Having occasion in a work now in the press to refer to certain fossil Reptiles and Amphibians of which the commonly accepted nomenclature requires revision, I think it advisable to make the necessary amendments in a Journal specially devoted to Geology and Palæontology. I also take the opportunity of giving two new scientific names to Reptiles from the Wealden.

Subterranean landslips differ from landslips occurring in cliffs along the coast, and in escarpments elsewhere, in that, a fissure having been formed and its sides become separated (Figs. 2 and 3 a), so that they are without support along the line of division, it may happen that by the giving way of some soft or unconsolidated stratum (b), at any depth, from a few feet only, down to the molten nucleus, wedge-shaped masses (c) extending parallel to the fissure would break off (d) and slipping down strike against the opposite wall (Fig. 3e) and thus fill up the fissure.

During the summer I visited Hof with Professor Nicholson, mainly in order to examine the Graptolite-bearing shales of the surrounding region. These we found to be far from rich in fossils, and the principal fossil-bearing localities were remote from one another. Under such circumstances little could have been accomplished, but for the kindness of Herr Glass, of Hof, who allowed us to examine his fine collection of fossils from the district. To him I would tender my best thanks, as also to Prof. Geinitz, who not only permitted me to examine his rich collection of Graptolites from the Thüringerwald preserved in the Dresden Museum, but also devoted some of his valuable time to me.

For a full account of the Lower Palæozoic rocks of the region under consideration, I may refer to Prof. Gümbel's exhaustive “Geognostiche Beschreibung des Fichtelgebirges mit dem Frankenwalde und dem Westlichen Vorlande.”

During a visit to Stockholm last spring, Prof. Gustav Lindström kindly permitted the writer to examine the series of remains of Palöozoic fishes obtained from the Devonian of Spitzbergen by Dr. A. G. Nathorst, during the Swedish Geological Expedition in 1882. Some of the more prominent specimens have already been briefly noticed, with figures, by Prof. Ray Lankester; but the collection is worthy of a more detailed comparative study than that to which it has hitherto been subjected, and among the undescribed specimens most readily identified is a small fossil indistinguishable from the so-called “intermandibular arch” or “presymphysial bone” of Onychodus. Through the kindness of Prof. Lindström, this specimen has been forwarded to the British Museum for examination, and it forms the subject of the following remarks.

As early as the times of Descrates (1668) and Newton (1681), the “ settling and shrinking of the whole globe after the upper regions or surface began to be hard,”2 was held a sufficient cause for the formation of mountain-chains. Following the growth of our knowledge of mountain-structure, the contraction theory has been rediscovered several times in the present century. It has been worked out in great detail by Élie de Beaumont, Prevost, Delabeche and others; but, above all, by J. D. Dana, the real founder of the theory, in an admirable series of papers extending over the last forty-two years.

Leaving its details out of account, the fundamental idea in the contraction theory may be stated as follows: The whole earth was originally at a high temperature throughout, its present distribution of temperature being the result of cooling since the initial epoch.

Mr. Edwards in his beautiful work (Eoc. Moll. p. 311, pl. 32, fig. 2) described a species of Pleurotoma under the title of Pl. turbida, Sol. He regards Pl. colon, Sow., as a synonym, but not Pl. colon, Sow., in Deshayes. In this I think he was mistaken. The species described by Deshayes appears to me different from the Pl. colon, Sow., and identical with the species figured by Solander under the name of Murex turbidus. In the second edition of his work Deshayes says that he “noted this species for mischief,” because it is not found at Soisson, but he retained the name of colon, Sow.

In going through the remains of Chelonia preserved in the British Museum I came across two vertebræ from the Wealden of the Isle of Wight, which had been inadvertently included in that series. These specimens (B.M. No. R. 901) formed part of the collection of the late Rev. Mr. Fox, and clearly indicate a small Dinosaur allied to the genus Cœlurus.

Mr. Ami's interesting discovery has already been announced in a letter addressed to Mr. A. H. Foord, F.G.S., published in this Magazine (October, 1888). Mr. Ami now supplies a “Note” on the precise geological position of the beds in which the Turrilepas was found. Want of space, however, precludes us from giving the whole of his detailed observations, which are accompanied by a sketch section, here reproduced:—

The following is a summary of Mr. Ami's “Note.”

The Turrilepas was found in a band of bituminous limestone cropping out on the right bank of the Rideau River, at the Rifle Range, near Ottawa. The precise position of the beds (Lower Utica = about the lower part of the Bala Series), was ascertained by means of their fossil contents, which include an interesting Brachiopod—Siphonotreta Scotica, identified and named by the late Dr. T. Davidson, F.R.S.

An interesting paper has lately been contributed to this Magazine (December, 1888, p. 532), by Dr. Gustav Lindström, of Stockholm, in which he announced his discovery of the earlier, or Nautilus stage, as he termed it, in several specimens of Ascoceras from the Silurian of the Island of Gothland. I find, however, in looking over the supplementary volume of the Syst. Sil. du centre de la Bohême,3 that Dr. Lindström's discovery has been anticipated by M. Barrande, who observed and described two of the normal chambers (Nautilus stage, of Lindström) attached to a specimen of Ascoceras Murchisoni from the Silurian strata (Étage E) of Karlstein in Bohemia.

Some very interesting deposits of Pleistocene age have lately been exposed on the Burton Road, Derby. The road rises on the north side of Mill Hill, and near the top, at the height of 260 feet, cuts into a mass of Boulder-clay, which is, or was, well shown in the cuttings for the new roads leading into Byron Street. Another outlier of the same clay is exposed in Littleover Lane to the southwest. The main mass of the deposit cut into on the Burton Road is a red morainic clay with boulders; apparently a subaerial moraine subsequently modified by the passage over it of land ice. Unlike the tough, silty, red and blue aqueous Boulder Clays so plentifully spread over the Midland counties, it shows little or no signs of aqueous action. Sometimes it has a banded or streaked appearance, but this seems to be due rather to a crushing or pressing-out action than to original conditions of deposition.