Cladoxylon waltoni sp. nov. is described from stems resembling C. radiatum Unger in the form of stele and absence of secondary xylem, but differing in the mode of emission of clepsydroid leaf-traces. Each leaf-trace originates as a band of xylem connecting two adjacent xylem arms. Dorsiventral axes with an ornate U-shaped bundle and 4-9 radiating arms are also included in the species. These give off alternate clepsydroid traces from two or three adjacent arms in a manner resembling a rachis. One specimen of Hierogramma mysticum Unger is described and three small rachides are interpreted as possible subdivisions of a Hierogramma frond.

Collections from the Barr Group (late Llanvirn to early Caradoc) of the Girvan district are described and occurrences of all trilobites from both the Barr and Albany groups are listed and their frequencies recorded. The close relationships with North American faunas are emphasised, and three Girvan and North American species are considered synonymous. One new species is described, Bevanopsis phyllisae. Pandaspinapyga is considered a junior subjective synonym of Acanthoparypha. The possibility that Alwynulus may be an aberrant staurocephalid is discussed.

Growth stages of several genera are illustrated; some show unexpectedly large differences in size and morphology in comparison with North American silicified species at the same general stage of development.

Five new fossil species of the Recent genus of blood-feeding sand flies Lutzomyia (Psychodidae: Phlebotominae) are described: L. filipalpis, L. miocena, L. paleopestis, L. schleei, and L. succini. All are preserved in Miocene amber from the Dominican Republic; today Hispaniola harbours only two known species of this genus. Recent Lutzomyia feed on a wide variety of terrestrial vertebrates, including reptiles, birds, and mammals. Three rare pieces of the amber are reported, two described in detail, which preserved assemblages of Lutzomyia swarms with strands of mammalian hair, indicating that at least some of the fossil species were mammal feeders. Microstructure of the fossil hair offers little diagnostic evidence, but is very similar to that of insectivores in the Solenodontidae. Further preserved evidence indicates that the fossil midges swarmed about an arboreal nest or site of decayed wood that was worked by a mammal, but at very specific times during formation of the amber. Other very rare Dominican amber pieces containing a flea and an ixodid tick also contain mammalian hairs of similar microstructure, together with Lutzomyia sandflies, possibly reflecting the ectoparasite community of a Miocene mammal. This parasitic association has implications regarding the evolution of vectors of mammalian pathogens like Leishmania and the study further reveals the extent of palaeobiological inference that is possible with amber.

The present paper is the third of a series recording the results of investigations into the relations of the structures present in the oocyte during the growth period, particularly in their bearing on yolk formation. A Crustacean was selected for various reasons: firstly, as representing a large class about the oogenesis of which little is known, this in contrast to most other Arthropod groups which have been studied by several authors; secondly, in the hope that it would prove to have no yolk nucleus, and would exhibit nucleolar extrusion, a hope which has been fairly satisfactorily justified; thirdly, for the utilitarian reason that it is a common animal, easily obtainable, and able to live under laboratory conditions during considerable periods.

The Dalradian terrane of Connemara was thrust southsoutheastwards about 460 Ma ago (Rb–Sr and K–Ar ages). It rides on a major thrust of post-D age over mylonitised acidic volcanic rocks of putative lower Ordovician age and contains a number of thrusts of similar age. Several major S- to SE-directed thrusts also limit the southeastern margin of the Dalradian rocks in Mayo and Tyrone. It is suggested by analogy with Ireland that during mid-Ordovician times the Highland Boundary fault in Scotland could have been a thrust zone which carried the Scottish Dalradian rocks over a lower Ordovician basement now represented only as fragments in the Highland Border Complex.

