Western Yugoslavia, which broadly corresponds to the ancient Roman province of Illyricum, includes Dalmatia, Herzegovina, and Montenegro, together with the western portions of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia. It is a region of high geological interest, for within it and the adjoining portions of Italy the “Carso” or“Karst” lands are developed on a scale perhaps unequalled elsewhere. Considerable attention has been devoted from time to time to their leading features by Austrian, Italian, and Serbian geologists, though the study of these land forms has hitherto received but little attention in England. No excuse therefore seems necessary for drawing attention to some of the more salient features of this interesting district.

It is intended to give in the present paper the results of the writer's collecting in the Lower Liassic (Carixian = Lower Pliensbachian) Ammonite Beds of the Island of Pabay (Pabba), known to fame since MacCulloch and Hugh Miller drew attention to the abundance of its fossils and Murchison and A. Geikie collected its ammonites. Some of these were many years ago described by Sowerby and Wright, and in the more recent Survey Memoir1 a list of fourteen ammonite species was given, a number trebled in the present account. Unfortunately, the hundred feet or so of micaceous, metamorphic shale at Pabay is cut up by “dolerite and basalt dykes and sills” to such an extent that the tracing of the succession is not an easy matter.

In examining ideas so novel as those of Wegener it is not easy to avoid bias. A moving continent is as strange to us as a moving earth was to our ancestors, and we may be as prejudiced as they were. On the other hand, if continents have moved many former difficulties disappear, and we may be tempted to forget the difficulties of the theory itself and the imperfection of the evidence. Those who study the distribution of animals and plants must be especially subject to this temptation, and it will be instructive to note how far they agree in their demands upon the moving continents.

The discussion by Professor Gregory in the February GeologicalMagazine of certain ridges of glacial deposits in various widely separated areas seems to call for some comment. I am not familiar with all the examples classified by Professor Gregory any more than he is, but a couple of examples visited by him, and that I have examined many times, may serve as tests of his trustworthiness as a field observer in Glacial Geology and his competence as a commentator upon the observations of others.

Are-examination of the trachytoid phonolite of Traprain Law was undertaken on the suggestion of Mr. E. B. Bailey, in order to determine the characteristics and mode of occurrence of the nepheline contained in it. The slides examined were those of the Geological Survey collection and nine new ones specially cut from material recently obtained. During the course of the examination sodalite and olivine were detected in the rock. These minerals have not been mentioned in previous accounts of the petrography of Traprain Law, and sodalite seems to have been described in only one other rock from the British Isles (14).

The “bluestone” which is found in the central parts of some of the concretions associated with the large spiral bodies described by Mr. B. B. Woodward is found, on microscopical examination, to be a calcareous sandstone. Sabangular grains of quartz, averaging 0·04 mm. in diameter, constitute over 50 per cent of the rock, and are set in a cement of carbonates which have crystallized in plates very much as in the Fontainebleau sandstone. These plates are sometimes 3 cm. across, and give a characteristic lustre to the stone. The quartz-grains are evenly distributed through the plates of crystalline carbonate, and are so closely packed as to be almost in contact. It is easy to imagine that with the complete removal of the carbonates by solution there would remain a friable sandstone, very porous, but still occupying almost the same volume as the bluestone.

An excellent exposure of a Raised Beach has lately been discovered at Easington. This deposit, in my opinion, forms a part of the beds of sand, gravel, conglomerate, and breccia which are exposed along this part of the Durham coast for at least 5 or 6 miles, and which were described by me as Raised Beaches in 1905. I also consider that the upraised littoral formations were produced in late Pleistocene times.

