The soil of the Roman country, so interesting to the archæologist for the splendid remains it has yielded of the Roman age, is no less rich in relics which shed light on the history of primitive man. Although researches of this kind began here only ten years ago, the results obtained up to this date have been highly satisfactory. These anthropological investigations have been executed with great care by many independent investigators, among whom may be mentioned Ponzi, Ceselli, Bleicher, De Verneuil, and also the author of this communication, who have collected a great many specimens, and accumulated numerous observations relative to primitive Man.

In the GeologicalMagazine for July, 1874, I gave a description and figures of this species, and also that of a shell I referred with some hesitation to Aviculopecten ellipticus, Phillips, closely resembling the forms referred to P. Sowerbii, but differing in the form of the ears, which are after the normal type of the Pectinidœ, and not connate, with a re-entering angle between them, as in P. Sowerbii.

Having read with much interest Mr. Murphy's papers in the journal of the Geological Society for 1869 (p. 350) and for 1876 (p. 400), in which he maintains that at the time of maximum excentricity of the Earth's orbit that hemisphere would be glaciated which had its winter in aphelion, as against Mr. Croll, whose theory is that the glaciated hemisphere would be that which had its summer in aphelion: it has occurred to me that I have never seen, in this discussion, any reference to the case of the planet Mars.

Nature has by no means contributed her charms to the adornment of St. Petersburg. In fact, it is built upon a marsh, in a situation so flat that it is not until you have almost landed that you can see anything of this great city. The only object in choosing such a site appears in a sentiment of its founder, who wished to have “a window looking out into Europe.” In some openings made in the streets and public gardens, I saw sections of from 15ft, to 20ft. thick, which gave some idea of the weak foundation on which certainly a large part of this great northern capital has been placed. It was all a bluish-grey sand. Beneath this sand I was told there was a bed of clay. But for this, if I may judge from the weak foundations which I saw, the look-out of the Russian Czar might by this time have entirely sunk from view. The low situation of St. Petersburg, together with its marshy surroundings, at certain seasons gives rise to a mild malaria; and if you visit the city in summertime, you will find that all the wealthy inhabitants have, in consequence, migrated towards the sea.

Mr. alfred craven, who for some months past has been occupied in making a collection of the organic remains found in the Gault at Folkestone, has submitted to me for examination and description (if requisite) a specimen of a Pycnodont jaw which, both for the perfect condition in which it is preserved and for the peculiarity of its characters, is worthy both of description and representation. The specimen is the right mandible with most of the tritoral teeth preserved in their natural position. It betokens a fish of the largest size of the family to which it belongs, rivalling in this respect even the Pycnodus gigas of the Jura beds. The symphyseal border (PI. III. Fig. 1 s) measures two inches and eight-tenths of an inch in length, and half an inch in thickness. As the anterior extremity is wanting, the natural size was probably half an inch longer. The outer margin of the jaw measures four inches, and the basal line—connecting the outer and symphyseal elements of the triangle—three inches and two-tenths. The dental armature is composed of four ranks on the anterior and three on the posterior area of the mandible. The inner row (Pl III. Fig. 1 a) consists of teeth very considerably larger than those of the succeeding rows. Six of these are retained; but as the anterior extremity of the bone is broken, there were probably one or two more. The individual teeth measure nine-tenths of an inch by four-tenths. They are elliptic in outline, but slightly crescentic on the anterior margin.

Two papers in the July Number of this Magazine one by Mr. J. H. Blake, and the other by Mr. C. Reid, impugn certain representations given by us of beds on the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts, and demand from us some remark.

I Left London on the 3rd of August, 1875, and next morning was sailing down the muddy estuarine waters of the Humber towards the German Ocean en route for Gottenborg. On either side was a long line of flat coast.

That the energy of the earth and the sun is a continually diminishing quantity, and must at the beginning of geologic history have been far in excess of its present amount, are propositions that few at the present day would be found to deny; but the exact influence of this greater quantity of energy on geologic changes has not, I believe, been hitherto fully discussed.

In the following brief notice it is my wish to communicate to the Society a description of the physical properties and chemical composition of one of the geological specimens recently brought from the above group of islands.

From no part of the world have we of late years derived more additions to the Geological Record than from North America. Besides important additions to the earliest pages of that record, the rich collections made by the United States Surveyors, both of fauna and flora, from the Cretaceous, Eocene, and Miocene deposits, have thrown much light upon the life history of the Earth; and it is even contended that they have bridged over the interval which, notwithstanding the Maestricht beds, the Pisolitic, and the Faxoe Limestones, still remains sharply marked between the Cretaceous and Tertiary formations of Europe so far as they have yet been examined.

Looking at a map of Asia, or, still better, at a map of Japan, there will be seen a string of islands stretching from near the entrance of the Bay of Yeddo in a more or less southerly direction towards the Bonins. It is very probable that all these islands are of volcanic origin. With the exception of one or two of them, which within the last few years have given off a few curling wreaths of steam, they might strictly be defined as being dormant, having given vent neither to fire nor smoke within the history of their inhabitants. In this respect they are similar to many of the volcanic cones in Japan, with which they are also probably coincident in age. A short time ago, however, during the first week in January, a great change was observed in the most northern of these islands, which is called Oshima. Ships coming into Yokohama brought news that the island was on fire. One captain reported that flames 200 feet in height were seen. Although Oshima was an island which three years previously had been giving out clouds of smoke, and seven years before that had been actually in eruption, it was thought by many that the conflagration was due to the burning of grass or wood, and it was not till some days had passed that the true state of affairs became fully recognized.

