In March of the present year (1909) the Rev. R. Ashington Bullen, who was then travelling in Majorca, wrote to inform me of the existence of a supposed ossiferous breccia situated on the east coast of that island. This caused a long-deferred project of exploring the Balearic Islands in search of Pleistocene cave-deposits to be carried out, and a month was spent in this manner, although a much longer period would be required for an exhaustive examination of Majorca alone, which was the only one of the group visited. A considerable tract of limestone country was investigated, and the result was the discovery of three ossiferous cave-deposits, including the one mentioned above. Similar remains were procured from each of these, and on examination prove to be those of an ungulate which appears to be without parallel. No great quantity of material was obtained, but this fortunately includes a well-preserved skull of an old individual with the associated mandible and atlas vertebra—the typespecimen, see Fig. 1—as well as a number of perfect examples of various limb-bones.

We offer warmest congratulations to two dear and valued friends connected with the Geological Magazine since its commencement, both having been constant contributors, and Professor Rupert Jones in addition one of the Editors during the first year of the journal's existence.

Mr. Teall, who was born on January 5, 1849, in the Oolitic region of the Cotteswolds, at Northleach, a small market town on the Fosse Way between Cirencester and Stow-on-the-Wold, was the only child of Jethro and Mary Teall (née Hathaway). His father inherited some landed property in East Kent, and resided after his marriage for about two months at Sandwich, where he died in 1848 of some epidemic that was raging in the place. Mrs. Teall then returned to her relations at Northleach, where her son was born.

The lithological character and sequence of the lower part of the Coal-measures of the Yorkshire Coalfield have been well known since the publication of the memoir by the Geological Survey in 1878. No connected account of the explorations in the equivalent measures of the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire portion of the coalfield has been written; thus the close correspondence which exists between the lower part of the Coal-measures of Yorkshire and that of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire is still generally unknown.

Many sciences contribute to the progress of geology, but none is more essential to it than that of zoology. The accurate determination of fossils, which can only be done by a trained systematic zoologist, is a necessity for stratigraphical work, and the broad questions of the geography of past ages can only be discussed with the aid of those who understand the distribution of life in the existing world. Dr. Traquair, the eminent ichthyologist of Edinburgh, though scarcely a geologist in the strict sense of the term, may therefore be claimed as one of the leaders in our science, for he has devoted more than forty years to the interpretation of fossil fish-remains, and so laid the foundations of a precise knowledge of extinct fishes which is as important to the stratigraphical geologist as to the biological philosopher.

The material upon which the following descriptions are based was obtained chiefly by Mr. Ussher, who collected the Whiteway and Hestow Farm specimens. The Daymer Bay form was collected by Mr. John Pringle. For the new species of Proetus I am indebted to Mr. Claude H. Peter, Town Clerk, Launceston, who, through Mr. Clement Reid, kindly lent it for description. It is evident from the examination of this limited quantity of material that the British Devonian fauna is not yet fully known. We may expect the discovery of many species hitherto unrecorded in this country, which will be of interest from the possible comparative relationship with the fauna of foreign deposits. The accompanying illustrations were drawn by my colleague, Mr. H. H. Thomas, to whom I tender my best thanks.

William Boyd Dawkins, who has recently resigned the Professorship of Geology and Palæontology at the Manchester University, belongs to the comparatively rare, and now dwindling, group of naturalists who have extended their energies across the borderlands of their main subjects, and have become recognized as authorities also in neighbouring territories. If Boyd Dawkins had not been famous in the realm of Geology, he would still have been a prominent figure among anthropologists and archæologists; and if he had not established for himself a name among those whose researches have enriched the data and philosophy of science, he would still have been prominent as a teacher, an organizer, and a public-spirited citizen. Forty years ago, when there were two small collections of natural-history objects in Manchester, the late Professor Huxley nominated young Dawkins as the man with the requisite amount of energy, business capacity, and scientific knowledge to organize a central institution, which, now, under the control of the new University of Manchester, is an institution of importance as much to the student who requires reference materials as to the general public. Although the Manchester Museum has now attained dimensions requiring the superintendence by specialists in the three main branches of Natural History, the organization is the direct outcome of its first Curator, through whose influence mainly the money required for buildings has been obtained, and through whose attraction unique collections of materials have been secured.

