Until Geology began to take the place of a science, few, if any, troubled themselves about the age of our planet. The habit of thought, created partially by the Mosaic Cosmogony, which led us to look at all the natural features around us as if but just freshly formed by the hands of the Creator was not favourable to any such inquiry.

M. A. Preudhomme de Borre, the Conservator of the, Royal Museum of Natural History in Brussels, having received, some time since, from M. Persenaire, the impression and counterpart of the abdomen of a small Crustacean discovered in the Coal-shales at the ‘Belle-et-Bonne’ Colliery, near Mons, he submitted it to the inspection of the Entomological Society of Brussels at their Monthly Meeting on 5th June, 1875.

Of the many private collections of vertebrate fossils found on or off the coast of the Eastern counties, none surpass in palæontological and also in geological interest the fine collection made with much zeal and care by Mr. J. J. Owles, of Yarmouth, inasmuch as the larger portion of the specimens are exclusively the remains of Postglacial Mammals, and were brought up in the fishermen’s dredge, either from, or in close proximity to the well-known Dogger Bank, thus proving conclusively the existence of submerged Pleistocene or Postglacial land lying off the Eastern coast in the North Sea. Prof. Boyd Dawkins is the only author, as far as I am at present aware, who has made any reference to this really valuable series of remains, and then only incidentally in his memoir, “On the Distribution of Postglacial Mammals.”

It may seem to many geologists, accustomed to speak of the “simple order of North Devon,” a somewhat unusual process to fall back on the more troubled districts of the southern division of the County for evidence upon which to take one's stand in interpreting the grand facts of succession within the original “Devonian” area, Devonshire. That is, however, the plan of campaign which I shall adopt; but instead of publishing the paper I read last year before the British Association, in Section C, at Plymouth (which will appear in abstract in the Annual volume of Reports), I will only recapitulate the facts I then brought forward, relating to the southern limestones of Torbay.

In my third Report “on the structure and classification of the fossil Crustacea,” presented on the Geological Section of the of the British Association, at their Meeting in Dundee, 1867, I stated that a new Crustacean had been obtained, in 1858, by Sir Philip Grey-Egerton, Bart., M.P., F.R.S., from the Lower Lias of Barrow-on-Soar, Leicestershire, by whose kindness it is now preserved in the British Museum: and also that another specimen, from the Lower Lias of Somersetshire, belonging evidently to the same species, had subsequently been found by Mr. Charles Moore, F.G.S., at Bath. The specimen from Barrow-on-Soar (the impression and counterpart of which is contained in two blocks of Blue Lias Stone) exhibits on the surface of the slabs, the entire carapace, the eye, antennæ, the five ambulatory thoracic feet; but in this specimen the abdominal somites and caudal appendages are entirely wanting. (See PI. VII. Fig. 1.)

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.

The artist who is illustrating a great theme upon a large spread of canvas finds it necessary from time to time to lay down the brush, with which he is accurately filling in the more delicate minutiæ, that he may retreat to a distance and view his picture as a whole. It is essential to the higher development of his art that he should not omit this comprehensive survey. The same thing holds good in Literature and Science, as well as in Art. The historian must, from time to time, take a fresh survey of History as a whole. If he neglect to do so, the group of figures to which he devotes his special attention will certainly not take up its true position among the other groups that appear on the canvas of History. The man of science, also, should not forget that he is, according to his individual bent or capacity, aiding in the construction of a great Philosophy; and he should now and again turn aside from the microscope, or lay down the hammer, to take a more comprehensive survey of that Philosophy, whose aim it is to comprehend and consolidate the widest generalizations of Science.

From the short notices which are to be found about volcanos in treatises on geology, we might often be led into the belief that they were structures so regular in contour that their form was indicative of their nature. In certain cases this appears to be so remarkably true, that I wish to add a few observations to those which have already been written upon the subject. In other cases, however, the form of a volcano does not appear to have any characteristics which distinguish it from other mountains, as will be seen by glancing through the series of views given by Humboldt of the volcanos of South America. The mountains in Iceland are also very rough. When travelling in that country, where I saw and ascended many volcanos, I do not remember that there was anything about their shape more than their steepness and general ruggedness which particularly attracted my attention. The wilderness of form presented to us by such mountains as these is so evidently the combined effect of many and varied causes, that it would be vain to seek a simple explanation for the formation of the whole.

