During the last few years several papers have been published which throw much light on the early history of the whales, a matter about which there have been great doubt and difference of opinion. Two important points appear to have been settled: first, that the Zeuglodonts (Archœceti) are descended from the primitive group of land-carnivores, usually known as the Creodonta, and, second, that the Toothed-whales (Odontoceti) are really derived from the Zeuglodonts. On this second point there may still be room for doubt, although in the opinion of the present writer the evidence brought forward by Professor Abel in several papers, is at least sufficient to demonstrate the extreme probability that the Archæoceti are really ancestors of the Odontoceti. The origin of the Baleen-whales (Mystacoceti) is still obscure, but the fact that numerous true teeth are found in the unborn young, points to the probability that these animals also may have originated from the same, or a closely related stock as that from which the Odontoceti have descended.

The Possibility of obtaining, under certain conditions, flowing wells from these sandstones has been brought to my notice by the discovery that in the neighbourhood of El Dêr, on the east side of the depression, flowing water is obtainable from comparatively shallow wells sunk on the crest of the anticlinal fold, which runs north and south through that district, through the red shales to the underlying surface-water sandstone (see section). I am unable to speak positively of the original depth of the ancient wells in this district, but when one of those to the north of El Dêr was taken in hand, cleaned out and cased. flowing water was met with at a depth of 65 metres, below which untouched ground was struck. The flow increased on drilling a few metres into the sandstone rock below, and the bore has now given a fairly steady discharge of about 40 gallons per minute for over twelve months.

The following observations on the Upper Keuper are mainly from the Charnwood district, wherein the relations of the Keuper to the older rock beneath are easily studied. The observations are arranged under three heads.

When we were gathering material and data for that portion of the paper on Kent and Sussex dealing with the Dover section we made careful search for Uintacrinus both on the top of the cliff, north of St. Margaret's Bay, and on the high ground immediately to the westward of the cliff. We failed to find it in either situation, and there were no quarries close to the coast. A thick tabular band of flint is seen at the top of the cliff at the north side of St. Margaret's Bay, and this we believe to be the same table of flint which we have called in Thanet the “Whitaker 3-inch tabular band.” If our inference be correct, we are here within 21 feet of the “Barrois sponge-bed,” which forms the basement-bed of the Uintacrinus-band in Thanet.

There are several constants of value in the determination of this species. They are:—(1) The epithecal characters; (2) the spacing of the major septa (i.e. their number in a given diameter); (3) the thickening of stereoplasma in the lower and conical part; (4) the characters of the dumonti phase (PI. VI, Figs, 1b–1d and 2a–2d); (5) the nature of the dissepiments, and their restriction to the mature growth stages; (6) the nature of the tabulæ. Of these, (2), (4), and (6) are of particular importance.

A Specimen of Cyclus has lately been acquired from the Carboniferous Limestone of St. Doulaghs, co. Dublin, which indicates a new species, though it is allied to several which have been described by Dr. Henry Woodward. The latter gave in 1894 a review of our knowledge of this curious little Crustacean genus, and his view that it is an Entomostracan and probably one of the Phyllopoda has been generally accepted, though more recently (1905) he has suggested that the members of this genus are but the larval stages of Coal-measure Limuloids.

1. The ancient core of the North-East African Continent consists of the Cataract and Sudan banded gneisses, which may represent a very ancient igneous magma. They are usually much veined by granitic dykes.

2. In certain places in the Arabian Desert, Cataracts, etc., these underlie highly metamorphosed schists (the mica-schists of Sikait, the calcareous schists of Um Garaiart and Haimar and of the Amara Cataracts, also the dolomites of the latter region) which are sharply separated from the banded gneisses and are possibly the oldest sedimentary representatives in Egypt.

3. The greater part of the mountainous regions of the Eastern Desert and Sinai are occupied by two types of rocks, a schistose constituent overlying or being surrounded by the acid member. (a) The first-named, the Dokhan volcanic rocks and schists, are partly volcanic in origin and partly sedimentary, the former being represented by lavas of various types, while the latter are clearly altered sedimentary strata (grits, conglomerates, etc.). No fossils have yet been found, but they have their nearest lithological analogues in the latest pre-Cambrian and Cambrian series. Here are included some of the most interesting rocks of Egypt, such as the Imperial Porphyry and the Breccia Verde Antico. (b) The igneous member intruded into these ancient sediments, etc., includes a great diversity of igneous rocks, varying from highly basic to acid types.

Contact-phenomena of complex nature occur at the junctions of (a) and (b).

4. Red granite and dyke rocks, whose parallelism and extent of distribution present one of the most conspicuous features of the Eastern Desert of Egypt, mark the final eruptive action before Carboniferous times.

5. Three periods of volcanic activity have been subsequently noted—

(a) In Western Sinai in late Carboniferous times.

(b) An undated series of eruptions interbedded with the base of the Nubian Sandstone or intrusive into it with marked contact alterations.

(c) The basic intrusions near Cairo and the Fayum, etc., which are intimately associated with the Oligocena Continental Period in Egypt.

