In order that progress may be made in any branch of geology, it is necessary, not only that the faculties of observation and inductive reasoning should be employed, but a proper use should be made of the imagination. By this means new lines of research are laid out. The theory we set ourselves to prove may eventually prove to be wrong, but it often happens that the pursuit of a false theory brings one as near the truth as the following up of a true one. It is in this spirit I wish you to regard the problems and speculations to which I now invite your attention.

A new Cephalopodan species, Endoceras Burchardii, was described in 1880 by Dewitz, who considered this species as a very typical Endoceras. A description and diagram of its ectosiphon is given in the introductory description of the siphon of Endoceras as an example of a typical Endoceras-siphon. In Endoceras Burchardii each septum, according to Dewitz, forms a septal tube (funnel), extending backwards to the next septum, into the septal tube (funnel) of which a small part of it enters.

The shell to which I have given the above name is at present unique. It was found, a few years ago, in a quarry at Clane, in the county of Kildare, where I had for some time been in search of Cephalopod shells. It was associated with characteristic species of Carboniferous Limestone fossils, among which the following Nautiloid shells may be mentioned, viz. Solenocheilus dorsalis, Phil., sp., Asymptoceras cyclostomus, Phil., sp., A. Foordi, Hyatt, and an undescribed species allied to the last-named one. The marginal spines, at first obscurely seen in the matrix, at once attracted attention; and although one was broken off and lost in the quarry débris, the other was fortunately found in the fragment of rock struck off from the shell, and was then carefully developed and attached to the latter. Naturally very diligent search has been made since its discovery, and a sharp look-out kept for any further specimens of this interesting species, but so far without any result.

A Lthough we are probably well acquainted with all the chief agents of change, the long-continued action of which has shaped the surface of the earth into mountain and valley, and laid down and metamorphosed the deposits forming those portions of its surface which natural or artificial sections or excavations have enabled us to examine, there still remains considerable difference of opinion, not only as to the particular agent or agents which have formed many deposits, but also as to the rapidity with which changes have been brought about by them in the past.

A Paper on the diamantiferous rock of Kimberley by Sir J. B. Stone, M.P., Miss Raisin, and myself, was published in this MAGAZINE in 1895. Since then the first-named has received from friends in South Africa another parcel of specimens, obtained, at a greater depth than heretofore, in the De Beers mine. These specimens, twenty in number, he kindly entrusted to me for description.

A Small series of rocks collected at several localities in the Tonga Islands by Lieutenant J. A. Waugb, R.N., during the voyage of the “Penguin” in 1895, has been forwarded to the Geological Survey for examination, by Admiral Wharton, R.N., F.R.S., Hydrographer to the Admiralty. As in some particulars these rocks supplement those already described by Mr. A. Harker (GKOL. MAG. 1891, p. 250), from the same group of islands, it seems desirable that a short account of them should be placed on record.

Dr. Daniel Russouw Kannemeyer sent me a photograph of a dental plate in April, 1897, to which was appended the remark—“I conclude it to be Ceratodus, and its bones are said to be lying at Kraai Fontein. I have sent the man who found it to search for and fix the locality.” The search was not successful; and since then the rinderpest has prevented any attempt to reach, the locality, which is geologically at the top of the Karoo beds above the Coal of the Indwe district of Cape Colony, in strata which yield Zanclodont reptiles in other localities.

The general conclusions of the brothers Ameghino in reference to the geology of Patagonia, as detailed in the foregoing valuable synopsis of results, may be still more briefly stated in the following manner

(1) The oldest sedimentary rocks in which fossils have been found are red sandstones, containing mineralized wood, Dinosaurian bones, and other smaller reptilian remains. “Upper Cretaceous.”

(2) The terrestrial or fresh-water Pyrotherium Beds succeed these and may be partly intercalated with them. They contain a singular mammalian fauna, notably primitive Ungulata. “Upper Cretaceous.”

As promised last month, we now add a brief note on Plates III and IV of this series, given in this number.

Plate III is one of a beautiful set prepared by Mr. Godfrey Bingley for insertion in the Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological and Polytechnic Society, from which the plate is borrowed by the kind permission of the editor, the Rev. W. L. Carter. A full description by Mr. G. W. Lamplugh will shortly appear in the “Proceedings” of that Society, and from the manuscript of this I have been permitted to extract the following:—

The cliff to the left is the most easterly point of Flamborough Head; it is formed of the lowermost beds of the flintless Upper Chalk, resting on the uppermost beds of the flinty Middle Chalk, which are seen just above sea-level. In the Chalk a steep-sided valley has been eroded which is now filled with drift.

Although not strictly in the order of the title, we may describe of first a specimen from the so-called “melaphyre,” which forms a great sheet high up in the group through which the diamondbearing pipes have been driven. This, which bears the label “No. 5, Melaphyre,” is nearly 5″ in length. Macroscopically, it may be described as a compact dark basalt, showing slight signs of decomposition, and containing rather sparse amygdales of irregular size and shape (the maximum length being about half an inch), filled mostly with calcite and spotted occasionally with dark-green.

