In presenting to our readers a brief notice of the life and work of Professor Seeley, one of the most eminent of Vertebrate Palæontologists, we feel that we are offering but a scant tribute to one who has for more than thirty years occupied a leading position in the world of science. He is not only an accomplished teacher in Geology and the allied sciences in the University of London, but has long been recognized as a distinguished worker in the fields of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy. His investigations into the Fossil Reptilia of the Secondary period, and especially his remarkable researches in the Anomodont Reptilia from the Trias of South Africa, are already classic and-unsurpassed. His purely geological work in the field has also made substantial contributions to our knowledge of the strata in the South of England.

I am indebted to Professor Orville A. Derby for the opportunity of studying some fish-remains from the Cretaceous of North-East Brazil, which were examined by the late Professor Cope and partially described by him, without illustrations, in 1886. I had the privilege of seeing some of these fossils at Philadelphia in 1890, and made a few notes which were incorporated in the British Museum Catalogue of Fossil Fishes. I have now undertaken a renewed and more detailed study of the collection, which suggests the desirability of publishing the following supplementary observations.

In January last we referred to the celebrations in honour of this important event.1 We have now the pleasure to call attention to the “History of the Geological Society of London,”2 a work which has been written by Mr. Horace B. Woodward, F.K.S., F.G.S., in commemoration of the Centenary. Mr. Woodward has had the help of Mr. H. W. Monckton, Treasurer, who has described the Medals of the Society, Mr. E. S. Herries, M.A., V.P., who supplies a correct version of the Charter, and Professor E. J. Garwood, M.A., Secretary, who undertook to deal with illustrations. Sir A. Geikie, K.C.B., President, Professor Watts, F.K.S., Secretary, Professor Bonney, F.R.S., and Dr. H. Woodward have assisted by reading the proofs, but they are “not responsible for any individual statements” except where expressly acknowledged. These and other persons are duly thanked for the help afforded.

The result of Mr. Woodward' laborious researches has been the production of a book of the greatest possible interest, and one which should be read, not merely by the Fellows of the Geological Society, but by all geologists interested in the history of their science. It is a record of first-class importance, and is, on the whole, a fair and accurate account of the events which have occurred in theGeological Society up to 1860, for the later years are perhaps too fresh in the memories of many to allow of that pleasing view obtained by distance.

Opening with a rapid sketch of the histories of academies and learned societies before 1800 and a note on early geological researches in England, the author refers to the Askesian Society, which, founded in 1796, became the parent of the British Mineralogical Society in 1799.

The rich invertebrate fauna of the Uitenhage Series has long attracted attention, owing to the conspicuous nature of some of its components and the divergence of opinion which has arisen in the various attempts to bring it into correlation with Secondary faunas in the European area. A recent examination of the fossils collected from the Uitenhage Beds by the Geological Survey of Cape Colony has afforded an opportunity of reconsidering, in the light of extended knowledge, the conclusions of those who have previously studied this question of correlation. A comparative study of the fauna, with an account of some new species, based principally upon the materials collected by the members of the Survey, will shortly be contributed to the fourth volume of the “Annals of the South African Museum”; but in the meantime, the following brief notes, in which are embodied some of the principal results, may be of interest to a wider circle of readers.

For many years palæontologists have anxiously awaited the reconstruction of the complete skeleton of Diprotodon by Dr. E. C. Stirling, Mr. Zietz, and their colleagues in the South Australian Museum. In 1893, when it was announced that numerous nearly complete skeletons of this gigantic extinct marsupial had been discovered in the arid interior of South Australia, it was hoped that all details of its osteology would soon be known; but the difficulties of excavating and transporting the fragile bones, and the skill and patience needed in preparing them after they reached the Museum in Adelaide, were so considerable as to necessitate long delay in obtaining satisfactory results. At last, however, a mounted reproduction of a skeleton has been completed in plaster, and Dr. Stirling has published three excellent photographs of the specimen in the “Report of the Board of Governors of the Public Library, Museum, and Art Gallery of South Australia for 1905–6,” lately received. The Governors of the South Australian Museum have given a copy of this restoration to the University of Cambridge, where it is now mounted in the Museum of Zoology. They have also generously presented to the British Museum a set of actual limb-bones and caudal vertebræ, with sufficient plaster casts to complete the reconstructed skeleton which is shown in Plate XV. As this restoration differs in some respects from that in Adelaide, it appears to need a brief explanation.

