The oilfields of Burma lie almost entirely within the elongated Tertiary basin which runs approximately north-south and is bordered on the west by the Arakan Yoma and on the east by the ancient plateau of the Shan Hills. Most of the oil has been obtained from fields lying on a single line of folding and in a belt only 50 miles long between latitudes 20° 20′ and 21° 10′, the remainder being found in small fields situated at various places between latitudes 19° 25′ and 23° 45′.

At Messrs. Hills' brickyard, ½ mile north-north-west of Purton Station and about 4 miles north-west of Swindon, Wiltshire, a large pit in Upper Oxford Clay (Lower Oxfordian) is worked by modern methods to a depth of over 60 feet. Ammonites are for the most part preserved as white powdery or flaky impressions, as in the Jordan Cliff Clay at Weymouth, and their collection involves technical difficulty. For help with the collecting and measuring I am indebted to Messrs. C. W. and E. V. Wright, and for every facility at the pit to Mr. Hill.

The inner or immediate trough of a glaciated valley is now generally regarded as very closely related in origin to the glacier that last flowed in it, being equally a result of its erosive work whether vertically excavated or laterally opened by it. This is the Trog of Richter (1900), which he regarded as more or less exactly containing the glacier of the last glaciation during at least a great part of the period of trough-development, though signs of overflow at the height of the ice flood are found above the “shoulders” which bound the trough. Rarely does the trough comprise the whole valley: more commonly shoulders distinctly separate steep trough walls from gentler upper valley-side slopes. In addition to the inner trough-side shoulders, however, higher benches are in many cases unmistakably present, though they may be poorly defined and are always discontinuous, so that their correlation and restoration as a definite number of actual upper shoulders is by no means certain.

(I) In each of the areas examined the transition zone between the Hecla Hoek rocks of Eastern New Friesland and the more highly metamorphosed belt has been observed and the evidence points to a gradual increase in metamorphism westwards with the same general series of rocks involved. The rocks have been isoclinally folded and repetition occurs more especially on the east flank of the intensely metamorphosed zone. Usually only the Lower Murchison Bay Formation appears in the more highly folded belt, but it may well be that in the Stubendorff Mountains other rocks are also included.

In the northern area, west of Treurenberg Bay, Blomstrand's recognition of a central core of granitic gneiss giving way on both sides to less highly metamorphosed types still stands as the most important contribution to the interpretation of the structure. Recent examination has revealed that the sequence of events has been a folding of the Lower Murchison Bay Formation followed shortly by igneous intrusion and metamorphism of the whole.

In the Gullfaxe area isoclinally folded rocks of the Lower Murchison Bay Formation are associated with a quartz-felspargneiss. We have not been able to decide what this rock was originally. It may be either a metamorphosed igneous rock or an altered arkose. It appears to be concordant with the adjacent altered sedimentaries, but may be igneous material in some way related to the large granitic intrusion which lies farther west in this latitude.

In the Lomme Bay area Odell observed the transition zone.

(2) In the less altered zone to the east of the Duner Glacier we have been able to recognize the members of the Murchison Bay Formation as defined by Kulling, and the correlation is set out in Table I. The least satisfactory identification is of the Salodd and Raudstup Series. According to Kulling these Series have different characteristics in the Lomme Bay area from those which they show in North-East Land, and it may be that throughout New Friesland they attain neidier the thickness nor the distinctive character which is theirs in the type area. The presence of the other members of the Murchison Bay Formation and of the remarkable Sveanor Formation is well established.

The igneous rocks of the Stanner-Hanter district are included within the Geological Survey I-inch map, sheet 56 S.E., (Old Series), and form three hog-backed hills, Stanner Rocks, Worsell Wood, and Hanter Hill, which are prominent features in the country between New Radnor and Kington, close to the Welsh border. This line of hills trends from south-west to north-east, though the separate ridges are arranged en échelon. Stanner Rocks (I,08I feet), is separated from Worsell Wrood (about 940 feet), by the alluvial plain of the Gilwern Brook, while there is a low col between Worsell Wood and Hanter Hill (I,36I feet).

Petroleum is produced in Canada in New Brunswick, Ontario, North-West Territories, and in Alberta. Recently a new oilfield has been opened up on the Alberta-Saskatchewan boundary at Lloydminster. Prospecting at the present time is also being undertaken in Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec and in the Peace River Block of British Columbia.

