Plate atrophy (“plate crushing”) giving rise to interambulacral plates analogous to demi-plates immediately above the ambitus is described in the Miocene spatangoid Lovenia woodsi, from Beaumaris, Victoria. It appears to be caused by the development of large primary tubercles on the aboral surface, which causes the expansion of the lowest tubercle-bearing plates during ontogeny, so that the more ventral interambulacral plates are squeezed against the ambitus.

The name “Dene Holes” has been locally given to certain ancient artificial caverns usually found excavated in the Chalk of Essex and Kent. They have deep vertical entrances by shafts, being of varying depth, but the caverns themselves all bear a general similitude in design. They have been chiefly explored in the counties of Essex and Kent, although they undoubtedly exist in many other counties.

A pure anthophyllite schist occurs as a bedded deposit conformable with garnet-bearing quartz—muscovite, and quartz—chlorite—biotite schists and diopside-bearing caic-silicate rocks in the north-central part of the Nellore Schist Belt. Field and petrochemical studies show that anthophyllite schist has formed from regional metamorphism of Fe-, Mg-rich aluminous sediments aided by metamorphic differentiation due to local kinematic action under amphibolite facies conditions which is the general grade of metamorphism of the Nellore Schist Belt. A pure anthophyllite schist of sedimentary origin reported here is the first of its kind described from any terrain.

I am indebted to my friend, Mr. Thomas Crowther Brown, of Further Barton, Cirencester, for placing in my hands some time since certain Arctic Corals (brought home in 1853 or 1854), for illustration, to be afterwards deposited in the Geological Department of the British Museum. Some time previously I had also received a small but interesting series of specimens from Beechey Island, collected by Dr. A. Horner, the Medical Officer to the S.Y. “Pandora” (Captain Sir Allen Young), and by the Artist to the Expedition, G. R. De Wilde, Esq.; these latter were collected in August, 1875.

When examining the collections of the Geological Society at the time of preparing the notes I published some months ago, on the Fossil Cones of the Secondary Strata, I found a small fragment of a curious vegetable organism, the nature of which I was then unable to determine, but which I was allowed by the kindness of the Secretary to take with me for the purpose of further examination. Some months ago I obtained from James Yates, Esq., a more perfect specimen, which clearly showed that it was the portion of the stem of a cycadean plant, as Mr. Yates had already determined. Professor Church subsequently brought me a yet finer specimen from the Museum of the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester, and I have a fourth fragment from the collection of Professor Morris.

In the early half of 1922 a boring (“jumped”) was made by Mr. H. G. Godwin, of Quenington, Fairford, Gloucestershire, for Mr. Oswald Collier, of Calcutt, in search of water. The site of the borehole is at Calcutt—¼ in. above the “C” in Calcutt on 6 in. map, 5 S.W., Wilts.

This portion of the new trunk line to London covers a distance of about fifty miles, and runs nearly due south, crossing the towns of Nottingham, Loughborough, Leicester, Lutterworth, and Rugby. Throughout the greater part of this distance the railwayis on the Trias, except the northern portion, which is On thePermian, and the southern, which is on the Lias. There are also great thicknesses of Drift met with near Leicester and between that town and Rugby, but very little in the northern part on either side of Nottingham.

The Amphibole-Schist Series appears to be confined to Malaya east of the Main Range, and it is most abundantly developed in north-west Pahang. It occurs partly in the Main Range Foothills, partly between them and the Main Range granite in the Sua-Kerla-Kelubi-Tempoi river system of the Telom Valley, in the Jelai Kechil valley, in the Sungei Lipis and in the Chembatu-Batu-Cheroh system between Batu Malim and Cheroh, Raub District. So far as is known these crystalline schists do not extend far northwards into Kelantan, and they are likewise but poorly developed south of Pahang in Negri Sembilan. They are everywhere associated with the Arenaceous Formation of the Main Range Foothills, quartzites, quartzite-conglomerates, shales, cherts, phyllites, quartz- and mica-schists, which may be either Triassic according to Scrivenor (1911, 1931) or perhaps older than the adjacent Permocarboniferous shales and limestones according to Service, Alexander, and the writer (Ann. Rep., 1940, para. 39; 1939, 1946). In some areas they lie partly on the Main Range granite (Text-fig. 1).

The importance of the question of conformity in the classification of the earliest stratified rocks induces me to give a short description of a new section of a part of the Cambrian rocks of Llanberis, exhibiting an apparent case of unconformity towards their base.

Recent work on various Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous radio-larian faunas from sections in northern and north-eastern Iraq, all of known stratigraphic horizon, and from elsewhere in the Middle East, confirms the existing view that as absolute indicators of age, without associated evidence, these fossils as commonly preserved are of little use, but that in local and regional problems where they are associated with other evidence they may be of considerable stratigraphical value. The genus Meyenella is not regarded as a useful indicator for the Jurassic.

In Megacystis the periproct—which S. A. Miller always called the moutn—lies between adoral circlets II and III, being bounded by the two posterior facet-bearing plates and the posterior interradial, i.e. 3 of Adorals II, also by 2 or 3 of Adorals III, making 5 of 6 plates in all. The number 5 is the more usual; it occurs in M. aspera. faberi, gorbyi, indianensis, ornatissima, ornata, parcula, parca, perlonga, plena, scitulus, and spangleri, also in British Museum specimens E 7631, —33, —35, —37, —38, ?—39, —40, —42, —44, —45, —74, —76, —77, E16167, and E 16168 (see our figs. 24, 25, antea). The number 6, due to an additional Adoral III, is found in M. baculus, commoda, splendens, and perhaps gyrinus, also in E7630, —34, —36, ?—75, and E 16171 (see our figs. 22, 23, 28, 30, antea). This does not seem to be a difference of such constancy as to be relies on for the discrimination of species. It is the sole character distinguishing Miller's M. commoda from his M. gorbyi, not to mention M. scitulus and M. parva, which may be younger stages of the latter species. Similarly such specimens as E 7631, E 7635, E 7638, and E 7644, each with 5 plates, cannot otherwise be distinguished from E 7636 with 6 plates; while E 7630 and E 7634 with 6 plates are otherwise the same as E 7633, E 7640, E 7642, E 7677, and E 16168, each with 5 plates.