One of the most important additions recently made to the Gallery of Fossil Reptilia at the Natural History Museum, is a mounted skeleton of the highly specialized Ichthyosaur known as Ophthalmosaurus icenicus, Seeley. This reptile presents many. peculiarities, for the most part indicating a very high degree of adaptation for life in the open sea and for rapid movement through the water, probably sometimes at considerable depths. In fact, Ophthalmosaurus may be regarded as representing among the Reptilia the swiftly swimming toothed-whales among the Mammalia, and it is interesting to note that the similar mode of life in the two cases has produced in some respects similar modifications. Thus the front paddles are enlarged, the hind ones reduced; in whales the latter have disappeared altogether. Again, there was a large caudal fin, vertical in this case, and the head was elongated, the snout sharp, and the neck so short as to be practically non-existent. The enlargement of the fore-paddles is brought about by the presence of a very large pisiform bone, which together with the radius and ulna articulates with the humerus, thus forming a very broad base for the expanded terminal portion of the paddle. Another striking peculiarity is the great reduction of the dentition, the teeth in the adult being very small and confined to the front of the jaws. Baptanodon, an American form very closely allied to, if not identical with, Ophthalmosaurus, was for a long time regarded as toothless. This reduced dentition, so unlike what is usually found in members of the group, must indicate some considerable change in the nature of the food, but what this was is unknown.

The Solway Firth is the only important ria on the western coast of 1 Scotland; it has a complex history, for denudation and earthmovements of several different dates have contributed to its formation. Uncertainty as to the essential structure of the Solway valley at present renders doubtful its position in the valley system of Southern Scotland. The Solway—Carlisle basin is generally represented as occupying a synclinal between the Lower Palaeozoic hills of the Lake District and of the Southern Uplands of Scotland. Thus the sections by E. W. Binney (1865, p. 369, ref. p. 249) and Mr. T. V. Holmes (1889, p. 247, and 1899, pp. 22, 40) represent the valley of the Solway and its eastern continuation as lying along a synclinal and resting on a great thickness of Triassic rocks. The axis of the synclinal is marked by the Lias which occurs to the west of Carlisle. The Solway-Carlisle basin cannot, however, have such a simple synclinal structure, for Carboniferous rocks occur at the surface near the northern shore of the Eastern Solway. This fact is shown by a boring for coal made in 1794 in an old quarry beside the Kirtle Water at Redkirk Mill, 1£ miles to the south-west of Gretna Green. The bore journal was published in Singer's Agricultural Survey of the County of Dumfries, 1812, pp. 670-3 ; and as that book is scarce and the bore important the record may be conveniently reprinted.

Previous History.—In 1892 Professor Carl W. S. Aurivillius published his well-known paper “Ueber einige ober-silurische Cirripeden aus Gotland” (Bihang Svenska Vet.-Akad. Handl. Bd 18, Aid. IV, No. 3). Besides the remarkable specimen from the Ludlovian Pterygotus bed of Wisby, to which he gave the name Pollicipes signatus, and a supposed fragment of a scutum, which he called P. validus, Professor Aurivillius described a number of “kurze, mehr oder weniger cylindrische, mit Schuppen bedeckte Bildungen”, which he regarded as the peduncles of a cirripede and referred provisionally, in the absence of any trace of a capitulum, to Scalpellum. Though all the specimens (except possibly of S. cylindricum) came from a single stratum, bed c of Lindström, probably contemporaneous with our Wenlock Shale, and though the majority were found in a single locality, Djupvik in Eksta, still Professor Aurivillius considered that he could with certainty distinguish the following seven species:

While working at the Lower Liassic Ammonites of the Sowerby Collection, preserved in the British Museum (Nat. Hist.), the author happened to come upon one of the paratypes of Ammonites Greenoughi, J. Sowerby, which could be recognized at once as being allied to Schlotheimia Charmassei, d'Orbigny, sp. On going into the matter in greater detail it was found that the suspicions of some Ammonite workers regarding the misinterpretation of the species by most previous authors were, indeed, well founded. Quenstedt, for example, had stated that Wright, having found Sowerby's type very much disfigured by decomposition of pyrites, substituted for it a gigantic specimen of a diameter of 440 mm., “which, however, looks different again.” Pompeckj again stated that the gigantic specimen drawn by Wright, as well as his description defined the species in a not very precise manner, and that, therefore, it was not certain that the specimen agreed with Sowerby's original.

