Geologists are so accustomed to deal with vast periods of time, that a century may be deemed by them as equivalent to the moment-measure of the dial, or the sand-grains of the hour-glass.

It has become one of the truisms of geology that India, like Gaul, is divided into three parts, the Peninsular, the Extra-peninsular, and the Indo-gangetic alluvium.

Amongst the many useful tables given in Prof. Prestwich's “Geology”is one on the expansion and contraction of ice under variations in temperature (vol. i. pp. 139 and 183). The table in question is abbreviated from one of greater length, which was published in the year 1845 by Carl Brunner von Wattenwyll in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 3me ser. tome 14, pp. 369–378, under the title of “Expériences sur la densité de la glace à différentes températures.” The author of the paper referred to made an extensive series of observations upon the contraction of ice under various temperatures below the freezing-point; and he proved conclusively that, under these circumstances, the contraction of ice exceeds that of all other solid bodies that had (up to the date of the paper) been studied in this connection.

Mr. H. M. Ami, F.G.S., of the Geological Survey of Canada, who has devoted special attention to the fauna of the Utica Shale in the neighbourhood of Ottawa, lately sent me for examination several fragments of slabs of this rock containing some peculiar sponge remains, which seem to me to be worthy of notice, although, from their mode of preservation, no decisive determination as to the character of the sponge.to which they belong can be arrived at.

In 1853, in his “Description of the Fossil Eemains of Mollusca found in the Chalk of England” (Mon. Pal. Soc.), Sharpe described and figured a specimen under the name of Nautilus Neocomiensis, d'Orbigny. He states (loc. cit. p. 15), “We have only seen one small specimen from the Grey Chalk, which we can refer to this species; it is from Urchfont near Devizes, in the Collection of Mr. Cunnington, and is 2 inches in its greatest diameter and 1¼ inch in breadth; although a good deal broken, it shows all the peculiar characters of the species. The species is more common in the Lower Greensand of Dorking, Atherfield, Sandgate, etc., where it sometimes reaches above 7 inches in diameter. M. d'Orbigny quotes it as common in the lower beds of the Middle Division of the Neocomian Formation in France.”

In the Palæontology of the Vertebrata, so much progress is made in various directions in Britain, that it seems advisable to attempt to bring up to date the record of the subject prepared and published by the writers a year ago. The following list may thus be regarded as the first supplement to the work in question; and it is hoped, by the courtesy of the Editor, to issue such a list of additions annually in the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE.