The first two parts of this paper—Physical Geography and Salinity—were communicated to the Society on May 18th, 1891, and published in the Transactions, Vol. XXXVI, Part III., No. 23, pp. 641–729.

Various circumstances have prevented me from sooner presenting the concluding part of the discussion. I postponed publication again and again, in the hope that it might be possible to discuss the results more thoroughly, and deduce from them more clearly than I have been able to do the laws which regulate the heat-transactions of sea-water of varying salinity, contained in basins of differing degrees of isolation from the circulation of the ocean. At length the conclusion has been arrived at that the observations are not sufficiently uniform, regular, and close to warrant the expenditure of the time devoted to their discussion. Many months of work have been occupied in proving that some special manner of classifying and treating the data led to no definite result. Thus, it is unnecessary to describe several series of voluminous calculations, or to bring forward a great number of maps and sections on which the distribution of temperature was plotted in different ways. It is difficult to establish theoretical conclusions of a general and far-reaching kind from my work, and I have not attempted to compare it with the many memoirs published in continental journals, on the temperature of lakes, fjords, and enclosed seas.

The original, plan of the Shackleton Expedition, had it been realised, would have yielded geological results of no little value. The base would have been on Coats Land, and next in importance to crossing the Antarctic continent was the projected geological sledging trip across the Wilhelm Barrier, westwards from the head of the Weddell Sea to the southern. continuation of Graham Land. Had it been carried out, it would of course have settled finally the relationship of Graham Land to the rest of Antarctica. The besetment and destruction of the Endurance, however, put an end to the original plan, and no landing was ever made either on the eastern or on the southern side of the Weddell Sea.

The ultrabasic rocks of the southern portion of the Early Tertiary Cuillin Igneous Complex, Isle of Skye, are recognised as forming a Peridotite Series s.l. and have been separated into six distinct structural–lithological units. These units range from almost pure dunite (Unit 1, at the lowest structural level), through to feldspathic peridotites and allivalites (Units 5 and 6, at the highest structural levels). Detailed field and mineralogical studies indicate that both cumulus and postcumulus processes involving ultrabasic (picritic) magmas may be identified, and that the latter processes have significantly modified many of the primary features of these rocks.

Layering, both modal and phase, is present within all six units, although it is more prominent within the higher units, especially Units 5 and 6. Differing orientations of fabrics defined by cumulus spinel and intercumulus plagioclase layers within Unit 3 indicate the important role of compaction and intercumulus melt migration. Unit 4 is extremely heterogeneous, involving material ranging in composition from peridotite to allivalite, and provides clear evidence for postcumulus melt movement, magma-mixing, disruption and brecciation. Units 5 and 6 developed with a more porous cumulus framework, giving rise to dendritic growths involving cumulus olivine and poikilitic plagioclase.

It is concluded that postcumulus melt movement, injection and magma-mixing, involving ultrabasic magmas, were significant processes in the formation of the ultrabasic rocks of the Cuillin Igneous Complex.

The first and second parts of this work (7, 8), on the skeleton and muscles respectively, were published in the Transactions of the Society for 1905 and 1907. The third part would naturally have related to the viscera, and this, in fact, is in active preparation, but it is first necessary to amplify the description of the skeleton. Figs. 1 and 2 in my first part were based on dissections, which were executed very carefully, and the results checked by the examination of serial sections. It is, however, peculiarly difficult, and especially so in Myxine, to preserve the natural relations of the parts, and these drawings therefore exhibit the defects incidental to the method by which they were prepared. I mean by this, not that they are inaccurate, but that the interrelationships of the parts could not be faithfully represented. Quite apart from this, however, it became necessary to re-draw these figures.

While congratulating the authors for the wealth of geochemical data on a very important Precambrian lithological assemblage of India, known commonly as khondalites, which constitute a major part of the Eastern Ghats mobile belt bordering the eastern fringes of the Indian Peninsula, we have a few comments to offer on the hypothesis propounded by the authors (Dash et al. 1987).