Some time ago Mr. R. Cairns, of Ashton-under-Lyne, sent me for identification a large collection of fossil fish-teeth, which he had obtained in a limestone quarry near Sparrowpit, in North Derbyshire, not far from the celebrated “ebbing and flowing well.”

The course of rivers cannot be properly understood if regarded as objects complete in themselves. In reality, a river is only a part of a system of channels serving to drain the whole of the area over which it extends, the breadth as well as the length. Of this system the tributaries are an essential part. So, too, valleys and combes which still exist but no longer serve for streams, and others altogether effaced, have, in former times, been included in the system. I hold to my belief, recorded nearly twenty-six years ago, that only by taking into account the influence of tributary streams can river-windings be explained, and that the subject is important as “bearing on the formation of warths and the maintenance of navigation, channels.”

The known occurrences of Actinocamax verus in this zone are comparatively few. Northfleet in Kent, Micheldever in Hampshire, and Great Fimber in Yorkshire are our only records.

It may be taken for granted that everybody agrees with Dr. Molengraaff when, in discussing Dr. Hatch's paper on “The Oldest Sedimentary Rocks of the Transvaal,” he says: “There must exist, or have existed, a formation older than the Witwatersrand Beds, because even at the very base of the Hospital Hill series conglomerates are known, the pebbles of which cannot obviously have been derived from the Hospital Hill series by denudation.” It has, therefore, I take it, not been the intention of various authors to prove this self-evident truth, but only to try and definitely settle the still open question whether this older rock is yet represented in the geological sequence of the country, and, if so, what strata should be identified as such. The relative age of the ‘old granite’ or ‘grey granite’ has been the base and the cornerstone of controversy on this subject, and it therefore becomes imperative to put on record and to continually keep in mind the only reliable mode of determination of the age of eruptive rocks which we yet possess. It would be out of place here to insist upon the origin of abyssal eruptive rocks of the granite family (Rosenbusch's Tiefengesteine).

In 1906 I described a horn-core of a small antelope which had been obtained long ago from the Norwich Crag of Bramerton, and which is now in the collection of Mr. A. S. Kennard. This specimen formerly formed part of the Bayfield collection, and Mr. William Davies had determined it as a horn-core of Capra or Antelope. A comparison showed that it was referable to the genus Gazella, but that it differed from Gazella anglica, a species from the Norwich Crag described by Mr. E. T. Newton, as well as from all the other living and fossil Gazelles respecting which I could obtain information. I therefore ventured to found a new species, G. Daviesii, for the reception of Mr. Kennard's specimen.

The following is a brief account of some minute Crinoid calyces, which appear to have been hitherto undescribed, sent me by Dr. Arthur Rowe, who obtained them from the Micraster cortestudinarium zone of the Upper Chalk.

More than sixty years have now elapsed since the publication of the classical monograph of MM. Milne-Edwards and Jules Haime, “Les Polypes Fossiles des Terrains Palæozoïques.” It can only be expected that many of the original descriptions of species in that work have for long been in need of amplification and revision. This applies with added force to the corals of the Carboniferous Limestone, in view of the impetus given to the palæontological study of that formation, by the vigorous revival of zonal work witnessed in the last few years. Those species in most urgent need of revision belong to the lower, or Tournaisian division of the Limestone, since their satisfactory determination affords a basis for evolutionary studies on the succeeding faunas, and an attempt is here made to deal with a few of these forms.

Mr. Dixon has handed me a small collection of rock specimens from Gavarnie (Hautes Pyrénées) and the district to the east. Microscopic sections have been made of these, with the object of ascertaining whether the structures and composition of the rocks throw any light on the vexed question of the age of the metamorphism in the two areas specially dealt with in the preceding communication.

The requirements of towns, and even of camps, in the matter of water supply are so great nowadays that surface waters are avoided as likely to be contaminated, and there is consequently a great desire to rely on deeper sources. Quite an official literature has sprung up of late years, and important memoirs have been issued by the Geological Survey on the “underground sources” of several counties. So far as I am aware there has been no official memoir relating to the county of Dorset, and this probably arises from the circumstance that the artesian principle has not been made use of to any great extent until recently, although the Dorset syncline would seem to bo eminently suitable for artesian wells.

After a prolonged and very careful study of the region on the spot as well as from existing literature, I summarised my observations and conclusions, in 1906, in a paper on the interesting and peculiar formation of the Tygerberg range in the Cape Colony.

The Inferior Oolite and contiguous deposits of the neighbourhood of Doulting have been described in detail in my paper on “The Inferior Oolite and Contiguous Deposits of the Bath-Doulting District”; but since that paper appeared, through the courtesy of the Urban District Council, I have had the loan of the John-Phyllis. Collection of Inferior-Oolite fossils that are housed in the Shepton-Mallet Museum.

During an investigation of the rocks of North-West Carnarvonshire older than the Llanberis Slates, the detailed results of which I hope soon to publish, I have discovered certain exposures of quartz-felsite which are not marked as such on the maps of the Geological Ordnance Survey, nor have been described, as far as I know, by other observers.