Shell small, marginally sub-pentagonal, longer than wide, straight or slightly indented in front. Dorsal valve laterally gently convex, longitudinally concave, with a small median rib commencing at about the middle of the valve, and widening as it nears the front. Ventral valve very convex and keeled along the middle or divided longitudinally by a groove commencing at about half the length of the shell and extending to the front. Beak small, incurved, foramen minute, beak ridges strongly marked. Surface of valves smooth. In the interior of the dorsal valve, under the hinge-plate, a slightly elevated longitudinal septum or ridge extends to within a short distance of the frontal margin. To the hinge-plate are attached the principal stems of the loop, which, after giving off crural processes, extend to within a short distance of the front, where they become reflected so as to form the loop.

During the last few years the Coal-measures have been reached through the overlying New Red Sandstone in three Collieries, and in three bore-holes, in that part of South Lancashire which lies between the St. Helens and Wigan Coal-fields and the River Mersey. The results were in some degree unforeseen, as the Trias was thinner than might have been expected, while it seems likely that the Permian formation is altogether absent.

The effects of Evaporation on Temperature have often been considered, yet much remains unknown. I am not aware that any one has called attention to the rapidity of its growth as temperature increases, and the consequences that follow.

As some fifteen months must unavoidably elapse previous to the publication of the Silurian Supplement to my Work on the British Fossil Brachiopoda, it has been considered desirable to anticipate a part of its contents, relating to the recent discoveries of the Rev. Norman Glass, of Manchester, as to the spirals and their connecting processes and attachments in the Brachiopoda of the Upper Silurian rocks.

There is no positive evidence that any species of Nerita has been found in the Corallian Rocks of Yorkshire. It is true that Nerita lœvigata, Sow., is quoted by Phillips (G. Y. 1875, p. 258), but this fossil is well known to be a Monodonta, and it is doubtful if the exact form occurs on this horizon (see postea, Turbo Erinus). The same author also quotes “Nerita bullata” as occurring in the Coralline Oolite. I can find no reference to this species, and am at a loss to understand what fossil is intended to be thus designated. There are casts in the Coral Rag of North Grimston which may belong to a species of Nerita.

The theory of permanent Continents and Oceanic basins, opposed as it is to the general teaching of text-books, seems to have given rise to comparatively little discussion. In the latest edition, for instance, of Lyell's Principles, we read: “It is not too much to say that every spot which is now dry land has been sea at some former period, and every part of the space now covered by the deepest ocean has been land.” The new theory has been upheld chiefly by Sir Wyville Thomson, Prof. Geikie and Mr. Wallace. The latter especially has collected every kind of evidence together that seems to support it in his latest, and most admirable work, “Island Life.” By a process of reasoning, supported by a large array of facts of different kinds, he arrives at the conclusion that the distribution of life upon the land, as we now see it, has been accomplished without the aid of important changes in the relative positions of continents and seas. Yet if we accept his views, we must believe that Asia and Africa, Madagascar and Africa, New Zealand and Australia, Europe and America, have been united at some period not remote geologically, and that seas to the depth of 1000 fathoms have been bridged over; but we must treat as “utterly gratuitous, and entirely opposed to all the evidences at our command,” the supposition that temperate Europe and temperate America, Australia and South America, have ever been connected, except by way of the Arctic or Antarctic Circles, and that—lands now separated by seas of more than 1000 fathoms depth have ever been united.

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.

Having received an invitation from Mr. W. Stoddart to examine the collection of his late father, Mr. W. W. Stoddart, F.G.S., at Sneyd Park, Clifton, Bristol, I availed myself of the opportunity to do so in April last, and was interested in finding, among many other good British fossils, a new and undescribed Crustacean belonging to the genus Eryon, from the Stonesfield Slate of Stonesfield, Oxfordshire.

For many years English palæontologists were content with the limited number of Portlandian Gasteropoda described by Sowerby—principally from internal casts—in Fitton's celebrated paper on the “Strata below the Chalk.” Other authors have described a stray species here and there: still the list was scanty, and not only scanty but indefinite; and many ingenious guesses have been hazarded as to the true affinities of such species as Buccinurn angulatum, and Buccinum naticoides.

On our Plate is depicted the head-shield of the well-known Old Red Sandstone fish, Cephalaspis, the genus first described by Agassiz in 1835, the species C. Salweyi, by Egerton in 1857, and still later as C. asterolepis, by Harley in 1859. The specimen was obtained by Mr. John Edward Lee, F.G.S., of Torquay, from the “Cornstones,” Old Red Sandstone, Skerrid Vawr, near Abergavenny, and is drawn about one-third less than the natural size. “ Two cornua were obtained by Dr. Mac Cullough from the same quarry at Abergavenny, furnishing the evidence of these parts which are wanting in Mr. Lee's specimen” (Lankester).

The specimen here figured is an internal cast of a right valve, occurring in the well-known, reddish, fossiliferous, Palæozoic quartzite of the Triassic pebble-bed at Budleigh-Salterton, in Devonshire; and it resembles some forms of Cypridina brevimentum, J. and K. (“ Monogr. Carbonif. Entom.” Pal. Soc. 1874, p. 15, pl. 5, figs. 15–19), in general aspect; and also in some respects Polycope simplex, J. and K. (op. cit. p. 54, pl. 2, fig. 12). It was detected by the late Mr. J. W. Salter (in 1865?) during his enthusiastic study of that interesting conglomerate.

