This portion of the new trunk line to London covers a distance of about fifty miles, and runs nearly due south, crossing the towns of Nottingham, Loughborough, Leicester, Lutterworth, and Rugby. Throughout the greater part of this distance the railwayis on the Trias, except the northern portion, which is On thePermian, and the southern, which is on the Lias. There are also great thicknesses of Drift met with near Leicester and between that town and Rugby, but very little in the northern part on either side of Nottingham.

As the discussion at the Geological Society on Dr. Hicks' paper “On the Morte Slates and Associated Beds in North Devonand West Somerset ” (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. lii, pp. 254–272, pis. x, xi) showed that the case for the Silurian age of those beds rested mainly on the palæontological evidence, I examined themore important fossils somewhat carefully at the close of the meeting. I had a perfectly open mind as to the age of the fauna, for a couple of visits to North Devon and West Somerset had given me the impression that pre-Devonian beds might be hidden in theeastern part of the area.

In illustration of the article on this subject published in last month's Geological Magazine, three plates have been prepared by the kind permission of the photographers, and of the editors of the publications in which they originally appeared. One (namely Plate II) is now issued, and Plates III and IV will be given in the March number.

Last month I glanced at some of the difficulties attaching to the theory of a “ great submergence ” during Glacial times, particularly in connection with the deposition of this shelly clay at Clava.

In regard to the alternative theory of transport by land-ice, the following facts may be enumerated as so far in its favour:-

(a) Evidences of ice-action are conspicuous all over the district. It is a region of intense glaciation, and this special locality is right in the tract of the ancient ice-sheet.

(b) The traces of the movement show that, with a very small submergence, the ice-sheet must have passed over part of a former sea-bottom.

(c) That in this neighbourhood it rose in its progress, carrying numerous boulders with it in its course, and leaving them at higher elevations than their parent beds of rock.

The ancient Brachiopodous genus Siphonotreta is well known by its species occurring in the Ordovician and Silurian strataof Russia and Great Britain, and its peculiar pedicle opening hasbeen the subject of remark. The author is not aware that this genus has hitherto been reported from any Cambrian terrain, and, therefore, the greatest interest will attach to a form recently found in the lower beds of the St. John Group, which is nearer to Siphonotreta than to any other known genus.