In 1848, under the name Agelacrinites Buchianus, Edward Forbes introduced to science “one of the most remarkable Cystideans as yet discovered in British strata.” His description and figures, published in his memoir “On the Cystideæ of the Silurian rocks of the British Islands” (Mem. Geol. Surv. Gt. Brit., II, pt. ii; see pp. 519–523, and pl. xxiii), have not proved fully intelligible to subsequent workers, even to those who have had the fossil before them. Unfortunately J. W. Salter, in his “Appendix. On the Fossils of North Wales,” to “The Geology of North Wales” by A.C. Ramsay (Mem. Geol. Surv. Gt. Brit., III, 1st ed., 1866), criticised a little, but illuminated less; while the same Appendix in the second edition, 1881, though “greatly enlarged and partly rearranged by Robert Etheridge, F.R.S.,” merely introduced verbal alterations into Salter's account.

The subject of this notice belongs to a family of which several members have occupied high positions as clergymen and scholars. His father, the Ven. John Fisher, the early friend and patron of Constable, was Archdeacon of Berks, Canon of Salisbury, and Vicar of Osmington and Gillingham in Dorset; his grandfather, the Rev. Philip Fisher, D.D., was Master of the Charterhouse; and his great-uncle, the Rev. John Fisher, was preceptor to the Princess Charlotte, and subsequently Bishop, first of Exeter and afterwards of Salisbury.

In the animal kingdom the attribute of bigness has come to be regarded as one of the prerogatives of the vertebrates. On this account, invertebrates seldom receive credit for having a size of more than a fraction of a cubit, and are looked upon as objects to be held in the hand or viewed under a lens. As a matter of common experience, and probably also of congratulation, large invertebrates are rare, and some whole classes cannot furnish a single individual measuring more than a few inches in greatest diameter.

In the foregoing description I have confined my remarks to the rightside of the skull. The observer will not fail to notice from the figures the disparities existing in the two sides. This asymmetryis particularly conspicuous ventrally, the region from which Huxley principally deduced the arguments in support of his more important speculations. The area of dislocation, the centre of which apparently lies in the crater-like opening of the left prtesplenial, extends from the left prasruaxillary to the pterygoid in the skull, and as far as the splenial on the lower jaw. Its place of greatest intensity has beenmarked by a + on the figure, where not only the surface of the bones is most damaged, but where the mandible has been so much compressed that a crest has actually been formed below the row of teeth on its outer wall.

In 1877 and the following year Colonel H. W. Feilden published the results of his scientific investigations on the coasts of Smith Sound and the channel to the north. In 1896 he made contributions to the geology of Kolguev, Waigats, and Novaya Zemlya in two other papers. These are reprinted, together with one previously unpublished, in the appendix to Mr. H. J. Pearson's book, “Beyond Petsora Eastward” (1899). As the earlier work appears to have been forgotten by some writers upon glacial subjects, and the last-named might very easily escape their notice, I urged Colonel Feilden to give a summary of his chief results in some generally accessible periodical. Shortly afterwards, on being unexpectedly called away for service in South Africa, he requested me to undertake the task. For the sake of brevity, I restrict myself mainly to the investigations which throw light on the formation of Boulder-clay and its associated sands and gravels, because these establish two points: (1) that such deposits are sometimes formed beneath the sea; (2) that the land in these Arctic regions has been elevated, in places not less than a thousand feet, since either some time in or the close of the Glacial epoch.

In 1892 I described, in conjunction with my colleague Mr. Horne, a peculiar rock, essentially composed of orthoclase and melanite, under the name of borolanite. The type-specimens came from the plutonic mass which lies to the north of Loch Borolan, in Sutherlandshire (1 in. sheet 101). During the preparation of the paper on borolanite our colleague Mr. Gunn discovered two dykes of a closely related rock traversing the Torridon Sandstone in the Coigach district of West Ross-shire. The rock of these dykes was described in an appendix to our paper. It contains nepheline and ægirine, in addition to orthoclase and melanite, and is therefore allied, both as regards mode of occurrence and mineralogical composition, to the Tinguaite group of Rosenbusch; but as melanite is an important constituent it was classed with the borolanites.

Having the opportunity of revisiting Munich, I have drawn up a list of the fossils which formed the basis of the “Upper Cassian Zone,” erected by me in 1893. These fossils, when I discovered them in Falzarego Valley in 1891, were then for the most part unknown. The tuffs and breccias in which they occur had been referred by Loretz to the fossiliferous Raibl horizon of the Schlern Plateau, and by Mojsisovics to the much lower horizon of Wengen strata. I found, by careful collection from strata in position, that the fauna, in addition to a fair proportion of St. Cassian types and a few Raibl types, comprised a number of types common both to Cassian and Raibl horizons and a still greater number of species which had not been found elsewhere (Q.J.G.S., 1893, pp. 31, 44, 46, 47).

During the past year I had the pleasure of spending some weeks on the north coast of Cornwall, south of the Camel, examining the rocks exposed in the cliffs and on the foreshores of the various coves, some of which I had not previously visited. A part of my notes were communicated to the Annual Meeting of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall last November, and with the permission of the Society I propose to reproduce these and additional observations obtained since, with the view more particularly of calling attention to some of the fossils which, though fragmentary, appear to me to yield not unimportant evidence on the stratigraphical horizon of the rocks along certain parts of the coast.

