In the early numbers of the Geological Magazine the ‘Dragon-tree’ received considerable attention. It was thought to be a Monocotyledon and described as a species of Dracæna by Mackie in 1862 (Geologist, p. 401, pl. xxii). The specimen appears to have attracted an unusual amount of interest prior to 1870, and it is referred to by Mantell and other contemporary writers. Carruthers placed it among the British fossil Pandanaceæ in 1868 (GEOL. MAG., p. 154). Like other specimens from the sandstones of the Iguanodon Quarry (Lower Greensand of Maidstone), no internal structure appeared to be preserved, and the determination of its nature rested entirely on the external features.

In the agglomerate of the volcanic necks of Eastern Fifeshire are incorporated, as has long been known, numerous fragments of sedimentary rock. These, it is generally believed, represent the broken-up remains of the strata which at some former time occupied their sites. Many of them have obviously been subjected to excessively high temperatures, others show no sign whatever of igneous action. Thus, occasionally we find quartzites and lydian stone representing what once must have been sandstones amd clay shale; or, again, the constituent layers of a sandy or carbonaceous shale may be seen to be still adherent and so little altered as to display on a freshly exposed surface admirably preserved plant-remains. Lime-stone blocks also occur sometimes converted into marble, frequently unchanged; in the latter case, exhibiting on their weathered exteriors the remains of those organisms which give at once the clue to the conditions accompanying the deposition of their parent stratum. It is with special reference to these limestone fragments that this note has been written and particularly to those occurring in one vent—the well-known “Rock and Spindle”—a mile and a half to the east of St. Andrews.

Zoarium free, unilaminate, the back divided by somewhat wavy, shallow, slightly diverging furrows into long narrow strips which correspond with the lines of zoœeia; these strips are occasionally crossed by very shallow depressions or furrows corresponding to the boundaries of individual zoœcia.

The question of the origin of igneous rocks, their diversity and genetic relationships, represents that fundamental problem of petrography which has been for many years the object of inquiry for petrologists as well as for geologists and chemists. Whilst the amount and scope of detailed observation were growing, the methods of experimental investigation improved, and as the eruptive rocks came to be studied from the point of view of physical chemistry, so the petrogenetical horizon became larger and wider. Thus, on the basis of numerous minute and detailed observations were built broad generalizations that gave rise to new problems.

The tubes formed of fish-debris, found throughout the Chalk of England, described by Mantell (1822) as Murœna(?) lewesiensis, referred by L. Agassiz (1844) to Dercetis elongatus, and placed among Annelida Tubicola as Terebella lewesiensis by William Davies (1879), are here described with more precise detail and retained in the position assigned to them by Davies. A diagnosis is provided and a holotype selected.

A specimen from the Gault, of similar nature but larger, is made the type of a new species, ‘Terebella’ lutensis (Fig. 6).

Similar tubes from the Cenomanian, built of Conifer debris and Echinoderm debris, are described, and the question whether these differences of composition indicate a difference of species is discussed, but left open for the evidence of further material. Such tubes may for the present be known as ‘Terebella’ cf. lewesiensis (Figs. 7, 8).

Tubes without extraneous building material and with a cancellar ornament are also found in the Cretaceous rocks of England, and some were referred to Terebella lewesiensis by Davies. All those from the Chalk are here separated as ‘Terebella’ cancellata, n.sp. (Figs. 3–5).

Two tubes made of mud bricks are discussed. One, apparently of Lower Cenomanian age, is referred to the rather doubtful genus Keckia (Fig. 1). The other, from the Gault, is referred to Granularia (Fig. 2). Both these genera are held to be of Annelid origin.

Sir Henry Howorth in his Ice or Water deals in considerable detail with the various theories of glacier motion which have been propounded. His works are veritable mines of information concerning the subject of ice and water, and he is everywhere anxious to give all workers credit for the work they have done, to state their theories correctly, and if he should differ from their conclusions to do so in a kindly spirit. Among other theories of glacier motion he refers to the one for which I am responsible. Referring to this theory he says—

“In the Philosophical Magazine for 1888 Mr. Deeley propounded what he claimed to be a new theory of glacier motion. In this paper he very rightly says ‘that every change of outline suffered by a glacier, if we disregard melting and the small internal changes of bulk produced by pressure, etc., is due to the shear of ice plane over ice plane’. He further says of glacier motion: ‘We have, therefore, two kinds of motion—one a bodily slide in a downward direction, and another due to the differential motion of the ice not in contact with the ground.’ In order to explain the latter he postulates that constant liquefaction and resolidification is taking place within a glacier by the sun’s heat penetrating it and melting certain portions, and inasmuch as a glacier has a tendency to sink in consequence of its gravity, the liquefying of certain portions of its interior will take away the support of the rest and let it sink down.

