During the investigation of certain water-soluble and porous materials it was necessary to produce thin sections showing their structure and crystal composition. Using water as a lubricant during the thinning of the sections the specimens tended to break up and essential constituents were lost through solution, while paraffin had a marked solvent action on the Canada balsam cement resulting in disintegration of the thin section and contamination by particles of carborundum.

The aim of this paper is to present a brief description of the field relations of the South-West Granite Complex in the Island of Jersey, as shown by recent field work, together with a short description of the granites themselves. The area to be described forms a dissected peneplain, probably of Pliocene age. The magnificent coastal sections from St. Aubin to La Carrière reveal the nature of the two granite intrusions, the first into Pre-Cambrian shales, which are found to the north and north-east of the area; and the second a newer granite intrusion into the older one. Inland, the scenery is less spectacular, but the path from St. Aubin to Corbiére, which follows the old railway track, contains many excellent exposures of granite and shales, together with granite-shale contacts in the valley west of St. Aubin. West of Pont Marquet it traverses open country with dune sand encroaching from St. Ouen's Bay.

War-time requirements for untwinned quartz focused attention on the laboratory production of quartz crystals. Both the Germans and ourselves devoted considerable effort to this project with the result that, by the end of the German war, both countries were in a position to begin large scale manufacture. The fact that quartz crystals can be grown from aqueous solution in a short time is of considerable significance for geologists, and the method will therefore be described in some detail.

The unusually interesting Albian beds exposed in the neighbourhood of Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire have been the subject of descriptive papers by Lamplugh and Walker (1903), Kitchin and Pringle (1920), and Lamplugh (1922), as well as a number of short notes and excursion reports. These papers give details of the stratigraphy of the Leighton Sands, the overlying Gault, and the extraordinary beds which occur in between them round Shenley Hill. Many of the ammonites from the “regularis nodules” of Billington Crossing, south of the town, were described by Spath (1922–1943). He also referred, in the same work, to a number of Upper Albian forms from the Nodule Bed at the base of the Upper Gault on Shenley Hill. Our own collecting, carried out intermittently since 1937, has produced many new records, including several new species, and recent work has enabled us to amplify the stratigraphical picture given by the authors mentioned above. The present paper deals only with the stratigraphy but we hope that it will be followed by papers on several elements of the fauna.

The purpose of this note is to place on record two rare crinoids and a blastoid recently found at Coplow Knoll, Clitheroe. One of the crinoids belongs to a new species of Camerata now named Steganocrinus westheadi in honour of its finder, Mr. Stanley Westhead, of Clitheroe. The genus Steganocrinus has not hitherto been recorded from English Carboniferous rocks so that its occurrence at Coplow is noteworthy. The other crinoid, here temporarily assigned to “Pachylocrinus” conicus (Phillips), shows a considerable portion of the arms and was found by the author on a visit to Coplow last year. No other specimen of this species so complete has yet been recorded. On a later visit in the autumn of the same year a single finely preserved specimen of a blastoid was found. In its general characters this specimen does not appear to differ from Orophocrinus pentangularis (Miller), and in ordinary circumstances would call for no special comment here. Blastoids, however, are so rare at Coplow that the occurrence of this specimen, the only one ever found by the author at, or known to him from, this locality, is deemed worthy of record.

The “Prussian Geological Survey” was formed in Berlin on 1st January, 1873. This was the final step in a development which started at the very beginning of the science of geology. It soon became apparent that the best way to present the geological observations made in the field was to have them printed on maps, which. could easily be re-studied and corrected by subsequent surveyors. Besides this the collection of geological observations forms the base for the application of geology in mining and for other economic purposes. Geological maps soon proved to be indispensable.

In connection with a recent investigation of the geochemical changes leading up to granitization, the writer (Reynolds, 1946) had occasion to plot the chemical analyses of the rocks of the Kenidjack and Botallack region, Cornwall (Tilley and Flett, 1930; Tilley, 1935) on a von Wolff diagram. Since the diagram required somewhat lengthy discussion, however, it was not included in the geochemical paper. The diagram is nevertheless of interest because it presents in a new form the problem of the genetic associations of these curious rocks, characterized as they are by anthophyllite, cummingtonite, cordierite, and grunerite, and provides useful hints which might form a basis for further field investigations in Cornwall. The present paper, offering tentative interpretations of some of the Cornish rocks, is written in the hope of focusing attention on the petrogenetic significance of this region, and thus of stimulating detailed investigations, with strict correlation between field observations and chemical analyses, by which means alone the problems presented can be solved.