The green slopes of many of the minor vales of North Oxford-shire are scored with parallel terraces or terraced banks frequently of such regularity in depth of step and slope as to present to the mind any other origin for their formation than that of the every-day work of natural forces. A student who has mastered the elements of this natural work and has gained a clue to the mode of the making of the terraces reads with some amusement the varied accounts of their human origin. The best summary of these accounts is given in Mr. G. L. Gomme's book “The Village Community.” And though these accounts refer to wider tracts of country than can be discussed here, our local antiquarians assign similar human causes, and we read of the terraced slopes as camps, entrenchments, vineyards, bear-gardens, and the like.

Let us now turn to the angular gravel itself, the so-called Krosstensgrus of the Swedes, which is formed in the main from crystalline rocks, from granite, and gneiss, hälleflinta or petrosilex, crystalline limestones, mica-schists, quartzite diorites, diabases, porphyries, etc. This angular gravel Erdmann not only pronounces to be moraine material, but the only moraine material in the country. How it is possible to correlate this angular drift with any kind of moraine material, or to explain the angular gravel of Sweden by the intervention of ice, I cannot understand, any more than I can understand the application of the same cause to the angular gravels of Southern England and Northern France.

The quarrying operations that have been carried out during the last five years at Handley's Pit, Lincoln, have led to the exposure of some very complete and instructive sections in the Middle Lias.

Handley's Pit is situate on the North Cliff, at a distance of about a furlong from the now disused pit of Glaisiers, and immediately below that of the Lincoln Brick Company (late Swan's). When compared with the sequence exposed in Swan's Pit, it affords some interesting details that assist materially in clearing up some of the doubtful points to which Mr. Dalton referred in the Geological Survey Memoir on Lincoln Geology regarding the limitation of the range of A. margaritatus, and the occurrence of the Marlstone Rock-bed in the Lincoln District.

While staying at Zermatt in the summer of 1894, I searched among the boulders from the Zmutt glacier for several types of rock, which, as suggested to me by Professor Bonney, were likely to occur. I am further indebted to him for kindly giving me his help and opinion on several questions while I was writing this note.

Some time ago I discussed in this Magazine the recent geology of Greenland; and I ventured to argue, and, I think, to prove, that the general rise of that great island from the sea, which is conceded by every inquirer, has been unbroken, and that during the so-called Glacial period, instead of being a lofty plateau as it now is, it was a comparatively low-lying land. I ventured further to argue, and also, I think, to prove, that with the rise from the sea of this great island there has been a corresponding fall in its temperature, which is a very natural and simple a priori meteorological conclusion, and to adduce a number of biological facts to show that during the so-called Glacial period Greenland, instead of having been mantled with an ice-sheet as it is now, had a comparatively mild climate; and that its scanty fauna and flora, instead of having been the result of sporadic migrations thither since the so-called Glacial age, is, in fact, the expiring and shrinking remnant of a once much more important life. The facts and arguments I adduced have nowhere been traversed or met, and it seems to me they are unanswerable.

In illustration of the article on this subject published in last month's Geological Magazine, three plates have been prepared by the kind permission of the photographers, and of the editors of the publications in which they originally appeared. One (namely Plate II) is now issued, and Plates III and IV will be given in the March number.

In the Val d'Anniviers or Einfisch-thal, which joins the Rhone valley at Sierre, the stoves used in warming the houses are often constructed from a stone obtained in the valley. This is so soft that it can be readily cut into shape, but it resists heat remarkably well. According to Gerlach, it is obtained at two or three places, but the only one which I have examined is a quarry some height up on the left bank of the valley, rather above Zinal, to which I was conducted by my friend Mr. J. Eccles, who had noticed it during a former visit to this part of the Alps. It is a short distance from the path to the Arpitetta Alp, a favourite excursion for tourists. The result of our examination seems to be of sufficient interest to justify a brief notice.

I Suppose that most of us are familiar with the processes by which necks of land are cut down, by which promontories are turned into peninsulas, and the peninsulas into islands, while the islands in their turn become rocks. I have elsewhere called attention to all stages of the process as shown in the four corners of Sark. On the south there is the Coupee causeway, an isthmus 200 feet above sea-level, with a crest only some six feet in width; on the north, an isthmus yet lower, and parts beyond already being separated by the sea; on the west, an island, Breqhou; on the east, rocks, the Burons. There are to be seen all stages of the process, but does that process always proceed through all those stages to the end?

During an examination of the complicated series of Lower Palæozoic rocks in County Waterford, with which I am still engaged, I have had the opportunity of collecting largely from the few fossiliferous beds in the neighbourhood of Tramore, and a study of the fossils throws considerable light on the vexed question of their age. It is not my intention in this paper to discuss the relations of the igneous and sedimentary rocks, nor to attempt to explain the structure of the district.

Last month I glanced at some of the difficulties attaching to the theory of a “ great submergence ” during Glacial times, particularly in connection with the deposition of this shelly clay at Clava.

In regard to the alternative theory of transport by land-ice, the following facts may be enumerated as so far in its favour:-

(a) Evidences of ice-action are conspicuous all over the district. It is a region of intense glaciation, and this special locality is right in the tract of the ancient ice-sheet.

(b) The traces of the movement show that, with a very small submergence, the ice-sheet must have passed over part of a former sea-bottom.

(c) That in this neighbourhood it rose in its progress, carrying numerous boulders with it in its course, and leaving them at higher elevations than their parent beds of rock.