Dr. Packard's observations on the structure of the Phyllopoda, and his comparative anatomical studies of allied living and extinct genera, supply the palæontologist with sound reasoning for referring the Phyllocarida to the Nebaliad type as a centre for a great group of obscure fossil forms, and as a starting-point for the Decapoda. His views have been referred to in some detail in the Geol. Mag. for August last, pages 349–352.

In his “Palæozoic Fossils” (1861–65), Mr. Billings described, without figures, a fossil from the Black River Limestone, to which he gave the name of Stromatopora compacta. The description given was as follows:—“This species forms small subglobular masses, from one to two inches in diameter. The concentric lamellæ are thin and closely packed together, there being in some specimens from six to twelve layers in the space of two lines” (op. cit. p. 55).

All those British geologists who have interested themselves in the long-vexed question of the geological position and true mode of origin of the Metamorphic rocks of the Highlands of Scotland must have read with the greatest interest and pleasure the clear and vivid “Report on the Geology of the North-West of Sutherland,” by Messrs. Peach and Horne, in the pages of “Nature” for November last; and the manly and candid Introductory Observations by the Director-General of the Geological Survey. Not only does the publication of this Report put an end to one of the most keenly agitated controversies in the history of British Geology, but it explains and harmonizes the diverse views of the contending parties. The issue appears to me to be most creditable to all concerned. For many years the Highland controversy has appeared to outsiders, and to those geologists who were unaware of the difficulties attending the stratigraphy of the older rocks, as a trivial dispute between the Geological Survey on the one hand and a few misguided amateurs on the other.

Those who have attempted a geological exploration of a new country can best appreciate the difficulties which must be overcome by the geologist, and the value of every scrapof fossil evidence met with, however fragmentary, which may serve as an indication of the probable horizon of the strata around him

The progress of modern discovery, both in Palæontology and Zoology, has been steadily tending to bridge over the gap which seemed at one time to separate the past from the present life-history of our globe, and has brought each more closely into relationship with the other than seemed possible fifty years ago.

The fossil insects of Palæozoic times are but little known, in consequence of the small number of specimens which have been discovered in the various Carboniferous deposits of the globe.

In his “Tableau générale des Poissons Fossiles,” published in 1844, and appended to the first volume of his great work, Agassiz enumerates five species of his Carboniferous selachian genus Cochliodus, of which he only described one, the well-known C. contortus; the others, of which the names only were then published, being C. magnus, C. acutus, C. oblongus, and C. strtatus.

In the latest number of the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society there is a description by Mr. D. Pigeon, F.G.S., of recent discoveries in the submerged Forest of Torbay. The paper is highly interesting, and records many facts, valuable alike to the geologist and archæologist. But the inferences he draws from them in opposition to Mr. Pengelly, though not altogether unchallenged in the discussion of his paper, were not contradicted as emphatically as they might have been. As I take interest in, and have observed signs of upheaval and depression along our coast-line, and believe that scarcely any part of the coast is at rest, I beg leave to protest against this latest of several attempts to show, that remains of forests, now beneath the sea-level, originally grew at the levels they now occupy. We know that it is possible that forests might grow at a lower level than the sea until a protecting dam gave way and they became overwhelmed; but I would ask whether there is any example of such growing anywhere round the coasts of Great Britain to-day, and whether there is anything to lead to the belief that there were, at the epochs of these submerged forests, any physical conditions that rendered it more probable that forests might have grown below high-water mark along the coasts, then than now. To admit that there were, would admit a change of some kind, presumably of level, which is what I maintain. My own idea is that the physiography, of the south coast at least, is entirely opposed to the growth of forests behind dykes below the sea-level, and that the only probable explanation of their present position is a subsidence of the area on which they grew. This seems so self-evident that I should hardly have thought any other view could have been supported. The conclusion I take most particular exception to is this: “That a coast which has remained stationary for the last 2000 years should have made such active use of the preceding twelve or twenty centuries for the purposes of oscillation, is rather hard of belief.” In the first place there is no sort of evidence that the coast was stationary for 2000 years, and in the second, were it so, it would not present any reason to my mind why evidence of the occurrence of oscillations in the 2000 years preceding should be rejected.

As Time progresses, Geology, although comparatively a modern Science, yet looks back upon its early and honoured leaders, much in the same way as Art regards its “Old Masters.” Those pioneers have all left us, and, alas! few even of the distinguished men who belong, as it were, to a second generation now remain. Of these, who in their turn have become veterans in the science, we have recently to deplore the loss of Mr. Godwin-Austen.

The distribution of land mollusca still remains one of the most perplexing of the problems to be solved by the geologist. Sir Charles Lyell seems to have been especially strack with their capricious distribution, particularly in Madeira. The facts are still substantially as stated in the tenth edition of his “Principles of Geology,” for Mr. Leacock, in showing me the results of many years collecting in Madeira, observed that his researches had not modified them in any important particulars. Nearly all the species are peculiar to the Madeira Archipelago, and the remarkable fact about their distribution is that, though there are 56 species in Madeira proper, and 42 in Porto Santo, only 12 are common to both islands, though in sight of each other. Still more unaccountable it seems, that of 19 species found on the Dezertas, three barren rocks which appear but little detached from the main island, only 12 are common to Madeira, and even each of these islets has species and varieties peculiar to itself. But two species of land-shells are in fact common to Madeira, the Dezertas and Porto Santo. Sir Charles Lyell infers the great antiquity of the Archipelago from this, contrasting it with the far more extensive group of the British Isles, numbering 200 islands, not one of which have yet developed peculiar species. The fact that such narrow seas have sufficed to keep the land-mollusca distinct conclusively proves, in his opinion, that they have no ready means of dispersal, and that their passage across even the narrowest sea must be of such extraordinary rarity that the possibility need hardly be taken into account. The presence of the same species throughout the whole of the British Islands is thus the strongest argument in favour of their having been joined together and to Europe at a very recent date.

In certain parts of the world, where the climate is very dry, we find examples of large salt lakes out of which no water ever flows towards the ocean. These lakes are fed by the rains and streams of the surrounding regions, but the evaporation from the surface is so great that it dries up the water as fast as it comes in, so that the lake remains stationary—the influx of water and the amount evaporated just balancing one another.

Bibliography, etc.—The type specimen of Turbo lævigatus, Phil., has not been seen by me; but since there are some grounds for regarding the fossil, usually so described, as a Neritopsis, the identification becomes important. We must therefore fall back upon Phillips's figure, and upon such collateral evidence as, in the absence of description, may be available. Phillips in the early editions of the G.Y. considered Bean's specimen from the Dogger as identical with Nerita lævigata, Sow. (M. C. t. 217, fig. 1), which he regarded as a Turbo rather than a Nerita. This identification of Phillips has not been endorsed by subsequent writers. D'Orbigny believed that he recognized in Turbo lævigatus, Phil., Delphinula gibbosa, Thorent (Mém. S. G. Fr. 3, p. 260, pl. 22, fig. 10). D'Orbigny's figure, making due allowance for enlargement, is very similar to the one by Phillips.

In previous communications to the Geological Magazine I have described at some length the petrographical characters of the lavas and tuffs of the Cheviot District. It was proved that they are, at any rate for the most part, of an andesitic character, and that some of them are so little altered as to be thoroughly entitled to the term andesite, unless we are prepared to adopt the unphilosophical system of making geological age, per se, a factor in petrographical nomenclature. If we leave out of account the modifications in structure and composition which have been superinduced on the rocks by the various agents of change, then the Cheviot lavas and tuffs belong to the three fairly well characterized groups of the augite-, hypersthene-, and mica-andesites.

The species belonging to this Order, which are enumerated below and figured in the accompanying Plate, occur in the Lower Oolites without exception. The Oxfordian beds in Yorkshire have not been productive in fossils of this kind: the onlyknown species—Actœon retusus, Phil.—has already been described in the “Corallian Gasteropoda” (Geol. Mag. 1881, p. 127, Pl. IV. Fig. 7). The Tornatellidæ are the best represented, and especially Actœonina, but none are numerous, and really good specimens, suitable for accurate description, are rare indeed.

In a paper entitled “On Minerals new to Britain,” published in the Mineralogical Magazine, vol. v. p. 1, Professor Heddle mentions the occurrence of a bastite-serpentine at two localities in Aberdeenshire; one in the parish of Belhelvie, the other on the shore close to a curious rock named the Black Dog. A visit to the localities has enabled me to add to his account some particulars, and to offer one or two corrections which seem to me not unimportant.

In my former communication to the Geological Magazine on Galerites albogalerus, I gave the results of the examination of the specimens in the British Museum and of many others, and stated that the species was edentulous, and that a true fifth basal (posterior generative plate) was never present. I explained that the so-called jaws were ten buccal plates, that the so-called auricles were raised surfaces in casts, and therefore depressions in the real, and that Cotteau, who had noticed a fifth plate, stated it was exceptional. This fifth plate is absolutely a part of basal plate No. 4 (left posterior generative), and is not a true basal plate.

I Should be much obliged if you would allow me to make a few remarks on the subject of Geological Nomenclature. Certain points connected with nomenclature are forced on the attention of a geologist living at the antipodes of Europe which are not likely to attract the notice of one who is working in, or near, the region from which the standard table of rock-systems has been drawn up; and this must be my excuse for coming forward in a matter which has already been so much and so well discussed.

Two species, or at least two well-marked varieties of one species, occur in the lower beds of the Inferior Oolite of Yorkshire, which cannot be referred to Actœonina, but which are provisionally placed under Actœon. The type is the well-known Auricula Sedgvici, Phil., characteristic of the Dogger, though far from common, and almost impossible to obtain in a perfectly satisfactory state. Hence the chief difficulty.

The following notes and lists of species are based upon material collected by one of us during several visits to the neighbourhood of Grange-over-Sands, Lancashire. They are here recorded because they add a little to what is known of the distribution of Bivalved Entomostraca in the North-West of the English area during the early half of the Carboniferous Period.

Geology has long been the handmaid of Engineering. Instances are numerous in which the practical bearing of facts discovered by the devotee of the one have been recognized and utilized by the other. On the other hand, engineering enterprise has often put geologists in possession of facts of the greatest value as bases for fresh inductions. The subject now brought forward may perhaps sooner, or in a remote future, furnish another instance in which knowledge gained by the geologist may become available for a great economic purpose.