The collection of fossil corals from British Somaliland described in the following paper was made by Mr R. A. Farquharson, M.A., M.Sc., F.G.S., Government Geologist, during his survey of the country in 1923–24.

The first known fossil coral from Somaliland was collected in 1894–95, and in 1898–99 a collection of Jurassic, Eocene, Oligocene, and Pleistocene corals was made by Mr and Mrs Lort-Phillips, Miss Cole, Mr Aylmer, Miss Gillet, and Captain Marshall, and described by Professor Gregory, F.R.S. In 1907 Mr T. W. Vaughan described some Pleistocene and Recent corals from French Somaliland. A further large collection of Jurassic, Oligocene, and Pleistocene corals was made by Mr B. K. N. Wyllie, B.Sc., and Dr W. R. Smellie, both geologists on the staff of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, and described in 1925 by Professor Gregory.

In the fourth part of these researches, I described a new base produced by the action of sodium upon picoline, to which I gave the name of Parapicoline, because it has the same composition as picoline, although the circumstances of its formation appeared to show that it had been produced by the combination of two molecules of that substance, so that its true formula would be C12H14N2. Unfortunately, its high boiling point, and tendency to decompose when distilled, made it impossible to determine its vapour density, which afforded the only means of ascertaining whether this hypothesis was correct; and it was only assumed, because similar cases of polymerisation had been established beyond a doubt in the case of other classes of organic compounds. In the hope of obtaining a similar base of lower boiling point, and therefore better adapted to the necessary experiments, I have submitted pyridine to the action of sodium, and the results of the inquiry are contained in the following pages.

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, attempts have been made recently to bring Œnotheran cytology into lino with the parasynaptic theory of meiosis. Boedijn (2, 3) has described a peculiar conjugation of the chromosomes which he identifies as parasynaptic; Kihara (23) prefers to suppose the “doppelketten” origin of chromosome rings, such as he has found in Rumex; while Darlington (7) has put forward an extension of Belling's (1) hypothesis of segmental interchange.

An in situ magnetic susceptibility survey of Unit 10 of the Eastern Layered Intrusion of the Isle of Rum, in a line perpendicular to the strike, was carried out as a guide to selecting sampling sites for subsequent laboratory magnetic studies. These laboratory studies indicate that the dominant magnetic phase is magnetite. An effective particle size of the magnetite was derived from the magnetic data: it was found that high concentrations (∼0·3%) of magnetite in the perioditites were achieved by the presence of fewer but larger particles. The regions of lower magnetite concentration (∼0·01%), which are mainly in the plagioclase-rich rocks, contain more abundant but smaller particles.

The variations in magnetic properties correlate with the abundance and inferred temperatures of formation of hydrothermal alteration minerals in the rocks. Petrographic observations indicate temperatures of alteration of 500–800°C in the olivine-rich peridodites in the lower part of the Unit, but of the order of 300°C in the plagioclase-rich rocks at the top of the Unit.

These relationships between magnetic mineralogy and hydrothermal alteration suggest that the magnetite was produced by olivine oxidation during hydrothermal alteration. It is proposed that variations in the magnetic properties of layered cumulate rocks may be used to map out variations in the temperature and intensity of hydrothermal fluid flow. The variations in the Unit 10 rocks studied are interpreted as indicating control of high-temperature hydrothermal fluid flow through them by contrast in permeability between brittle peridotites and quasiplastic plagioclase-rich rocks.

This research was undertaken as an endeavour to build up a method of discrimination of magnetic lattices in crystalline substances. Theory, due to Professor Peddie, hereafter referred to and expanded in detail, gives an estimate of the intensity of Magnetisation in a co-directed system of regularly arranged magnetic doublets, such as we may regard a magnetised piece of crystalline substance to be composed of.

When a magnetic field is applied to a crystalline portion of matter it is magnetised, not necessarily in the direction of the field, as would be the case if the substance were purely amorphous, but in general in some direction inclined to that of the magnetising field. This is due to the crystalline quality of the body, and the consequent internal inter-polar magnetic reactions. The saturation intensity of magnetisation in any plane is constant, but its obliquity to the field varies with the orientation of the field in the substance. The external field is assumed to be strong enough to co-direct all the molecular magnets; that is, to produce saturation.

(39.) A machine working by expansive power consists essentially of a portion of some substance to which heat is communicated, so as to expand it, at a higher temperature, being abstracted from it, so as to condense it to its original volume, at a lower temperature. The quantity of heat given out by the substance is less than the quantity received; the difference disappearing as heat to appear in the form of expansive power.