To the north and north-east of Cardiff there is a small inlier of Silurian rocks (described in detail by Professor Sollas in 1879) covering an area of rather more than two square miles. There are representatives of both the Ludlow and the Wenlock Series, and the general dip of the beds is towards the north, in which direction Ludlow mudstones pass with apparent conformity beneath the Old Red Sandstone.

The records of the Geological Survey of Great Britain date back nearly as far as the first public recognition of geology as a science in this country.

William Whitehead Watts was born at Broseley in Shropshire in 1860, and passed the critical part of his school life at Denstone. Here he came under the influence of the Rev. D. Edwardes, who taught him physics and chemistry, infected him with a love of science, and stimulated him to try for a scholarship at Cambridge. In spite of the winning of an exhibition, afterwards converted into a scholarship at Sidney Sussex College, supplemented by an exhibition from his old school, his maintenance at Cambridge was only accomplished by much self-sacrifice on the part of his parents.

In the volume of this Magazine for the year 1909 (p. 385) Miss D. M. A. Bate gave a short account with some figures of a remarkably modified goat-like ruminant discovered in some remnants of cave-deposits in Majorca.1 The chief peculiarities of this curious creature are that (1) instead of possessing the three pairsof incisors and pair of canines in the lower jaw, usual in the group,only the median pair of incisors remains, and these teeth are modifiedto form large permanently growing teeth like the incisors of arodent; (2) the cannon bones on both the front and hind foot areextraordinarily shortened, this being especially marked in the former.

Danbury stands on a gravel-capped plateau in Mid-Essex, five miles east of Chelmsford. The gravel is part of a once largersheet and contains a variety of rocks foreign to the district. It was therefore naturally at first regarded as a glacial gravel. This view was adopted by S. V. Wood, jun. (e.g. 1867, p. 12; 1870, p. 61), by the Rev. O. Fisher (1868, p. 98), on the Geological Survey Map (Sheet 1, N.E., 1871), and by Mr. Whitaker (1889, p. 279). Sir Joseph Prestwich regarded the Danbury gravels (1890, p. 135) as Bagshot pebble-beds invaded by some glacial agent, and the late H. B. Woodward (1903, p. 15) described them as the wreck in Glacial times of an older gravel.

Whilst working at the fossils connected with our paper “A Study of Ballstone and the Associated Beds in theWenlock Limestone of Shropshire”, my colleague, Miss M. C.Crosfield, and I became much interested in a small round form of Labechia. We did not find many specimens, about a dozen in all,although we spent a considerable time in collecting, and these wereobtained at only three quarries, which contain otherwise a prolificfauna, viz. Bradley Rock and Shadwell Rock, Much Wenlock, andat Knole Quarry, Presthope. The tops of these quarries are in thehighest beds of the Wenlock Limestone series and are of bands ofirregularly shaped nodules of various sizes, with shale partings andof a light-brown colour (this latter fact distinguishes the beds fromthe rest of the limestone). It is only in these upper beds that this Labechia is found, but Labechia conferta, Lonsd., is found, often in greatnumbers and size, everywhere throughout the limestone, thoughperhaps slightly diminishing in quantity at the top. So far, I havenot been able satisfactorily to identify this species. Nicholson, in his monograph, mentions and figures a young example of L. conferta, which he records as only being 2 to 3 cm. in diameter and 1 mm. inthickness.

The statuary marbles of Carrara have been repeatedly asserted to be metamorphic limestones of earlier Mesozoic or later Palæozoic age. Similar statements were once frequent in regard to other mountain regions, but they have one by one dropped out of geological literature. This, however, is such a hardy perennial as to be still repeated in petrological and other textbooks. Doubts, however, were felt by the first author in 1878, and these became almost certainties after 1886, but as each visit was only for a few hours, and did not allow of a proper examination of the rocks in situ, he deferred writing on the subject till he could spend a longer time at Carrara. That opportunity, however, never came, and is not now likely to occur ; but on finding not long since that his friends, Professor Boyd Dawkins and the Rev. H. H. Winwood, had visited the quarries in 1898, and the latter had published an account of the district, with a sketch-section drawn by the former, he communicated with them, and the following paper summarizes the experience of the three, which it is hoped may help in laying another metamorphic ghost.

In presenting a portrait and offering to the readers of the Geological Magazine a brief memoir of Dr. Arthur Smith Woodward, my namesake and successor in the Geological Department of the British Museum (Natural History), I feel that no apology is needed, inasmuch as every lover of our science will be glad to possess a record of one of its leading men whom he may have met already, and known generally, but may wish for a more personal acquaintance, which this sketch is intended to furnish.

Henry Woodward.

