The cuttings along this new line of railway from Annesley to a little south of Rugby have been described by Mr. Fox-Strangways, and it is now proposed to note the chief geological features along the line as far as Quainton Road, near Aylesbury. This portion of the railway crosses the country from north to south, and south-east for a distance of about 35 miles. The following notes were made partly in November, 1895, when the cuttings were examined from Willoughby, near Rugby, to Helmdon; and partly in May of the following year, when the examination was continued to Quainton Road.

In the last number of the Geological Magazine Dr. J. W. Gregory has undertaken to give an opinion on the whole of the fossils described by me from the Morte Slates in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of May, 1896. He says he has been tempted to do this because someone had “recently read to the Geological Society of Cornwall” a paper in which he “assumes the Silurian age of the Morte Slates to be so well established that it may be accepted as the basis for future work.” Clearly this was too much for Dr. Gregory, and his righteous indignation compelled him at once to endeavour to put a stop to any such assumption. I do not, however, think that I shall have much difficulty in showing that Dr. Gregory's facts and conclusions are unreliable, and show a want of care and discrimination.

As promised last month, we now add a brief note on Plates III and IV of this series, given in this number.

Plate III is one of a beautiful set prepared by Mr. Godfrey Bingley for insertion in the Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological and Polytechnic Society, from which the plate is borrowed by the kind permission of the editor, the Rev. W. L. Carter. A full description by Mr. G. W. Lamplugh will shortly appear in the “Proceedings” of that Society, and from the manuscript of this I have been permitted to extract the following:—

The cliff to the left is the most easterly point of Flamborough Head; it is formed of the lowermost beds of the flintless Upper Chalk, resting on the uppermost beds of the flinty Middle Chalk, which are seen just above sea-level. In the Chalk a steep-sided valley has been eroded which is now filled with drift.

In the Val d'Anniviers or Einfisch-thal, which joins the Rhone valley at Sierre, the stoves used in warming the houses are often constructed from a stone obtained in the valley. This is so soft that it can be readily cut into shape, but it resists heat remarkably well. According to Gerlach, it is obtained at two or three places, but the only one which I have examined is a quarry some height up on the left bank of the valley, rather above Zinal, to which I was conducted by my friend Mr. J. Eccles, who had noticed it during a former visit to this part of the Alps. It is a short distance from the path to the Arpitetta Alp, a favourite excursion for tourists. The result of our examination seems to be of sufficient interest to justify a brief notice.

Last autumn Dr. Camillo Crema, of Turin, civil engineer, favoured me with a reprint of “Addizioni agli Echinodermi del Muschelkalk di Recoaro,” a paper published on October 4, 1896, in Atti del R. 1st Veneto, ser. 7, vol. vii, pp. 854–61, with plate ii. The Echinoderms described are in the Royal Geological Museum of Turin, and were found in the Lower Muschelkalk near Rovegliana, east of Recoaro, in the Vicentin Alps; a section of the Trias in this district will be found in K. W. von Gümbel's “Geologie von Bayern,” Dritte Lieferung, p. 679, 1886. Two species are added, under the names of “Aspidura italica, n.sp.” and “Apiocrinus recubariensis, n.sp.”

Having already discussed the contents, the distribution, and general facies of the widely-spread deposits of Eastern England, which together make up the series classed as Glacial beds, namely, the Post-Tertiary clays, sands, and gravels which have been supposed to attest an Ice period ; and also set out the reasons why, to myself and perhaps to others, the attribution of the surface-beds to such an origin is irrational and impossible (irrational because the theory involves our overlooking nearly every feature of these beds in order that we may explain one or two difficulties in them; and impossible because, so far as ice can be judged by the tests of ordinary mechanics, it is incapable of performing the kind of work which has been demanded of it by those who explain these beds by the intervention of ice in any form)—I will now turn to one element in the beds which still remains to be examined, namely, the foreign stones.

Professor J. C. Branner has written a most interesting and valuable treatise on the “Decomposition of Rocks in Brazil,” of which he has kindly sent me a copy. All who want to study agencies of decomposition and denudation as they act in tropical countries cannot do better than read Professor Branner's clear and well-digested exposition, illustrated as it is by excellent reproductions of photographs and by figures and diagrams.

Attention having recently been directed to this subject, I have been induced to present the results of many years' collecting in the Carboniferous Limestone of North Wales. The formation there presents four well-defined subdivisions, each of them, with the exception of the highest, having distinct lithological characters, viz.: Lower Brown Limestone, Middle White Limestone, Upper Grey Limestone, and the Upper Black Limestone. Lists of the fossils have been made, collected more or less continuously along the country from each subdivision.