A Small series of fossils, recently collected by Mr. James L. Begg mainly from the Ordovician beds of Girvan and sent to me for examination, include some interesting specimens amongst which is a species of trilobite which must be put in a new genus. My thanks are due to Mr. Andrew Ferguson, of the Geological Department of Glasgow University, for making the photographs of the specimens.

The Permian fish-fauna of England has been studied by the present writer since 1932. In 1933 Dr. H. Aldinger, then working in Professor E. A. Stensiö's laboratory in Stockholm, informed me of the constitution of a fish-fauna from East Greenland which he was studying. The resemblances to the Marl Slate fishes were remarkable, and I found it extremely difficult, and in some cases impossible, to separate certain forms found in the two areas.

ONE of the objectives of the East African Archaeological Expedition of 1934–5 was the examination of the plateau north of Lake Eyasi—the Vogel River area—where, it was hoped, a continuation of the richly fossiliferous Oldowaya Middle Pleistocene lake beds would be found. This hope was essentially realized ; deposits with an interesting Middle Pleistocene fauna a little earlier than that of Oldoway were found, with the difference that they were entirely terrestrial. The development of precisely datable beds resting upon a main Rift Valley Scarp made possible a study of physiographical changes associated with the faulting.

A 500 ft. sill of dolerite from Hangnest in the Calvinia division of the Cape Province (South Africa) exemplifies very clearly two well-marked features of the thicker Karroo sills:—

(1) Very slight amount of crystallization-differentiation.

(2) Marked tendency to mobilize and react with the associated shales and siltstones.

A petrological and chemical study of this sill is given and the mechanism of the various processes discussed.

The outcrop of Dogger described in this paper covers an area 12 miles in length, stretching S.S.W. from Whitby up the lower course of the River Esk and its tributary valleys of Iburndale, the Murk Esk Valley, Egton Grange, and Glaisdale. Unlike the coast natural exposures are few and unsatisfactory and in Lower Eskdale in particular are only encountered where becks from the surrounding moors cut through the massive boulder clay plug which partly fills the main valley. Other exposures occur in abandoned alum works, disused ironstone adits and small quarries. The outcrops cross diametrically a part of the Whitby Basin, the Eskdale Dome, the Goathland Syncline, notch the main Cleveland Dome (Lees and Cox, 1937),1 and range in height from 35 to 500 feet O.D..

Dr. R. H. Rastall (1932) has described the petrography of the Middle Jurassic sandstones of Eskdale and shown that they possess a remarkably restricted suite of detrital minerals, having for example no garnet or staurolite, but containing much anatase and brookite, both apparently of authigenic origin. The present writer (1934) showed that in other parts of North-East Yorkshire beds of the same age contain relatively rich heavy mineral assemblages. After a more detailed survey the writer was able to show (1939c, Text-fig. 2) that the peculiar restricted assemblage was confined to a belt or elongated oval area—which can be roughly defined as occupying the north-west and northeast quarters of Sheet 43 (Geol. Survey “one-inch” map) and the north-east quarter of Sheet 44—and that as one passed outward from this area one met with increasingly richer assemblages at all horizons in the Middle Jurassic.1 This result, as well as the results of mapping certain other characteristics of the assemblage, led the writer to suggest that this belt, which coincides closely with the Cleveland axis, is a belt along which active decomposition and alteration has occurred in these deposits after they were laid down.

The Builth district was visited by one of us (O. T. J.) in the spring of 1939 with a view to arranging an excursion for the International Geological Congress which was to have been held in London in 1940. Amongst other places the magnificent range of quarries in the Ordovician volcanic rocks of Llanelwedd, near Builth, was examined. Beyond the western end of the quarries a striking boulder bed was observed which promised to give an insight into a remarkable episode in the history of the district. This bed is shown on the I in. Geological Survey Map, Old Series, Sheet 56, S.W.

