For several years I have been engaged in investigating the Dinosaurs of North America, where these extinct reptiles were very abundant during the whole of Mesozoic time. The results of my study have been published from time to time, and I have already had the honour of presenting some of these to the British Association. In carrying out this investigation so as to include the whole group of Dinosaurs, wherever found, and bringing all under one system of classification, it has been necessary for me to study the remains discovered in Europe, and I have made several visits to this country for that purpose.

The gravel mounds and ridges known as Eskers or Kames are, though conspicuous where they do occur from the variability of their outlines, very irregularly distributed in the districts in which they are found. Having been familiar with eskers in Cumberland, I was asked by Mr. H. B. Woodward to visit him at Fakenham this spring for the purpose of seeing whether certain ridges and mounds in the neighbourhood of Glandford and Blakeney were such as are called eskers in the north. And I found that Mr. Whitaker had also met with ridges of doubtful character a little west of Great Massingham. Having just had, accordingly, the advantage of visiting both the localities mentioned, in the company of Messrs. W. Whitaker, H. B. Woodward, and J. H. Blake, this seemed a good opportunity of introducing the subject of eskers to the Norwich Geological Society. The extreme irregularity of their distribution is well illustrated by the fact that not one of the gentlemen named had hitherto met with any esker-like ridges in East Anglia. As eskers are far more numerous and varied in Cumberland than in Norfolk, I will first give some description of those of Cumberland and afterwards refer to the ridges of Norfolk.

Any observations which can throw light on the systematic position of the Graptolitidœ are of great importance. That these anomalous fossils are Zoophytes, in the wide sense of the term, is almost universally conceded; the diffculty is in determining whether they are cœlenterate or molluscoid. Those who have described the members of the family have almost invariably considered them to be hydrozoa, and it must be allowed that in general aspect they very much resemble Plumularia and Sertularia. But when their structure is examined it will be found that they widely differ from any known hydrozoon, and especially in that the entire polypidom is composed of the different polype-cells, without any distinct common canal. Sometimes the polypes rise from a common substance which extends along the whole of the celluliferous portion of the organism, but there is no constriction or septum at the base of the cells, cutting off this common substance from the individual polypes. This is the structure of Graptolitus priodon, Bronn. In other species the walls of each cell seem to be continued to the solid axis, as is the case most probably in Graptolitus sagittarius, L. and certainly in some the species with a double series of cells, as Diplograpsus folium, His. D. pristis, His. and D. cometa, Gein. The mouths of the cells are frequently furnished with one or more long spines, as in some species of Bastrites, and in Diplograpsus pristis, His. In these characters the graptolites show a greater affinity with the polyzoa. Compare the genera Scruparia and Bicellaria. But there are some peculiarities which do not well agree with the living forms of either section zoophytes. Among these may be mentioned first the prolongation of the solid axis in both the unilateral and bilateral forms beyond the celluliferous portion in the newer part of the polypidom, and then their free polypidoms, for neither the spines which terminate the older portion of some species of Diplograpsus nor the slender base of Dendrograptus linearis, Car., could be radicles, and the species of the genus Graptolitus have no indications of a hydrorhiza from the older extremity.

Four species of Monograptus are described and the age of the strata shown to be that of the zone of M. nilssoni of the Lower Ludlow of Great Britain.

It may be worth while to record the occurrence of phosphatised carbonate of lime in Cave Ha, near Giggleswick, which has been explored by Prof. Hughes (see Journal of the Anthropological Institute for December, 1873, vol. iii.). The phosphatised material, which forms stalagmitic layers at the side of and interstratified with the other deposits, is leaden-grey in colour, weathering light brown outside, friable, and full of small holes. Portions of it yielded, on analysis, a large per-centage of phosphate of lime.

The following account of the Proboscidea, by Prof. E. D. Cope, appeared in a recent number of the “American Naturalist” and is so interesting, that we venture to give the more important part in full, and some few of the illustrations.—Edit. Geol. Mag.

Matherella (?) acuticostata sp. nov. is described from the Lower Ordovician of Trefor, near Bryngwran, in mid Anglesey.

