Melting experiments with plagioclases were performed in the systems Ab-An, Ab-An-H2O, Qz-Ab-An-H2O, and Qz-Or-Ab-An-H2O-CO2. The experimental products were analysed by electron microprobe, and the kinetics of the reactions were studied qualitatively.

Melting of the plagioclase in the system Ab-An (P = 1 atm, T = 1420°C) is very fast in the first minutes but becomes slower with increasing run duration and is incomplete even after 1000 hours. The Ab/An fractionation between melt and residual plagioclase is similar to that described by Bowen (1913).

Melting kinetics of plagioclase in the system Ab-An-H2O ( = 5 kbar, T = 1000°C) is controlled by the diffusion of water into the plagioclase structure. Melting is especially fast parallel to the a-axis. The experimental products show separation of melts and crystals.

In the tonalite system Qz-Ab-An-H2O, equilibrium melting could be observed down to 830°C ( = 2 kbar) but not a lower temperatures. The kinetics of the reaction is enhanced by deficiency or excess of alumina in the aluminosilicate melt surrounding the plagioclase crystals. The fractionation of Ab and An between melt and plagioclase crystals is more pronounced in the presence of quartz than in the Ab-An-H2O system. The ratio An/An + Ab is approximately 0·35 in the melt and 0·85 in the coexisting plagioclase T = 880°C).

In the haplogranodiorite system Qz-Or-Ab-An-H2O–CO2, melting reactions were performed at P = 0·5 kbar, T = 880°C, and of approximately 0·5. It is assumed that near equilibrium compositions of melt and coexisting residual plagioclase could be obtained in long duration runs (run time = 60 days). The distribution of Ab and An between melt and minerals is similar to that observed in the tonalite system. The partial melt coexisting with an An-rich plagioclase and Or-rich K-feldspar is relatively poor in An.

In a Note published in the Annals of Botany for December 1899, I gave some account of the structure of two stems from the Lower Carboniferous of Scotland, provisionally named Araucarioxylon fasciculare, sp. nov., and A. antiquum, Kr. (Witham, sp.).

In the present paper these stems are described fully, with the help of illustrations, and others, presenting similar points of interest, are added. The species dealt with are the following:—

Calamopitys fascicularis (Araucarioxylon fasciculare of the Note).

Calamopitys beinertiana (Araucarioxylon beinertianum, Kr.), (Göpp., sp.).

Pitys antiqua, Witham (Araucarioxylon antiquum, Kr. of the Note).

Pitys Withami (Pinites Withami, Lindl. & Hutt.).

Pitys primœva, Witham.

Dadoxylon Spenceri, sp. nov.

The scent-producing area of closely packed holocrine and apocrine skin-glands in Aotes has an atypical, caudal position. Whilst most of the holocrine glands open into hair follicles by ordinary short ducts, some of the ducts are elongated, opening either into follicles or on the skin surface. The holocrine and apocrine secretions, in conjunction with the peculiar splitting of individual hairs, cause felting of the pelage on the gland field. A peculiar structure of the hairs facilitates their splitting. Evolution and function of the gland field are discussed.

Microdecemplex rolfei, gen. and sp. nov., a new microarthropleuridean less than 5 mm long, is described from the Middle Devonian Panther Mountain Formation of New York State, U.S.A. The specimens consist of organically preserved cuticle, with some preserving the only cephalic structures known for arthropleurideans. A new order, Microdecemplicida, and a new family, Microdecemplicidae, are established. The probable phylogenetic position of the Microdecemplicida as one of the basal clades of Diplopoda is proposed.

A revised reconstruction of the dermal skull roof of Acanthostega gunnari from the Upper Devonian of East Greenland is provided, incorporating modifications consequent upon further study of the specimens and in the light of new information from the Upper Devonian genus Ventastega from Latvia. The new reconstruction features a midline gap between the frontal and nasal bones and median rostrals. A revised profile for the skull and a rendition of the dermal ornament is also provided.

A diverse arthropod-dominated ichnofauna, associated with a poorly preserved crustacean fauna and soft-bodied ?medusoid impressions, is described from the Blaiklock Glacier Group of the north-western Shackleton Range (Coats Land), Antarctica. The ichnofauna consists of Asaphoidichnus, Beaconites, Didymaulichnus, Diplichnites, Gordia, ?Laevicyclus, Merostomichnites, Monomorphichnus, Palaeophycus, Planolites, Rusophycus, Selenichnites, and Taphrhelminthoides (ichnogen nov.). Three new ichnotaxa are recognised: Taphrhelminthoides antarcticus n. ichnogen. et ichnosp. is a bilobate trail, composed of two parallel flat lobes, separated by a median ridge with a characteristic figure-of-eight pattern. Merostomichnites gracilis n. ichnosp. is characterised by its proportions (external:internal width ratio >3) and series of 10 to 12, thin, linear tracks. Selenichnites antarcticus n. ichnosp. is characterised by small elongate horseshoe-shaped marks, the medial portion showing three to five transverse scratch-marks.