The proper temperature of our globe is a question which, formerly abandoned to speculation and hypothesis, has only lately been made the subject of direct experiment. Preliminary to it, and intimately connected with it, is another inquiry of great interest, namely, What is the thermometric effect of the whole solar heat which falls in a year on the surface of the globe ? How much is transmitted to the interior? How much dissipated at the surface? To what depth does the influence of the seasons extend, and in what manner is that influence modified at different depths? It is impossible to say to how many curious and important inquiries a solution of these preliminary questions may lead the way; and it is to them that our attention is at present to be confined. We shall not speak, except incidentally, of the absolute heat of the interior of the globe; we shall only discuss the modifications of the solar heating influence near its surface.

A series of extensive temporary exposures in glacial deposits, partially filling an abandoned valley of the River Dee immediately south of Torry Hill, Aberdeen, has thrown some light on the late glacial history of the Aberdeenshire coastal strip. These deposits consist of rather more than twenty feet of fine, well-stratified sediments, similar to sediments recorded in other parts of the city of Aberdeen, and at a number of points along the coast almost as far as Peterhead.

These sediments, which were first mentioned by T. F. Jamieson (1858), were not differentiated by him from the red boulder clay found also in this area. A. Bremner (1915), the only worker to publish important communications on the glaciology of the area since Jamieson, has explained the sediments as deposits formed in glacial lakes when an ice-sheet filling the North Sea dammed the natural drainage. Bremner (1931) believed that three separate ice sheets had succeeded one another in North-East Scotland. The ice sheet responsible for damming up the waters in which the sediments under discussion were formed was the second of these. It moved in a northerly direction in this area, bringing with it erratics from the Old Red Sandstone of Strathmore. The third ice sheet was local. Movement was eastwards from the high ground towards the sea. According to Bremner, this ice failed to reach the coast at some points, as, for instance, immediately south of the Bay of Nigg. However, in the area of Aberdeen city this ice is supposed to have given rise to the morainic topography which backs the beach.

Non-hadrosaurid iguanodontians were the most diverse and abundant group of large-bodied herbivorous dinosaurs during the Early Cretaceous, and were a particularly important component of Laurasian ecosystems. Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in our knowledge of the diversity of this group, with multiple new taxa being described from northeast China. The most complete of these Chinese non-hadrosaurid iguanodontians is Jinzhousaurus yangi, from the middle part of the Yixian Formation (Lower Cretaceous: lower Aptian) of Liaoning Province. Here, we provide the first description of the relatively complete and partially articulated postcranial skeleton of the holotype of Jinzhousaurus, and provide detailed comparisons to closely related taxa. We document additional autapomorphies of Jinzhousaurus that provide strong support for the validity of this taxon.

Although, from the careful descriptions which have been given by several competent naturalists, we may now consider ourselves tolerably well acquainted with the structure of the dainty siliceous skeletons of this and several allied Hexactinellid Sponges, this is by no means the case with their soft tissues ; and the great cause of our imperfect knowledge of these interesting structures is that no observer has hitherto succeeded in procuring a really well-preserved Sponge of this group. It was with pleasure, therefore, that I accepted the offer of the Director of the Challenger Expedition to place some well-preserved examples belonging to different genera in my hands for investigation. Of all the specimens which have been sent to me, some fragments of Euplectella aspergillum in absolute alcohol are much the best preserved, and therefore the best suited for thorough examination. I commence with the description of the soft parts of this well-known and beautiful form, following the classification which has been adopted by Sir Wyville Thomson in his descriptions of the species.

All trilobites known from the Ardwell Group, Craighead Inlier, Girvan district are listed and frequencies recorded. Encrinuroides lapworthi n. sp. from the Sericoidea Mudstones, and Bumastoides fornax n. sp. from the Kiln Mudstones, are described. The Sericoidea Mudstones constitute a deeper water interlude in the complex succession which comprises the Craighead Limestone Formation; graptolites from this horizon indicate low Dicranograptus clingani zone. The closest resemblance of the trilobite assemblage as a whole is to faunas of Trenton age in North America. The occurrence of forms allied to Boda Limestone (Ashgill) species suggests that these are long-ranging, carbonate associated, trilobite stocks.

