In the Geological Magazine for December, 1882, I published a brief note upon the “Discovery of Cambrian Rocks in the Neighbourhood of Birmingham,” in which evidences were adduced demonstrative of the fact that the oldest sedimentary strata of the Lickey Hills, and of the neighbourhood of the town of Nuneaton, previously referred to the Llandovery and Carboniferous respectively, are, in reality, of Cambrian age. Since that date these Cambrian areas have been in part mapped by the members of the Field Geology Class of the Mason College, and many confirmatory and interesting points of detail have been detected by myself and others. Some of these will be found incorporated in Mr. Jerome Harrison's valuable paper on the “Pre-Carboniferous Floor of the Midlands,” published in the Midland Naturalist for 1885. My friend Mr. T. H. Waller, B.Sc, kindly undertook the microscopical examination of the igDeous rooks associated with these Cambrian strata, but the results of his observations are as yet unpublished.

In September last, I drew the attention of the readers of the Geological Magazine (Decade III. Vol. II. pp. 412–425) to a singular group of vegetable-feeding aquatic animals, the Sirenia, represented at the present day by two genera, Manatus and Halicore, and by at most six species, three or four of which are probably only varieties. A peculiarity of this group of animals is that whereas the two living genera are distributed in the subtropical regions East and West of the African continent, and to its rivers and opposite coasts, the ancestors of the Halicore and Manatee (the Halitherium, Felsinotherium, and some ten other fossil genera of Sirenians) probably intermingled and extended 30° further north than at present from the West Indies and Carolina through England, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and North Africa, whilst Rhytina, the largest of them all, only became extinct 100 years ago on the shores of Behring's Island, Kamtchatka. The evidence which the fossil remains of Sirenia afford of a more northerly geographical extension of subtropical mammalia in Tertiary times, is abundantly confirmed by other genera, to one of which only, the Hippopotamus, I will here refer.

Those interested in the geology of the Upper Tertiaries must have noticed the divergence in the views entertained by different writers as to the succession of the various strata of which they are composed. Sundry causes may be assigned for this, such as the disposition in some quarters to regard the “lapse of time occupied in the accumulation of even our later Tertiary deposits” “as representing but a very brief chapter in geological history,” or the massing of the several groups of strata in bulk, or putting aside as of little value the organic evidence they contain, which, even where this is appealed to, is too narrowly treated, as where one author— a specialist in his own branch — asks, “Could the more modem Tertiaries be classed by their Invertebrata?”

Since the publication of the Third Eeport on Palæsozoic Phyllopoda (Brit. Assoc. Eeport for 1885), we have examined many additional specimens in the Museums of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities, and in the Braidwood Museum belonging to Dr. J. R. S. Hunter, of Braidwood, near Glasgow. Mr. James Thomson, F.G.S., has given us a quantity of nodules, containing remains of Ceratiocaris, from the Lesmahago district; and other friends have lent us several interesting specimens.

The Committee has during the past year received several Returns relating to the south and east coasts of England. Most of those relating to the coast south of the Thames are printed.

In the Geological Magazine, Dec. II. Vol. II. 1875, p. 308, is a list of some English Jurassic Foraminifera, a large number of species being there noted as occurring in these rocks. We have lately received, by the friendly courtesy of the Rev. H. H. Winwood, F.G.S., and Horace B. Woodward, Esq., F.G.S., thirteen specimens of the Jurassic rocks from the south-west of England. One of these has yielded a most important series of Ostracoda. Whilst preparing a special monograph, we hasten to offer some preliminary notes on these interesting Jurassic Microzoa, at present merely noting the genera, in descending order of strata, and deferring the specific nomenclature for a subsequent opportunity.

A few years since I received from a correspondent in Paris several fragments of a meteorite, which my informant stated fell at Bois de Fontaine on the estate of the Marquis de la Touane, near Mung, in the department of Loiret, France, in 1825, but no precise date was given. It was said to be unknown and undescribed. My informant also stated that it was presented to the physician of the Marquis de la Touane, from whom he, my informant, received it in exchange. Of the specimens that I received, two had some of the original crust on them, one a small fragment only, and the other a specimen of 254 grammes, but with only a small amount of crust. I had also five or six other specimens without the crust.

The relations of the various rocks of the district lying to the North and South of Nuneaton have already been discussed by Prof. Lapworth from the data afforded by investigation in the field. He put into my hands many specimens of the different rocks for the purpose of microscopical examination. I have also received specimens from Mr. W. J. Harrison, and have collected some myself. Mr. J. J. H. Teall has also placed at my disposal a number of slides which he has had prepared from material of his own collecting.

My argument that at Porthalla there is a “passage” from hornblende-schist to serpentine; or rather that some beds of a common series have been changed into serpentine, others into hornblende-schist, and others again into a substance of intermediate character, is, I think, much strengthened by the fact that many such “apparent passages” are admitted to exist by all those who have examined the Lizard Coast with any degree of detail. De la Beche's description of that seen near the Lizard Town is as follows, and it would apply equally well to the others. “The hornblende slate,” he says, “supports the great mass of the Lizard serpentine with an apparent passage of the one into the other in many places—an apparent passage somewhat embarrassing,” that is, from his point of view; from mine it is perfectly natural. He goes on to say: “Whatever the cause of this apparent passage may have been, it is very readily seen at Mullion Cove, at Pradanack Point, at the coast west of Lizard Town, and at several places on the east coast between Landewednack and Kennick Cove, more especially under the Balk … and at the remarkable cavern and open cavity named the Frying-Pan, near Cadgwith.” At Kynance some of the laminse of serpentine are not more than one-tenth of an inch in thickness for considerable distances.