The palaeoenvironment is interpreted as extremely shallow marine water, possibly a tide-dominated estuary, based on sedimentological evidence and the composition of the ichnofauna. Radiometric and palaeomagnetic data indicate that this assemblage is Lower Ordovician in age, representing the first autochthonous Ordovician fossiliferous succession to be described from Antarctica. The succession shows several sedimentological and palaeontological similarities with the basal units of the Ordovician Table Mountain Group in South Africa, supporting palaeogeographic models placing the Palaeozoic Blaiklock basin close to the Ordovician Table Mountain basin.

The anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) is widely and routinely used to measure the preferred orientations of Fe-rich minerals in undeformed and weakly deformed granite plutons. The interpretation of the mapped AMS fabrics depends on rock-textural observations, on the map patterns of the fabrics in plutons, and on comparisons of the pluton fabrics to tectonic structures in the country rocks. The AMS may document emplacement-flow related fabrics, but the emplacement fabrics may be reworked or completely overprinted by rather weak tectonic strains of the magma mush or the cooling pluton, especially in syntectonic intrusions. The Late Devonian Canso granite pluton is an excellent example of overprinting of emplacement fabrics by weak tectonic strains. The Canso pluton was emplaced ca. 370 Ma along the boundary between the Meguma and Avalon tectonic terranes, in the northern Appalachian orogen. The AMS was mapped along two traverses that cross the pluton and that are perpendicular to the terrane boundary. Textural evidence suggests the rocks underwent very modest post-full crystallisation strains. The AMS records the dextral transcurrent shearing that occurred on the terrane boundary during emplacement and cooling of the Canso pluton, supporting interpretations that weakly deformed syntectonic granites can be used as indicators of regional bulk kinematics. AMS fabrics in Late Devonian granites of the Meguma Terrane suggest partitioning of the non-coaxial shearing into the terrane bounding fault, with pure-shear dominated deformation further from the fault. Numerical simulations suggest that the kinematics recorded by the fabrics in the Canso pluton was simple-shear, or transpression or transpression with small components of pure shear oriented perpendicular to the bounding shear zone.

Silurian and late Ordovician K-bentonites of the British Isles provide a record of prolonged volcanism during the convergence of terranes associated with closure of the Iapetus and Tornquist Oceans. In the Southern Uplands–Longford-Down and Midland Valley terranes, they range from late Caradoc to Telychian, withfurther early Homerian occurrences. South of the Iapetus suture, in Eastern Avalonia, the range is Hirnantianto early Ludlow in northern England and early Telychian to earliest Ludfordian in the Welsh Borderland and English Midlands. In both cases, the distributions indicate that volcanism was more long-lived and probably more extensive than is depicted in current plate tectonic reconstructions. Average intervals between K-bentonites are estimated, based on Harland et al. (1990), as: c. 65000 years at Dob's Linn (late Aeronian to early Telychian); c. 39000 years in the Cautley area (Telychian); c. 51000 years in a borehole at Walsall (late Llandovery to Sheinwoodian). Trace element geochemistry suggests mostly subalkaline dacitic to rhyolitic magmas in which LILE-enrichment accompanies variable enrichment in crustally derived elements (Ta, Nb). The geochemistry suggests comparison with continental arc volcanism of ‘withinplate, attenuated lithosphere’ character. Ta–Nb enrichment and an absence of Eu anomalies from REE profiles are consistently present northof the Iapetus suture, but trace element patterns are less consistent south of the suture where negative Eu anomalies are generally present. Discriminant function analysis successfully distinguishes Llandovery, Wenlockand Ludlow K-bentonites from south of the Iapetus suture, and Llandovery K-bentonites from north and south ofthe suture. Those from north of the Iapetus suture probably originated in volcanism along the southern marginof Laurentia before final closure of the Iapetus Ocean. Those from south of the suture may have been derived from volcanism associated with late destruction of Iapetus and Tornquist oceanic crust, although an alternative involving volcanism at the southern margin of Eastern Avalonia or Baltica may accord better with the distribution of K-bentonites and the geographical trend of the fragmentary outcrops of Silurian volcanic rocks from southern Ireland to Belgium.

