This paper records the succession which was encountered in a boring made during 1935 at Walsall, South Staffordshire. The site of the boring is precisely indicated in Text-fig. 1.

In 1909 I wrote a letter to the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE (p. 431) objecting to a statement in a review of the late Sir John Harrison's Goldfields of British Guiana that only products of weathering containing free aluminium hydroxide in hot moist climates should be considered as laterite. This letter led to contributions from the late J. W. Evans, T. Crook, and Sir John Harrison. It is particularly interesting now to read again J. W. Evans's remarks. In the volume for 1910, pp. 189, 190, he said hehad intimate acquaintance with the material to which the name laterite was first given in the area in which it was typically developed. On p. 190 he said that laterite varies, but one feature remains constant, the small amount of combined silica in proportion to the alumina present and that “it is in this respect that laterites differ from clays, which also occur as tropical decomposition products and are sometimes incorrectly described as laterites ”. On p. 381 of the same volume J. W. Evans wrote: “I admit that he (Buchanan) did not know its true chemical composition, but in spite of that it must be accepted as the type of what we ought to call laterite.”

In a communication to the GeologicalMagazine, published in July, 1936, I gave a brief description of the rocks that build the Kedong scarp. I propose now to amplify that description. It is not always realized that the geological structure of the Rift Valley has been deduced almost wholly from physiographic evidence, and that proof of the alleged displacements must depend upon exact petrographic study of the rocks involved in the structures.

Since the publication in 1887 of Dr. H. B. Guppy's book (1) very little has appeared on the geology of the Solomon Islands, and Cowper Reed's book (2) of 1921 is based on Guppy for this area. During the last four years a small representative collection of rocks has been sent to the British Museum (Natural History) and examined by Mr. W. Campbell Smith, to whom the author is much indebted for their identification.

One of the most widely quoted but least common Chalk ammonites is Ammonites navicularis Mantell, which has been the subject of a very careful paper by the late G. C. Crick. Judging by the literature, however, this species is still generally misunderstood, and inquiries from correspondents are partly responsible for the present note. There is no doubt that widely different forms have been included in A. navicularis, from Sowerby's time (1827) down to the present (e.g. Collignon, 1931), and I have on previous occasions separated, with new names certain forms wrongly attributed to this species by Sharpe (1857), Guéranger (1867), and de Grossouvre (1912). But although a good deal remains to be done, without figuring typical specimens and without having material for comparison from India, Portugal, and Madagascar, it is not advisable to express opinions on the ammonites figured as A. navicularis by yet other authors, e.g. Stoliczka (1865), Choffat (1898), or Boule Lemoine, and Thévenin (1907).

In view of Mr. J. A. Butterfield's account of outgrowths on zircon in the Millstone Grit of the Pennine region (Geol. Mag., LXXIII, 1936, 511–16), it may be of interest to record the occurrence of similar grains in the Middle Jurassic sandstones of Yorkshire.