The transported blocks of the Indus Valley are not without some interest in connexion with the theory of an Indian Glacial Period akin to that of Europe, and with regard to the support they do or do not give to that supposition.

The Archæan (Pre-Cambrian) rocks of Britain have of late years received considerable attention, owing partly to the more or less complete working out of the younger groups, and partly, perhaps, to the fascination which attends a study of peculiar complexity. Whatever interest attaches to the correlation of formations which can be easily identified by their organic remains, or which can be traced across country for scores of miles in unbroken lines, it will be readily understood that the spirit of inquiry will be strongly piqued when it is challenged to construct orderly systems out of rock-masses to which the ordinary tests can be but partially applied. Yet much has been done towards the establishment of a succession amongst these ancient groups. In America, Dr. Sterry Hunt describes six distinct systems.

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.

While I was engaged in surveying the Drift-deposits of the neighbourhood of Warrington, Runcorn, and the Peckforton Hills near Chester, my attention was called to what appeared to be a good boundary-line in the middle of the Lower Keuper Sandstone, separating the Waterstones from the Conglomerates underlying them. The sections at Runcorn and Frodsham, where I first saw this line exposed, have been already described with many others in the Survey Memoirs on the Neighbourhood of Prescot (3rd edition) and on the Neighbourhood of Chester. They showed that there was no passage from the Waterstones down into the Conglomerates, but that there was on the contrary a sharp division between them; and as on following this line further south, I found that it was persistent, and everywhere separated beds of a very different nature, it was decided that it should be engraved on the Map, the new classification of the Keuper of this neighbourhood, as contrasted with the old, being shown in the accompanying figure.

A paper by M. Barrande, which has been recently published, seems to call for some reply. M. Barrande, whilst working out the succession in Bohemia, adopted Sir R. I. Murchison's name “Silurian,” and even applied it to lower rocks than did ever Murchison himself, and in the paper under consideration he supports this classification.

The fragments of jaws of Ornithosaurs from the Cambridge Greensand show a greater variety in size, form, and proportion than those from any other formation. The largest species were apparently the most singular in the shape of the snout, but after five-and-twenty years of collecting we still seem destined to know them only from fragments which, though extraordinary and suggestive, are tantalizing from their imperfect condition. It is impossible to tell whether the head was short or long, or what proportion it bore to the body, in the oase of these isolated specimens, but some of them, like the jaw-fragment which I am about to describe, show a power of tooth and massiveness of bone which could only have pertained to one of the most destructive and probably one of the largest of these animals.

In 1872 I published in the Geological Magazine (Vol. IX. p. 1), a brief account of the Arran Pitchstones, in which I figured and described the singularly beautiful groups of minute green crystals which are so characteristic of the rocks on the eastern shore of the island. I have since cut many additional thin slices, and have long been aware that my paper contains an error, which I will take the present opportunity to rectify. The groups of crystallites to which I refer are described on page 2 and illustrated, Plate I. Fig. 1, and contain the “long slender prisms of a green pyroxenic mineral” there mentioned. In the last paragraph, p. 9, these green prismsare again mentioned, and are said to be augite, instead of hornblende, as stated by Zirkel in his description of the same rock. The grounds for this conclusion were twofold, the absence of dichroism, and the presence of undoubted crystals of augite. After pointing out that the pale green crystals exhibit no trace of dichroism, I added, “Unless, therefore, it can be shown that some hornblende is not in the least dichroic. the mineral in question must, on this ground alone, be regarded as augite.” As regards the latter mineral, there can be no doubt whatever of its occurrence, for in addition to the crystal described in the paragraph just quoted, I may now add, that it is far from uncommon, perfectly characteristic examples having been observed by me in specimens from several different localities in the island.

A discussion has more than once arisen, in the course of the last two years, respecting the true position or the quartz conglomerate exposed near Twt Hill, Carnarvon, which was first described by Prof. Bonney and Mr. Houghton in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, vol. xxxv. p. 321. The typical quarry is situated on the S.E. side of the ridge, close underneath Twt Hill, and the exposure there shows the quartz conglomerate in juxtaposition to the granitoid rock that constitutes the axis of the ridge. The authors describe a passage between the granitoidite below and the conglomerate above, and state that the latter “passes lip into a rock which has some resemblance to the bottom rock” (granitoidite). In the GEOL. MAG. for March, 1880, p. 118, Dr. Callaway writes: “Messrs. Bonney and Houghton have detected at Twt Hill a passage between the granitoidite and a quartzose conglomerate with a S.E. dip. I have visited this section, and having examined the rock inch by inch, I can entirely confirm their identification.”

Twenty years ago the region now included in the Province of British Columbia was—with the exception of the coast-line— little known geographically, and quite unknown geologically. From the days of Cook and Vancouver, and the old territorial disputes with the Spaniards, this part of the west coast of North America attracted little attention till the discovery of gold in 1858. As among the first in the field geologically may be mentioned Dr. Hector and Messrs. H. Bauerman and G. Gibbs. The observations of these gentlemen, though bringing to light many facts of interest, were confined to a comparatively small part of the area of the province, and it was not till the inclusion of British Columbia in the Dominion of Canada in 1871 that the systematic operations of the Geological Survey of Canada were extended to this region. Since this date a number of reports treating of the geology of British Columbia have been published, and on these, together with a personal knowledge of the country, obtained during five seasons' work in it in connexion with the Survey, I shall chiefly depend in giving a brief account of the main geological features so far developed.