The literature dealing with Irish mineralogy is rather extensive, much more so than might be at first thought, but it is of such a scattered nature that to obtain at present anything like a complete account of the minerals which occur in this country, or in any particular portion of it, would involve much time and labour in hunting up the publications containing the various records. The need of some authentic work of reference on the subject, revised to date, was often felt by the writer, who some years ago set to work to collect together all the data available, both from published records and by means of a personal examination of such public and private collections of minerals in this country as he could gain access to.

During the last year the Marwood Beds of Sloley Quarry, near Barnstaple, have yielded some additional specimens of Echinocaris, which have afforded material for the present note. The specimens have all been found in the fine micaceous shaly beds, six to eight feet thick, on the north side of the quarry, below the massive sandstones, and above the shallow-water bed containing plant-remains, rain-prints, worm-tracks, etc. The same shaly beds contain Lingula squamiformis in abundance; other bivalves are less frequent. They have now yielded as many as twelve specimens of Echinocaris.

In a recent number of the “Neues Jahrbuch” (1901, Bd. ii, Heft 3, pp. 158–170, 6 text illust.) Dr. J. F. Pompeckj, of Munich, has an interesting paper on the genus Tmaegoceras. The genus was established by Hyatt1 in 1889 for the two very rare Ammonites from the Lower Lias of the Alps, Ammonites latesulcatus, F. v. Hauer, and Arietites levis, G. Geyer. To these, in 1899, G. Bonarelli4 added a third species, Tmaegoceras Paronai, from the Lower Lias of the Central Apennines, at the same time assigning to this genus Schafhäult's Ammonites Helli. But as Mojsisovics pointed out in 1893, Schafhäutl's species is a Tropites, whilst Ammonites latesculcatus, F. v. Hauer, Arietites levis, G. Geyer, and Tmaegoceras Paronai, G. Bonarelli, have nothing whatever to do with that genus. Of these three species Dr. Pompeckj regards Ammonites latesulcatus, F. v. Hauer, and Tmaegoceras Paronai, G. Bonarelli, as generically identical, and with them he unites also Quenstedt's Ammonites dorsosulcatus and his own new species (T. crassiceps), which he describes from the Lower Lias (zone of Arietites Bucklandi) in the neighbourhood of Tübingen (Württemberg). He considers Arietites levis, G. Geyer, to be a true Arietite, probably related to Arietites ophioides (d'Orb.), Wähner, or Arietites Cordieri, Canavari.

Well known as Darjiling is to nearly every stray traveller in India, the solid geology of the district has been left almost (I believe quite) untouched since the publication of Mallet's paper in 1874. There the Darjíling gneiss was described as the metamorphosed representative of the sedimentary Gondwana rocks of the south, and has so remained, albeit under protest, for a disclaiming paragraph appears in the Manual of the Geology of India. In the report of the Committee on the recent landslip at Darjíling it is stated that the rock of the country consists of “a well foliated and banded biotite gneiss with occasional lenses and deformed veins of granitic rock”; moreover, that “the foliation planes are often highly contorted”; and Mallet defines it as true gneiss “passing into mica schist or an intermediate variety.” These descriptions are meagre, and it is hoped that the following notes on specimens collected by the author may not be superfluous.

In the Geology of East Lincolnshire, a memoir of the Geological Survey published in 1889, the whole of the flint-bearing Chalk of that county above the Melbourn Rock was referred to as Middle Chalk, and no horizon was found which could be regarded as the equivalent of the zone of Holaster planus, or the Chalk Rock of the Midland counties.

In the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, May, 1902, vol. lviii, p. 207, Mr. A. Strahan has a paper on the “Origin of the River-System of South Wales, and its Connection with that of the Severn and Thames.” It is with the part of the paper expressed in the latter portion of the title that I am more particularly concerned; for in that connection Mr. Strahan remarks in a footnote (p. 219), “The theories put forward by Mr. S. S. Buckman in Proc. Cotteswold Nat. Field Club, vol. xiii (1900), p. 175, following the lead of Professor W. M. Davis, appear to me to transgress the limits of legitimate speculation.” It seems rather curious that in a paper like this there is no further reference to the work done by Professor Davis, no attempt to consider his views, only a dismissal of them, implied in the rejection of the views which I have advanced in accordance with his teaching, which views, by the way, I gave in more detail in Natural Science, April, 1899, vol. xiv.