In reprinting this article some slight chages and corrections have been made, but it remains substantially the same, perhaps with trifling improvements. [Any notable addition is included in brackets of this kind.]

During the present survey of Cornwall Mr. Clement Reid has discovered several interesting fossils which provide a substantial addition to the previously recorded Devonian fauna of that part of the country. The forms described below were found by Mrs. Clement Reid, to whose patience and skill I am also indebted for the developing of the best parts of the specimens. My best thanks are due to my colleague Mr. H. H. Thomas for the accompanying drawings of the two forms.

Dr. J. R. Sutton has recently read a most important paper to the Royal Society of South Africa on the diurnal variation of level at Kimberley. The paper gave the preliminary results of observations made during the course of three years upon the variation of the level of the ground as recorded by a large horizontal pendulum of a special design made for the author by the Cambridge Instrument Company. It appeared from the results that the movements in the surface of the ground, which set up corresponding movements in the pendulum, were very great. The maximum westerly elongation of the extremity of the pendulum occurred about 5.30 a.m., the maximum easterly about 4.15 p.m., the medium positions a little before 11 a.m. and 9.30 p.m. Geometrically these movements may be represented on the hypothesis that the hemisphere facing the sun bulges out, forming a sort of meniscus to the geosphere. The rise and fall of the surface of the ground which such a supposition would postulate is enormous, and the very magnitude has led Dr. Sutton to hesitate in giving the figures. There can, however, be very little doubt that some rise and fall in the earth's surface is occasioned by the sun's gravitational pull, although the present figures may have to be lessened by taking into consideration other causes which contribute to the disturbance of the pendulum.

In a discussion of this kind it is advisable to be as concise as possible, eliminating minor details, so as to give prominence to the main outlines of any theory one holds. This communication, which the Council of the Ninth International Congress of Geography have honoured me by asking me to address to you, I propose to put into the form of a ‘credo’. To this I shall add a few fundamental facts upon which, my reasoning was based, leaving minor ones for discussion at greater leisure elsewhere. For convenience I propose to divide my theory into two sections. In the first I shall review what may be conveniently called deep volcanic action, and in the second that group of phenomena that occur when igneous matter nearly reaches the surface or actually finds an exit thereon. Unfortunately, in the first case I am obliged to rely on hypotheses and deductions, whereas in the second section, that of superficial volcanic action, there are a number of fundamental facts and observations upon which to base speculation, and to which. I propose to draw your attention.

In these notes it is my object to describe and figure some of the more imporant Chalk Polyzoa that have not yet been described, or have been described from material less complete than mine.

In this Magazine for November Mr. Mellard Reade referred to the difficulty of imagining the adequacy of any known force to accomplish such tremendous effects as to produce overthrusts like those which have been lately described as occurring in the North-West Highlands, and he consequently appears to be a little doubtful of the reality of the phenomenon. I think, however, that the conclusion of so many competent field geologists must be accepted, and that our theories of mountain-building must be made to fit the facts rather than the facts the theories.

Mr. T. Mellard Reade evidently wished to clicit, by his note on the mechanics of overthrusts in the Geological Magazine, 1908, p. 518, a discussion on these phenomena, as he also tells us in the February Number, 1909, p. 75. May I be allowed, therefore, to contribute some remarks on his paper?

Whilst searching through the duplicate drawers in the Manchester Museum I found recently a specimen of Discoidea cylindrica which contained the dental apparatus in a very good state of preservation. The softness of the matrix within the test made it possible to develop and extract the jaws, and thus to detect several new features of interest.