The tidal wave of travellers which, thanks to railroads and steamboats, pours northward over the country every summer, even as far as John o' Groat's, has hardly as yet risen much beyond that utmost shore. The tourist stops short at the Pentland Firth; indeed, when he reaches its bare treeless coast, and finds that there is really no traditional house at John o' Groat's (though a good inn, with careful host and kindly hostess, should tempt him to rest there a while), he is in a hurry to get back by daylight to the busy hum of men in the hyperborean city of Wick or Thurso, and as eager to flit southwards again next morning.

There are left to us at the present day but a few of those naturally-gifted masters in science whose career may be fitly likened to that of the illustrious Faraday; to this type of man belongs Professor John Morris among geologists. Though occupying a modest position in society, and possessing but few of the advantages which the world offers, Professor Morris has achieved for the science of his choice a vast amount of popularity and recognition; and during a long career he has by his eloquence, his unassuming manner, and straightforward, earnest, and warm-hearted friendship, exercised a powerful influence over all with whom he has been brought in contact.

While engaged this autumn in reinvestigating the relations of the “Dingle Beds” and “Glengarriff Grit Series” to the Silurian rocks below, and the Old Red Sandstone above, in the South-West of Ireland, my mind naturally reverted from time to time to the Devonian district, and the succession of its beds, upon which there has recently been so much discussion, and to which the late Professor Jukes devoted so much time and labour. With him I agree in believing that the key to the solution of the Devonian problem is to be found in the structure of the South of Ireland, though with reference to the actual explanation which he proposed, I can only see my way to a partial concurrence.

Since its foundation as a Science, at the beginning of this century, by the illustrious Cuvier, Palæontology has progressed with an astonishing rapidity; and though theoretically belonging to the twin sciences of Zoology and Botany, its domain is now so vast, and the number of facts which it has accumulated is so great, that it has every claim to rank as a distinct department of knowledge, which cannot be fully mastered except by those who make it the subject of special study. That the number of these is daily increasing is shown conclusively by the increased number of systematic works on Palæontology which have appeared of late years, and not less by the character of these. Two of these treatises, both as yet but partially published, may be singled out for mention in this connexion—namely, the “Handbuch der Palæontologie” by Professors Zittel and Schimper, and the new “Lethæa Geognostica” by an association of German palæontologists. The former of these, if carried out with the fulness and accuracy which distinguish its first portion, will be one of the most valuable and important treatises on systematic palæontology which we possess in any language, and will be a fitting companion to the classical treatises of Pictet and D'Orbigny, though it will not supersede either of these honoured works. Of the second of these only the first part, embracing the Atlas of Plates of Palæozoic fossils, has as yet been issued; but if the text be equal to the plates, and if the various sections of the work are undertaken by men as eminent as Ferdinand Roemer, the new “Lethæa Geognostica” will undoubtedly form an indispensable item in the library of every working palæontologist.

I have been this autumn in the Land of the Giant's Causeway and of the Giant Stag. For a long time it had been my earnest desire to become acquainted with “The Green Isle.” In my colleague, Professor von Lasaulx, I found a wished-for companion on my journey. It is easy to get to Ireland. In a single night's journey one is whirled from London to Dublin viá Holyhead. In Dublin the best directions for a geologist are to be had at the Geological Survey Office for Ireland. which forms a department of the Government Geological Survey of Great Britain. Prof. Hull, the Director of the establishment, and Mr. Hellier Baily, the Palæontologist attached to it, afforded me, with the greatest kindness, every necessary assistance.

I have, in the foregoing, endeavoured to set out the general conditions under which that one principal Glacial deposit of England which I term “Upper Glacial” was accumulated, according to the views to which I have been led by several years' active examination of the area occupied by it, and a still longer study of the phenomena observed. They differ materially in many respects from the views urged by Mr. Jas. Geikie in his “Great Ice Age,” and continued observation will help to determine which can best be reconciled with the facts; but before leaving the subject of this formation, I must observe that the diagram and description by Mr. Skertchly of the manner in which Lincolnshire was glaciated, as imported by Mr. Geikie into his book, conveys what I regard as an erroneous view.

