How often do we not hear old people assert that when they were young the climate was quite different; that the weather was warmer or colder, etc.; and even comparatively young people are sometimes of the same opinion. It is most natural to assume that these observers have been misled by the more intense impressions of youth, which cause, for instance, a hot summer, bringing with it more rural pleasures and open-air sports, to be engraved on the mind for life. On the other hand, should the early years be accompanied by much wet weather and storms, these years are perhaps more easily forgotten, as the monotonous and tedious life within four walls to which one is then confined does not leave that distinct impression upon the youthful mind as that of a glorious summer spent out-of-doors. However, the importance of the question and its great general interest demand an investigation of the problem ; the more so as certain scientific theories and hypotheses tend to prove that a change in the climate must necessarily take place.

You have permitted me recently to publish two short papers in the Geological Magazine in which I have advocated some unconventional views. Perhaps you will allow me to continue my induction.

In the first paper I endeavoured to show that the identity of the living Mammalian fauna of Siberia and North America necessitates our postulating that those areas have very recently, namely, during the Mammoth age, been connected by a land bridge; further that the facts compel us to the conclusion that this land bridge must have been across a portion of the Polar area, and that when it existed comparatively temperate conditions prevailed there.

Naturalists who refer to their “Baedeker” for information respecting the Continental Natural History Museums are too often disappointed by finding that if the author does happen to have mentioned them, either that he has confined his attention to the exterior of the building or has summarily dismissed the collection as “unimportant.” Hence geologists are dependent upon such, papers as those in which M. Cotteau has recapitulated the principal contents of several French and Swiss Museums, or that in which Mr. Smith Woodward has enumerated the most interesting specimens of many German and Austrian collections. The last paper, as is indicated by its title, “Vertebrate Paleontology in Continental Museums,” is restricted solely to the Vertebrata. But as the value of a Museum, as far as the Invertebrates are concerned, is dependent more on the possession of collections than of single famous specimens, the student of this group is more in need of such information than is the Vertebrate palæontologist; every one knows where he must go to see an Archæopteryx, a mounted Iguanodon, or a Neanderthal skull, but the last resting-place of a local collector's hoard is, as a rule, less known to fame. Hence the following notes may be of some service as a supplement to Mr. S. Woodward's paper.

In a paper dealing with some phases of volcanic action in North Wales, it was urged that contemporaneous eruptive rocks occurred on Cader Idris at lower horizons than the acknowledged base of the Arenig, although the actual vents from which they had arisen were lost and concealed under later accumulations. It was pointed out that the mass of Rhobell Fawr was of composite character, but was probably distinct from the series on Cader Idris. The fragmental character of much of its material having been recognized by the author of the Survey-Memoir, several theories are discussed in that work to account for its stratigraphical position. In spite of the lack of detail, when compared with other areas, with which Rhobell Fawr has been represented on Sheet 75 S.E. of the Map of the Geological Survey, the ashes, “breccias,” and other materials piled here upon the edges of the Lingula Flags are fully dealt with in the text of the Memoir, and we are left finally to select the most probable explanation of those put forward.

Notwithstanding the large number of Mammalian remains which have been found in the Brick-Earth of the Thames Valley, they have for the most part been portions of the larger forms, and very few examples of the smaller Mammals have hitherto been discovered. Professor W. Boyd Dawkins and Mr. W. A. Sanford (Brit. Pleist. Mam. Pal. Soc. vol. for 1864, p. xxxvi, 1866) have noticed the occurrence of Arvicola amphibia in the Pleistocene of Ilford, Crayford, and Erith; while from the last-named locality Mr. R. W. Cheadle (Proc. W. London Sci. Assoc. vol. i. p. 71, 1876) recorded the remains of Spermophilus, which Mr. Lydekker has more recently (Cat. Foss. Mam. Brit. Mus. part i. 1885, p. 212) referred to Falconer's species S. erythrogenoides.

The collection of Fossil Vertebrata in the National Museum at Washington is at present insignificant; and the only type-specimens observed by the writer are the fish-remains described by Prof. Leidy under the names of Clupea humilis, Cladocyclus occidentalis, Phareodus acutus, and Lepidosteus simplex, besides some fragmentary specimens from the Hamilton Group made known by Prof. J. M. Clarke in the Bull. U. S. Geol. Survey, No. 16 (1885). The palæontologist interested in the lower vertebrates, however, finds much to occupy him in the collection of recent fish skeletons made by Prof. Theodore Gill, who has contributed perhaps more than any other ichthyologist to our knowledge of those parts with which the palæontologist is alone able to deal. At the time of the writer's visit, Prof. Gill was occupied with an investigation of the skeletal anatomy of the eels; and a large number of beautiful drawings of the cranial osteology of various great groups of bony fishes, as yet in the Professor's portfolio, are intended for the basis of a forthcoming general work, to which all who are interested in palajichthyology will anxiously look forward.

In Davidson's Monograph of the British Carboniferous Brachiopoda (1857), p. 60, he gives the following specific characters of Spirifera glabra:—“Very variable in shape and proportions; transversely oval, rarely as long or longer than wide. Valves almost equally convex, with a mesial elevation or fold in the dorsal, and a sinus in the ventral valve. Hinge-line much shorter than the greatest width of the shell; cardinal angles rounded; beaks rather approximate, that of the larger or ventral valve prominent, incurved, and of moderate dimensions. A hinge-area in the dorsal valve, that of the ventral one triangular and of moderate dimensions, with its lateral margins more or less sharply defined; fissure partially covered by a pseudo-deltidium. The mesial fold in the dorsal valve is either slightly and evenly convex, rising gradually from the lateral portions of the valve, or abruptly elevated, with a longitudinal depression along its middle, which is also at times reproduced in the sinus of the ventral one. The spiral appendages are large, and occupy the greater portion of the interior of the shell. Surface of valves in general smooth, but sometimes a few obscure rounded ribs may be observed on their lateral portions”

In the Geol. Mag. for July, 1875, p. 326, the writer of the present note gave some data bearing upon the rate of weathering of certain limestones of the Lower Carboniferous Series, deduced from the observed extent of waste that had affected some dated tombstones in Kirkby Stephen Churchyard. The series of observations of which that formed a part were suggested several years previously by the fact that many of the rough blocks of limestone used for walling in that neighbourhood had evidently suffered considerable waste since the erection of the walls, and this especially on the upper and outer surfaces of the stones referred to. In a few of these cases (as well as in many other cases observed since) it was perfectly evident that, since the coping stones had been placed in their present positions, the waste of the limestone by atmospheric causes had proceeded to at least as much as a quarter of an inch. This was evident from the fact that thin, delicate, fragments of Corals, Brachiopods, Encrinites, etc., were left standing out in sharp relief to that extent above the general surface of the adjoining limestone matrix.