In a previous paper I ventured to emphasize the opinion, now verygenerally held, that, whether by a gradual process or spasmodically, the Northern and Central parts of Scandinavia, have beenrising from the sea-level since Tertiary times, and that, so far as weknow, this rise has not been interrupted by intervals when themovement has been one of depression.

The Tertiary shells referred to in this paper constitute a portionof the Egyptian collection of fossils sent to the British Museumfor description by Capt. H. G. Lyons, E.E., F.G.S., Director of theGeological Survey of Egypt.

The Original geological survey of South Wales was made under the direction of Sir Henry de la Beche. The exact date of its commencement is uncertain, but I am informed by Mr. Aveline that in 1840, when he joined, the staff was engaged in the neighbourhood of Cardiff, and in 1841 Bamsay on his appointment found that the survey had progressed westwards into Pembrokeshire, and was at work at Tenby and St. David's. By the end of 1815 the maps had all been published. A complete list of the names which appear on them consists of H. T. de la Beche, J. Phillips, D. H. Williams, A. C Bamsay, W. T. Aveline, J. Bees, T. E. James, W. E. Logan, H. W. Bristow, and H. B. Woodward.

The waterways of Wales owe their directions to a complex series of events which it is not our province to discuss in this place, but the minor features of Snowdonia are largely determined by planes of weakness which were produced in the rocks of the region during the occurrence of the marked earth-movements at the close of Silurian and Carboniferous times. The Post-Silurian earth-movements gave rise to planes of weakness running in a general northeast and south-west direction, and in a direction at right angles to this.

It has long been a matter of reproach to British geologists that, with such a grand sequence of Carboniferous rocks as occursinGreat Britain and Ireland, many of which are highly fossiliferous, all attempts to establish life-zones in them have hitherto been unsuccessful. As a subcommittee, appointed by the British Association, has been put into existence to endeavour to zone the Carboniferous rocks, it seems to me that a preliminary comparison with each other of the life-zones already establishedinEussia and Belgium, and as far as is possible to contrast the distribution of the zonal fossils with that which obtainsinGreat Britain, may to some extent clear the ground, and establish some important palaeontological facts as a basis for future work.

In a former number of this Magazine the evolution of the subgenera of the single genus Cheirurus has been discussed, andit is now proposed to examine the mutual relations of the other genera of the Cheiruridæ. Some diversity of opinion has existed as to the genera which may be grouped together to form this family.

The great sheet of Chalk which, with the subjacent Greensand and Gault, stretches through so large a part of Southern England and underlies the whole of the Hampshire Basin, terminates abruptly in West Dorset. There is no doubt that the Upper Cretaceous rocks once spread continuously over the Jurassic hills east of Bridport and across the Vale of Marshwood, and were united to the corresponding beds in East Devon, where the Chalk and Greensand are so conspicuous in the cliffs near Beer Head.

The name “Dene Holes” has been locally given to certain ancient artificial caverns usually found excavated in the Chalk of Essex and Kent. They have deep vertical entrances by shafts, being of varying depth, but the caverns themselves all bear a general similitude in design. They have been chiefly explored in the counties of Essex and Kent, although they undoubtedly exist in many other counties.

At Portsea Island a change takes place in the character of the drift, the 5 to 6 feet of gravelly clay forming the “Head” on the Old Beach to the east, being replaced on the same level by a bed of gravel, which, according to Mr. T. Codrington, attains a thickness of 27 feet, and still contains some boulders similar to those of Hayling Island, together with blocks of sarsenstone. to the west of Gosport the ground rises and the low cliffs of Stubbington and Hill Head are capped by 10 to 15 feet of gravel of a somewhat different character. No foreign boulders are to be seeninit, though I have found pebbles of quartzite derived apparently from the Triassic strata of Devonshire, as also some small subangular fragments of granite and other old rocks, large blocks of Tertiary Sandstone, and a few worn fragments of a fresh-water limestone containing small Lymneæ. There are no shells either fluviatile or marine, and no beach underlies the gravel which rests directly on the Tertiary strata. It is intercalated with seams of sand and loam roughly bedded, and contains flint implements. It is evident, therefore, that we have here some important changes in physical conditions, and that a considerable alteration in the characters of the drift-beds likewise commences. This has led to the belief that the gravel on the coast from this point to Bournemouth and Poole is the Alluvium of an old river, which, before the removal of the Chalk ridge that extended across the bay of Christchurch, blocked the rivers flowing southward, and diverted them into a main stream flowing eastward, passing along the line of the present Solent and debouch in g in the area now occupied by Spithead.

When reading through descriptions of hand-specimens of igneous rocks I have often found a difficulty in forming an exact mental picture of the appearance of the rocks because of the very meagre information usually given as to the coarseness or fineness of their texture. The following simple method would, I believe, to a great extent obviate the difficulty now experienced in giving such information.

There has recently been presented1 to the British Museum collection an Ammonite from the Gault of Folkestone that seems to be worthy of a short note. It is represented in the accompanying figures. At first sight it appears to be a new species. The shell is nearly complete and exceedingly well preserved; there has evidently been another half whorl to the specimen (see Fig. a), but this, which apparently constituted the body-chamber, has been broken away, leaving at the anterior end of the specimen the surface of the last septum.