The remarkable fossil fish which forms the subject of the present communication belonged originally to the late Mr Powrie of Reswallie, and was acquired, along with the rest of his collection, by the Edinburgh Museum in 1892.

The specimen was obtained by Mr Powrie in a quarry of the Lower Old Red Sandstone at Turin Hill, near Forfar.

In his monograph on the Fossil Cephalaspidœ of Great Britain, published in 1870, (p. 41), Professor E. Ray Lankester refers in the following terms to the specimen in question:—

“A very remarkable specimen of shagreen-like structure has been discovered by Mr Powrie in Forfarshire, in beds which have furnished Cephalaspis. As I have not been able to assign it to Cephalaspidian fishes, though it may possibly, be connected with them, I only allude to it here. It consists of a surface covered with minute spinous tubercles, the whole having the appearance of a fossilised piece of shagreen, and its shape is more or less that of a Cephalaspid, with head and body.

The textural properties of many sediments provide a good indication of their provenance, but surprisingly little information is available on the transitional stages between the breakdown of a rock and the incorporation of the material into a fluvial sediment. These transitional stages are important as certain fractions (particularly the finer ones) may be selectively removed. Regoliths developed on steep slopes represent an early stage in the debris cascade and they are here examined in detail to assess the role of parent lithology on the textural properties of the regolith. There are substantial variations between lithologies, although the majority of regoliths are dominated by coarser fractions and are poorly sorted. Most particle size distributions show some degree of fit to both log-normal probability distributions and Rosin distributions. Differences from these can be ascribed to the processes operating on steep slopes, particularly the influx of sand- and silt-sized material by colluvial processes and the removal of clay-sized material by leaching. The regoliths form a distinct facies type which may be recognisable in the geological record.

In the progress of the Geological Survey of the South of Scotland, specimens referable to the genus Eoscorpius have been gradually accumulating. In 1876 J. Bennie, Fossil Collector to the Survey, obtained an example from the Coal-measures of Fife. Since then fragments have been disinterred by him and by A. Macconochie, also Fossil Collector to the Survey, from the Calciferous Sandstone series in the counties of Edinburgh, Berwick, Roxburgh, Dumfries, and Northumberland and Cumberland. It was not till the spring of last year (1880) that they began to be found in such a state as to necessitate a description of the fossils. In the summer of that year A. Macconochie obtained an almost entire example from the neighbourhood of Langholm, in Dumfriesshire. This year (1881) J. Bennie has secured several good though fragmentary specimens from the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, while A. Macconochie has sent in several from the counties of Berwick and Northumberland. In my capacity of Acting Palæontologist, I have had an opportunity of studying these remains, and by the permission of A. C. Ramsay, LL.D., F.R.S., Director General of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, and Professor A. Geikie, LL.D., F.R.S., Director of the Geological Survey of Scotland, I have been allowed to describe them.

Much study has already been devoted to the plumage of birds and its development, and the extensive literature to which this study has given rise might at first sight make it appear that no room is left for any new contributions to a subject which has already attracted so many investigators. The special branches of the subject, however, which have attracted most attention, have been:—(1) The histology of developing feathers, to which Studer, Davies, Wohlauer, and Bornstein have contributed; (2) pigmentation, investigated by STRONG; and (3) more recently what may be called the continuity between early “down” and adult feathers, a condition which does not appear to have been clearly realised before Jones and Gadow published the results of their researches. Recently also Waterston and Geddes, working on the embryology and anatomy of the Penguin, have touched incidentally on the appearance of down-papillæ and down at successive embryonic stages in the Penguin and the Duck; but, covering a wider field of research, they have not devoted to feather development in particular that careful observation and detailed study which the interest of the subject and the deficiencies of our knowledge appear to warrant.

