In a former memoir published in these Transactions (20) the developmental study of floral characters has been reopened. It has there been shown that by this study, which for long has received little attention, the investigator, aided by modern technical methods, may gain a fuller understanding of the value of the characters by which his judgment in systematic matters is guided. The subject then dealt with was the initiation of staminal zygomorphy in certain dicotyledonous plants. It was there shown that in the history of a stamen from its initiation as a primordium until its anther is dehisced and its pollen shed there are three more or less distinct consecutive phases. In the first, or phase of initiation, the stamen-primordium is defined. From this primordium an undifferentiated multicellular body arises by rapid cell-division. In the second phase this body undergoes differentiation into the component parts of a stamen ; an anther and frequently a filament and connective are defined, and their cellular construction is completed. In the third and final phase the stamen is extended and functionates forthwith as a disseminator of pollen-grains. In this phase the extensible and elastic walls of the cells of the filament are distended by internal hydraulic pressure, and the anther-walls are dried and finally rupture by inequalities in their rate of shrinkage and by the agency of fibrous devices. These steps form the prelude to the actual functionating of the stamen, and since the final enlargement of the stamen-filament is due to water-pressure, this phase is known as the phase of extension.

The original, plan of the Shackleton Expedition, had it been realised, would have yielded geological results of no little value. The base would have been on Coats Land, and next in importance to crossing the Antarctic continent was the projected geological sledging trip across the Wilhelm Barrier, westwards from the head of the Weddell Sea to the southern. continuation of Graham Land. Had it been carried out, it would of course have settled finally the relationship of Graham Land to the rest of Antarctica. The besetment and destruction of the Endurance, however, put an end to the original plan, and no landing was ever made either on the eastern or on the southern side of the Weddell Sea.

The following observations were made during a prospecting expedition which left the Falkland Islands in the late spring of 1913 for the South Shetlands, the Palmer Archipelago, and Graham Land. The cost of the expedition was provided by Messrs Salvesen of Leith, the well-known shipping and whaling firm, who are lessees from the Colonial Office of the minerals in these remote areas. Arrangements were made to prospect as large an area as possible during the whaling season 1913–14. The steamer Hanka, a modern whaler, proved very suitable for prospecting work, owing to its light draught, small size, and fairly high speed. It could, however, owing to its small capacity, operate only within a limited radius of a supply base, and Messrs Salvesen's big whaling factory ships in King George Island; Leith Harbour, Belgica Strait, Graham Land; and Fournier Bay, Schollaert Channel, Anvers Island, formed effective bases of supply.

The following work is based upon the magnificent collection of rock specimens made by Mr D. Ferguson during the expedition described in the foregoing paper. The number of these specimens is 210; and as many were collected in quadruplicate, it has been found possible to make up sets which have been presented to the British Museum (Natural History), the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, and the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge. The most complete set is retained in the Hunterian Museum of the University of Glasgow.

Mr J. Innes Wilson of Port Stanley, Falkland Islands, during the whaling-season of 1916–17 paid a visit to the South Shetland Islands and Palmer Archipelago. He collected specimens of rocks and minerals from Deception Island, Roberts Island, Trinity Island, and the coast bordering the Gerlache Channel, which were transmitted to the Colonial Office by the Governor, Sir William Douglas Young. It is with the kind permission of the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies that I am allowed to submit some account of Mr Innes Wilson's interesting and important collection.

The Ammonoids described in the present paper were placed first of all, for study, in the hands of Mr J. M. Wordie, whose departure, however, as geologist with Sir E. Shackleton's Antarctic Expedition prevented the completion of the work. A preliminary list of identifications by Mr Wordie included a number of forms of “Schloenbachia” especially “S.” inflata, J. Sowerby sp., this form alone being quoted from ten localities. Professor Gregory, in his “Contributions to the Geology of Benguella,” * referred to these identifications, and in his correlation-table classed the beds with “Schloenbachia inflata” as “Vraconnian,” following the prevailing custom. It may be well, however, to remark here already that A. inflatus, J. Sowerby, will be shown to be an exclusively Albian, and not even uppermost Albian, form, and that there is no evidence of any Cenomanian admixture in the typically Albian fauna of the so-called “zone of A. inflatus” in Angola, so that the term Vraconnian is here rejected. Moreover, Renevier's “Vraconnian” was meant for post-inflata beds, and, in the writer's opinion, Sowerby's species is not represented at all in the Angola collection.