In the Geological Magazine for April, 1895, p. 152, the results of some observations made by Mr. George Fletcher, F.G.S., and myself on the structure of glacier ice were given.

Thin plates of ice were made by cutting and melting, and then examined in polarized light. In all cases it was found that the individual crystals were in close contact, there being no evidence of the presence of a eutectic separating them. The crystals in the same piece varied very greatly in size, and had very irregular outlines.

As the sections which we figured were in all cases drawn by hand, I thought it advisable to construct a special form of instrument with which to obtain actual photographs of thin sections of glacier ice. The instrument eventually used consisted of two bundles of thin glass plates, one being used as a polarizer and the other as an analyser. They were fixed vertically above each other, and between them was the glass stage upon which the thin ice sections rested. Below the analyser was a small lens throwing the image of the ice section upon a photographic plate.

Last Summer, accompanied by Mr. H. Arnold-Bemrose, M.A., F.G.S., who kindly assisted me in the matter, I visited the Furka Pass, and we obtained photographs of the ice of the Rhône Glacier.

Figs. 1 and 2 are full-sized photographs of thin slices of ice. Samples with small crystals were selected, so as to bring many crystals within the limits of the field. The ice section was about 03 inch thick, and where the surface between two crystals is at an angle with the glass plate upon which the ice section rested, interference fringes are consequently to be seen.

Cases of metamorphosed limestones where the calcium carbonate has been converted by contact with some igneous magma into a calc-silicate rock are by no means rare, one of the best known being the conversion of the Coniston Limestone of the Lake District by the Shap Granite into a rock with various calc-silicate and other minerals such as Wollastonite, Omphacite, etc., as described by Messrs. Harker and Marr. But as far as I know, no case has been recorded where ordinary white chalk has been similarly changed. Dr. Hibsch describes a case of baculite marl containing Foraminifera which has been altered by contact with dolerite. The Foraminifera disappear and the rock becomes a granular limestone with epidote, forming a calc-silicate hornstone. This seems the nearest case to the alteration in co. Antrim I am about to describe.

The specimen represented in Fig. 1 was found by Mr. J. A. Whaits at Prince Albert in shale lying between the Witteberg Series and the Dwyka conglomerate: it consists of a single whorl of leaves of which the longest has a length of 4–5 cm. and a breadth of 3 mm. The linear segments converge towards a narrow axis about 5mm. in diameter; they show faint indications of a midrib and have acuminate apices.

In spite of the fact that Fig. 1 represents the only example so far discovered I propose, for the sake of convenience, to describe it under a new name, thus placing on record Mr. Whaits's contribution to our knowledge of a flora the discovery of additional records of which would be of exceptional interest. It must, however, be admitted that the specimen for which the generictitle Phyllotheca is chosen hardly affords satisfactory evidence as to its affinity.

The material on which this species is founded was obtained from the Uitenhage Series at Herbertsdale in Cape Colony and presented to the South African Museum by Mr. Kolbe. It consists of several pieces of what appears to have been a large stem rèaching a length of about 90 cm. The outline drawing reproduced in Fig. 2 from a photograph sent to me from the Museum by Miss Wilman shows the curious shape of the fossil, tapering to a blunt point at one end and flatter and broader at the other; Figs. 3 and 4 illustrate the surface features as seen on portions of the weathered stem.

Among the many distinguished geologists and men of science whom one has been accustomed to meet, year after year, at the gatherings of the Geological Society, the British Association, and the Geologists’ Association during the past forty years, none has, by good camaraderie and hard work both in the field and study, established a better claim to our warm personal regard and esteem than Mr. Whitaker, whose portrait we present to our readers this month.

We are glad to be able to present our readers with a portrait of Sir Archibald Geikie, F.R.S., the distinguished President of the Geological Society of London, who, on account of his very large and important contributions to our science, was last year unanimously elected a second time President of the Society in anticipation of its centenary, which will take place on November 13th, 1907, he having been deemed the most fit and proper Fellow to represent the Society as its chief officer upon so important and memorable an occasion in its history.

