Notwithstanding all that has been written concerning the Keisley Limestone, its exact relations with the older Dufton Shales have never been clearly ascertained. I accordingly devoted a few days of the Easter vacation to the study of these relations in company with Messrs. W. G. Fearnsides, R. H. Rastall, and T. O. Bosworth, whose help I gratefully acknowledge.

As representing the first fossils yet recorded from Singapore, these specimens are of considerable interest. They principally consist of marine Lamellibranch remains accompanied by an obscure indeterminable Gasteropod, and a few fragmentary terrestrial plants. Their condition, however, as casts and impressions renders them most difficult to work out satisfactorily, more especially the shells where only external features of the valves are available for study. Some of the specimens, however, retain certain points of structure or contour which appear to have an important bearing on their probable geological age. The association of land and marine organisms would at once suggest an estuarine or lagoon origin for the beds containing them, more especially as the mollusca belong to genera or families which may be regarded as of shallow-water habit, whilst the plant-remains might be accounted for by the close proximity of land or the transporting agency of river action. Among the shells, that referred to Goniomya is of chief interest, since it belongs almost exclusively to the Mesozoic period, being particularly characteristic of Jurassic rocks and of much rarer occurrence in deposits of Cretaceous age.

The palæontological succession of the Carboniferous rocks of North Wales is practically identical with the succession in the Pennine area, and to a certain extent with that which obtains in the Bristol-Mendip area.

In the September number of this Magazine Mr. T. O. Bosworth raises some questions with regard to the zoning of the Lower Chalk in general, and of Cambridgeshire in particular. As I am responsible for the subdivision of the Lower Chalk of this country into zones I suppose the matter concerns me more than anyone else.

Professor Suess has somewhat recently stated his belief that the waters of all geysers and boiling ‘pulsating’ springs and of some mineral springs are of ‘hypogene’ or direct magmatic origin (Abstract Geog. Journ., vol. xx, p. 518). I am unfortunately unable in this backwater of science to verify the abstract by reference to the original (Gesell. Deutsch. Naturforscher und Aertze, 1902). With his belief, however, several prominent Continental and American geologists have expressed their concurrence, and some have indeed amplified the hypothesis to cover the origin of metalliferous deposits near igneous contacts. For example, W. H. Weed (Trans. Amer. Inst. M.E., vol. xxxiii, p. 746) says: —

Since the publication of my paper “The Genesis of the Gold Deposits of Barkerville,” the frequency with which it has been suggested to me that the gold in the placers spoken of might have been precipitated in sitû has led me to place before you the reasons for ascribing to it the origin therein stated.