In this illustrated lecture, the more prominent phases of the geological history of Ireland were pointed out, mainly as an explanation of the existing scenic features of the country. Probably very little remains in Ireland of the old Huronian continent, unless portions of it have appeared again in the cores of Caledonian folds. The stratified, but metamorphosed, Dalradians of the west may be Cambrian, or older; and gneiss is included in the granite of eastern Tyrone, the latter being probably of Caledonian age. The gneiss of the ancient moorland between Omagh and Cookstown is, moreover, very possibly pre-Cambrian. The Silurian sea must have covered all the Irish area ; and the subsequent Caledonian folding, with its axes running north-east and south-west, marked out the first distinct lines of the existing country.

The footprints from the fissile Keuper sandstones of Chillington comprise, in addition to the ordinary Cheirotherian impressions, two interesting series. A number of fragments of rock covered with worm tracks and castings, show several imperfectly preserved footprints of a small five-toed animal, with posterior limbs of much greater size than the anterior; and three portions of comparatively smooth slabs afford evidence of a larger animal, probably of the same genus, of which the impressions of the feet are preserved with remarkable distinctness. There are also singular reticulated markings upon the surface of another small slab from the same beds, which may be interpreted as the impression of reptilian (? or labyrinthodont) skin. (See Fig. 2, p. 217.)

In his “Acadian Geology” (1868, 2nd ed., p. 563) Sir William Dawson figures Dictyonema Websteri and places it as a Silurian (Upper Silurian) species. In describing the slates from which the type-specimens of this species were obtained he writes:—“Passing from the Cobequid Mountains to the slate hills of the south side of the Bay” (meaning the Bay of Fundy), “in King's County, we find slates not very dissimilar from those of the Cobequids” (which he had described on the previous page, 562), “in the promontory northward of the Gaspereau River. Here the direction both of the bedding and of the slate structure is N.E. and S.W.; but the planes of cleavage dip to the S.E., while the bedding, as indicated by lines of different colour, dips to the N.W. These slates, with the quartzite and coarse limestones, are continued in the hills of New Canaan, where they contain crinoidal joints, fossil shells, corals, and in some beds of fawn-coloured slate beautiful fan-like expansions of the pretty Dictyonema, represented in fig. 196; very fine specimens of this fossil were found by the late Dr. Webster of Kentville. It was the habitation of thousands of minute polypes, similar apparently to those of the modern Sertularia. The general strike of the rocks in New Canaan is N.E. and S.W., and they extend from that place westward to the Nictaux River.

On the excursion of the Geologists Association to Gower last Easter our Director, Mr. R. H. Tiddeman, showed us a series of examples of the celebrated raised beach, and a good deal of discussion arose as to its relation to the other recent deposits of the district. Into those questions I do not propose to enter on this occasion, but will accept, what all admitted, viz., that the beach is an old sea beach, that the platform upon which it rests is the work of the waves, and that it has been raised to its present position by earth-movement.

In the Summer of 1901 my friend Mr. Edward Whymper, the well-known traveller, mountain explorer, and writer, paid a visit to the watershed of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and during a stay at Field, the highest pass reached on the Canadian and Pacific Railroad, he examined the slopes of Mount Stephen, and at a height of 6,000 feet on its northern side found numerous Trilobites, and brought home a considerable collection.

Yarmouth and Lowestoft have long been connected by railways, but although the Great Eastern Company had provided a choice of routes, there was no direct way. This is now in process of construction by a joint arrangement between the Great Eastern, Great Northern, and Midland Railway Companies; and the route, for the most part within a mile of the sea-coast, is from the Great Eastern Station at Lowestoft through Gunton, Hopton, Corton, and Gorleston to the Yarmouth Beach Station, a distance of a little more than nine miles.

The following pages present some results obtained by me from the geological survey of the Fassa district in the Dolomites comprising the Bufaure and Monzoni mountain groups, where the porphyritic and monzonitic rocks are widely exposed. In selecting this district I had two objects in view—(1) to study in detail the tectonic relations between the igneous and stratified rocks; (2) to test the results which I had previously obtained from my survey of Sella Massive, etc.