The collecting expedition to the Fayüm in the Spring of 1906 did not result in the discovery of any striking new forms, but nevertheless a large number of specimens was obtained, some of which add considerably to our knowledge of species already imperfectly described. Of these specimens the most important are: (1) An associated skull and mandible of Palœomastodon wintoni with the upper and lower dentition, including the tusks, in perfect preservation; an atlas, humerus, radius, part of an ulna, and some vertebræ of the same individual were also found, and confirm the determinations that had previously been made from isolated examples. (2) A beautifully preserved mandible of a very young Palœomastodon, probably the same species. In this specimen the two posterior milk-teeth are in position, while the anterior one is represented by its empty alveolus. Beneath the two milk molars are the germs of pm. 3 and pm. 4, almost ready to replace them vertically in the ordinary way.

I am indebted to Mr. Alfred Brown, of Aliwal North, for the opportunity of describing a small fragment of a lower jaw of a Labyrinthodont which shows some unusual characters in the dentition and in the composition of the mandible (Pl. XIX, Fig. 1). Hitherto the evidence of the structure of the mandible has been imperfectly recorded in these South African reptiles.

Mr. Brown's specimen is a small transverse segment, probably from the left ramus, at some little distance behind the symphysis. This position may be indicated by an angular ridge upon the inner side, which is becoming more elevated as it extends forward. There is no suggestion of the original length of the mandible, which may have been eighteen inches. The fragment is little more than an inch and a half long. In section the jaw is subquadrate, somewhat depressed, being two inches wide and an inch and a half deep. The external surface of the bones shows no trace of sculpture. From its slightly water-worn condition the specimen (Fig. 1) was probably obtained from the reconstructed bed at the railway station at Aliwal North, which yields Theriodonts and other fossils.

The external bone is apparently vertical, traversed on the lower third by a deep longitudinal groove, in which there is a faintly marked suture. The dentary bone above the groove is slightly convex up to the alveolar margin, and shows what may be a sinuous impression above the groove. The bone below the groove, which may be infra-dentary, is well rounded on to the base.

In the “Third and Final Report, of the Geological Survey of Natal and Zululand” that has just been published the Cretaceous rocks and their fauna receive considerable attention; Mr. William Anderson, F.G.S., the Government Geologist, gives an excellent summary (pp. 47–64) of all the information he had been able to obtain respecting the Cretaceous rocks of Natal and Zululand, and there are two contributions on the fauna of some Cretaceous deposits in Zululand, one by Mr. R. Etheridge and the other by the present writer. Before referring particularly to the Cephalopod fauna of the Cretaceous rocks of Ratal and Zululand it may be of interest to give a brief sketch of the distribution of these rocks as recorded by Mr. Anderson.

The present note relates to two specimens. One was obtained by Mr. G. E. Dibley, F.G.S., from the Micrazter cor-anguinum zone of the Chalk at Gravesend, and now forms part of the British Museum collection (register number C. 10576); the other is in the collection of Dr. H. P. Blackmore, F.G.S., of Salisbury (to whom I am indebted for the loan of the fossil), and was obtained from West Harnham, near Salisbury, at the base of the zone of Actinocamax quadratus. Being the more nearly perfect, the Salisbuiy specimen is described first.

The Sparassodonta are an interesting group of extinct mammals found in the Tertiary formations of Patagonia. They appear to have taken the place of true Carnivora in South America during most of the Tertiary period, as the Carnivorous Marsupials do in the modern fauna of Australia. Their relationship has been in dispute since they were first made known to science by the distinguished South American paæontologist Florentino Ameghino. In dental formula and other characters of the teeth and jaws they agree with the Carnivorous Marsupials, and show a high degree of adaptive specialization for predaceous habits. Dr. Ameghino was able to determine, however, from specimens in his collection, that the replacement of the premolars, in certain genera at least, was more complete than in modern marsupials, and approached that of the placental carnivora. He regarded them, therefore, as an intermediate group, ancestral to the Creodonta and modern Carnivora. Mr. Tomes, in his interesting study of thb enamel structure of the Creodonta and allied groups, has recently shown that in one genus of Sparassodonts the enamel shows the more highly differentiated structure of the true Carnivora, instead of the more primitive structure of Marsupial Carnivores. The collections made by the Princeton and American Museums in the Santa Cruz formation of Patagonia contain a splendid series of Sparassodont remains, including skulls and skeletons of the principal genera, which have recently been exhaustively studied by Dr. Sinclair. These show that the Sparassodonts agree with Marsupials, and especially with Thylacinus in almost all the distinctive features of dentition, skull, and skeleton characters by which they are separated from the placental mammals.

