The geological age of these beds has been the subject of much speculation by various geologists. In 1845 Orlebar claimed to have found the Gebel Ahmar Sandstone at No. 3 Station on the Old Post Road to Suez, overlying Miocene beds containing Scutella Zitteli. O. Fraas in 1867 imagined he could trace a gradual passage between the Upper Moqattam and these beds, and concluded, therefore, that they were of marine origin and Lower Oligocene age, as they had undergone the same general earth-movements as the Eocene beds.

In 1928 the owner of the Tanjong Perak Rubber Estate, Dr. H. Trail Skae, noticed a white, porous, and friable rock near the Estate buildings and took specimens that were ultimately sent to the Geological Survey Department for report. The rock proved to be entirely new to British Malaya and of great interest, while in view of its complicated composition I suggested in a local publication that it should be called “Vitrite”. Dr. Skae registered the name “Vitrite” as a trade-mark for this rock, which has possible uses in commerce, but it has since been discovered that the word was used during the war by a Dutch firm for a particular kind of glass used in electrical work, so the name has to be abandoned, and the only attempt I have ever made to inflict a new name on petrologists has been signally defeated.

Charges of Fe-tremolite, sulphur and water sealed in gold capsules and run at 600°C and 1 kb confining pressure for one month yielded talc, anhydrite, pyrite and quartz as principal mineral phases. It is concluded that in a S-rich environment talc is stabilized rather than diopside by the strong preference of Ca to form anhydrite.

The occurrence of plant-remains in the Lower Carboniferous rocks of England is so rare that the recent discovery of impressions in beds belonging to that series at Chepstow, by my friend and pupil Mr. M. P. Price, B.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge, is worthy of record. Mr. Price has obtained several examples of a Sphenopterid frond and other plant fragments from a bed of sandy shale of about 4 feet in thickness, lying between a red sandstone below and lime-stone beds above, in one of the Pen Moel quarries on the left bank of the Wye, immediately to the north of Chepstow. This locality is mentioned in Dr. Vaughan's recent paper on the palæontological sequence in the Carboniferous Limestone of the Bristol area. That author informs me that he refers the beds in question to the lower portion of the Seminula-zone (S1 of his classification) on the evidence of the fauna.

ONE of the objectives of the East African Archaeological Expedition of 1934–5 was the examination of the plateau north of Lake Eyasi—the Vogel River area—where, it was hoped, a continuation of the richly fossiliferous Oldowaya Middle Pleistocene lake beds would be found. This hope was essentially realized ; deposits with an interesting Middle Pleistocene fauna a little earlier than that of Oldoway were found, with the difference that they were entirely terrestrial. The development of precisely datable beds resting upon a main Rift Valley Scarp made possible a study of physiographical changes associated with the faulting.

From the short notices which are to be found about volcanos in treatises on geology, we might often be led into the belief that they were structures so regular in contour that their form was indicative of their nature. In certain cases this appears to be so remarkably true, that I wish to add a few observations to those which have already been written upon the subject. In other cases, however, the form of a volcano does not appear to have any characteristics which distinguish it from other mountains, as will be seen by glancing through the series of views given by Humboldt of the volcanos of South America. The mountains in Iceland are also very rough. When travelling in that country, where I saw and ascended many volcanos, I do not remember that there was anything about their shape more than their steepness and general ruggedness which particularly attracted my attention. The wilderness of form presented to us by such mountains as these is so evidently the combined effect of many and varied causes, that it would be vain to seek a simple explanation for the formation of the whole.

Included in a large assemblage of corals from the Lower Carboniferous Shales—referred to a Z horizon—overlying the Lower Carboniferous Sandstone anticline (K) on the north coast of Co. Sligo is a remarkable new genus—Caenophyllum—which forms the subject of this paper. Caenophyllum gen. nov. claims distinction in showing a very unusual life-history—quite unlike that of any known coral; and forms a very interesting example of abnormal coral ontogeny. The shales form cliffs at Pollarone, near Dromore West, Co. Sligo, and vary in height from 30 to 50 feet. They are cut off by the rising tide, and consequently have hitherto been neglected; but are of great importance in zonal work, as they contain a rich coral and Bryozoan fauna and thus form a starting point for zonal investigation.