The Pennatulida obtained by H.M.S. “Triton,” and placed in my hands for description, are of six genera only, each genus being represented by a single species. The interest of the collection is, however, far from commensurate with its size, for of the six species two are altogether new to science, a third has hitherto been met with only off the Norwegian coast, while concerning the remainder, which are well known species, the “Triton” specimens have furnished important additions to our knowledge, either of their anatomy or distribution.

The communication received from Dr Dyce chiefly consists of a description of a singular affection of the nervous system, and mental powers, to which a girl of sixteen was subject immediately before puberty, and which disappeared when that state was fully established. It exemplifies the powerful influence of the state of the uterus on the mental faculties; but its chief value arises from some curious relations which it presents to the phenomena of mind, and which claim the attention of the practical metaphysician. The mental symptoms of this affection are among the number of those which are considered as uncommonly difficult of explanation. It is a case of mental disease, attended with some advantageous manifestations of the intellectual powers; and these manifestations disappearing in the same individual in the healthy state.

The dental morphology of the pycnodontid fish †Stemmatodus rhombus (Agassiz, 1844) from the Lower Cretaceous (lower Barremian) of southern Italy is described in detail. SEM pictures of vomerine and prearticular teeth are provided for the first time allowing the comparison with other Early Cretaceous pycnodonts, which are only known from isolated dental remains. The dentition of †Stemmatodus rhombus consists of incisiform grasping teeth on the paired premaxillae and dentaries and crushing teeth on the unpaired vomer and paired prearticulars. The vomerine teeth are arranged in five longitudinal rows, which display symmetry with a distinct median principal and two lateral rows. The prearticular bears three longitudinal rows. Teeth of the main row are much wider than those of the lateral ones. The tooth crowns are rather flat and expose a shallow apical depression, which is surrounded by a ring of widely-spaced small tubercles. The ornamentation and arrangement of teeth distinguishes dentitions of †Stemmatodus from all other pycnodonts. The wear pattern of the teeth is evaluated and the significance of the dental morphology in pycnodont taxonomy is discussed. In addition, the systematic position of †Stemmatodus is discussed.

The 1800 km-long Aleutian archipelago represents a model ecosystem to track human–environmental interactions across space and through time. Defining the southern margin of Beringia across which much of the early peopling of the Americas occurred, the Aleutians present a 9000 year record of human occupation in the eastern part of the island chain, and more than 3000 years in the west. Molecular evidence demonstrates: (1) that Aleuts shared common ancestry with Chukchi and Siberian Eskimos of Chukotka; (2) the original patterns of migration into the Aleutian islands were from the Alaskan peninsula in a westward direction with no evidence for island-hopping from Kamchatka; and (3) a highly significant statistical relationship between geography and genetics, based on mtDNA sequences, was observed despite previous population disruption. Historically, the Aleutian region is a rich ecotone, with ocean fisheries, abundant populations of large marine mammals, thick kelp forests, complex near-shore ecosystems and intertidal zones, spawning streams, and a highly diverse avian fauna. Each of these environments and resources has been pivotal in shaping the adaptive strategies of human occupants of the island chain since the initial colonisation of the Aleutians from the Alaskan Peninsula. In turn, Holocene human immigration, prehistoric cultural adaptations and subsequent historic events have had reciprocal impacts on the natural systems of the Aleutians.

A comprehensive analysis of early dinosaur relationships raised the possibility that the group may have originated in Laurasia (Northern Hemisphere), rather than Gondwana (Southern Hemisphere) as often thought. However, that study focused solely on morphology and phylogenetic relationships and did not quantitatively evaluate this issue. Here, we investigate dinosaur origins using a novel Bayesian framework uniting tip-dated phylogenetics with dynamic, time-sliced biogeographic methods, which explicitly account for the age and locality of fossils and the changing interconnections of areas through time due to tectonic and eustatic change. Our analysis finds strong support for a Gondwanan origin of Dinosauria, with 99 % probability for South America (83 % for southern South America). Parsimony analysis gives concordant results. Inclusion of time-sliced biogeographic information affects ancestral state reconstructions (e.g., high connectivity between two regions increases uncertainty over which is the ancestral area) and influences tree topology (disfavouring uniting fossil taxa from localities that were widely separated during the relevant time slice). Our approach directly integrates plate tectonics with phylogenetics and divergence dating, and in doing so reaffirms southern South America as the most likely area for the geographic origin of Dinosauria.