During the years 1918–19 we investigated the relations of the beds exposed in a remarkable section at Shenley Hill, north of Leighton Buzzard. Our conclusion that lenticles of limestone of basal varians-age are there overlain by a mass of Upper Gault showing an inverted order of zones provided an interesting glacial problem. This seemed to us of less importance, however, than the discovery that these transported masses had been deposited upon a, floor formed by a basement-bed of transgressive Upper Gault, which there rests immediately upon the local top of the Lower Greensand. The chief interest attaching to this example of glacial disturbance lay in the resulting disposition of particular beds in anomalous zonal relationships. Other striking instances of the glacial transportation of large masses of rock were known to occur in the tract of country to the north-east of this locality. The difference was chiefly one of degree, not of kind. We realized that the detection here of an overlap of the Upper Gault might prove to be a matter of greater moment, possessing, perhaps, a far-reaching stratigraphical significance. A study of the literature dealing with this formation, coupled with the examination of the Gault at a few localities in other counties where an overlap takes place, convinced us that a fuller investigation of the subject would prove fruitful in results.

The age of the Hirnant Beds has for a long time been a matter of uncertainty, occurring as they do at the junction of the Ordovician with the Silurian. They were originally included by Sedgwick in his “Upper Bala”, and in the Memoir of the Geological Survey on North Wales they are grouped with the Bala, and therefore in a modern classification would be relegated to the Ordovician. In 1879, however, Ruddy stated that the grits representing the gritty facies of these beds in the northern part of the area were the same as those coloured Lower Llandovery on the Geological Survey map, and he then held this view of their age, though later, in 1885, the placed them at the top of the “Caradoc or Bala Series”. Hughes also regarded the Hirnant Beds as representing the base of the Silurian, though he regarded the Ashgill Shales of Fairy Gill and elsewhere as Ordovician. Marr has also always regarded the Ashgill Shales of Fairy Gill as “Upper Bala”, and has included them in his Ashgillian division at the top of the Ordovician. It is perhaps significant that Salter in his Catalogue includes the fossils from both sets of beds in the “Upper Bala”, but divides this into two: (a) The Hirnant Limestone and Llanfyllin Beds. (b) The Llandovery (Lower Llandovery of the Survey).

The question whether N. China was under the grip of Polar severity towards the close of the Tertiary or the beginning of the Pleistocene time, and whether there was sufficient precipitation to allow the existence of large glaciers even if the temperature had become for a time arctic, has, on account of its important bearing on the problem of the cause of glaciation, aroused from time to time forcible but conflicting arguments. As cumulative evidence tends to show the wide prevalence of desert conditions all over N. China throughout recent geological times, geologists seem to have generally agreed, and naturally so, to provide a negative answer to the second part of the question. But as to the first part, it remains so far completely shrouded in doubt. In matter of this kind nobody would expect to wrest out truth by mere theoretical contention. Any relevant fact, therefore, deserves to be placed on record.

The graptolite here described was discovered first in the St. Tudwal's peninsula by Mr. T. C. Nicholas in 1912 in the Llanengan Mudstones, but it was not then regarded as distinct from Azygog. lapworthi, though it seemed to possess certain features not recognizable in the Lake District specimens, the only area from which that species had been previously recorded. The discoveryof numerous other specimens by Dr. Matley in the Lleyn peninsula and by Dr. Greenly in the Bangor area has served to show that the characters wherein this species differed from Azygog. lapworthi are permanent and of specific value, and since, moreover, it occurs at a distinctly higher horizon than Azygog. lapworthi, being characteristic of about the middle of the zone of Didymog. extensus, a description of it seems advisable. In general it has been noted that it is in many respects intermediate in character between Azygog. lapworthi on the one hand and Azygog. suecicus on the other, and it is perhaps significant that it occurs upon an horizon between the two.

The middle portion of the D1 beds seen in the Gratton Dale section consists of about 630 feet of dark dolomitic limestones, which appear to be confined to a definite horizon in the sequence. The impression one at first receives is that here are definitely bedded dolomites probably of contemporaneous origin, and this material has already been referred to as a thick bed of dolomite. Working northwards down the dale, i.e. ascending the sequence, one finds that the vertical passage from normal limestone into dolomitic material above is everywhere obscured. Similarly the upper limit of the dolomitized beds is covered, so that it is impossible to say whether the metasomatism abruptly ceases with a certain bed or dies out gradually in the higher strata. In the affected part of the sequence the dolomitization appears persistent in Gratton Dale, and at a few places only have I found lateral transitions, one or two examples on either side of the dale. The most marked transition is on the western side, towards the upper part of the altered material. Here light-coloured limestones are seen to pass laterally within a few yards into darker dolomitic material, with which it contrasts. Careful examination shows that these limestones on both sides of the Dale are really transitions, and are not interbedded with dolomite, a matter of considerable significance. North-westwards the dolomitization extends for some distance up Long Dale which joins Gratton Dale at right angles.