In the interesting paper, by Mr. F. G. Collins, on the so-called Culm-measures of the Exeter district, which has recently appeared in the last number of the Quarterly Journal, there are to be found certain conclusions which can hardly pass unchallenged. When this paper was read at the Geological Society, I happened to be in the extreme west of Ireland, and thus, unfortunately, I was unable to be present at that meeting or to take part in the discussion. In fact, it was not until my return to Cambridge in September that I knew anything of the substance of the paper, beyond the very small contribution on the fossil plants which I wrote for it some time ago.

Few natural mineral products have aroused more general interest or been more provocative of discussion amongst geologists than that superficial rock-formation so typical of the tropics known as laterite. This material excites interest not only because of its chemical composition, but also on account of its wide distribution. It has been recorded, for instance, from tropical South America (e.g. the Guianas and Brazil), Central Africa (e.g. Guinea and East Africa), the Seychelles, India, the Malay Peninsula, the East Indies, and Western Australia. Many papers have been published dealing with its distribution, composition, and also its origin, to explain which many hypotheses have been invented.

The pillow-laves are a group of basic igneous rocks that occur, in our experience, only as submarine flows, and very frequently exhibit ‘pillow-structure’. A lava-flow of this type is composed of sack-shaped masses, globular or elongated, and varying in size. The external surface of the pillows may be compact, but in their interior there are numerous cavities often concentrically arranged. First described in Britain by Nicholas Whitley (1), and figured also by De la Beche (2), they have become generally known through the work of Teall (3), Raisin (4), Reid and Dewey (5), and their importance among the Palæozoic eruptive rocks of Britain is now well established.

During an investigation of the ‘Yellow Sands’ and Magnesian Limestone of Durham and Northumberland, several lenticular and irregular hollows or caverns, containing ‘Yellow Sands’ and light yellow marl, were noticed in the Lower Brecciated Magnesian Limestone at Trow Rocks, about one mile south of the Tyne (see Map, Fig. 1).

In all the Regular Echinoids, with the exception of the Cidarids, and in the Irregular Echinoids other than the Clypeastroids and Spatangids, there is a tendency for the ambulacral plates to become crowded together as they approach the margin of the peristome. This is the inevitable result of the continuous formation of fresh plates at the edges of the oculars in the apical system, and their less rapid resorption at the opposite extremity of the ambulacrum. The compression of the ambulaeral plates results in a crowding of the pore-pairs in the peristomial region, and this character seems to serve a sensory as well as a motor purpose.

Through the kindness of Mr. Walter Egginton I have recently had an opportunity of studying an interesting series of Crustacea from the Coal - measures of Coseley, near Dudley. Most of the specimens can be referred, with more or less probability, to the division Syncarida, which includes the living Anaspides and its allics, and among them are some which I regard as representing a new genus. Although the fossils, which are contained in nodules of clayironstone, often show very minute details of structure in a beautifully perfect state, it is just those features most important from a morphological point of view that are most frequently obscured. There are many essential points that cannot be determined from the material at my disposal, and the conclusions drawn as to the systematic affinities of the genus must therefore be regarded as to some extent provisional.

Amongst the large series of specimens of Meyeria recently obtained by the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge, from the Lower Greensand of Atherfield, Isle of Wight, two new and strange forms, obviously referable to another genus, were detected by me in looking over the material. Their interest consists not only in belonging to new species but in representing the genus Thenops, of which the best known and only British species, so far described, is Th. scyllariformis, Bell, from the London Clay. There is one imperfect specimen in the British Museum from the Speeton Clay attributed (with a query) to Thenops, but no other British representative from the Cretaceous appears to have been found.

