There have been several Earthquakes lately, and they are still attributed to volcanic action. As the Quarterly Review of 1st January, 1869, tells us, the most popular notion regarding these phenomena “is the hypothesis of contraction of the mass of this globe by radiation of heat into space.” If we examine this sentence by geological reasoning, confining ourselves to those things, and actions, which are visible, and tangible, we find two causes of objection to it. We ask, whence is the heat to radiate into space? and where is the mass capable of contraction? There are certain laws which rule atoms, and worlds; we have only to understand these laws, and their effects, to enable us to comprehend every phenomena upon earth; man has not been able to do this, but has sought interpretations from his own imagination, till he has been led into innumerable difficulties.

We have already noticed that Barrande, as early as 1852, gave the name of Primordial Silurian to the rocks which, in Bohemia, were marked by the first fauna; although he, at the same time, recognized this as distinct from and older than the second fauna, discovered in the Llandeilo rocks, which Murchison had declared to represent the dawn of organic life.

The new species of Fossil Tubicolar Annelides, from the Lower Silurian strata of America, figured and described by Prof. H. A. Nicholson in the October and February Numbers of the GeologicalMagazine, has tended to throw light upon a closely allied form found in the Carboniferous Limestone strata of the West of Scotland. This species, as far as I am aware, has not hitherto been figured or described.

After reading the review of Prof. Wyville Thomson's “Depths of the Sea,” in the May Number of the Geol. Mag., in which, a figure and short description are given of a new living Echinoderm, which Prof. Thomson has named Calveria hystrix, one of whose peculiar features lies in its possessing overlapping plates, it may be interesting to readers of the Magazine to know that besides the other species with overlapping plates noticed in the above-mentioned review, there were Echinoderms having their plates arranged on the same plan as long ago as the Lower Carboniferous Limestone period. Those to which I specially refer belong to the genus Archœocidaris.

The rocks usually called metamorphic may be conveniently divided into two great groups—Silacids and Silo-carbacids, depending on the nature of their respective acid constituent. The first comprises syenites, gneisses, and ordinary crystalline schists— all essentially composed of mineral silicates. The second includes ophites, urkalks, and some others, which, in addition to siliceous minerals, contain more or less mineral carbonates.

This name is proposed for a fossil from Oldham resembling Psaronius Zeidleri, Corda; the author records the discovery of specimens of Zygopteris, and his conviction that Cotta's Medullosa elegans is “merely the rachis of a fern, or a plant allied to one.”

A gates are found abundantly in Somersetshire. Dr. Buckland mentions their occurrence at Sandford, near Banwell, Worle, and Clevedon. Trans. Geol. Soc., ser. 2, vol. iii., p. 421, See also Sowerby's British Mineralogy, vol. v., 1817, p. 213.

The term Quartzyte has been used to designate quartz-schist and seems to be generally adopted, while Argillyte is used by some authorities in place of argillous or argillaceous-schist. I would therefore suggest that the other subgroups and varieties of schistose rocks should be given similar names.

Lower Greensand. A. (a) Fitton. (b) 1824. (c) Ann. Phil. vol. viii. n.s., p. 371. (d) Greensand. (e) Retained the title green sand because it had “been adopted so very generally by the geologists of England,” but protested that the term was “objectionable, as being derived from a character which is not only very variable, but in reality does not belong to the greater part of this stratum.” [Query—When was “Lower” added to the name?]

Con. and Phil, in 1822 divided into “with flints,” “with few flints,” “without flints,” and recognized the underlying “Grey Chalk,” which they state might more properly be designated “Chalk Marie.”