Since Cathrein in 1883 investigated the nature of saussurite, it has been well known that albite can arise from the alteration of basic plagioclase felspars. He found that the fine-grained aggregate of minerals known as saussurite has commonly been derived from basic felspar, and that the processes involved in the change have led to little more than a chemical re-arrangement within the limits of the original felspar crystal. The bulk composition of the aggregate thus agrees approximately with that of the felspar from which it has been derived, and the albite which separates out is intermingled with lime-bearing silicates such as epidote, zoisite, and garnet.

The two Cephalopods—an Ammonoid and a Belemnoid—referred to in the present note were obtained in the summer of 1907 by Dr. A. P. Young from the Tarntaler Köpfe, an isolated mountain-mass in Tyrol, to the north of the Tuxer Alps, and about 20 kilometres south-east of Innsbruck. The Ammonoid was found “at a height of nearly 2500 metres above sea-level, on the surface of a scree-cone which has accumulated under the high hanging valley known as the Lower Tarntal”, and the Belemnoid was found “somewhat lower on the slope of the same cone”. They are the fossils referred to by Dr. A. P. Young on p. 342 of his paper on the Structure and Physiography of the Tarntal Mass, published in the August number of this Magazine (pp. 339–346), where a photograph of the scree-cone is given (Pl XVII, Fig. 5), and now form part of the National Collection.

During the Long Vacation of 1909, I was fortunate enough, when examining some gravel-pits in the company of Messrs. Rastall, Romanes, and Gandy, of Christ's College, to discover a Palæolithic implement, in situ, near Hildersham, Cambridgeshire.

Description.—Specimen consisting of the natural cast of a left valve: form oblong, subtrigonal, mostly compressed; umbo anterior, depressed, incurved, succeeded in front by prominent lunuloid cavity; dorsal margin posteriorly elongate, oblique, continuous with the terminal curvature of margin; anterior region short, deep, slightly inflated on the ventral side of umbonal area; outer margin deeply excavated beneath the umbo, afterwards of oval contour; ventral margin anteriorly inflated, deeply sinuated in rear; posterior region furnished with an obtuse ridge directed obliquely from the umbo to the postero-ventral angle, on each side of which the valve slopes and becomes compressed; lateral face of valve between the anterior inflation and posterior ridge triangularly depressed; sculpture lines obscure.

The Reptiliferous Sandstone of Moray first attracted attention in 1851, on the discovery in it by Patrick Duff of a skeleton of Telerpeton elyinense at Spynie. This was described by Mantell (17), but did not raise any doubts as to the age of the bed in which it was found, which was at that time universally regarded as Upper Old Red Sandstone. This opinion was not disturbed until Huxley showed that Stagonolepis Robertsoni, Ag., was a crocodilian, the allies of which were of Triassic age (9); when Huxley showed that Hyperodapedon occurred in the undoubted Trias of Coton End, near Warwick (11), the point was generally regarded as settled. Meanwhile some footprints had been found by Captain Brickenden (6) at Cummingstone, near Elgin, which were recognized by Huxley to be similar to those described by Sir William Jardine from Annandale. The discovery by C. Moore (19) that the well-known quarry at. Linksfield, formerly supposed to be in rocks of Wealden age, was really opened in beds of Rhætic age appeared to be a strong argument in favour of the Triassic age of the reptile-bearing beds. It had, however, already been shown by Hugh Miller (18) that this mass was really a boulder resting on an ice-scratched surface of the subjacent rocks, hence the evidence drawn from the occurrence of this mass is quite inconclusive. The discovery by Professor Judd (15) that a small patch of a rock identical in physical characters with the cherty rock of Stotfield existed on the north side of the Moray Firth, which was conformably covered by an unfossiliferous series of beds which graded up into the Lower Lias, afforded further evidence of the correctness of Huxley's conclusions as to the age of these beds.