One of the most important questions which modern geologists have to answer is that which refers to the duration of Geological time. How long is it since the Glacial epoch? What was the date of man's appearance on the earth? How many ages have rolled by since the earth first became the habitation of organized beings? Such are the questions, daily repeated, to which we must make some answer, or, if need be, honestly confess our ignorance.

Notes and references accumulating for some years have induced me to offer some remarks on a new fossil Estheria, and on some already known, of Carboniferous, of Permian, and of Triassic age; also a description of some fossil Ostracoda from the Ironstone of Shotover, near Oxford, involving remarks on all the known Wealden species; and lastly notes on some species found in the Purbeck strata of the Subwealden Boring, near Battle, in Sussex.

In England and Wales there is scarcely any area whose geological structure is so little known as the neighbourhood of Aberystwyth. Every year a stream of geologists passes through the northern parts of the Principality, through the varied old-volcanic districts of Snowdon and Cader Idris, and the rich collecting grounds of the Berwyns: and another such stream takes its course to the southern borders along the far west Pembrokeshire coasts, being guided by the careful work of Dr. Hicks. The border counties too are in many places attractive enough, for there it was that Murchison first saw the order of the Silurian rocks, and there also the best-preserved fossils are found. Llandeilo, Builth, Woolhope, May Hill, Malvern, and Wenlock have long yielded rich harvests to palæontologists.

Many of the living forms of Cephalopodous molluscs are now, thanks to the Brighton Aquarium, familiar to us all; and, as the habits and characteristics of the squids, octopods, and cuttles have been duly recorded by Mr. Henry Lee in his amusing book on “The Octopus,” published in 1875, I shall here restrict myself to those points in the structure of the living forms which bear upon the history of the class as a whole, giving merely those anatomical details which are absolutely indispensable for a right comprehension of the nature and affinities of the numerous fossil and extinct members of the order. I may, however, observe, en passant, that the existence of a certain sub-stratum of truth in the old stories of giant Cephalopods was ably proved by Mr. Saville Kent, in the “Popular Science Review,” for 1874, and that specimens have been more recently cast ashore in Trinity and Logie Bays, on the coast of Newfoundland, that may fairly claim to be of enormous dimensions. Thus, in a truly formidable calamary, or squid, the tentacular arms measured 30 feet, the largest suckers being one inch in diameter, the shorter (or pedal) arms were 11 feet long, and the body was 10 feet. Professor Verrill has also described a huge cuttle, estimating the total length at 40 feet, the large tentacles were 26 feet long, with a maximum circumference of 16 inches at their union to the body. A new genus of calamary, allied to the Architeuthis of Steenstrup, with arms measuring over 23 feet, was discovered on the island of St. Paul, in the Indian Ocean, by M. Charles Vélain, the naturalist attached to the French Expedition for the observation of the transit of Venus, at that station. The size attained by some of the fossil species will be noted in the sequel.

In passing on to the consideration of the rate at which the various strata were formed, it will be well, I think, to group the rocks under six heads. First, Mechanical deposits formed in deltas, lakes, and estuaries; secondly, Mechanical deposits along the shoreline, in large bays, or constricted seas, such as the German Ocean; thirdly, Chalk; fourthly, Coral Limestone; fifthly, Coal; and lastly. Volcanic Rocks.

Dr. Mantell, in his classical work, the “Fossils of the South Downs,” figured two large compressed and lanciform teeth preserved in his collection and obtained from the Chalk at Lewes, as respectively the teeth, of an unknown fish and of a species of Squalus. Similar teeth, and from the same collection, were subsequently figured and described by Prof. Louis Agassiz, who, from external characters chiefly, considered them to have belonged to a Sphyrænoid fish, and he referred them to an American species founded by Dr. Harlan upon portions of jaws with teeth in situ found in a Cretaceous deposit in the State of New Jersey, but described by him as remains of a Saurian, and to which he gave the name of Saurocephalus lanciformis. At the time when Agassiz referred these teeth to Harlan's species, and determined their ichthyic character, he had not seen the American fossils; but he states that these conclusions were subsequently confirmed by Prof. Owen's description and drawings of the microscopic structure, and of teeth of the natural size of the Saurocephalus lanciformis, Harl., in his “Odontography,” p. 130, pl. 55. But Prof. Owen's researches were made upon a genuine tooth of the American fossil sent to him by Dr. Harlan, and not upon an English specimen.