Whilst engaged on the new Geological Survey in the neighbourhood of Mariow, I had the good fortune to come across an exposure of Chalk Rock yielding an exceptionally rich fauna, including a single specimen of an ammonite which appeared to be new to science. This ammonite was therefore shown to Dr. Kitchin, Mr. Crick, Dr. Rowe, and Mr. H. Woods, none of whom had seen the species before or could recognize it as a form already described. The discovery of new Cephalopods from the Chalk is now so rare that it seems worth while to draw attention to this, although the whole of the accompanying fossils have not yet been identified.

The mining village of Foxdale, situate a little towards the southern end of the north-east to south-west central trend-line of the Isle of Man, lies just north of the barren heath-covered hill called “Stoney Mountain”. On the 6 inch Ordnance Survey Map the northern part of this hill is called Granite Mountain and the southern portion Windy Common. The whole forms a long, regularly sloped hill with its greatest length—about 2 miles—approximately north and south. Though of small altitude its singular barrenness makes it conspicuous in a moderately well-cultivated district. To the west South Barrule and the Barrule Slate Quarries rise considerably above it, though on the other sides the ground slopes gently off to more distant hills.

As I could not give in this paper anything like a full account of my observations and the results of my studies concerning this question made during an expedition through Iceland in the summer of 1908, I must refer the reader to my special papers on this subject. Everyone will find there the reasons which have induced me first to suppose the independence of the so-called ‘Schild’ volcanoes in Iceland of pre-existing fissures. This idea is confirmed by collecting proof after proof on the subject in the field during my researches. Naturally I could not give all the details in a first short preliminary communication, a fact which, I am sorry to say, has caused Professor Schwarz to doubt the correctness of part of my observations and conclusions. I may therefore be allowed to discuss shortly the two main objections of Professor Schwarz to my theory.

The accompanying sketch is from a photograph taken in April, 1906, of a series of landslips just east of Chilton Chine, near Brixton, on the south coast of the Isle of Wight. The cliff, which

is composed of Brick-earth on gravel and this overlying Weald Clay, had fallen away in a series of blocks of triangular section, which were alternately base and apex uppermost; the apices in places were quite acute, and one could stride from base to base over the sharply denned apex of a clay triangle. The bases of these triangles were the grassed surface, and the apices of toughened and slickensided Brick-earth which stood up, perhaps, 4 feet beyond the grass; where the apex would naturally have been higher it was usually broken away and crumbled down. There were spaces between the blocks large enough for a horse to fall down and as much as 15 feet deep, at which depth the talus blocked the view. These spaces were overhung by the triangle that stood on its apex, so that the surface contour of my section is correct. At the time the photograph was taken the landslide was quite new, that is, small pieces of clay were falling from the overhanging faces and the fractures of grass and clay looked perfectly fresh. Possibly it had only occurred a few hours previously.

As several rare and interesting fossils from this coal-field have been described in this Magazine and elsewhere, it seems advisable to place on record several other animal remains from the same district which, owing to their minuteness, or to the fact that they are fragmentary, are not worthy of a separate and detailed description, in the hope that their publication may inspire geologists to obtain better and more perfect examples from other localities.

Just before my departure from Tokyo to Europe, in 1908, my attention was called, by the kindness of MR. Gordon Yamakawa, to a fossil fauna from a cutting along the Yamanote line of the circum-Tokyo railway, near the Tabata station. It was seven years ago, when the railway line was still in process of construction, that Mr. Yamakawa formed a collection of fossils, consisting exclusively of molluscan remains. Of special interest is the abundant occurrence of Tellina venulosa, Schrenk, in the shell-sand, and as its presence is really of exceptional interest in the environs of Tokyo we visited the place together soon afterwards. The present brief account is contributed partly for the purpose of recording the observations of this diligent young student of fossils, whose lamentable and too early death took place last autumn, during my absence in Europe, and partly with the intention of interesting others in the further study of the Pleistocene and Pliocene geology of Tokyo, which though apparently quite simple, contains many interesting and unsettled geological questions.

The district under consideration embraces that part of the county of Kincardine which lies south of the Highland fault. Excellent maps on the 1 inch and ¼ inch scale have been issued by H.M. Geological, Survey, but no detailed description of the geology of the area has yet been published. Most of my vacations during the past three years have been spent in studying the geology of this interesting region, and although the work, which has included detailed mapping of the whole area on the 6 inch scale, is not yet complete, several points have been made out, the importance of which has led to the publication of this preliminary note.