§ 1. The Beaverfoot Range lies immediately to the east of the Rocky Mountain Trench, and is the westernmost of the ranges included in the Rocky Mountain system.

Portuguese Nyasaland is the name given to the most northern part of Portuguese East Africa, lying between Lake Nyasa and the Indian Ocean. It is separated from the Tanganyika territory in the north by the River Rovuma and from the Portuguese province of Mozambique in the south by the River Lurio. The territory measures about 400 miles from east to west and 200 miles from north to south and has an area of nearly 90,000 square miles. This territory is now perhaps the least known part of the once Dark Continent, but while the writer was actually engaged in the exploration of this country in 1920–1, the Naval Intelligence Division of the British Admiralty published two handbooks, the Manual of Portuguese East Africa and the Handbook of Portuguese Nyasaland, which with their extensive bibliographies contained practically everything that was known of that country up to that date (1920). These handbooks make it unnecessary in this paper to give detailed accounts of the work of previous explorers.

The petrologist who attempts the systematic investigation of igneous rocks is unfortunately too familiar with the difficulty of naming the rocks examined. The discovery of a border-line type necessitates a choice of two alternatives: either the introduction of a new name to a science already overburdened with such, or the widening of the definition of the nearest established type to include the newly described rock. The decision is no easy one to make, especially if the petrographer is young and eager for the transient fame won by the discovery of something new. In such a case the temptation to create a new name is very strong. As a result, both student and teacher spend tedious hours in trying to discover differences between rocks bearing different names, differences which, however, have been magnified out of all proportion to their importance as diagnostic characters.

On glancing over back numbers of the GeologicalMagazine after eight months' residence abroad, I have been much interested to find a paper by Mr. C. Edmonds on the Carboniferous Limestone of West Cumberland.

In the course of collecting in the Ballycastle coalfield, the species described in this note were obtained. Details of the associated fauna will be found in the forthcoming memoir of the Geological Survey of Ireland relating to the district. It is only necessary to, mention here that the beds from which the present material comes are, in the memoir, referred to a D2 horizon.

Other Localities.—Eight feet of loamy sand have been found in Walton Park Hotel garden, and are banked against the cliffs about 330 yards south-west of Ladye Bay. Mr. G. E. Male has lately found what he considers to be the same sands on the southern slopes of Worle Hill at Weston-super-Mare. Beyond Yatton there is some obscure stony sand in a gap of Cadbury Hill, near Cleve, and a trace of sand on the summit which cannot have been derived from waste of the limestones. No other signs of these deposits have yet been detected in Somerset, so far as I am aware, away from the Clevedon ridges, though traces of them may be looked for on the southern slopes of the Mendip and other adjacent hills

The area under consideration extends from the mining town ot Egremont to Scalesmoor Farm in the parish of Lamplugh in West Cumberland, and comprises a tract of country 9 miles in length and rather less than 3 miles in width, running from S.S.W. to N.N.E. It forms the south-eastern margin of the Whitehaven Coalfield, and is the western portion of the “collar” of Lower Carboniferous rocks almost surrounding the older Palæozoic rocks of which the Lake District proper is composed. The area consists in the main of fahly continuous outcrops, but is much disturbed by faulting. In the unravelling of the tectonics of the district, however, the difficulty caused by excessive faulting is counterbalanced by the multiplicity of the borings that have been made during the exploration and development of the valuable haematite deposits associated with the limestones. In no single instance is there an exposure giving a complete section of the sequence, yet with the help of the journals of the “bores” every one of the exposures mentioned in this paper can be placed at its exact horizon with great accuracy.