In the Geological Magazine for 1895 and again in 1898 W. M. Hutchings gave a petrological description of a shale, metamorphosed by the Whin Sill of Teesdale, which showed three unusual features. Scattered irregularly through the hardened shale were large nodules about the size of a pea which Hutchings considered to be the results of the metamorphism, in fact to be unusually well-developed “spots”. The second peculiarity was that both matrix and nodules contained considerable amounts of an isotropic material which was maintained to be the result of incomplete crystallization of a dense solution formed from the constituents of the shale during metamorphism. Finally, the detrital quartz grains of the shale were found to be extensively replaced by muscovite or more rarely other minerals. A reexamination has been made of the rock and also, by the courtesy of Professor G. Hickling, of Armstrong College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, of certain of Hutchings's slices. In this note it is not intended to redescribe what has been ably described in Hutchings's papers, but as briefly as possible to make two corrections of Hutchings's conclusions.

In preparing a course of lectures in elementary Palaeontology, the present writer found himself to be vague as to the general terminology of the most elementary part of his subject—the forms of preservation in which fossils occur. To his surprise he found, on referring to the leading text-books, that there was no such general terminology; at least, not in the sense of a terminology in general use.

In a paper published in 1924 the writer described a breccia passed through in a boring at Nechells, Birmingham, which there about 350 feet thick, overlain unconformably by the Keuper. Sandstone, and lying unconformably on the Calcareous Conglomerate Group ( = the Corley Beds), which is included in the Carboniferous by the Geological Survey.

The hill of Pen-Cerig-calch, reaching to a height of 2,300 feet, on the southern borders of the Black Mountains, lies about 2 miles north of Crickhowell, and about 4 miles from the nearest part of the main Carboniferous outcrop above Llangattwg. It first attracted the attention of Murchison. Since his time, apart from incidental references, it has not been examined in detail, and as it lies just outside the borders of the Geological Survey Sheet 232, it is not included in the description of the succession of that area given by the Survey officers. The recent revision of this memoir, which includes a discussion of the zonal sequence of the Carboniferous along the main outcrop, is completed, structurally, by the following description of the sequence at Pen-Cerig-caich.

Three years ago the author commenced petrological work in the Shetland Islands, and two communications dealing with different rock-groups have been published (Phillips, 1926, 1927). The work was undertaken as a subject for a degree thesis in the University of Cambridge, and the thesis as presented deals also with other rock-groups on which no published work exists. As it seems unlikely that the author's work will be continued, it has been deemed of interest to publish the following notes, incomplete though they may be.

There are two well-preserved internal moulds in the collection which are very close indeed to the forms referred to Meek's species by Girty, but unfortunately nothing is known of the external ornamentation of the Peruvian specimens.

British Honduras may be briefly described as a 3,000 feet peneplain of upper Carboniferous slates, surrounded by thick dense Oligoceue and Miocene limestones. The slates have a strike of about 250° conforming to the general Central American trend, produced at the close of the Palaeozoic. Granodiorite and quartz-porphyry were intruded at this period. The newer formations with their extension through Yucatan into Western Cuba, curve from north to north-east parallel to the rim of the 2,500 fathom Yucatan basin.

In the midst of a typically graptolitic development of the Valentian Series in Wales, a thin band containing a variety of shelly fossils has recently been noticed. It occurs in the Rheidol Gorge, Cardiganshire; part of the region described by Professor O. T. Jones in 1909 (1); the locality being that referred to by him as “F. 15”, and the stratigraphical position 6 feet below the layer of calcareous nodules defining the top of the “Triangulatus-var.-band”; the shale band “2” in the table showing the beds of the zone of Monograptus communis as developed in the Rheidol Gorge (1, p.488). Professor Jones refers to the presence of “fragments of Orthoceras or Conularia” at this locality. The band has an available outcrop of about 10 feet in length, and it was possible to examine it for some 2 or 3 feet in the direction of dip. It is about 3 inches thick and is not individualized in any way other than by its fossil contents; lithologically it is to all appearances the same as the rest of the dark-blue iron-stained shales in which it occurs.

The presence of members of the Glossopteris flora in Antarctica was first attested by the material collected from Mount Buckley by Dr. Wilson and Lieut. Bowers on Capt. Scott's last expedition to the South Pole. and the now famous specimens were described by Professor A. C. Seward (1914). Traces of fossil plants in Antarctica, were, however, first discovered by Mr. H. T. Ferrar, a member of the National Antarctic Expedition, 1901–1904, and were briefly described by Arber (1907), who reported, on some specimens from the Ferrar Glacier, that “several of these show fair-sized carbonaceous impressions or markings, which in all probability are of vegetable origin”. The evidence presented by this unpromising material did not “permit of any opinion as to the botanical nature or affinities of the fossils themselves, nor of the geological age of the beds in which they occur” (Arber, 1907, p. 48). Professor Seward examined the specimens and agreed with this conclusion (1914, p. 2).

In connexion with the recent excavations in Kent's Carven, the following particulars relative to the discovery of the first organic remains by Mr. Thomas Northmore, F.S.A., of Cleve, near Exeter, in September, 1824, will prove of interest to many readers. They are given in a letter written by Mr. Northmore to the Editor of The Panorama of Torquay, 1832—Mr. Octavian Blewitt.

A calcareous sandstone is found at intervals along the coast of Palestine and Syria from Gaza to Lattakia, a distance of about 300 miles. It may be a thick deposit, extending for miles along the coast and covering a wide area, as at Beirut, or it may be thin and of small extent. Some parts of the coast are entirely without it. It is the principal building stone of the coast towns. It has been mentioned by various writers. Hull (Geol. and Geog. of Arabia Petraea, Palestine, etc., Pal. Expl. Fund, 1889, p. 9) refers to it as the “Calcareous Sandstone of Philistia”. No geologist, however, has noted the remarkable holes, which in some places penetrate it in great numbers.

Having always been much interested in any evidence that might throw light on the relationship of early man to the glacial drifts, I have for twenty-five years or more watched the various beds of gravel that occur above, among, and below the Boulder Clays in the north-eastern counties for anything resembling a Palaeolithic implement. I had no approach to success, however, till about a year ago, when in a bed of water-deposited gravel at a place called Limekiln Gill on the Durham coast, between the entrance of Hesleden Dene and Blackhall Rocks, some 4 miles northwest of Hartlepool, I found in the gravel cliff about 4 feet above the level of the beach a piece of yellow quartzite, which seemed to be artificially chipped. A short while ago I sent the specimen to Mr. Reginald A. Smith, B.A., F.S.A., of the British Museum, for his opinion, and somewhat to my surprise received the following reply: “I have little doubt about your implement, and Mr. Reid Moir, who saw it yesterday, agrees that it is definitely human. It is, indeed, interesting to find such a thing in situ, and one might expect to find it in some margin between the two principal boulder clays (Interglacial of East Anglia).” Such being the opinion of these experts, the specimen becomes one of very considerable significance, since the bed in which it was found underlies the main Cheviot and Northern drift or Purple clay, which at this spot is at least 70 feet thick and consists very largely of typical boulder clay.

The fossil deposit here described is situated on the west bank of the Red River, 3 miles (in a direct line) south of its junction with its western tributary, the Assiniboine River. More specifically the deposit is situated about 50 yards from the residence built by the late Colonel Thompson in Fort Garry, a suburb on the southern outskirts of the city of Winnipeg.