The heat originally received by the working body may act in two ways: to raise its temperature, and to expand it. The heat given out may also act in two ways: to lower the temperature, and to contract the body. Now, as the conversion of heat into expansive power arises from changes of volume only, and not from changes of temperature, it is obvious, that the proportion of the heat received which is converted into expansive power will be the greatest possible, when the reception of heat, and its emission, each take place at a constant temperature.

La Scotia a rapporté de son expédition au pôle sud une très importante collection d'Holothuries; nous remercions bien vivement M. W. S. Bruce de l'honueur qu'il nous a fait en nous en confiant l'étude.

Cette collection ne renferme pas moins de trente-quatre espèces, dont vingt et une, c'est à dire près des deux tiers, sont nouvelles. Cette proportion aurait été probablement plus grande, mais par suite de l'action de quelques agents conservateurs employés (formaldéhyde et acide acétique glacial) certains échantillons sont indéterminables: leurs corpuscules calcaires ayant été complètement dissous par les liquides acides. Pour la même raison nous avons décrit quelques nouvelles espèces sans pouvoir fournir daus la diagnose les caractères de leurs spicules. Mais la majeure partie des exemplaires et surtout ceux de grandes profondeurs sont en bon état et très bien préparés.

Numerical models that account for fluid flow, magmatic and metamorphic fluid production, topography and thermal expansion of the fluid following emplacement of a granitic magma in the upper crust reveal controls on the distribution of magmatic fluids during the evolution of a hydrothermal system. Initially, fluid pressures are close to lithostatic in and near an intrusion, and internally generated magmatic and metamorphic fluids are expelled. Later, fluid pressures drop to hydrostatic values and meteoric fluids circulate throughout the system. High permeabilities and low rates of fluid production accelerate this transition. Fluid production in the magma and wallrocks is the dominant mechanism elevating fluid pressures to lithostatic values. For granitic intrusions, about three to five times as much magmatic fluid is produced as metamorphic fluid. Continuous fluid release from a granitic magma with a vertical dimensions of 10 km produces a dynamic permeability of up to several tens of microdarcies.

Near the surface, topography associated with a typical volcano acts to maintain a shallow meteoric flow system and drive fluids laterally. The exponential decay with depth of the influence of topography on fluid pressures results in a persistent zone of mixing at a depth of 1-2 km between these meteoric fluids and magmatic fluids despite variations in the strength of the magmatic hydrothermal system. However, in shallow systems where fluid release is episodic, dramatic changes in the region of mixing are still possible because fluid pressure is sensitive to variations in the rates of fluid production. At depth, high rates of metamorphic fluid production in the wallrocks and low permeabilities (< 1 μD) produce elevated fluid pressures, which hinder the lateral flow of magmatic fluids. Together, these patterns are consistent with the distribution and evolution of skarns and hydrothermal ore deposits around granitic magmas.

The 370 Ma peraluminous South Mountain Batholith (SMB) intrudes Meguma Supergroup metasedimentary rocks in Nova Scotia. The New Ross area of the SMB contains polymetallic mineralisation (Sn, W, U, Mo, Cu and Mn) in pegmatite, greisen and vein directly or indirectly associated with highly evolved fractions of the SMB. Eight mineral deposits from this area have several fluid inclusion types hosted by quartz: (1) monophase liquid (L); (2) monophase vapour (V); (3) aqueous, L-V (4) aqueous, L-rich + solids; (5) aqueous, L-rich + halite. Inclusions have irregular to equant shapes and are pseudo-secondary or secondary. The irregularity and variability of L:V ratios within fluid inclusion populations suggest post-entrapment modifications of inclusions (i.e. necking).

Thermometric data indicate three distinct fluids in terms of salinity: (1) 19-25 wt. % equiv. NaCl (rarely 14-25 wt. % NaCl equiv.), (2) 29-43 wt. % equiv. NaCl, and (3) 0-9 wt. % equiv. NaCl. Temperatures of first melting and ice/hydrohalife melting indicate CaCl2 in solution. Proximity of the deposits to Meguma Supergroup metasedimentary rocks suggests that this Ca component may be externally derived. The majority of the low-salinity fluid population has the composition of meteoric water. Electron microprobe analyses of artificially decrepitated mounds identify Na, Ca and K as major solutes, with a continuum in terms of compositions. Other solute components in the mounds are Fe and Ba, and a variety of metals of unknown speciation also occur (Cu, Zn, Fe, Ni). Homogenisation temperatures (Th) range from c. 80°C to 370°C, but for inclusion assemblages the range is 10°C to 20°C. Given the 3 kbar depth of emplacement of the SMB, estimated entrapment temperatures are c. 200°C to 550°C. The fluid inclusion data appear to reflect: (1) trapping of mixed Na-K-Ca brines during isobaric cooling in pegmatite and greisen deposits as indicated by large ranges in Th; (2) formation of deposits at different ambient pressures (i.e. depth); and (3) mixing of fluids of different reservoirs (i.e. magmatic, metamorphic, meteoric).

