Fig. 1 is intended to represent a section across an ocean basin. It is supposed that the combined weight of water (1) and sediment (2), acting upon an elastic layer of rock (3), compresses the fluid layer which underlies it (4), and forces it to escape laterally, and either to accumulate and partially solidify, thus raising the crust above; or, where the tension is extreme, and the resistance inadequate, to form fissures or vents. The continuously sustained pressure towards the centre of the basin constantly converts fresh solid into fluid, which escapes again and again, perhaps at intervals of centuries, causing fresh upheavals or eruptions, perpetually deepening the ocean basin.

In his memoir “Brachiop. der Kössener Schichten,” p. 17, Prof. E. Suess proposed his genus Merista, giving as its type the M. Herculea, Barrande, and at page 85 of the German edition of the general introduction to my work on British Fossil Brachiopoda Prof. E. Suess redescribes his genus, and in pl. iii. figures its spirals and shoe-lifter process; but neither the connexions of the spirals, nor their attachments to the hinge-plate, had then been discovered.

By the kind communication of my friend, the Rev. P. B. Brodie, M.A., F.G.S., I have been able to study two very striking wing-fragments from the Coal-measures of Great Britain, which are interesting, not only from the excessive rarity of such remains in this country, but also from their relationship to the two or three already known.

In the Revue Scientifique for the 13th of September, 1879, Professor Carl Vogt published a remarkable article on the Archæopteryx. This Memoir being in a periodical that would not come under the notice of all readers in this country, an excellent translation of the paper was published in the Ibis. It is difficult, if not indeed somewhat unhandsome, to criticize Carl Vogt's contribution; seeing that it makes known the famous second skeleton of Archæopteryx, which had long evaded all efforts to learn its characters. The present writer followed it from Solenhofen, in its migrations over Germany, only to find it guarded like a sacred mystery in the house of Otto Volger, in Frankfort. But while very difficult, from not having seen the specimen, for me to speak with any confidence on points of the anatomy of Archaopteryx in which Carl Vogt's conclusions may be open to discussion, it is much easier, and, indeed, almost a pleasant duty, to differ from him emphatically in the philosophical conclusions drawn from his study of the slab. And I here offer a few remarks, since the like have not been volunteered from any one more competent to speak on the subject, concerning reasons why naturalists should at least hold their judgment in suspense before adopting some of the learned Professor's new conclusions, and in the hope of elucidating the true nature of this singular fossil.

In a previous paper I urged that the conclusions there arrived at necessitated certain corollaries which are not universally accepted, and to which I hoped to call attention in the future. One of these I now venture to shortly discuss.

The following list includes all the species belonging to these two groups which have hitherto been recorded from the “Forest Bed Series.”

Cambrian of Westrogothia, Oland, etc.—The Cambrian Rocks are shown in several other localities in Scania. The basal sandstones (Lugnas or Eophyton sandstones) near the Baltic coast, near Delperöd. The Hardeberga sandstones (Fucoid Sandstone) are found wherever the Archæan is bared, as near Rostånga, Lund, Eljaröd, and Cimbrishavn. Sections of the Alum schists are rarer. The most perfect is that of Kiviks Esperöd on the Baltic, where the Coronatus Limestone or Exsulans horizon of the Parad. Tessini zone well developed. The identity between its palæontological sequence and that of Andrarum was demonstrated by Nathorst in 1876.