The occurrence of certain genera and species of trilobites which are destitute of eyes has long been known, and so much importance was attached by Dalman to the presence or absence of the visual organs that he instituted two principal divisions of the trilobites based simply on these characters. Goldfuss followed the same lines in his system of classification, though he took into consideration also the structure of the eyes; and Emmrich likewise regarded the possession or lack of these organs to be of taxonomic value. Although in modern schemes of classification more stress is laid on other features of the organization, yet with our increasing knowledge of the ontogeny of various species of trilobites it is perceived that the presence, position, and nature of the eyes are points which must by no means be overlooked.

In 1861, the late Dr. T. C. Winkler, of Haarlem, published a memoir on some fishes from the well-known Upper Miocene fresh-water formation of Oeningen, and among other new forms he believed he could recognize an extinct species of the Cyprinodont genus, Poecilia. This peculiar fish not being known elsewhere beyond the fresh waters of tropical America, the determination of a Miocene representative in a European fresh-water deposit excited some interest both among geologists and ichthyologists; and the occurrence of Poecilia oeningensis in Baden has been almost universally quoted in textbooks and treatises as a fact worthy of special note.

In his memoir Dr. Winkler mentions that he founds the species in. question on a series of specimens, partly in the Teyler Museum, partly in the collection of Van Breda. As the latter collection was acquired by the British Museum in 1871, four of the specimens studied by Winkler are destined to be included in the forthcoming vol. iv of the “Catalogue of Fossil Fishes.” They have thus been recently examined during the preparation of this work; and the result is so completely at variance with Winkler's interpretation of the fossils, that it seems advisable to publish an amended description of the fish without delay.

The genus Oudenodon of A. G. Bain, 1856, was adopted by Sir Richard Owen, and defined as comprising Anoinodont reptiles of the type of Dicynodon, but absolutely toothless. Still, they were referred to a family Cryptodontia, under the belief that the teeth were immature and had their development arrested, so that they never descended to the adveolar margin. a transition might easily be made from the caniniform production upward of the alveolar border seen in Oudenodon to the small teeth in Dicynodon dubius and D. recurvidens, which areincontrast to the great lateral ridges formed by the roots of the teeth in most species of the genus.

We now come to the second o rder of the Trilobita, which Beecher (loc. cit.) calls the Opisthoparia. In common with the third order, the Proparia, compound paired eyes are usually present, and these are invariably situated on the free cheeks, which form part of the dorsal surface of the head-shield.

The meeting of the International Geological Congress at St. Petersburg towards the end of August last year was about as successfulinpromoting (he main objects the Congress has in view as any of its predecessors. There was a marked absence of anything like a serious radical programme, and in that sense the meeting may be said to have been progressive. The majority of the papers read were commonplace, the few exceptions being mostly in the domain of petrology. Every geologist who attended the meeting was grateful to the Organizing Committee for getting together such a nice little exhibition of specimens, maps, and models for the occasion. It was full of interest.

In what follows, it is proposed to give a general description of the effects of contact-metamorphism, observed in the rocks altered by the intrusion of the Great Whin Sill in Durham and Northumberland.

I. Introductory.—The researches of previous investigators have had the result of showing that the platform on which are planted the British Isles and adjoining parts of the European continent was formerly connected by land with Iceland through the Shetland and Faeröe Islands, and this again with Greenland. This former connection is placed beyond doubt by the character of the fauna and flora. Dr. Wallace includes Iceland in his Palæarctic region, which embraces the British Isles and Europe; and, as Professor Newton has shown, all the land mammalia, with only three exceptions, are European. The exceptions are those of Arctic habitats–the polar bear, the Arctic fox, and a mouse (Mus Icelandicus). Amongst the birds, the peculiar species are allied to those of Europe and the Faeroes. The botany and entomology of Iceland have been described in the Transactions of this Institute by the Eev. Dr. Walker, F.L.S.,3 and his observations bear witness to the former land connection of Iceland with the British Isles. He remarks that “the first thing that strikes a visitor from the latter country is not the number of Arctic species, but the great abundance of plants that are very rare and local in Britain, such as Saxifraga cmspitosa, Lichnis alpina, and Erigeron alpinum, etc.” The disappearance of the former glacial conditions from the British Isles and their continuance in Iceland account for the remarkable abundance of the plants referred to.

In a paper published in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society for 1893, I gave an account of the evidence that led me to conclude that certain conglomerates and associated rocks occurring for some distance north-east and south-west of Llanberis, which had hitherto been considered to lie below the workable Cambrian Slates of that area, were in reality unconiormable deposits of a later date than those slates. in the year 1894 Professor T. G. Bonney and Miss 0. Raisin published in the same Journal a controversial paper criticizing my statements and conclusions.

Let us next turn to the postulated subglacial rivers. How can we conceive of tunnels of ice 100 miles long runninginone direction, 300 feet high, and only 20 or 30 paces wide? The difficulty about the provenance of the stones, again, is equally great or even greater, and more insurmountable in such a case than it would be in the case already cited.