The occurrence of fossil reptiles in the Lower Miocene of Moghara in Egypt has already been referred to in a paper published in the last volume of this journal (1899, p. 481), where a short account of the deposits in which the remains are found has been given. The specimens which have been received from Captain H. G. Lyons, R.E., Director-General of the Egyptian Geological Survey, include bones and scutes of Crocodile, Trionyx, and of the Chelonian which forms the subject of the present notice. Of the two former the remains are too imperfect for determination, and further material is desirable; but in the case of the last it has been found possible to reconstruct the plastron and most of the carapace, and from these it can be shown that this Chelonian belonged to the Pleuradiran group, and is referable to the genus Podocnemis, forming a new species, to which the name Podocnemis ægyptiaca may be applied. At the present day the genus is found only in South America and Madagascar, but, as in many other cases in which the modern representatives of a group are confined to the Southern Hemisphere, where they may occur in widely separated areas, in the Tertiary period species existed in the Northern Hemisphere.

Among other specimens received from the Geological Survey of Canada are the fragmentary remains of a Crustacean (enumerated in Dr. Whiteaves' list as No. 10), comprising the abdomen (a), a small part of a carapace (b), and the penultimate joint of one of the chelate fore-limbs (c), occurring in detached fragments (probably parts of a concretionary nodule). They are labelled Red Deer River, Alberta Range 15, Township 23, west of the 4th principal meridian; collected by Mr. T. C. Weston, 1889. Although in so fragmentary a condition these specimens are of much interest, and are characteristic in their details.

In North Wales there are several valleys which run parallel or nearly parallel to the valley of the Bala fault, and, like it, are crossed by watersheds which are quite inconspicuous. One of these watersheds separates the head of Cwm Prysor from the source of Afon Tryweryn; a second parts the springs of the Conway from those of Afon Dwyryd; and a third divides the waters of Nant Ffrancon from those of Afon Llugwy (a tributary of the Conway). (Pl. XI.)

In 1871 I read a paper before the Liverpool Geological Society describing the extensive and interesting submarine forests and associated Post-Glacial beds that occur fringing the coasts of Cheshire and of South-West Lancashire.

This most remarkable fish, from the Lower Devonian Roofing Slate (Hunsrückschiefer) of Gmünden, in Western Germany, was named, but very imperfectly described, by Schlüter in 1887, as his material was at that time of a very fragmentary nature. He apparently considered the creature to be allied to Cephalaspis. In Dr. Smith Woodward's “Catalogue” (pt. ii, 1891, p. 311) it is only mentioned by name along with a number of other imperfectly known forms (Aspidichthys, Anomalichthys, etc.) which he considered as “perhaps for the most part” referable to the Coccosteidæ.

Four fragments of a large cephalopod (from the Carboniferous Limestone) were collected by Professor Hughes' party in 1892 at Scarlett Quarry, Isle of Man. On fitting three of these together they were found to compose nearly the complete shell, and in a sufficiently good state of preservation to warrant description. The fourth fragment is a cast of a portion of the external surface. Mr. G. C. Crick has expressed his opinion that they represent a new species and probably a new subgenus or genus.

On visiting Brough a short time ago I noticed a small section had been made on the western slope of Mill Hill, about twenty or thirty feet below the top. The excavation is made in soft white sand, which is very ferruginous in places. Beds of hard sandstone, varying in thickness from one to three inches, traverse it in the upper part of the section. These beds of sandstone are practically horizontal, and contain casts of Belemnites Owenii, Gryphæa bilobata, Trigonia, and other characteristic Kellaways Rock fossils. In not a single instance was a portion of a shell remaining, the whole of the calcite having been dissolved away. There is only a thin covering of soil; and this contains numerous pebbles of doubtful origin, and some pieces of Roman pottery.

The evolution of rivers and the origin of lakes have recently attracted a considerable share of attention; and the principles which should guide us in tracing the development of a drainage system have been expounded by several authors, both in England and in America.

The specimens dealt with in this paper were collected by the Officers of the Geological Survey of Egypt, and I have been requested by Dr. H. Woodward, on behalf of Captain H. G. Lyons, R.E., F.G.S., the Director-General, to give an account of the various species of Foraminifera met with during the progress of the Survey.

The eastern extremity of the wooded range of the Taunus, where its last spurs slope down to the Wetterau Plain and the streams from its valleys give up hurrying and wander lazily across the fertile flats towards the Main, has been a spot rich in interest since at least pre-Germanic times. The ancient Kelts, when overwhelmed by their Germanic foes, left behind them, now deep in the detritus at the foot of the Johannisberg, their hearths, chisels, and millstones, mixed up with shells and bones. In addition to these typical relics of the race, there have also been found special forms of earthen vessels, used evidently for evaporating the waters of the saline springs. The tribes described by Tacitus as being in possession at the end of the first century do not seem to have been similarly enterprising, but it is known the victorious Romans of the third century resorted thither for medicinal baths.

In 1896 I described some decapod Crustaceans found in the Cretaceous formation of Vancouver and adjacent islands, British Columbia, which, with the approval of Dr. G. M. Dawson, C.M.G., F.R.S., the Director, had been most kindly placed in my hands for examination by Dr. J. F. Whiteaves, F.G.S., Palæontologist to the Geological Survey of Canada. They were referred by me to the genera Callianassa, Homolopsis, Palæocorystes, and Plagiolophus (see Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1896, vol. lii, pp. 221–228, with 6 figures).

The fossil to be discussed in the present memoir is the specimen which formed part of the classical material used in the discussion which was carried on amongst British geologists during the second half of the present century. So important a controversy could hardly be restricted to the geographical limits of England alone.