Since 1876, when McCoy described two specimens of tuberculated plates under the name Asterolepis ornata var. australis, placoderm remains have been known to occur in the Middle Devonian marine limestones of Buchan, Victoria, Australia. Some years later, another specimen was obtained from the Buchan limestones by W. H. Ferguson of the Geological Survey of Victoria, and was referred by Chapman (1916) to the genus Phlyctaenaspis. Chapman, regarding McCoy's specimens as cospecific with the new material, included all the remains in the species Phlyctaenaspis australis (McCoy), distinguishing the more complete specimen discovered by Ferguson as P. australis var. confertituberculata Chapman. As Phlyctaenaspis is a form typical of the Lower Devonian, its reported occurrence in the Middle Devonian seemed to warrant further investigation. I therefore undertook a re-examination of all the available material, which is now preserved in the National Museum, Melbourne, and spent some months in removing the matrix from Ferguson's specimen. The matrix is a hard carbonaceous limestone containing remains of Spirifer yassensis and other invertebrates, and it was found that dilute hydrochloric acid would dissolve away this matrix without seriously affecting the fish plates, although care had to be taken not to subject these to too long contact with the acid. When as much of the matrix as possible had been removed mechanically by grinding, the fossil was exposed by brushing the dilute acid on to the remainder with a camel-hair brush, and continually observing the result under a binocular microscope.

During the course of a reconnaissance mineral survey of Western Togoland in 1918–19 many streams were panned, and the concentrates were afterwards examined to ascertain to what extent the heavy minerals in them could be used as a guide in geological mapping.

The olivine minette described by Tidmarsh from the Holmead Farm, Lox-beare, contains analcite microphenocrysts in addition to olivine, biotite, clinopyroxene and alkali-feldspar. A new chemical analysis shows that the rock is undersaturated with respect to silica. This is still another example of analcite occurring in a potash-rich rock.

Since my papers on “The Superficial Deposits and Preglacial Valleys of the Northumberland and Durham Coalfield” 1 and “The Origin and Influence of the chief Physical Features of Northumberland and Durham” 2 were published, a great deal of detailed work has been done on the glacial phenomena in the two north-eastern counties by Smythe,3 Merrick,4 Herdman,5 Trechmann,6 and myself.7 As I have given much attention to this subject it may be of interest and value if I give a brief resume of my views, a general summary of the work done, and attempt to show the general sequence of the phenomena that have been described. My extensive study of the Drift in these two countries and elsewhere has convinced me of its complexity. I cannot, therefore, be dogmatic on any points, but will endeavour to show the general trend of my thoughts on the subject.

In the Geological Magazine (Vol IV. p. 496) I have given some notes on West Indian Geology, with descriptions of a few new species of fossils. The notes were intended, in part, as supplementary to the papers published in the Journal of the Geological Society, and in the Geological Magazine, on the Geology and Palaeontology of the West Indies, and in part to exhibit an improved classification of the Caribean upper and middle Tertiaries.

The problem I have tried to solve in this paper is, whether the Mino-Owari, or great Japanese, earthquake of 1891 had any effect on the seismic activity of the surrounding regions. The effect we might anticipate would be either an increase or decreasein the frequency of shocks in those regions soon after the occurrenceof the principal earthquake—a decrease if the stress were thereby diminished over the whole district, an increase if the stress were relieved in the central area and partially transferred to those adjoining it.

The subject of ‘pleochroic halos’ has become endowed with peculiar interest since Professor Joly suggested that they are due to the radio-activity of the inclusions round which they occur. On looking into such petrographical literature as I possess, it appears that very few precise observations have been made regarding these halos, and it has occurred to me, therefore, that some of my own notes on the subject may be of general interest.

The late Carboniferous to Triassic Karoo Supergroup of Madagascar is a sequence of predominantly continental clastic sediments deposited during a long period of regional crustal extension. In the Morondava Basin of western Madagascar the lower two divisions of the Karoo sediments – the Sakoa and the Sakamena – are deposits of fluvial and lacustrine sedimentation systems supplied from the Precambrian metamorphic basement terrain to the east. East–west crustal extension produced a series of graben and half-graben structures after the Sakoa period which were reactivated after the Sakamena. The position and orientation of these half graben, which were marginal to a larger rift system to the west, were partly controlled by the steep NNE–SSW mylonitic fabric in the metamorphic basement. Palaeocurrents in the braided river deposits of the Sakoa and Lower Sakamena indicate flow to the southwest and west in both sequences. The rivers followed a regional palaeoslope to the southwest/west and were apparently not significantly influenced by the local structural trends which were oriented perpendicular to this slope. The absence of local structural control is attributed to extensive erosional events which followed each tectonic episode and preceded the onset of further sedimentation which took place on an essentially peneplained surface. The tectonic episodes brought about changes in base level which caused this part of the basin to fluctuate between erosion and deposition.

In August, 1938, while participating in the expedition to Rum organized by the Botanical Department of King's College, Newcastle-on-Tyne, under the leadership of Professor J. W. Heslop Harrison, I was fortunate enough to discover a fragment of fossil wood enclosed in a trachybasalt lava. This is the first discovery of a fossil of any kind on this island and one of the few discoveries of fossil wood in the British Tertiary lavas.