Predictive modelling of deep-sea species and assemblages with multibeam acoustic datasets as input variables is now a key tool in the provision of maps upon which spatial planning and management of the marine environment can be based. However, with a multitude of methods available, advice is needed on the best methods for the task at hand. In this study, we predictively modelled the distribution and extent of three vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) at the assemblage level (‘Lophelia pertusa reef frameworks’; ‘Stylasterids and lobose sponges’; and ‘Xenophyophore fields’) on the eastern flank of Rockall Bank, using three modelling methods: MaxEnt; RandomForests classification with multiple assemblages (gRF); and RandomForests classification with the presence/absence of a single VME (saRF). Performance metrics indicated that MaxEnt performed the best, but all models were considered valid. All three methods broadly agreed with regard to broad patterns in distribution. However, predicted extent presented a variation of up to 35 % between the different methods, and clear differences in predicted distribution were observed. We conclude that the choice of method is likely to influence the results of predicted maps, potentially impacting political decisions about deep-sea VME conservation.

This present revision of Bohemian Ordovician illaenid trilobites of the Prague Basin (Czech Republic) follows the recent evaluation of their systematic position. This revision contains redescriptions and illustrations of the type species of several illaenid genera, the most up-to-date references for those genera, and an assessment of their variability and also of the palaeobiogeographic distribution of some illaenid genera. Bohemian illaenids in several cases include the type species of globally distributed taxa, whose distinction has often been uncertain and controversial. The validity of the genera Zbirovia Šnajdr, 1956 and Zdicella Šnajdr, 1956 is discussed and confirmed. The genus Alceste Hawle et Corda, 1847 stays in open nomenclature. In Ectillaenus katzeri katzeri (Barrande, 1856) allometric growth is described and Vysocania Vaněk & Vokáč, 1997 is considered to be a junior synonym of Stenopareia Holm, 1886.

The fossil cockroaches (Blattodea), praying mantises (Mantodea) and earwigs (Demaptera) are described from the Insect Limestone (Priabonian) of the Isle of Wight, southern England. Three new species of cockroach are described in the family Ectobiidae – Phyllodromica protosardea sp. nov., Balta protosimilis sp. nov. and Malaccina? wightensis sp. nov. – and a further nine indeterminate species are presented (based on ten specimens). The only known specimen of praying mantis is described as Protohierodula crabbi gen. et sp. nov. in the family Manteidae, which constitutes the first record of Mantodea from the UK. The only known specimen of earwig is an incomplete juvenile belonging to the superfamily Forficuloidea.

Textural relations and chemical zoning of cordierites in granites act as sensitive recorders of the conditions of their crystallisation history and underlying magma chamber processes. In this contribution, we present new data on texturally distinct and variably zoned cordierites from the late-Devonian, granitic South Mountain and Musquodoboit Batholiths, and infer the conditions of their formation. Using a combined textural (grain size, grain shape and inclusion relationships) and chemical (major element composition and compositional zoning) classification, we recognise the following six cordierite types: CG1/TT1, anhedral to subhedral macrocrysts with random inclusions and patchy normal zoning; CG2a/TT2, euhedral to subhedral macrocrysts with random inclusions and normal zoning; CG2b/TT2, euhedral to subhedral macrocrysts with random or oriented inclusions, and oscillatory zoning; CG3a/TT3, subhedral to euhedral microcrysts with no inclusions and reverse zoning; CG3b/TT4, euhedral macrocrysts with no inclusions and no zoning; and CG4/TT5, anhedral macrocrysts with random inclusions and normal zoning. The textural criteria suggest that these cordierites formed as a product of cotectic crystallisation from a melt, or as the result of a peritectic reaction involving country-rock material. The combined chemical and textural criteria suggest that: (1) normal zoning results from cotectic crystallisation during cooling, cotectic overgrowths on grains formed in a peritectic reaction with country-rock material, or cation exchange with a fluid; (2) oscillatory zoning results from cotectic crystallisation during variations in XMg of the silicate melt following magma replenishment; (3) reverse zoning results from crystallisation during pressure quenching; and (4) the unzoned cordierite results from cotectic crystallisation under fluid-rich conditions.