The helium method of determining the ages of fine-grained basic igneous rocks has now been so far developed as to be applicable to various geological and petrological problems, particularly where geological periods are involved, as in the problem here discussed. For details of the history of this development up to the beginning of 1937 reference may be made to Holmes, 1931; Urry, 1933; Lane and Urry, 1935; Urry, 1936 (b); Holmes and Paneth, 1936; and Holmes, 1937. During 1937 it was found that many of the helium-ratios on which the ‘helium’ time-scale had been based were too high, because of a previously unsuspected error in radium determination due to reliance having being placed on a radium standard which was seriously at fault. To clear up this embarrassing situation an immediate effort was made by several investigators in collaboration, and the first fruits of their work have recently become available (Evans, Goodman, Keevil, Lane, and Urry, 1939).

Biconvex to plano-convex usually partly costate Protremata, without pseudodeltidiuin or chilidium so far as known. Of the two valves the dorsal is considerably the larger and more convex. The delthyrium is closed by the incurved dorsal umbo. Dentition simple; strong teeth developed on dental-plates fit into sockets between the brachial-processes and the valve margin. The dental-plates unite to form a duplex spondylium. In the dorsal valve the alate cardinalia consist of short brachial-processes supported on outer-plates, which may remain parallel or converge to form a sessile cruralium or cruralium duplex. The muscles are attached within the spondylium in the ventral valve, while dorsally there is a central grouping of the adductor muscles on the inner surface of the valve below the cruralium.

The occurrence of massive reddish sandstones and quartzites lying between the Coal Measures and Carboniferous Limestone in the Bristol District has long been known. From their position and distinctive lithology, these beds have been referred to as the Millstone Grit by many early writers, amongst whom Austin (1865) may be mentioned. However, it has been shown that in part these beds are of Lower Carboniferous age. This was recognized by Vaughan (1905) notably in the Avon Section and at Long Ashton, where red grits and sandstones, previously regarded as Millstone Grit, were shown to represent horizon ∈, and later found by him to be of D3 age. Dr. Stanley Smith (1930) has shown at Wick, on the eastern border of the Bristol Coalfield, that the lower part of the red and gritty beds of that area are likewise of Avonian D3 age. Dr. Smith suggested a non-sequence between Lower and Upper Carboniferous to occur some 30 feet above a thin gritty limestone, the “Mollusca Band” of D3 age. Between this horizon and that from which Yorkian plants were recorded (Crookall in Smith, 1930, p. 342), some 350 to 400 feet of grits and micaceous shales occurred. These beds were of uncertain age, and Dr. Smith held the opinion that part and probably most of these beds belong to the Upper Carboniferous.

A Recent short stay on Antigua has enabled me to inquire into a few points in the geology of that island. Among the matters of interest were to investigate the crucial question of the age of the Seaforth Limestone, which carries with it the age of the volcanic mountainous part of the island. Also to inquire into the supposed occurrence of Cretaceous Chalk at Cassada Gardens; to see some of the igneous intrusions in the Central plain and the Antigua Limestone; to collect the freshwater mollusca of the silicified tuff beds; and to search the Antigua Limestone for the so-called “Oligocene rudist”, Neomonopleura (Rothpletzia), which Dr. Lehner told me he thought occurred at Hodge's Bay. The sub-fossil land shells in the Pleistocene marls at St. George's Church also interested me, among other matters.

So far as the writer has been able to ascertain, the occurrence in British Malaya of coal in vertical veins, as distinct from coal interbedded with sediments, was first recorded in 1908 by Mr. J. B. Scrivenor, who described an example in a tin mine in alluvium at Siputeh, west of Batu Gajah, Perak.

This paper is chiefly concerned with the micro-crinoid Allagecrinus biplex, recent discoveries of which have added considerably to our knowledge of the species. Others like A. auslinii, Callimorphocrinus scoticus, and C. elongatus are only briefly noticed. Their adequate study and illustration must be deferred to more settled times.

(1) There is no evidence of the alignment of the Essequibo with the edge of a deep ocean basin.

(2) The Essequibo River is not a well-defined dividing line between two geological provinces.

(3) The Essequibo River does not mark the former locality of a coast line; it is not parallel to a tectonic depression.

(4) The “fault-line coast” criteria described are not restricted to the area west of the Essequibo, and even if they were, this would not necessarily be evidence of a tectonic break along die Essequibo.

There are a number of other controversial statements in the paper. I have attempted to deal only with the chief points raised in the four arguments referred to.