In 1897 C. E. Beecher published his “Outline of a Natural Classification of the Trilobites”, which has since “proved superior to any previously proposed”. If early a score of years have passed since that time and many new Trilobites have been discovered, the majority of which fit into this system without difficulty and prove that to a large extent it is conceived on a sound basis. A few, however, do not fit in and have therefore revealed in it weaknesses, the existence of which tend to hinder the systematic study of Trilobites. In the following pages it is proposed to point out these weaknesses and to make suggestions for modifying and extending Beecher's system upon what it is hoped will prove to be natural lines.

Owing to the marked persistence of general external form and internal characters in the Rhynchonellidæ, it is necessary in this family to seize on slighter differences for the foundation of genera than is elsewhere necessary or advisable. The object of this paper is to point out the characters that have been used and others which may advantageously be introduced in the discrimination of the genera of Recent and Tertiary representatives of the group. These are not at present distributed by authors amongst the genera Rhynchonella, Fischer; Acanthothyris, d'Orbigny ; Hemithyris, d'Orbigny ; Cryptopora, Jeffreys (syn. Atretia, Neatretia); Frieleia, Dall; and Basiola, Dall.

Materials for the study of this very distinctive genus have been accumulating for many years, and at last afford a firm basis for certain definite conclusions. Some important matters remain obscure, and the comparison of the Swedish material has been hindered by the dangerous state of the North Sea, but further delay in publication does not seem advisable. Various reasons make it convenient to deal with the species in the order of their geological age, beginning with the oldest, which is the most complete and is taken as the type-species of the genus. The new species are—

After the little survey of the pluvial epoch contained in thepreceding section we may turn our attention again to England.In the Thames Valley at Swanscombe (Barnfield pit) there is foundbeneath the deposits which yield early Chellean implements a yetolder layer which does not contain any implements.

The object of this essay is to outline the connexion between earthmovements and the formation of the River Tyne drainage area; the period of its formation is also alluded to, though it is less definable. This object becomes more accessible on dividing the area into the following parts and considering each separately

A. The Main Valley of the Tyne.

B. The Watersheds South of the Main Valley.

C. The Watersheds North of the Main Valley.

D. The Earth movements considered stratigraphically.

E. The Eelationship to other Drainage Areas.

During the years 1906 to 1909 a bore was sunk at Seascale on the coast of Cumberland, 9 miles south-eastward from St. Bees, in the hope of reaching a continuation of the Coal-measures which, south of Whitehaven, end against the Trias. This bore reached the depth of 3,200 feet, and it was then still in the Red Sandstone Series, which it entered beneath 20 feet of drift. Owing to the kindness of Mr. Forster Brown, I received a copy of the bore section, and from Mr. Fleming Smith, of Cleator Moor, manager of Vivian's Boring and Exploration Company, Ltd., who carried out the boring, further information regarding the bore, two samples of the core, and a copy of the journal for the lowest 180 feet. As the bore record is of especial geological interest, I am indebted to Mr. Forster Brown for permission to publish it.

Although much has been written upon the palæontology of the Suffolk box-stones, no description appears hitherto to have been published of the petrology of these boulders. This is the more curious on account of the light it might throw upon the disputed question of their source, no similar sandstone having yet been recognized with certainty in situ. The most recent account of the molluscan fauna is by my friend Mr. Alfred Bell. In a preliminary paper he has given a list of sixty-three species (excluding cetacean bones, teeth, crustaceans, etc.), about twelve new species and varieties being described. Mr. Bell has now kindly let me see in advance the MS. of a revised list of Mollusca (seventy-six species), much new box-stone material having been obtained in the last few years. As a result of recent work, he considers the affinities of the fauna to be rather with the Rupelian (Continental Oligocene) than with the Bolderian or Diestian, as he formerly thought. Mr. Clement Reid, in The Pliocene Deposits of Britain (Mem. Geol. Survey, 1890), considered the box-stones to be of about the same age as the Diestian Beds, but Mr. F. W. Harmer has, in later publications, been inclined to consider them to be rather older and of very early Pliocene age.

So far, the source of the heat lost from the earth has been assigned only to the disintegration of the radio-active elements. Besides this, heat is liberated near the surface by the processes of weathering. The decomposition of one gram of average rock is accompanied by the generation of about 120 calories. Owing to its extreme slowness, this source of heat generation is of practically no importance except locally, where for a time it may succeed in appreciably steepening the temperature gradient. The heat liberated by weathering is probably balanced by the absorption of heat at greater depths, which is involved in the processes of metamorphism. Of much greater importance is the question whether the earth can still be regarded as possessing an ancient heritage of heat dependent on its origin.