In 1905 trenches for electric mains were carried up the northeastern slope of Shooters Hill, along Shrewsbury Lane to “The Bull”, and thence down the western hill-slope along the Dover Road. From about 350 O.D. in Plum Lane to 424 O.D. at “The Bull” the trench ran for nearly two-thirds of a mile along the junction of the London Clay with the overlying group of sands, pebbles, and clayey gravels which form the ‘gravel cap’ of Shooters Hill. Neither the exact age of these superficial deposits nor their mode of formation—whether marine or fluviatile beds—is as yet known, but the general coarseness of the sands, the presence of pebbles of Lower Greensand chert, and the very stiff clayey matrix of the gravel distinguish them from typical Bagshot Beds, and moreover throughout the greater part of the section a sharp and irregular junction could be traced between them and the brown London Clay. At a few points, however, the top of the London Clay was seen to pass into pale-brown and yellowish sandy clays, sometimes of significant thickness. Thus in the Dover Road, about 100 yards above Christ Church, below the thick red clayey gravel of the ‘cap’, lay about 3 feet of yellow loam, the lower part of which became a pale-brown clay passing quite gradually into normal blue or brown London Clay with septarian nodules. In the same series of excavations (1905) a trench at the junction of Shrewsbury Lane with the Dover Road showed the Shooters Hill gravel resting irregularly on a bed of fine clean yellowish sand quite unlike anything previously noted in the numerous pits and trenches opened upon the Hill, but as unfortunately the trench was only a few feet deep the relation of this fine sand to the London Clay could not then be made out.

In a note on Archæosigillaria Vanuxemi and Bothrodendron sp., published in the Geological Magazine for February last, Mr. J. W. Jackson speculated on the age of the beds at Meathop, in which these plant remains occur, and refers to the general classification of the Lower Carboniferous rocks of the Westmorland district, which I gave in this magazine in 1907. He remarks: “It is perhaps premature to attempt to fix definitely the exact horizon of these beds, as they appear to have been as yet but superficially studied.” Since the classification above referred to was published, I have devoted such time as could be spared from professional duties to an exhaustive examination of the whole northern area, the result of which has been to confirm the general conclusions already given in this magazine. In my forthcoming account of the district, I have given a detailed description of the Meathop section. The delay in publishing a full account of the northern area has been necessitated by the general structure of the district, which required a careful study of isolated outcrops, extending over a very large area, before an accurate co-ordination of the separate exposures could be established. If any justification for this delay were needed, it is supplied by Mr. Jackson's note, in which he confesses his inability to decide upon the age of the beds displayed in the isolated exposure at Meathop on the evidence afforded by the collections obtained during his visits to that locality.

In his monograph of Palæozoic Arachnida published in 1904, Dr. Fritsch divides the order Araneæ into two suborders—the Arthrarachnæ, Haase, containing the Arthrolycosidæ, and the Pleuraraneæ, Fritsch, containing the Hemiphrynidæ (Hemiphrynus) and the Promygalidæ (Promygale).

At the recent meeting of the International Geological Congress in Stockholm, Professor C. de la Torre, of the University of Havana, made the announcement of a discovery of fossil mammals of Pleistocene age, in cavern deposits of Central Cuba. Hitherto the known fossil Vertebrates were few. Mr. T. W. Vaughan, in America, had published a long paper discrediting those previously reported, but before that time the late Professor E. D. Cope (America's great Vertebrate Palæontologist) had passed over the doubtful forms, and accepted especially one species of Edentate, supposing that other forms were buried and submerged during the subsequent depressions of the land.

Many years ago the late Mr. Townshend M. Hall, F.G.S., of Pilton, Barnstaple, specially devoted his energies to the geology and palæontology of the Devonian rocks of North Devon, and in addition to a set of fossils acquired from him, now in the British Museum (Natural History), he left a series of local fossils to the Museum in the Athenæum at Barnstaple. This collection has been kindly curated by Mr. J. G. Hamling, F.G.S., of The Close, Barnstaple, North Devon, who takes a deep interest in the geology of the district. Mr. Hamling has called my attention to an interesting specimen in this collection which proves to be a pygidium of Bronteus, collected by the late Mr. Townshend M. Hall in the Devonian rocks of Gerolstein in the Eifel, which country he had visited many years ago in company with the late Mr. John Edward Lee, F.G.S., of Torquay. In remembrance of that excursion Mr. Hall had presented the counterpart of this fossil to Mr. J. E. Lee, and it was supposed to be in this gentleman's collection, but it cannot now be found. There is, I believe, a good cast of the fossil in the Townshend Hall Collection in the Natural History Museum.

One mile and a half east of Amroth a small valley which opens on the coast of Carmarthen Bay at Marros shows drift deposits of much interest. The valley itself is noteworthy. Like several others in the vicinity it is deeply cut in comparison with its width; the gradient of the valley sides is as high as 1 in 2, and the depth below the bordering hills is not less than 300 feet. The stream, which now drains the valley, rises on Marros Mountain, barely 2 miles from the shore, and flows down the main dip-slope of the Coal-measures, which here are greatly disturbed by folds and faults.