably, witness an eruption for the first time, can bestow on them.

It would at first sight seem superfluous that anything more should be written upon the relations of the Rhætic Beds in England, for during the past twelve years they have received so much attention—the principal sections have been described, and the beds have been well and successfully searched for fossils. But whilst there has been no lack of petrological and palæontological evidence,—and we ought to be very thankful to railway companies in the western counties for opening up so many fine sections,—still it is somewhat astonishing to remark, there has been and there still appears to be a considerable diversity of opinion on the subject of the relations of the beds. Some authorities have placed them with the Lias, others with the Trias; some regard them as quite an independent formation, others as passage-beds belonging as much to the one as to the other.

During a recent visit to the Marseilles Museum, and while examining the rich collection of fossil insects preserved there, my attention was attracted by two specimens of the remains of a fossil butterfly. Although not very well preserved, nor indeed so perfect as the specimen of a fossil butterfly from the same formation, which was described thirty years ago by Dr. Boisduval, it was evident, at first sight, that the remains in question belonged to a different species, since the lateral moulding of the principal wings was very much inflated.

The Geological Department of the British Museum possesses the fine collection of fossils from the Solenhofen Oolites, which was formed under specially favourable circumstances by Häberlein. Its importance is at once apparent when it is remembered that it contains the specimen of Archœopteryx macrura, described by Owen.

Professor Ramsay in a recent paper put forward the notion that the Magnesian Limestone and its associated beds of the north-east of England were formed, in part at least, by chemical precipitation in an inland sea. Given such a sea, without outlet, and with streams flowing into it holding in solution the necessary salts (bicarbonate of lime and sulphate of magnesia would answer the purpose), it is clear that by continued evaporation a state of saturation would at length be brought about, and precipitation would take place, and Dr. Sterry Hunt has shown that dolomite and gypsum would be the probable products.

It would be the safer plan, in considering the remarkable Gravel and Crag deposits which characterize so distinctly the Quaternary Period, to infer the size of rivers, amount of rainfall, and elevation of tides from the deposits themselves. Further acquaintance with meteorological phenomena may find a fitting explanation of the difficulties we meet with in explaining the position of the gravel at such heights above our present streams, and fresh-water, alternating with marine clay, and sands at such depths below the sea-level.

In a former communication I stated that the line of division between the Skiddaw Slates and the overlying Volcanic series (Green Slates and Porphyries), in the neighbourhood of Keswick, was a faulted one, and not an unconformity, as supposed by Mr. Dakyns. I added that the evidence of an unconformity (if there was one), between these two series of beds, must be sought for elsewhere than in the district described by Mr. Dakyns. Since then I have examined many miles of boundary between these formations, and have as yet only seen one unfaulted junction, and this is near Bootle, in the Black Combe district, Cumberland; but this section at once sets at rest the question of unconformity or conformity. Not only do the Volcanic series lie at the same inclination with the Skiddaw Slates below them, but beds of the latter alternate with beds of the former, showing a perfect sequence and conformity. When the whole of the boundaries between the Skiddaw Slates and Volcanic series are traced, there may be found other spots also showing conformity and passage.