The lower Mississippian Ballagan Formation of northern Britain is one of only two successions worldwide to yield the earliest known tetrapods with terrestrial capability following the end-Devonian mass extinction event. Studies of the sedimentary environments and habitats in which these beasts lived have been an integral part of a major research project into how, why and under what circumstances this profound step in the evolution of life on Earth occurred. Here, a new palaeogeographic map is constructed from outcrop data integrated with new and archived borehole material. The map shows the extent of a very low-relief coastal wetland developed along the tropical southern continental margin of Laurussia. Coastal floodplains in the Midland Valley and Tweed basins were separated from the marginal marine seaway of the Northumberland–Solway Basin to the south by an archipelago of more elevated areas. A complex mosaic of sedimentary environments was juxtaposed, and included fresh and brackish to saline and hypersaline lakes, a diverse suite of floodplain palaeosols and a persistent fluvial system in the east of the region. The strongly seasonal climate led to the formation of evaporite deposits alternating with flooding events, both meteoric and marine. Storm surges drove marine floods from the SW into both the western Midland Valley and Northumberland–Solway Basin; marine water also flooded into the Tweed Basin and Tayside in the east. The Ballagan Formation is a rare example in the geological record of a tropical, seasonal coastal wetland that contains abundant, small-scale evaporite deposits. The diverse sedimentary environments and palaeosol types indicate a network of different terrestrial and aquatic habitats in which the tetrapods lived.

Concentrations of total organic carbon (TOC), total petroleum hydrocarbons, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were determined in 84 near-surface soils (5–20cm depth) taken from a 255km2 area of Glasgow in the Clyde Basin, UK, during July 2011. Total petroleum hydrocarbon range was 79–2,505mgkg–1 (mean 388mgkg–1; median 272mgkg–1) of which the aromatic fraction was 13–74 % (mean 44 %, median 43 %) and saturates were 28–87 % (mean 56 %, median 57 %). ∑16 PAH varied from 2–653mgkg–1 (mean 32.4mgkg–1; median 12.5mgkg–1) and ∑31 PAH range was 2.47–852mgkg–1 (mean 45.4mgkg–1; median 19.0mgkg–1). ∑PCBtri-hepta range was 2.2–1052μgkg–1 (mean 32.4μgkg–1; median 12.7μgkg–1) and the ∑PCB7 range was 0.3–344μgkg–1 (mean 9.8μgkg–1; median 2.7μgkg–1). The concentration, distribution and source of the persistent organic pollutants were compared with those found in urban soils from other cities and to human health assessment criteria for chronic exposure to chemicals in soil. Total concentrations encountered were generally similar to other urban areas that had a similar industrial history. Benzo[a]pyrene concentrations were assessed against four different land use scenarios (irrespective of current land use) using generic assessment criteria resulting in six of 84 samples exceeding the residential criteria. Isomeric PAH ratios and relative abundance of perylene suggest multiple and environmentally modified pyrogenic PAH sources, inferred to be representative of diffuse pollution. ∑PCB7 concentrations were exceeded in 10 % of sites using the Dutch target value of 20μgkg–1. PCB congener profiles were environmentally attenuated and generally dominated by penta-, hexa- and hepta-chlorinated congeners.