The Amphibole-Schist Series appears to be confined to Malaya east of the Main Range, and it is most abundantly developed in north-west Pahang. It occurs partly in the Main Range Foothills, partly between them and the Main Range granite in the Sua-Kerla-Kelubi-Tempoi river system of the Telom Valley, in the Jelai Kechil valley, in the Sungei Lipis and in the Chembatu-Batu-Cheroh system between Batu Malim and Cheroh, Raub District. So far as is known these crystalline schists do not extend far northwards into Kelantan, and they are likewise but poorly developed south of Pahang in Negri Sembilan. They are everywhere associated with the Arenaceous Formation of the Main Range Foothills, quartzites, quartzite-conglomerates, shales, cherts, phyllites, quartz- and mica-schists, which may be either Triassic according to Scrivenor (1911, 1931) or perhaps older than the adjacent Permocarboniferous shales and limestones according to Service, Alexander, and the writer (Ann. Rep., 1940, para. 39; 1939, 1946). In some areas they lie partly on the Main Range granite (Text-fig. 1).

In its upper reaches the River Rheidol flows south, parallel to the coast of Cardiganshire, and about ten miles inland. At Devil's Bridge it turns sharply to the west (Text-fig. 1) and enters the sea at Aberystwyth. Due to rejuvenation the river has, in its southward course, incised the floor of its old mature valley the form of which is still clearly visible, and which continues to the south beyond Devil's Bridge to Pontrhyd-y-groes and Tregaron. This part of the valley now contains only small streams.

Facies change and lithological variation traceable in the outcrop of the Permocarboniferous rocks exposed over portions of some 1,400 square miles of jungle country in north-west Pahang and south-west Kelantan are outlined in this paper. The area, some 70 miles N.–S. and 10 to 25 miles E.–W., is bounded by the 101° 45′ E. meridian in the west and by the Gunong Tahan and Gunong Benom Ranges in the east (Text-fig. 1A). The territory described lies mostly in Ulu Pahang of which a reconnaissance map, scale 8 miles to an inch, and a memoir have been published by Scrivenor (1911). Between 1937 and 1941 the 1,200 square miles lying between meridians 101° 45′E. and 102° 00′E. have been mapped partly on the scale of 1½ inches and partly 2 inches to a mile. The geology of the southernmost 300 square miles (Sheet 3 B/4, Raub) has been described by Willbourn (A.R., 1933–34) and the writer (1939); interim reports on the 300 miles (Sheets 2 N/16, Benta, and 2 O/13, Lipis) immediately north have been published by Service (A.R., 1938–1940), and of the northern 600 square miles (Sheets 2 N/12, Chegar Perah, and 2 N/8, Merapoh) by the writer (A.R., 1937–1940; 1946).

Robert Etheridge, Jnr. (1874a, p. 310), records that the same species of Spirorbis as that in the Lesmahgow Silurian occurs in the North Esk section. The D. J. Brown collection with the specimens referred to is missing at the Royal Scottish Museum; but it would be interesting to know how closely these specimens compare with S. lewisii J. de C. Sowerby from the English Wenlock and Ludlow.

The war has cut us off unfortunately from much that has been proceeding in other lands, even in the way of scientific research which was of ho military significance. The records of such research are scattered through many periodicals which are not always accessible as yet in this country.

Two important papers, relating to “fronts” of metamorphism, appeared in the Bull. Soc. Géol. France during the war years, and may, in consequence, have escaped the notice of many petrologists. The contents of both papers are so closely bound up with the important subject of granitization as to render their review desirable. In the first of these papers, Perrin and Roubault (1941) describe an apparently unconformable boundary between a Triassic conglomerate and an underlying schist. The Triassic conglomerate consists of red quartzite pebbles in a sandy matrix, whilst the schist is a normal low-grade sericite-chlorite-schist of a green colour. Detailed examination of the contact, however, shows that the relations between the two rock types are by no means so straightforward as a cursory examination suggests. Although the contact between the conglomerate and the schist is generally sharp, a close scrutiny establishes the following local but remarkable apparent anomalies: (1) “Xenoliths” of the conglomerate, and isolated pebbles from it, occur within the schist. (2) “Veins” and pods of the schist occur within the Triassic conglomerate. (3) Gradational contacts are sometimes found between the schist and the Triassic sandstone, the schist facies dying out within the space of a few centimetres. On the basis of these observations Perrin and Roubault reach the inevitable conclusion that the metamorphism which gave rise to the schist actually post-dated the deposition of the conglomerate.

The Broadlaw “Granite” is one of the small granitic intrusions of Caledonian age found in the eastern part of the Southern Uplands of Scotland. It is situated on the north-west flank of Broadlaw in the Moorfoot Hills, three miles south-west of Middleton House.

During 1931–4 several hundred specimens of these two species were collected, including a quantity of excellently preserved silicified material from an exposure of the Dayia Shales (Elles and Slater, 1906, pp. 197 and 198), near Norton in Shropshire. Serial sections and development of the material have made possible the detailed descriptions which follow.