Since the publication in 1840 of a brief but valuable memoir by J. D. Forbes, in which that author drew attention to “the traces of ancient glaciers” in the Cuillin Hills, that district has remained almost unnoticed by glacial geologists for half a century. This neglect is doubtless attributable chiefly to the difficulty of access to the mountains, a consequence of their peculiar configuration, which in turn is closely bound up with the glacial history of the district. The present contribution is the outcome of observations made during the years 1895–1900 in mapping the central part of Skye for the Geological Survey of Scotland. In traversing the mountains day after day throughout several successive seasons, the writer has been struck especially by the impressive evidence which they present of glacial erosion as the dominant factor in their sculpture, and to enforce this is the chief object of the present communication.

Although they are thoroughly aquatic animals, the Tardigrada. are not very abundant in permanent waters. They are most thoroughly at home in situations where the supply of moisture is intermittent, and are therefore conspicuous members of that numerous community of animals known as moss-dwellers. They share with the Bdelloid Rotifera the power of withstanding dessication.

Although they have their headquarters in land mosses, many species are quite at home in ponds, rivers, and lakes.

As lacustrine animals they belong entirely to the littoral region, into which they no doubt continually migrate from the adjoining mosses. A favourite habitat is that strip of shore between the highest and lowest levels of the lake, the ‘grève inondable’. of Forel. Into this often mossy margin they may migrate in the ordinary way, when the loch is low. The next step may be involuntary—the loch rises during floods, and the bears, in common with many other animals, find themselves, willy-nilly, converted into lake-dwellers. It appears to be certain that of the water-bears introduced into lakes, by whatever means, some have found the conditions very congenial. Several species have hitherto been found nowhere but in lakes.

A Brief description of the early stages of floral organogenesis in Primula bulleyana is followed by an account of the formation of flowers from experimentally incised primordia. The nature of the floral parts that develop alongside a median incision is related to the developmental stage of the flower primordium at the time of its bisection. The observations are discussed with reference to the determination of the parts of the flower.

Until very recently existing information concerning the eggs and oviposition of British fishes, and more especially marine fishes, was of the most fragmentary character. In the standard works upon Ichthyology, such as Owen's Anatomy of Vertebrates (vol. i. Fishes), it is comprised in a few vague sentences; while the original papers published by British ichthyologists are not numerous, and refer, for the most part, to fresh-water species. Within the last few years, however, attention has been more systematically directed to the subject, and the enlightened views of the late Royal Commission on Trawling, and more especially of its chairman, the late Earl of Dalhousie, has given a fresh impetus to the study of the development and life-history of our food-fishes, as preliminary to a thorough investigation of their habits, food, so-called migrations, and general life-history.

In connection with the problem of Map-colouring, I incidentally gave (Proc. K.S.E. 1880, p. 502) a theorem which may be stated as follows : — If 2n points be joined by 3n lines, so that three lines, and three only, meet at each point, these lines can he divided (usually in many different ways) into three groups of n each, such that one of each group ends at each of the points.

Mitrospermum bulbosum sp. nov. is described from a single specimen found in the Lower Carboniferous Cementstone Group of Berwickshire. It is a platyspermic seed about 14 mm diameter. The nucellus is free from the integument laterally and contains a single megaspore above which is a pollen chamber and well-developed apical beak. The integument is cordate at the base around a bulbous chalazal region with two membranous wings which terminate above as two flat lobes having a V-shaped sinus between. At the base of this sinus is the micropyle which surrounds the apex of the nucellar beak.

Mitrospermum compressum Arber has been re-investigated from 21 specimens and evidence adduced to show that the micropylar canal expands upwards and opens between two short apical lobes.

Conostoma oblongum Will, has been re-investigated from 20 specimens. It possesses four integumental bundles; sometimes there are two basal lobes but no integumental flanges; no free apical lobes have been seen and the seed was sessile, not having a wide pedicel.

A specimen of Lagenostoma ovoides Will, with a mature prothallus is briefly described from longitudinal sections. At the upper end the prothallus has three archegonia and a circular trough surrounding the ‘tent-pole’.

Potassium (K)-rich volcanic rocks occur within Permian sedimentary rocks in SW England and are approximately contemporaneous with the emplacement of the Cornubian granite batholith. The volcanic rocks have chemical characteristics of subduction-related magmas and may have been derived by small amounts of partial melting of heterogeneous large-ion lithophile (LIL) enriched mantle with the assemblage olivine–pyroxene–garnet–phlogopite–titanate. The LIL enrichment may have occurred during shallow or oblique subduction of oceanic lithosphere below SW England during the Devonian and Carboniferous. Such LIL-enriched mantle may have contributed some components to the Cornubian granite batholith.

