A series of charnockitic rocks and associated cordierite-bearing rocks from Western Australia has been described and compared with charnockitic rocks from other localities. This charnockitic suite is considered to be a series of basic intrusions into an older series of paraschists. It has, in places, been considerably contaminated by assimilation of the aluminous metasediments and in such cases is now represented by cordierite-bearing rocks. The basic charnockitic rocks and their contaminated equivalents have been subsequently invaded, under deep-seated conditions by granitic magma or emanations, and now appear as recrystallized remnants of the original masses. They have suffered extensive granitization which has yielded the acid charnockites (hypersthene-alkali felspar gneisses) in which the hypersthene is considered to have been derived from the older hypersthene-bearing basic charnockites. In view of the similarity to the Indian and Antarctic charnockites it appears possible that the charnockitic rocks of these areas are of similar origin, and that charnockite (hypersthene granite) rather than being the result of crystallization from a magma, is due to the granitization of older hypersthene-bearing rocks. If charnockite is of magmatic origin then it is most probable that this magma was of palingenetic origin and that the hypersthene is a relict from the earlier rocks and not the product of crystallization of the charnockite magma. Dunn (1942, p. 23) considers that the evidence afforded by Indian rocks is not opposed to the view that the hypersthene gneisses (charnockites) are the product of partial or complete palingenesis of very deep-seated rocks which had lost their water content.

From under the thick blanket of sediments of pre-Karroo age (i.e. Carboniferous or older) which so largely preponderate in the South African stratigraphical column, there protrude immense masses of crystalline rock. In Southern Rhodesia these last consist of granite interrupted at times by still older metamorphic schists, but in places round the borders of the colony, and over the frontier in Portuguese East Africa, they are replaced by gneisses. Recent work has indicated that some of the gneiss is younger than the schists, in spite of the less altered condition of the latter. It is currently accepted, following Maufe, that the gneisses of the northern part of Mashonaland and the southern part of Northern Rhodesia are the metamorphosed representatives of the Lomagundi beds, equivalent to the Transvaal System of the south. The chief difficulty in the way of accepting this view was the presence of less altered limestones and other pre-Karroo sediments resting on the upturned edges of the gneisses and crystalline limestones along some of the Zambezi tributaries. These strata might well be taken to represent the Transvaal System, but the recognition of the widespread distribution of the still younger Waterberg System (= Kundelungu, of the Congo) removes the difficulty introduced by the presence in the area of sediments with a considerable resemblance to the Transvaal beds.

In the Central Coalfield of Scotland Carbonicolapseudorobusta Trueman occurs at several horizons in the ovalis zone of the Coal Measures. During a statistical investigation l of this species two of the most important horizons examined were the roof of the Shotts Gas Coal, and the mussel band above the Upper Drumgray Coal (Weir and Leitch, 1936, p. 704). The Upper Drumgray horizon marks the top of the zone and the Shotts Gas Coal lies about 100 feet below. The roof of the latter, about 4 inches thick, is a tough highly carbonaceous shale in which specimens of Carbonicola, while not numerous, are well preserved in solid form. The Upper Drumgray mussel band is composed of about 9 inches of black shale containing crushed shells in great abundance. Over 300 specimens were collected from each horizon, mostly from the tip heaps of collieries. In the case of the Shotts Gas horizon the fossils were obtained from three collieries which lie within an east-west rectangle two miles long by half a mile wide.

These papers on a puzzling complex of igneous rocks are of special interest. The question is: Has there been a remarkably thorough-going metasomatism of basalt, or none at all? If the complex is extraordinary the conflicting hypotheses advanced to account for it are hardly less so, for we are invited to credit lavas with hitherto unimagined potentialities and behaviour.

The River Erewash as it leaves the Erewash Valley Coalfield passes southwards through a gap in the Triassic scarp. On either side of the river, as it enters the gap, lie the twin settlements of Stapleford and Sandi-acre. The former spreads along the river flat at the foot of the scarp where this merges into the river bluff known as “Bob’s Rock”. At this point there is a quarry in the Bunter Sandstone situated behind St. John’s School. In the autumn of 1939 Mr. C. R. Vickers, the head master, drew my attention to the fact that the quarrymen were finding a number of bones in the sandstone. Though rather sceptical about the authenticity of such a find in the Bunter I visited the quarry. After inspecting the bones I was shown the precise spot where they occurred. This lay in the top part of the quarry face which was about 40 feet high. As looked at from the floor the sand at that spot was seen to fill a hole descending into the rock to a depth of about 7 feet and having a width, in its lower part, of about 2 feet.

During a recent examination of some Coal Measure non-marine lamellibranchs in the collections of the British Museum (Natural History), my attention was drawn to a specimen from the Sowerby Collection labelled “Unio subconstrictus J. Sow., Coal Measures, Derbyshire”. On the back of the specimen were the remains of an original label, partly defaced, which some previous worker had endeavoured to read, for the words “Chapel … Sheffiel[d]” had been neatly copied on to another label affixed to the specimen.