The sponges in the following report were collected in the North and South Atlantic during the Scotia's voyages to and from the Antarctic regions in the years 1902–1904.

All the sponges in the collection were obtained off the south-west coast of Cape Colony, with the exception of five well-known species which were taken off St Helena, the Cape Verde Islands, and the Princesse Alice Bank. Only one specimen was dredged in deep water, namely, in 350 fathoms off the Princesse Alice Bank, while the remainder were taken between tide-marks to a depth of 30 fathoms.

The collection contains thirty-five species, of which fifteen are described as new.

To complete the list of sponges obtained by the Scotia in Atlantic waters, mention may be made here of one species which is not contained in this report. This species, Cladorhiza thomsoni, dredged in deep water between Gough Island and the Cape of Good Hope, has been described by Professor Topsent (24 and 25). It was taken at Station 468, 39° 48′ S., 2° 33′ E., depth 2770 fathoms.

The five species above referred to, Leucandra crambessa, Aphrocallistes beatrix, Tethya lyncurium, Chondrosia plebeja and Chondrosia reniformis, call for no special remark. They have all been previously obtained in, or fairly near, the areas for which they are here recorded.

The subfamily Koneprusiinae is revised as part of a larger study of the Odontopleuridae, and Laethoprusia gen. nov. is described. The type species L. salax sp. nov. is from the Wenlock of Gotland, Sweden, and the genus is known also from the Wenlock of the Montagne Noire in south France, and from the Lower Devonian of Australia. The type species is most unusual among trilobites in possessing large fenestrae perforating the exoskeleton on segmental boundaries from the cephalic posterior margin to within the pygidium. The fenestrae were probably covered with soft tissues. Their function is enigmatic. Laethoprusia gen. nov. is the sister taxon to Isoprusia and/or Koneprusia. These genera are revised, and a review of all species assigned to them is given. A cladistic analysis of the best known taxa of Laethoprusia, Isoprusia, and Koneprusia is presented. Laethoprusia is the most derived genus of the subfamily, although stratigraphically it is the earliest.

The results of a series of experiments to study the physical processes governing the evaporation from upland vegetation in Scotland, i.e. coniferous forest, heather and grass, are described. Particular attention is given to the interception process occurring in heather, one of the dominant indigenous species in Scottish upland catchments. Attention is also given to the interception of snow precipitation which in the Scottish uplands is a significant proportion of the total precipitation. A comparison of the parameters describing the efficiency of the transport process of water vapour for coniferous forest and heather indicates that the process is more efficient than predicted by classical diffusion theory: additional transport mechanisms are considered. A simple model, based upon the results of the process studies, was applied to data from the Monachyle catchment (Balquhidder) and the model predictions compared with observations. This study, in conjunction with recent results from the Balquhidder catchment experiment, illustrates the necessity of further investigations to give a fuller understanding of the evaporation from high altitude grassland.

The Dinantian Lower Oil-Shale Group of the Edinburgh area records the evolution of a SW–NE trending basin within an area of fluvial-dominated deltaic sedimentation, with rare marine incursions from the E. The sequence at Granton records the abandonment of a delta lobe, with deltaic sandstones overlain by lagoonal mud-shales. These thinly-laminated non-bioturbated mud-shales record low-energy, stagnant conditions. Fish, ostracodes and conchostracans inhabited the lagoon at this time.

Within the mud-shale sequence is the dolomitic Granton “shrimp-bed” which contains fenestrae, possible gypsum pseudomorphs and in situ shrinkage breccias suggesting periods of emergence. The “shrimp-bed” contains a number of laminae packed with soft-bodied fossils including marine forms, which resulted from brief marine incursions into the stagnant lagoon. The fluctuating salinity conditions seem to have favoured the development of an unusual fauna of shrimp-like crustaceans, fish, conchostracans, ostracodes and bellerophontid gastropods. This fauna appears to have suffered periodic mass mortalities during marine incursions which brought orthocone cephalopods, polychaete worms and conodonts into the lagoon, according to our current knowledge of the distribution of these marine taxa in the sequence.

The Granton sequence displays a variety of ductile and brittle deformation features most of which can be attributed to local SW-directed extension related to regional dextral strike-slip across the Midland Valley of Scotland.

The position of the Falkland Islands adjacent to the South American continental margin belies the close association of their geology with that of South Africa. A Mesoproterozoic basement is unconformably overlain by a Silurian to Devonian succession of fluvial to neritic and shallow marine, siliciclastic strata. This is disconformably succeeded by a largely Permian succession that, near its base, includes a glacigenic diamictite and, thence, passes upwards into a succession of deltaic and lacustrine strata. The lithological succession and the character of its deformation bear striking similarities to the Cape Fold Belt and Karoo retroarc foreland basin. Swarms of Early Jurassic dykes were coeval with the Karoo magmatism and the initial break-up of Gondwana; Early Cretaceous dykes were intruded during the opening of the South Atlantic Ocean. Offshore sedimentary basins surrounding the archipelago contain Late Jurassic to Palaeogene successions and are currently the focus of hydrocarbon exploration. Best known is the North Falkland Basin, a classic failed rift. To the SE, the passive margin, Falkland Plateau Basin may also be rift-controlled, whilst the South Falkland Basin is a foreland basin created at the boundary of the South American and Scotia plates. The role of the Falkland Islands during the breakup of Gondwana remains controversial. Compelling evidence from the onshore geology favours rotation of an independent microplate from an original position adjacent to the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Alternative interpretations, justified largely from offshore geology, favour extension of the Falkland Plateau as a fixed promontory from the South American margin.

Saltopus elginensis, reported in 1910 from the yellow sandstones of the Lossiemouth Sandstone Formation (Late Triassic) of Morayshire, NE Scotland, has long been controversial. It was described first as a theropod dinosaur, but others disagreed. Reanalysis of the type, and only, specimen using casts from the natural rock moulds, as well as X-rays and CT scans, has revealed new anatomical data not available to previous researchers. Saltopus was a small, 800–1000 mm-long biped, whose tail made up more than half its length. It is an avemetatarsalian because it has elongated and tightly bunched metatarsals, the tibia is longer than the femur, the calcaneal tuber is rudimentary or absent, and metatarsal II is equal to or longer than metatarsal IV; a unique assemblage of characters diagnosing this clade. Saltopus is a dinosauromorph on the basis of the reduced fingers IV and V, the saddle-shaped dorsal margin of the iliac blade, and the articulation of sacral rib 1 close to the front of the iliac blade. Saltopus is a dinosauriform on the basis of the trochanteric shelf and lesser trochanter on the proximal end of the femur, the waisted sacral ribs, and perhaps the rod-like and straight pubis. However, it lacks all apomorphies of Dinosauria, retaining for example the primitive condition of two sacral vertebrae. Cladistic analyses place Saltopus within Dinosauromorpha and Dinosauriformes, and between the basal dinosauriform Pseudolagosuchus and the derived clade consisting of Silesauridae and Dinosauria, so making it one of a radiation of small pre-dinosaurian bipedal archosaurs in the Triassic found so far in North and South America and in Europe.

The word “kame” is regarded by one usage as the Scottish equivalent of the Irish term “esker”; according to another usage, the terms are not synonymous, for an esker is regarded as the British representative of the Swedish “osar” and as a ridge of sand and gravel deposited along the course of a river within a glacier, while a kame is a ridge of similar materials deposited outside the glacier along its edge. The Polmont kame, as seen from the railway, strikingly resembles the Swedish osar; but it and those at Carstairs, the best known of Scottish kames, proved, on examination, not to have the cross-banding characteristic of osar, and to be marginal deposits. The typical Irish eskers are also marginal deposits (Gregory, “The Irish Eskers,” Phil. Trans., A, 210, pp. 115–51) and of the same origin as the Polmont and Carstairs kames. A few small Irish eskers have the structure of osar, while many are the remnants of denuded sheets of sand and gravel. I therefore suggested that the term esker, being Irish in origin, should be applied generally, as it is in Ireland, to hills of glacial sand and gravel.

