It is proposed in the following pages to give a concise account of the progress of investigation of the lower Palæozoic rocks during the last forty years. The subject may naturally be divided into three parts: 1. The history of Silurian and Upper Cambrian in Great Britain from 1831 to 1854; 2. That of the still more ancient Palæozoic rocks in Scandinavia, Bohemia, and Great Britain up to the present time, including the recognition by Barrande of the so-called primordial Palæozoic; fauna; 3. The history of the lower Palæozoic rocks of North America.

I am indebted to Mr. C. S. Middlemiss, Superintendent of the Geological Survey of India, for a copy of his Memoir on the Geology of Hazara and the Black Mountain recently published. Mr. Middlemiss has embodied in his Memoir the results of an unfinished survey by Mr. A. B. Wynne, late of the Geological Survey of India, and by linking these with his own more recent work, has given us an interesting and valuable Memoir on the Geology of the Himalayan district of Hazara.

A new interpretation of a polygonal pattern of ridges in the Marble Hill Dolomitic Limestone, at Ballymore, suggests that it was formed by a soft-bodied, worm-like organism.

During the years 1890–2 an important boring was made in the Red Marl, rather under a mile NNE. of Altcar and nearly two miles east from Formby station. Previous to 1890, the formation was supposed not to exceed 400 feet in thickness, the amount proved at Birkdale many years ago.

Professor Gregory, in a very interesting paper published in the Transactions of the Faraday Society, has advanced various arguments against the theory of the magmatic origin of the Sudbury nickel deposits and has quoted several authorities as opposing that theory. His brief account of the subject presents, unintentionally of course, only one side of the controversy in regard to those ores, and lest the deservedly great authority of his opinion should seem to settle the question, I wish to place before English geologists an outline of the arguments on the other side.

The specimen herein described was sent me by Mr. T. S. Hall, M.A., of Melbourne University. It was found by Mr. F. P. Spry in a rock of supposed Silurian age, at the Yarra Improvement Works, near Prince's Bridge, Melbourne, in November, 1896. The matrix is a fine-grained micaceous sandstone, of a dark purplegrey, weathering yellowish. It often contains crinoid columnals, such as were long ago noticed by the Geological Survey of Victoria, and were figured by W. Blandowski as “Cyatocrinites (probably)pinnatus”; but neither from here, nor from any other Silurian rock of Australia, has a crinoid crown hitherto been recoi-ded. The remains of the crinoid are in the form of an impression, coloured red by iron-oxide; all calcareous matter has been dissolved away. The counterpart of the impression has not been preserved. The specimen was studied by means of wax squeezes; the drawing (Plate XV) represents such a squeeze; and the description follows the drawing.

The interesting note by Mr. Strahan in the Geol. Mag. for September, 1887, on explosive slickensides, reminded me of some similar phenomena which were not of unfrequent occurrence near Dent Head and Ribble Head in Yorkshire.

In the limestone quarry from which the black marble of Dent is procured the workmen found that, when they were quarrying the lower beds and struck the rock with a pick or bar, fragments flew up into the air with greater force than, could be due to their blow and in an unexpected direction.

In the March number of the Geological Magazine, Mr. A. H. Green observes that it is difficult to account for the supply of salts to the Permian Sea. For the iron, he calls in the aid of mineral springs produced by volcanic action; but for the lime and magnesia, streams flowing into the sea holding in solution bicarbonate of lime and sulphate of magnesia.

Among instances of the bodily deformation of rocks by lateral pressure, the case of the phyllade aimantifère of Monthermé is well known. By its strong cleavage this rock gives evidence of considerable lateral compression. Professor Renard has shown that prior to this compression the magnetite crystals already existed in the rock, and were surrounded by a coating of chlorite. The crystals yielded to the pressure much less readily than their matrix, and the latter, having already a firm consistence, became separated from the crystals, carrying the chlorite with it, and was displaced along the planes which are now cleavage-planes, that is, in a direction at right angles to that of the pressure.

As none of the figures hitherto given of the genus Eophyton show either its internal structure, or articulations of its stems, and as I am in possession of a specimen from the Lower Arenig Rocks, of Ramsey Island, near St. David's, which resembles in some respects the Eophyton Linnœanum Torell, but which shows both articulations of the stem, and an internal vascular structure, a description of the species may probably be useful, and may tend to elucidate the true nature of Eophyton, concerning which so much doubt seems to exist at present.

The National Museum of Wales has not existed, as a working institution, long enough to have accumulated an extensive series of type and figured fossils, but since recent developments have rendered available for reference geological collections that were hitherto packed in store rooms, it is felt that the time is opportune for the publication of a note concerning the geological material which the Museum possesses, with special reference to the specimens that have been described or figured.

Being prevented by other work from continuing at present my work on the Danian (Laramie) Dinosaurs of Transylvania, I wish briefly to draw attention to the fact that the Upper Cretaceous Titanosaurus, as known from the Montagne Noire in France and from the Cretaceous formation of Argentina, and perhaps also from East Africa (as already pointed out by Fraas), has nothing to do with the Sauropoda, but belongs to the Trachodontid Orthopods, as proved by the abundant Transylvanian material at my disposal.

The Swedish Magellanic Expedition spent some time in the Falkland Islands before proceeding to Tierra del Fuego, where important work is being carried on. The writer utilised his stay in the Falklands to study the geology and collect fossils. The following is a brief note of the work there.

On first thoughts, it may seems that the lowest group of vertebrates, of all the divisions comprised in the animal kingdom, might be most easily described, and its zoological limits defined; but, on examination, the fishes prove to be most curiously linked to the invertebrata below and the amphibian reptiles above. In fact, it is not easy to draw the lines positively between them, and to say where the true vertebrates begin, or where the piscine characters are merged in the reptilian. It is proposed to refer to some of the most aberrant forms of living fish and their fossil affinities; then, briefly passing in review the distribution of the various families in geological time, to see how far descent with modification is traceable in this class of vertebrates.

These Foraminifera were obtained from fifteen zones of the Jurassic strata, between Solothurn, in Switzerland, and the Eichberg, in Baden: three Liassic zones (Black or Lower Jura); six in the Brown or Middle Jura; and six in the White or Upper Jura; beginning with the Turneri-zone of the Lower Lias, and ending with the Pteraspis-zone of Schaffhausen. The Numismalis marl, Amalthei-clay, Murchisonæ-bed, Discoidei-marl, Crenularis-bed, the Coral-limestone, and the Virgulian stage yielded few or no traces of Foraminifera.

A gates are found abundantly in Somersetshire. Dr. Buckland mentions their occurrence at Sandford, near Banwell, Worle, and Clevedon. Trans. Geol. Soc., ser. 2, vol. iii., p. 421, See also Sowerby's British Mineralogy, vol. v., 1817, p. 213.