Many sciences contribute to the progress of geology, but none is more essential to it than that of zoology. The accurate determination of fossils, which can only be done by a trained systematic zoologist, is a necessity for stratigraphical work, and the broad questions of the geography of past ages can only be discussed with the aid of those who understand the distribution of life in the existing world. Dr. Traquair, the eminent ichthyologist of Edinburgh, though scarcely a geologist in the strict sense of the term, may therefore be claimed as one of the leaders in our science, for he has devoted more than forty years to the interpretation of fossil fish-remains, and so laid the foundations of a precise knowledge of extinct fishes which is as important to the stratigraphical geologist as to the biological philosopher.

Since Cathrein in 1883 investigated the nature of saussurite, it has been well known that albite can arise from the alteration of basic plagioclase felspars. He found that the fine-grained aggregate of minerals known as saussurite has commonly been derived from basic felspar, and that the processes involved in the change have led to little more than a chemical re-arrangement within the limits of the original felspar crystal. The bulk composition of the aggregate thus agrees approximately with that of the felspar from which it has been derived, and the albite which separates out is intermingled with lime-bearing silicates such as epidote, zoisite, and garnet.

In the report of an excursion organized by the Geologists' Association to Newton Abbot in 1900, Mr. H. B. Woodward stated that a boring had been made by Messrs. Candy & Co. at Heathfield, near the middle of the Bovey Basin, and that it “had been carried to a depth of 520 feet from the surface through clays, sands, and lignites without reaching the base”.

The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan territory covers an area of about a million square miles, throughout which the development of communications is of prime importance to the Government. The country varies from barren desert in the north to tropical jungle in the south, and one passes through all intermediate grades between these extremes. In the area between latitudes 12° and 22° north, water is the most important factor in determining the positions of routes, and it is with part of this area that it is proposed to deal. South of this, water is more abundant and other factors have to be considered.

One of the most important investigations carried through by the late C. E. Beecher was concerned with the development of the loop in an American species of Dielasma, D. turgidum, from the St. Louis group of the Lower Carboniferous of Kentucky.