The papers on the Geology of Benguella published in the Transactions (vol. li, part iii, No. 13, 1916, pp. 495–536) had to be issued without the report on the Cephalopods, an omission the more disappointing as they formed the largest and most instructive part of the Cretaceous collection.

The Island of Iona, celebrated for its ecclesiastical remains and venerated as the centre of St Columba's activities and as the cradle of Christianity in Scotland, is designated by various names. In Gaelic it is known as “Hy” or “I” (the Island), and has been termed also “Innis-nan-Druidneach” (the Island of the Druids), “I-Colm-Kill” (the Island of Colum of the Cell). The term “Iona” (or “Ioua”) was used by Adamnan in his Latin Life of St Columba, and was thought to be derived from the Hebrew “Ionah” (a dove). A more probable derivation is from the Irish “I-thon” (the Island of Waves).

The central part of the West Lothian coast included in the parishes of Abercorn and Carriden, with which this paper deals, extends westwards from the Midhope Glen at Abercorn to Bridgeness, a distance of a little over four miles. As the conspicuous promontory of Blackness is situated near the middle of this strip of coastline, we may here, for the sake of brevity, describe the area in question as the Blackness district. Geologically the shore section includes the upper part of the Oil Shale Series and the Lower Marine Limestones that overlie the oil shales and extend upwards to the coal seams of the Bo'ness area.

The more or less flat-lying sedimentary rocks that build up the plateau country of the northern, central, and eastern parts of Spitsbergen range in age from Downtonian to Tertiary. The rocks with which it is proposed to deal in this paper constitute the basement underlying this sedimentary succession in the east central part of Spitsbergen, in the region at the head, and to the east, of Klaas Billen Bay, the north-eastern branch of the Ice Fiord (Map, fig. I). An extension of these basement rocks is to be found in the mountains east of Wijde Bay, and similar rocks are to be found in other parts of Spitsbergen, notably in the western mountain ranges. Formations up to the Tertiary, as well as the Pre-Devonian, are involved in the folding of these western ranges; but the rocks dealt with in this paper may be designated as older than the oldest unfolded rocks in the country.

Much study has already been devoted to the plumage of birds and its development, and the extensive literature to which this study has given rise might at first sight make it appear that no room is left for any new contributions to a subject which has already attracted so many investigators. The special branches of the subject, however, which have attracted most attention, have been:—(1) The histology of developing feathers, to which Studer, Davies, Wohlauer, and Bornstein have contributed; (2) pigmentation, investigated by STRONG; and (3) more recently what may be called the continuity between early “down” and adult feathers, a condition which does not appear to have been clearly realised before Jones and Gadow published the results of their researches. Recently also Waterston and Geddes, working on the embryology and anatomy of the Penguin, have touched incidentally on the appearance of down-papillæ and down at successive embryonic stages in the Penguin and the Duck; but, covering a wider field of research, they have not devoted to feather development in particular that careful observation and detailed study which the interest of the subject and the deficiencies of our knowledge appear to warrant.

In 1917 I published an account (16) of the so-called pharyngeal gland-cells of earthworms, unevenly but intensely staining cells (whence the name “chromophil” which I gave to them) which form lobular masses on the pharynx, and smaller aggregations in other places in the anterior segments. I came to the conclusion that the cells were not, as was usually held, epithelial in origin—were not cells which had fallen out of the epithelial layer while still retaining their connection with the pharyngeal cavity by means of a long neck functioning as a ductule. On the contrary, they were, I believed, mesoblastic in origin, and congeneric with the peritoneum; and were devoid of ducts leading into the pharynx.

In a former memoir published in these Transactions (30) the floral development of the “Cannon-Ball” tree, Couroupita guianensis, Aubl., was described. The most striking floral feature of this remarkable Myrtaceous genus is the androecium, the form, proportions, and position of whose parts produce a curious zygomorphy with cellular gigantism. The Lecythidean andrœcium, and the torus which bears it, were considered of systematic importance and of physiological interest, and deserving of special study with reference to the Myrtaceæ as a whole.