To the general law, that bodies are expanded by heat, and contracted by cold, water at the point of congelation, and for some degrees of temperature above it, seems to afford a very singular and curious exception.

The circumstances of this remarkable anomaly have been for some time believed to be the following:

When heat is applied to water ice cold, or at a temperature not far distant, it causes a diminution in the bulk of the fluid. The water contracts, and continues to contract, with the augmentation of temperature, till it reaches the 40th or 41st degree. Between this point and the 42d or 43d, it suffers scarcely any perceptible change; but when heated beyond the last-mentioned degree, it begins to expand, and increases in volume with every subsequent rise of temperature.

Isobaric crystallisation paths obtained from phase equilibrium experiments show that, whereas in rhyolitic compositions melt fraction trends are distinctly eutectic, dacitic and more mafic compositions have their crystallinities linearly correlated with temperatures. As a consequence, the viscosities of the latter continuously increase on cooling, whereas for the former they remain constant or even decrease during 80% of the crystallisation interval, which opens new perspectives for the fluid dynamical modelling of felsic magma chambers. Given the typical dyke widths observed for basaltic magmas, results of analogue modelling predict that injection of mafic magmas into crystallising intermediate to silicic plutons under pre-eruption conditions cannot yield homogeneous composition. Homogenisation can occur, however, if injection takes place in the early stages of magmatic evolution (i.e. at near liquidus conditions) but only in magmas of dacitic or more mafic composition. More generally, the potential for efficient mixing between silicic and mafic magmas sharing large interfaces at upper crustal levels is greater for dry basalts than for wet ones. At the other extreme, small mafic enclaves found in many granitoids behave essentially as rigid objects during a substantial part of the crystallisation interval of the host magmas, which implies that finite strain analyses carried out on such markers can give only a minimum estimate of the total amount of strain experienced by the host pluton. Mafic enclaves carried by granitic magmas behave as passive markers only at near solidus conditions, typically when the host granitic magma shows near-solid behaviour. Thus they cannot be used as fossil indicators of direction of magmatic flow.

The Early Proterozoic (1715 Ma) Harney Peak Granite (Black Hills, SD, U.S.A.) is a complex of hundreds of dykes and sills. Earlier studies of Nd, O and Pb isotope variations demonstrated that the complex was not derived from a single source, or even different sources of a single age. Instead, the granites can be divided into a group with sources probably dominated by Early Proterozoic sediments and a group with sources probably dominated by Archean sediments. New results on the Nd isotopic variations of many additional samples indicate that there is considerable overlap between Nd isotopic compositions within the complex. Values of εNd (1715 Ma) of the Harney Peak Granite suite (n = 20) range from −2·0, indicating an Early Proterozoic (2300-2200 Ma) crustal source, to −13·4, indicating a Middle to Late Archean (3200-3100 Ma) protolith. These results suggest that the Early Proterozoic source may have included rocks such as the c. 2200-1900 Ma metasedimentary rocks that occur in the southern Black Hills. The Archean sources might have included rocks such as those exposed on the periphery of the Black Hills. The range in Nd model ages negates the usefulness of the concept of the ‘average’ age of the crust in this part of the craton. Because such heterogeneity is present in the magmatic compositions of the Harney Peak Granite, it can be inferred that at least as much heterogeneity was present in the sources. In this granite system, melts were evidently derived from isolated, heterogeneous zones and did not have the opportunity to coalesce into large magma bodies. In systems where coalescence does occur, the evidence for such highly heterogeneous sources may be lost. These results emphasise that inferences drawn from a few samples of plutonic rocks in which magma mixing and homogenisation occurred can lead to erroneous conclusions about the age and nature of protoliths and, consequently, the development of continental crust.