In a Lepidosiren embryo of stage 20 (Graham Kerr) the mesoderm stretches continuously through the head and trunk regions. In the trunk the dorsal mesoderm is segmented into myotomes, but the segmentation stops short some distance behind the auditory vesicle, leaving unsegmented mesoderm in front of this. In both head and trunk the lateral plate mesoderm is still connected with the dorsal, myotomic or somatic portion.

Foliated to massive hornblende and biotite-bearing tonalite, trondhjemite and granodiorite comprise a terrane of batholithic dimensions in southwestern to central Newfoundland. These rocks intrude and include Ordovician ophiolite fragments and metasedimentary rocks of Fleur de Lys type, and are cut by a suite of Silurian gabbro-diorite and norite and Siluro-Devonian (?) granite intrusions.

A U/Pb (zircon, sphene) age of 456 ± 3 Ma (2σ) and a K/Ar (hornblende) age of 455 ± 14 Ma (previously reported) for a representative least-deformed tonalite of the Southwest Brook Complex indicate that it crystallised and cooled in Caradoc time. A less precise U/Pb (zircon) age of 428 ± 41 Ma (2σ) is measured for tonalitic Cape Ray Granite in southern Newfoundland. On discrimination diagrams which use Rb, Nb and Y contents to infer tectonic setting, these rocks fall in the field of volcanic arc granites. The occurrence of zircon cores with average ages of 1430 + 18/–17 and 1541 ± 173 Ma (2σ) also indicate that the magmas formed in part by partial melting of Proterozoic crust, or sediments derived from such crust. It is suggested that the tonalitic magmas were generated during the Taconic Orogeny in an arc: continent collision zone at the ancient margin of eastern North America.

Tonalitic rocks in western Newfoundland broadly correlative in age and chemistry with the batholith include the Burlington Granodiorite and Hungry Mountain Complex, as well as allochthonous slices of foliated tonalite emplaced over Ordovician platform carbonates W of Grand Lake.

The tract of land embraced in the area from which the fossils have been derived, that form the subject of the present Memoir, extends in an easterly direction from Saltcoats to Newmilns, a distance of about 19 miles. At both extremities, the Coal Measures narrow down to under half a mile wide at Saltcoats, and about a mile broad at Newmilns. The greatest width is found towards the centre of the field, where in a northeast and south-west direction it is over 12 miles broad.

Lønstrup is a small fishing village and summer resort, situated on the west coast of North Jutland, a few miles west of Hjørring in the district known as Vendsyssel. The country generally is low and treeless, but is noted for its comprehensive schemes of land reclamation, and the scientific development of its agriculture.

In the neighbourhood of Lønstrup the monotony of the country is relieved by two low hills, the one, a little inland, is known as Vennebjerg, the other, known as Rubjerg Knude, lies some 2 miles to the south-west and is dissected by the coast-line, the apex of the hill being marked by a lighthouse. These two adjacent hills formed islands in the Yoldia Sea.

The coast-line has a uniform north-east, south-west trend, and cliffs occur from Lønstrup to Lokken in the south-west, a distance of between 7 or 8 miles, the cliff-scenery being generally similar to that of the Norfolk coast near Cromer.

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.

Two detailed sections through 4 km of distal alluvium of the Upper Devonian Old Red Sandstone in the Munster Basin, southern Ireland, display a limited number of lithofacies. There is little ordering of these lithofacies on a small scale but changes in the proportions of lithofacies through time define a sequence of stages of basin evolution. The depositional environments changed progressively from sheetflood dominant, via mobile ephemeral channels and floodplains to a more fixed channel–overbank system and eventually to a coastal plain. On the basis of the sedimentary record a progressive reduction in subsidence rate with time is deduced as the main control on the evolution of the basin fill. This deduction is consistent with predictions from previously applied extensional basin models, but is insufficiently refined at present to distinguish between the different models.