Besides the series of Membraniporellæ last described there are several other Cribrilinidæ which develop a secondary aperture in the same way, and the next four species are instances.

DURING the past few years the Upper Cretaceous rocks of the Trichinopoly District, South India, have been receiving a lot of attention on account of the numerous reptilian remains found in some parts of the formation. Dr. C. A. Matley visited these areas about six years back and collected some specimens—a brief preliminary account of which he has recently published. Almost simultaneously with Dr. Matley, the staff and students of the Geology section, Central College, began to interest themselves in this area and have paid several visits to the very locality from which Dr. Matley has collected most of his specimens. As a result of these expeditions it is gratifying to note that we have been able to collect quite a large number of well-preserved fossil bones, and in the words of Dr. Matley this discovery of ours “ is of great importance as it is the first time that Southern India has yielded identifiable remains of dinosaurs ”.

In the Geological Magazine, August, 1904, pp. 392–403, Dr. Wheelton Hind describes the Lower Culm beds of North Devon and assigns them to the ‘Pendleside’ series.

From the original paper dealing with that series I gather that in the North of England the ‘Pendleside’ beds lie above the uppermost zone of the Carboniferous Limestone, and are the equivalents of the Millstone Grit of the South Wales and Mendip areas. Dr. Hind's contention is, then, that the Lower Culm of North Devon was laid down at a time subsequent to the deposition of the whole of the Carboniferous Limestone of the Mendips and South Wales.

Over the area in question the total thickness of the Chalk (where it can be measured from top to bottom, or nearly so) varies from 623 feet at Streatham to 1146 feet at Norwich, and in the latter case the topmost beds are absent; so that the full thickness, in some parts of Norfolk, may be 1200 feet or more. This figure, however, is exceptional, the nearest to it recorded being 890 at Harwich [this should probably be 895, the Glauconitic basal bed having been called Upper Greensand]. At East Horsley, in Surrey, a thickness of 817 feet has been proved, but generally speaking we find less, and over a large area 700 feet is not reached. It seems that the Chalk thins toward London (where 650 feet may be taken as about the usual thickness), not only from north and south but also from east and west. [It may be well to add the thicknesses proved by other borings outside London. These are as follows, where the borings have passed through the whole formation, from the overlying Tertiary beds to the underlying Upper Greensand or Gault:—Loughton 651 feet, Richmond 670, Cheshunt 681, Chatham and the neighbourhood 680–684, and Winkfield, near Windsor, 725. In sundry places where the topmost beds are missing we have the following:—Bushey (Herts) 686, Chartham (Kent) 735, and Coombs (Suffolk) 817, which last-mentioned should probably be over 820, for the same reason as given above, for increase at Harwich.]

Magmatic differentiation is demonstrated in two epidiorite sills from the Grampian Highlands of Scotland, and the distribution of major and minor elements compared with data given for other intrusions, and for trace elements in the Whin Sill at High Cup Gill, Westmorland. The latter sill has Sr and Ba enriched towards the top. The element distribution for the epidiorite sills indicates that they are overturned. The data are conclusive for one sill but merely suggestive for the other, since such phenomena as multiple injection may also have affected the element distribution. The structural significance is briefly discussed.

The scientific proceedings of the Eighteenth Session of the International Geological Congress included twelve series of Sectional Meetings, open meetings of the Association of African Geological Surveys, and of the International Paleontological Union, and special discussions on the Geology and Mineralogy of Clays. Summaries of these Sectional and other meetings, prepared by their officers, are published in advance in the full Report of the Session.

The granite of the Dicq Rock is traversed by several veins of fine grained aplogranite. These in turn are cut by a large dolerite dyke, which has been intruded into a brecciated fault zone within the granite. Three large blocks of granite occur within the dolerite; these originally formed the southern boundary of the fault. The petrography of these rocks, and the influence of the micro-breccia upon the textures found in the marginal and central part of the dolerite, are considered in detail.

The mineral riebeckite was first discovered by Professor T. G. Bonney in 1882, who, in a paper to the Royal Society describing a series of rock-specimens from the island of Socotra, noticed the occurrence in a granite of a mineral which, though presenting characters common to the hornblende group, he referred doubtfully to tourmaline.