Recent events have again called attention to the enormous strategic and economic importance of the iron-fields of Lorraine; on these much of the commercial prosperity of Germany has been built up in the past, and on their possession her future as an industrial nation largely depends. For many years the output of iron-ore from tlie part of Lorraine under German control has been immense: in 1912, German Lorraine produced approximately 20,000,000 tons, while the output of Luxemburg, which, for all practical purposes, is German, was about 6,500,000 tons. In the same year the French portion of the Lorraine iron-field yielded 17,300,000 tons, making a grand total for this area of 43,800,000 tons of ore. During the War the whole of the French productive region has been occupied by the enemy, and there is no means of ascertaining what has actually happened there, but certain inferences can be drawn from published facts and on a basis of probability.

The rocks which form the subject of this paper were collected by the captain of a whaling vessel belonging to the fleet of Messrs. Salvesen & Co., of Leith, stationed at Leith Harbour, South Georgia. The collection reached me, for description, through the kind offices of Mr. D. Ferguson, Mem. Inst. M.E., who recently visited the island, and who has described its geological features. Two previous collections of rocks from South Georgia have been described by me, one collected by Mr. Ferguson during his visit, the other collected in the same way as the present set.

It may be thought that some apology is due to the readers of this Magazine on the ground of the largely zoological bearing of this paper. But in the opinion of the writer no such apology is necessary. Zoology is palæontology brought up to date, and ontogeny is but a compressed and individualistic type of phylogeny; so that in spirit, though not in matter, this paper is no less appropriate for publication here than its seven predecessors have been. According to Lovén himself, the minute Echinoid which supplies the text for the sequel is to be considered a survivor, not merely of the Holectypoida, but of the most primitive family of that Order—a kind of Lingula or Nucula among Irregular Echinoids. Although one of the main purposes of the following pages ia to offer reasons for disbelieving that contention, nevertheless Pygastrides, as far as the only specimen known is concerned, is for all practical purposes primitively Holectypoid in essential characters. This seeming paradox may be resolved by the anticipatory remark that Lovén's so-called genus is believed to be an early post-larval stage in the development of some more completely Irregular adult form. It is ontogenetically related to that problematical adult, just as the Pygasteridæ must be phylogenetically ancestral to it.

During the last few years I have spent a considerable amount of time studying the geology of the country east of Llandrindod, but much still remains to be done, and the present paper merely embodies a few of the points which seem to be satisfactorily established with regard to a small portion of the area. Three distinct types of igneous rocks are recognized, and some facts and ideas with regard to each are put forward.

Before returning to Calcutta the specimens described in his memoir “Ordovician and Silurian Fossils from Yun-nan” (1917, Palseont. Ind., N.S., vol. VI, Mem. 3), Dr. F. R. Cowper Reed very kindly lent to the Geological Department of the British Museum the figured cystids, in order that plaster casts of them might be made and kept there for reference. This was done, and a set of the casts was also furnished by the Department to the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge. While preparing the specimens for the moulder, I had the opportunity of studying them with some care. Although Dr. Reed has published good figures, drawn with Mr. T. A. Brock's usual exactitude, and descriptions, on the fulness of which he will perhaps allow me to compliment him, nevertheless the notes made by me, when still unacquainted-with his valuable work or with the views therein expressed, do contain supplementary matter, which it seems better to publish now rather than to reserve for some revision in an uncertain future.