The Geological Magazine for October, 1875 (pp. 477–486), contains an article “On the Geology of Central Sumatra,” by Herr R. D. M. Verbeek, Superintendent of the Geological Survey of that island, in which the position of the fossiliferous rocks of the Highlands of Padang is sketched in a manner as clear as concise, and which must be consulted by those who desire to understand the palæontological age of the fossils described in this paper.

Some years back the Earl of Enniskillen obtained a specimen of a fossil fish, found in the rich ichthyological treasury of the Lower Lias at Lyme Regis, which proclaimed itself at first sight to be an entirely new form, differing generically from all the previously-known fishes of the Mesozoic period.

No. 4.—The cause suggested under this head was the favourite theory of Sir Charles Lyell. That the existing climates are materially influenced by the distribution of land and water, and by the direction of the great ocean currents, physicists and geologists are agreed. It was the view, however, of Sir Charles, that these conditions were of themselves alone adequate to account for all changes of climate which the earth has undergone, though in his latest editions of the “Principles of Geology” he admitted that other causes have probably contributed. In this work he gave imaginary representations of such a distribution of land and water over the globe as, in his view, would produce the extreme of heat and the extreme of cold. In that intended to represent the extreme of heat, the land is all collected in low latitudes on either side of the Equator, so that the higher latitudes and polar regions are occupied entirely by the ocean; while in that intended to represent the extreme of cold, these conditions are reversed.

The arguments I endeavoured to outline in the June Number of the Geological Magazine have evidently been partly misunderstood by at least one gentleman whose opinion is valuable, and I desire therefore to illustrate them somewhat further.

In the Geological Magazine for April, 1871, I attempted to account for the mode of occurrence of the masses of Carboniferous Limestone that are found in the midst of the Coal-measure country at Luckington and Vobster in Somersetshire, and I then drew a picture of a faulted and inverted anticlinal to explain the phenomena. Mr. McMurtrie, who has more recently re-opened the discussion on the subject, and in a friendly manner assailed my theory, again asserts that the Limestone masses “must in some way have been folded over” from the Mendip range. He has very clearly brought forward all the local facts that bear upon the question, and has represented in diagram the mode by which he would account for the position of these isolated areas of Carboniferous Limestone. No one is so familiar as is Mr. McMurtrie with the detailed structure of the Somersetshire Coal-field, and I look forward with great interest to the facts which he is enabled from time to time to bring forward; nevertheless I may be pardoned for still differing from his general conclusions, inasmuch as the facts at present made known appear to me neither to upset my own theory, nor to establish that advocated by Mr. McMurtrie. Indeed it is only due to him to observe that he does not consider the question as finally settled, although he brings forward facts which seem to him to militate against the theory I ventured to propose.

Some years ago (November 15th, 1869) Dr. Henry Landor, Superintendent of the London Asylum, Ontario, communicated to the Entomological Society of Canada some observations on the action of Ground-ice, which seem to be of sufficient importance to be reproduced in the pages of this Magazine. The Entomological Society does not appear to publish its transactions, otherwise a simple reference might have sufficed. The account of Dr. Landor's observations here given is extracted from the local Free Press, of London, Ont.

In Mr. Bonney's letter, p. 377, lines 30, 31, from top of page, for “therefore it is to be applied,” read “it is not therefore to be applied.”

Dr. Oldham begs us to delete, at p. 384, the letters C.B. after his name. We apologize for the error.