Flight—defined as the ability to produce useful aerodynamic forces by flapping wings—is one of the most demanding adaptations in vertebrates. The mechanical problems of flight ensure considerable external morphological homogeneity and behavioural similarity in extant fliers. Observations of the vortex wakes and wingbeat geometry of modern birds and bats confirm that the two groups are mechanically very similar, despite differences in phylogeny, anatomy and physiology. With this background it is possible to attack two problems: the evolution of flight in vertebrates, and the flight performance of extinct animals such as pterosaurs and Archaeopteryx.

The origin of flight has been surrounded by considerable controversy, due in part to terminological inconsistencies, in part to phylogenetic uncertainty over the relationships of birds, bats and pterosaurs, in part to disagreement over the interpretation of the available fossil evidence, and in part to argument over the relative importance of morphological, mechanical and ecological specialisations. The mechanical changes needed in the course of the evolution of flight favour a gliding origin of tetrapod flight, and on mechanical and ecological grounds the alternative cursorial hypothesis may be discounted. This argument is particularly strong in bats, but has been thought to be weaker in birds owing to apparent inconsistencies with the fossil evidence. However, fossils of the Jurassic theropod dinosaur Archaeopteryx also support a gliding origin for flight, and suggest that this animal was adapted for flapping flight at moderately high speeds associated with gliding; it could fly less well at the slow speeds which would have been required for incipient flight in a running cursor, and at which the wingbeat is aerodynamically and kinematically considerably more complex. Slow flight in birds and bats is the more derived condition, and vertebrate flapping flight apparently evolved through a gliding stage.

The pterosaurs have become the subject of much controversy over the nature of their stance, the wing surface, and the degree of involvement of the leg in the wing membrane. Reconstruction of their wings indicates proficient flying animals, and comparison with birds suggests that most pterosaurs probably occupied marine or coastal/estuarine habitat.

The analogies existing between elements belonging to one “family,” such, for instance, as the nitrogen family or the sulphur family, have long been recognised, and are pointed out and insisted upon even in elementary textbooks; but the very important analogies existing between substances of different quantivalence are apt to be forgotten or overlooked. For illustrations of such analogies we may point to boron and silicon, elements closely resembling one another in themselves and also in their compounds,—differing, indeed, in little else but that the one is triad and the other tetrad. A similar relation exists between gold and platinum.

The elementary substances, sulphur and phosphorus, have many points of similarity: both fuse at a comparatively low temperature, both are transformed by heat into amorphous insoluble modifications, and both have anomalous vapour densities.

During the revision of the Midlothian coalfield by the Geological Survey, special attention was directed to the plant remains occurring in the Millstone Grit, with the view of obtaining evidence bearing on the probable boundary line between the Upper and Lower Carboniferous rocks. Mr Tait collected a number of plants from certain horizons in this division of the Carboniferous system, which were submitted to Mr Kidston, F.R.S., for determination. Those from the lower part of the Millstone Grit were regarded by Mr Kidston as belonging to the Lower Carboniferous flora, and those from the upper portion, to the Upper Carboniferous flora. While carrying on his work in the field, Mr Tait found certain fossiliferous bands in the basal portion of the Millstone Grit, charged with lamellibranchs, brachiopods, and other marine organisms, and associated with Lower Carboniferous species of plants. These observations were of service in tracing the base line of the Upper Carboniferous rocks round a large part of the Midlothian basin. It ought to be clearly understood, however, that this boundary line is based solely on the evidence supplied by the plants and fishes as determined by Mr Kidston and Dr Traquair respectively.

During the last half century, observations on the polarisation of the atmosphere were made by several eminent observers—by Arago, Delezenne, Babinet, and Zantedeschi; but no result of special importance was obtained till Arago made the great discovery that there existed in the atmosphere a point, or spot, in which there is no polarisation. At sunrise or sunset he found that this neutral point was 20° or 30° above the point opposite to the sun, or what we may call the Antisolar point. The name of Arago's neutral point has been given to this spot without polarisation. It is best seen after sunset. At St Andrews it is above the horizon all the day, between the middle of November and the end of January.

There is no department of natural science which is so defective in its general scheme of arrangement as mineralogy; and its sectional grouping is, if possible, still more defective.

Such correlations as are expressed by the terms, “the Micas,”—“the Felspars,”—“ the Garnets,” &c., are only admissible if the substances united in such groups are included under one general formula, and function in a more or less similar manner as rock-formers.