We are all aware that it is very often much easier to put a question than to obtain an entirely satisfactory answer, and I am consequently sorry to have to begin my few observations on a very extensive class or group of organisms, by stating that zoologists and comparative anatomists have not yet entirely agreed as to the exact position it should occupy among invertebrate animals.

Perm is known to the Russians like Woolwich is to the English, as being a great cannon manufactory. It is said to employ 4000 workmen, and is the largest establishment of the kind in Russia. To see it one must go about three miles farther up the river. In driving there I passed a section of a whitish fissile rock, which was apparently a local representative of the Permian strata. The most noticeable thing at the works was a large steam hammer, said to be the largest in the world. The weight of the head of this instrument is 50 tons, but when steam is employed the energy is equivalent to three times this amount. The anvil on which this falls is a solid block of cast iron, weighing 667 tons. Up till quite recently all the coal used at these works was brought from England, which naturally involved considerable expense. Now they use their own coal, which is found on both sides of the neighbouring Urals in great abundance, coke only being brought from England.

In the present state of our knowledge of the Devonian formation, it seems highly desirable, if possible, to correlate any of the beds in Devonshire with those of this wide-spread formation on the Continent.

Muscles.—As the number and position of these organs differ materially in the two great divisions into which the Brachiopoda have been separated, and to some extent, also, in the different genera of which each division is composed, it may be desirable to treat this subject under two different heads.

Since the Government Geological Survey of the country around Nottingham was made in the year 1859, and the Explanation on the Geological Map Quarter-sheet 71 N.E. was written in 1861, papers by local geologists have been written, stating that in the neighbourhood of Nottingham a perfect conformity existed between the Magnesian Limestone and the New Red Sandstone. This being totally at variance with conclusions I came to when I surveyed that country, I have been for some time past desirous to say a word on the subject, but being deeply occupied with the old rocks of the Lake district, I have put it off from time to time. I felt little doubt in my mind, when surveying the neighbourhood of Nottingham, that there was a considerable break between the Magnesian Limestone and the New Red Sandstone, and this opinion was completely confirmed as I continued my survey northwards through Nottinghamshire into Yorkshire.

“The earliest known example of a fossil Macrourous Decapod Crustacean was obtained by Prof. Prestwich from the Pennystone Ironstone of the Coal-measures, Coalbrook-dale, Shropshire, and was at that time referred by Prof. H. Milne-Edwards, who examined it, to the Phyllopoda under the name of Apus dubius (see Trans. Geol. Soc. Lond., 1836, 2nd series, vol. v. p. 413). In 1844 some further remains of this genus were noticed by W. Ick, Esq., F.G.S. (see Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond., vol. i. p. 199).

At the British Association Meeting in Dundee, in 1867, the late Dr. Chambers, in a brief paper, called the attention of Section C. to the existence of an “eskar” in the neighbouring parish of Forgan, in the County of Fife. As far as I can recollect or ascertain, the paper said little or nothing about the subject further than describing its situation, and recommending it to the attention of the Section. And I am not aware that the great accumulations of gravel and sand to which Dr. Chambers referred have been made the subject of systematic observation since.

In two papers, by Messrs. S. V. Wood, jun., and F. W. Harmer, recently read, before the Geological Society,—alluded to by Mr. Belt, in the GeologicalMagazine for April last,—this Rootlet-bed at Kessingland has been referred to, and described as an interglacial shallow valley deposit; of an age posterior to the Contorted Drift or Lower Boulder-clay, lying in a trough excavated out of the Chillesford Clay. To make their description more intelligible, the authors (Messrs. Wood and Harmer) subjoin a sketch-map—in their combined, paper “Observations on the Later Tertiary Geology of East Anglia,” read November 8th, 1876—and indicate by a broken line the connexion of this trough with the existing (!) valley systems of the rivers Waveney and Yare—which are here mainly cut out of the Chalky Boulder-clay and Middle Glacial Sands—thus apparently assuming that, before the Middle Glacial Sands and Chalky Boulder-clay were deposited, there were valley systems occupying much the same positions in this immediate locality as there are now, with the addition of the supposed continuation of the interglacial valley of the Waveney in a south-easterly direction to Pakefield and Kessingland.

Since writing the letter quoted in the foregoing communication by my friend Prof. Liversidge, I have had the opportunity of examining a larger fragment of the calcareous rock to which it refers, and am thereby enabled to add somewhat, not merely to the list of Foraminifera which it contains, but also to the general conclusions to be drawn from it. The lithological characters of the rock are, as Prof. Liversidge has stated, precisely those of many specimens of white chalk, but it is seldom that a Cretaceous mineral is so entirely composed of the recognizable remains of microzoa, and it is still more rarely that a geological deposit occurs, for which so exact a counterpart in process of formation can be indicated. Under these circumstances some further remarks on the subject may not be without interest.