The occurrence of plant-remains in the Lower Carboniferous rocks of England is so rare that the recent discovery of impressions in beds belonging to that series at Chepstow, by my friend and pupil Mr. M. P. Price, B.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge, is worthy of record. Mr. Price has obtained several examples of a Sphenopterid frond and other plant fragments from a bed of sandy shale of about 4 feet in thickness, lying between a red sandstone below and lime-stone beds above, in one of the Pen Moel quarries on the left bank of the Wye, immediately to the north of Chepstow. This locality is mentioned in Dr. Vaughan's recent paper on the palæontological sequence in the Carboniferous Limestone of the Bristol area. That author informs me that he refers the beds in question to the lower portion of the Seminula-zone (S1 of his classification) on the evidence of the fauna.

With few exceptions, surface dislocations within the earth's crust or ‘earthquake-faults,’ have been described in connection with all earthquakes of large proportions. The Charleston earthquake of August 31st, 1886, stands out in some contrast with most others in this particular, and it is further in contrast with some other earthquakes for the reason that the phenomena recorded in connection with it have not as yet been brought into any relation with the structural geology of the district. A partial explanation of this may perhaps be found in the fact that the area most disturbed—the so-called ‘epicentral tract’—is entirely included within the coastal plain of the South-Eastern United States. Upon this plain the basement of rock is covered to very considerable depths by unconsolidated material, and it would perhaps be too much to expect that displacements upon fracture planes in the rock would be revealed in full measure at the surface.

In my Address to the Geological Society in 1905 I proposed the use of the terra Ashgillian for the uppermost series of the Ordovician System, but did not discuss therein at length the exact relationship of the beds to which the term was applied, with the underlying and overlying strata. An examination of the literature treating of these rocks showed that there was a considerable amount of confusion with regard to these strata, and it is the object of this paper to clear this up and to indicate what deposits are actually referable to the Ashgillian division.

Considering now the details of the various districts, we notice that in South Öland the basal beds are shaly and conglomeratic; the higher part is calcareous, and by increase in the proportion of matrix passes into a creamy-white limestone which is wonderfully fossiliferous (0 1 and C). The highest beds are again glauconitic, soft, and shaly. Northward the proportion of calcareous material diminishes, and a band of shale with Shumardia, whose lithology and fossil content agree with that of the Ottenby Ceratopyge shales below the unconformity, is interstratified with the limestone. This bed is quite inconstant, but in Central Öland another shale band containing Euloma occurs low down in the limestone. Beyond Borgholm (05 and 06) all limestone disappears, and only glauconitic shale separates the alternating of Dictyonema shale and Obolus conglomerate from the Orthoceras limestone above. In Central Öland the glauconite shales and Ceratopygekalk attain their maximum thickness of nearly seven feet, but in the north are again reduced to little more than one foot.

The voyage of the “Beagle ” in 1831–6 was not only the starting-point of Charles Darwin's scientific career, but also, and more particularly, it laid the foundation for the whole of his geological work, as embodied in the well-known series of volumes. The collections which, he gathered during that prolonged voyage of exploration have therefore no small interest of a historical and sentimental kind. It is believed that they possess also a certain intrinsic value; inasmuch as an examination of these original specimens, with the advantages conferred by modern petrographical methods, may sometimes help towards a better understanding of the recorded observations. Owing to his choice of plain language in preference to the now antiquated terminology of his time, Darwin is seldom obscure to a modern reader; but his characterization of the ‘igneous rocks which he observed is necessarily crude and vague. Not a few passages may be considerably elucidated by merely indicating the nature of the rocks which are designated by such old-fashioned comprehensive names as ‘porphyry,’ ‘greenstone,’ and ‘basalt.’