The integration of biostratigraphical, wireline log, geophysical and available geochronological ages has identified two principal periods of volcanism in the Faroe–Shetland and Rockall basins. The first is pre-breakup, upper Danian to lower Thanetian: in the Rockall and Faroe–Shetland basins, isolated volcanic activity from 62 Ma to 58.7 Ma is identified in areas closely linked to the SSW–NNE structural fabric of the continental margin. Volcanic activity was concentrated at basin flank fissures and localised point sources. This rift-flank volcanism led to widespread volcanic ash deposition, localised lava flow fields and the formation of igneous centres. Some of the Hebridean and onshore central complexes (e.g., Rum) were uplifted and rapidly eroded during the later pre-breakup period, while additional accommodation space was developed in the adjacent offshore basins. Onset and termination of pre-breakup volcanism is correlated to intra-plate stress regimes in Europe, following the cessation of convergence of Africa and Europe in the Danian. The second is syn-breakup, upper Thanetian to Ypresian, initiated at ca.57 Ma in the Rockall and Faroe–Shetland basins. Initial high-volume extrusive igneous successions were focussed to the W in the Faroe–Shetland Basin. In the centre and E of the Faroe–Shetland and Rockall basins, separate eruption loci developed along pre-existing lineaments either as fissure or point-sourced lava fields. Short-term cessation of eruption at ~55.8 Ma was followed by resumption of flood basalt eruptions and a shift in focus to the NW. Fluctuations in the syn-breakup eruption tempo are reflected in the formation and subsequent rejuvenation of prominent unconformities, only previously recognised as a single erosive event. The W and northward shift of eruption focus, and the eruption of mid ocean ridge basalt-type lavas in the syn-breakup period reflect the onset of lithospheric thinning in the nascent North Atlantic Rift prior to flooding of the rift and eruption of the widespread lower Ypresian Balder Formation tephras.

In a paper on the Monochromatic Lamp, &c., read before this Society on the 15th April 1822, and published in their Transactions, I recorded some of my earliest experiments on the action of coloured media on the Solar Spectrum. These experiments were continued at irregular intervals, with the view of obtaining distinguishing characters of coloured media, of investigating the cause of the colours of natural bodies, and of examining more correctly the phenomena of the overlapping colours of equal refrangibility, the discovery of which I had announced in the paper already referred to. The results to which I was conducted on the two last of these subjects, have been already communicated to the Society in two papers, one on the Analysis of Solar light, and the other on the Colours of Natural Bodies.

The present paper deals with further investigations into the structure, the stratification, and the plant remains of peat deposits, carried on in various districts during 1907, 1908, and 1909.

The objects of the research, stated briefly, are to determine, as far as the state of preservation of the material permits, the history of the flora on peat-covered areas since their formation during the later stages of the glacial period. This really resolves itself into a research dealing with the changes in distribution undergone in post-glacial times by part of the British flora.

Morphological examination of 56 specimens of Parka decipiens suggests that the thallus was dorsiventral with a many layered ventral cell-layer bearing dorsal sporangia originating from both the margin of the thallus and the underlying tissue. A disc-like holdfast is present, suggesting that at maturity Parka was attached to some substrate. Mathematical simulations of growth suggest that sporangia were produced by lateral proliferation of cells, while simulations of the frequency of cell dichotomy indicate that the order of sporangial packing on the dorsal surface is consistent with an underlying pseudoparenchyma. Latex replicas indicate the presence of filament dichotomy and corroborate to some extent the presence of a pseudoparenchyma. Intercalated, anticlinal cell divisions are demonstrated mathematically. Ontogenetic reconstructions of Parka suggest a similarity to the extant green algal genus Coleochaete. Growth stages of Coleochaete in their early stages of development are similar to the fossil Pachytheca, while mathematical and chemical comparison of Pachytheca with those of Parka suggest either a phylogenetic or ontogentic interpretation.

A laminated, partly peloidal lacustrine limestone from the Lower Permian intermontane Döhlen basin in Saxony, Germany, contains one of the most diverse late Palaeozoic tetrapod faunas in Europe associated with a marine higher algal flora of Tethyan character. The surprising co-occurrence of these organisms and the lack of fishes is explained by the special position of this basin above the Elbe lineament, the influence of strong volcanism, of differentiated salinity in the lake and of the palaeowind systems, as well as by the action of stratigraphic, palaeogeographic and palaeoecological filters.