The large collection of specimens of the various species of Trinucleus from British Ordovician beds which is available for study in the Sedgwick Museum offers unsurpassed opportunities for determining the characters of the members of this interesting genus as represented in the British Isles. The following notes have been compiled from a comparative study of this material supplemented by specimens from the Jermyn Street Museum and elsewhere. The frequent addition of specimens to the collection at Cambridge since Salter and McCoy's time have allowed for a more comprehensive and complete survey to be made than was then possible, though several doubtful points still await better material before they can be cleared up.

In the latter part of 1910 I was agreeably surprised upon the examination of some material from the Rhætic Black Shales at Glen Parva, Leicestershire, to detect a specimen which at the moment I recognized as new (specimen A).

Previous Authorities.—The most important work dealing with my subject is that by Mr. Thomas Codrington “On the Superficial Deposits of the South of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight”. In this elaborate essay, which includes all the area with which I propose to deal, the author describes the gravel terraces on both sides of the Solent, including the New Forest, showing how they were originally distributed over surfaces gradually sloping downwards on both sides towards the margin of the sea-coast from a height of about 420 feet on either hand. In the author's view, the plateau gravel beds were spread as sheets over sloping surfaces, themselves intersected by river-valleys which were widened and deepened at a subsequent period after the deposition of the beds of gravel, so as to leave abrupt faces and cliffs exposing sections of the strata. The paper, which is illustrated by sections, leaves nothing to be desired for completeness; but in order to account for the deposition of the gravel-beds he propounds a theory which I am unable to accept.

On looking over a small collection of rodent remains from the Pleistocene cave-deposits of Crete, Mr. Oldfield Thomas drew my attention to one specimen which appeared to be of special interest. It consists of an imperfect right mandibular ramus still in the matrix, and which contains the base of the incisor in a fragmentary condition, and the first and second molars in a perfect state of preservation. The third molar is missing. This specimen was obtained from a cave-deposit on the south side of the little bay of Sphinari on the west coast of Crete. The deposit is almost totally destroyed and is still partially submerged; a few fragmentary remains of an ungulate were also observed and appeared to be those of the Cretan deer Anaglochis cretensis of Simonelli, which occurs in so many of the cave-deposits of the island.

The following notes on the laterites of Western Australia are the outcome of a careful study of the series of articles contributed to the Geological Magazine during the latter part of 1911 by Dr. L. Leigh Fermor, entitled “What is Laterite?” These deal with the subject from the point of view of one having an intimate knowledge of Indian laterite, but not a first-hand acquaintance with those of other parts of the world. The present writer, during the last fifteen years, has devoted much time to the study of the laterite of extratropical Western Australia, both in the field and in the laboratory, and is therefore in a position to supplement some of the work of Dr. Fermor, whilst inclined to differ from him in some of his deductions.

The Cleveland Dyke is well exposed low down on the left bank of the River Tees, near the junction of this river and the Lune, being washed at flood-times by the water. It trends in a direction north of west, and can be traced for a distance of several hundred yards: its thickness is difficult to estimate as the north edge is covered by drift. The tachylite variety of the rock is only exposed for a few yards, and has only been found at this point—about 100 yards west of the junction of the Lune and Tees. The dyke here appears to occur in sheets very like successive lava-flows, and during cooling a columnar structure has been developed and the bases of the columns, mostly hexagons, face the river.

Zoarium small, highly conical, slightly compressed in one direction, very fragile.

Zoœcia rather bluntly hexagonal, subradially arranged in straight rows which from time to time diverge to admit a new row, length ·35–·4mm., width about the same; the area varies from distinctly elliptical to practically circular; maximum length ·33 mm., breadth ·3 mm.

The material described in this paper was handed to me by the Liberian Development Company (to which I acted for some time as technical adviser) and was obtained in the course of prospecting operations prosecuted by that Company at Banja Ta (Montserrado) on the Jiblong and Bor Rivers (tributaries of the Junk River), some thirty miles inland from Monrovia, the chief port of the State of Liberia.

In the recent memoir on the Geology of the Country around Ollerton a description is given of certain ‘Green Beds’ which in that neighbourhood form the base of the Keuper Waterstones and overlie the Bunter Pebble Beds.

Palæontology is the biology of fossils. The palæontologist, therefore, is bound to consider modern biological views in order that he may test them in the light of his science. It is intended here to apply to one class of fossils the fundamental principles upheld in a remarkable work by the late H. M. Bernard, entitled Some Neglected Factors in Evolution, really two books under one cover, the first dealing with the ultimate structure of protoplasm and the second with a method of organic evolution. The principles underlying the first suggest the methods of the second; so that in approaching the second a thorough knowledge of the first is needful. Before applying it let us examine the theory itself.

Although the Republic of Venezuela adjoins two British colonies, only some three or four papers have been published in English journals dealing with the geology of the country. These, moreover, are concerned with local observations, and no attempt at correlation has been made. A considerable mass of material is available in Continental publications, and the author, during a series of journeys through Northern Venezuela in 1910, was able to collect sufficient data to form a fairly clear idea of the successien of deposits, and to roughly correlate the views of different writers. While more compilatory than original, the following paper is offered as a basis for further study of the geology of an area so closely connected with the colonies of British Guiana and Trinidad, and the short bibliography includes all those papers bearing directly on the subject which are known to the author.

In addition to the valves from Lüneburg herein mentioned, it has been possible to examine the more important of the material described by previous authors, namely: (1) the valve figured by H. Woodward (1868) as Pyrgoma cretacea, and subsequently (1901) as Brachylepas cretacea, now in the British Museum (Natural History), registered I. 14029; (2) the nearly complete capitulum figured as B. oretacea by H. Woodward (1901), in the collection of Dr. A. W. Rowe, of Margate; (3) the valve figured by Marsson (1880) as Pollicipes cancellatus, together with other valves studied by him, now in the Geologisches Landesmuseum of Berlin; (4) the valve figured by Quenstedt (1883) as P. Iœvissimus, now in the University of Tübingen; (5) the valve mentioned by Boehm(1906), in the Geologisches Landesmuseum of Berlin; and (6) a large number of more or less broken carinæ and rostra, with several scuta and terga, obtained from the Chalk of Rügen by Mrs. Agnes Laur, and acquired by the British Museum (Natural History).

The theory of a Cretaceo-Tertiary succession in New Zealand was first formulated by Captain Hutton in the early seventies mainly on the evidence of the Waipara sections in North Canterbury, where there appeared to be an unbroken succession from the Cretaceous into the Lower Tertiary. He correlated the Weka Pass Stone with the Ototara Stone, and in the main his views were adopted by Sir James Hector and the Geological Survey.

Most people who have lived in strongly glaciated countries are familiar with the topographic features known as drumlins. They are more or less elongated hills of boulder-clay with their long axes parallel to the direction of ice-motion. The literature dealing with them is extensive, but for the most part rather unsatisfactory. Their mode of formation is entirely a matter of speculation and is likely to remain so. There is every reason to believe they are deepseated products of the ice, so that observation of the process in modern ice-sheets is impossible. The only available means of getting at the truth is by careful observation of the peculiarities of form and structure exhibited by these features in the areas where they are most characteristically developed.

Among a series of fossils collected in Southern Nigeria by Mr. A. E. Kitson, and submitted by him to the authorities at the British Museum, are some small Echinoids. Dr. Bather has kindly allowed me to examine them, and, as they appear to belong to a new species, I have drawn up the following description. For reasons stated below I ascribe the forms to the genus Fibularia, Lamk., and consider all the specimens to belong to the same species. Ten individuals have been used for the purposes of the description, but, to prevent possible confusion, I select that numbered A as the type-specimen.

In the core of the Netherton Anticline at Saltwells, near Dudley, in the vicinity of a small area of basalt marked on the Geological Survey maps, Mr. King, in February last, discovered a series of rocks, ranging from the Upper Ludlow Mudstones to the Old Red Sandstone, cropping out from beneath the base of the Coal-measures of South Staffordshire. During April Mr. Lewis independently recognized Silurian here, and we agreed to work out the details together.

Sedimentary Formations in the Goldfields.—Sedimentary rocks are rare in all the goldfields south of the Gascoyne River, if superficial deposits of Tertiary or Recent age be omitted. It is true that a sedimentary origin has at times been ascribed to the jaspers, and still more commonly to the bands of graphitic schists within the greenstones. Hand-specimens of the latter rocks and of slaty rocks associated with the jaspers are indistinguishable from similar rocks of sedimentary origin, and it is only by the study of the geological occurrence of the bands that their derivation from igneous rocks can be proved. It is probable, therefore, that many of the rocks mapped as ‘older sediments’ by W. D. Campbell in Kalgoorlie and Norseman are not sediments. There are, however, undoubted sedimentary rocks between Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie, viz. the Kurrawang conglomerates. The enclosed pebbles are largely jaspers and porphyries, so that the formation of the conglomerates must be posterior to the intrusion of the granites, and yet the matrix is sub-schistose and the axes of folding are parallel to the general direction of foliation of the district. The junction with the auriferous series cannot be seen. From the photo reproduced by Campbell, it appears that there are similar conglomerates at Norseman.

In the arid region of the goldfields of Western Australia a knowledge of the conditions under which a search for water is most likely to be rewarded is of prime importance to the prospector who may find himself away from the beaten tracks. There is, in the summer, little hope of finding fresh water in the long narrow bands of goldbearing greenstone-schist that run from N.N.W. to S.S.E. through Western Australia, for both the surface and the deep-seated waters of this rock-formation are then salter than those of the sea. When unprovided with ‘condensers’ for the distillation of these waters, the prospector must therefore turn towards the neighbouring granitic areas, and search either for ‘soaks’ or for the remarkable ‘gnamma’ holes of the bare rocky ridges. The first and most reliable of these sources of fresh water—the ‘soaks’ —presents nothing abnormal and requires little description. They are found in the sandy hollows at the foot of granite slopes. A well is sunk in the sand, and the water is baled as it slowly percolates into the bottom of the hole. The supply may vary from a mere trickle to several hundred gallons in twenty-four hours, according to the catchment, to the season, and to the permeability of the sand that has protected the water from evaporation since it was collected in the rock-hollow.

During a visit to Costa llica in the year 1910 I was able to spend about ten days in the comparatively little-known peninsula of Nicoya. The trend of the peninsula is north-west to south-east, and it is separated from the mainland by the Gulf of Nicoya, a shallow arm of the Pacific Ocean, which opens to the sea on the south-east.

In view of the attention which has been drawn of recent years to the mode of origin of the purer limestones, I have been led to prosecụte some inquiries under this head on the Carboniferous Limestones of the Avon Gorge, near Bristol. I have paid greatest attention to the chemical composition of the rocks, particularly the proportion of insoluble residue remaining after treatment with hydrochloric acid; at the same time I have not wholly neglected the fossil contents, although for information on this point I have mainly relied on other observers.