The classification of the British Ordovician Rocks has gone through many phases of instability in the past, and at the present time seems to be passing through another such phase. There are probably many causes contributing to this state of things, two of which seem to be fundamental; the first, the differentfacies of development exhibited in different districts by the formations making up the system; the second, the varied elements entering into the composition of the shallow water faunas apart from the considerations of facies; these would seem to be governed largely by possibilities of migration into the British region of the Lower Palaeozoic geosyncline from different directions, i.e. from America, from Northern Europe, and from Central Europe, so that a different type of “shelly” fauna characterizes the north-west and south-east margins.

The Cairnsmore of Fleet granite is the second in point of size of the four plutonic masses which penetrate the Lower Palaeozoic rocks of the Southern Uplands of Scotland, being exceeded in area only by that of the Criffel. Its outline is roughly oval and it measures 11 miles by 7 miles, the long axis trending N.E.—S.W., exactly parallel to the strike of the rocks of the Southern Uplands.

In the GeologicalMagazine for 1921 (LVIII, pp. 98–107, 241–250, 385–396), three papers were published on founders of seismology, of English birth—John Michell, Robert Mallet, and John Milne. The series was afterwards continued so as to include similar workers in other countries, France, Italy, Central Europe, the United States, and Japan, and the accounts were included in a volume of The Founders of Seismology, published in 1927. Within the last two years, we have lost three men whose work entitles them to places among the founders—Bunjiro Koto, Mario Baratta, and Richard Dixon Oldham—and I propose in the present paper to give a brief account of the life and work of each.

Collections of fossils from the Lower Palaeozoic rocks of the Arctic usually contain species of Streptelasma. These, with other forms, have often been considered indicative of horizon. Now it is unfortunately true that none of the original descriptions or figures of species described from the Arctic, or of those relevant species long known in America, are adequate for strict identification. It is a matter for no surprise, therefore, that many false identifications have been made.

Having made a general study of the Devonian-Carboniferous junction in North-West Europe and a more detailed one of special areas, the author discusses here the correlation of the Pilton Beds of North Devonshire and the “K beds” of the Bristol and Forest of Dean areas with the Etroeungtian and other horizons near the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary on the Continent.

1. The coral-rock commences nearly everywhere with a basal bed of varying thickness containing a fauna of pre-Pleistocene aspect among which the genus Haliotis (absent from these coasts at the present day), Pleurotomaria, Meiocardia, etc., are noticeable. This faunule may have lived at a depth of 700–1,000 feet.

2. The supposition that the southerly anticlines are a later uplift than the main portion of Barbados is supported by the absence of ravines, and the presence of post-coral-rock beds which occur as coastal veneers at low altitudes, and in greater thickness in the south-east corner near Whitehaven.

3. The south-east part of the island from Consett Point to Ragged Point has probably extended further seawards in comparatively recent times ; the series of converging faults and dislocations in the cliff sections suggest that the thrusts from the west or south-west may have been resisted by this part of the island.

4. The relative claims of fault-scarping or marine erosion in production of the rising terraces is discussed ; and new information regarding the thickness of the coral-rock at sea-level from a boring is detailed.

5. The finding of a faunule with Pliocene or possibly Miocene affinities at the base of the coral-rock puts the Oceanic series further back, into the Miocene.

This paper records the succession which was encountered in a boring made during 1935 at Walsall, South Staffordshire. The site of the boring is precisely indicated in Text-fig. 1.

In a paper published in the Geological Magazine last year (LXXIII, 385–112), it was mentioned that in my collection of Scottish Carboniferous crinoids there remained ten or eleven species to be described. In the present paper eleven species are dealt with, but I find this does not complete the list since there are still a few others, including species of Hydreionocrinus, Eupachycrinus, etc., and some very minute forms belonging to unknown genera which require further elucidation. It is my hope later on to describe these along with a revision of the Scottish Carboniferous crinoids as a whole. Meanwhile, on another page is given a list of all the species known to date so that a comparison can be made with the faunas of other regions. Here, I wish to add to the list of species already given from Coplow Knoll, Clitheroe (C1) (Geol. Mag., 1935, LXXII, p. 205), the following species: Platycrinus coronatus Goldfuss, Dichocrinus sp., Symbathocrinus conicus Phillips, and Mespilocrinus forbesianus de Koninck & Le Hon.

In this paper is given a revision of all but one of the corals in the Rev. W. B. Clarke's first collection of fossils from New South Wales; the collection was placed by him in the Woodwardian Museum at Cambridge in 1844, and was described by M'Coy (1847). The types are still preserved at the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge. A description is also given of the holotype of Amplexus arundinaceus Lonsdale, which was collected from New South Wales by Strzelecki in 1842, and is now in the British Museum (Natural History), London. The species are distributed as follows: 1? Permian, 1 Lower Carboniferous, 1 Devonian, and 1 Silurian or Lower Devonian.

In that part of Central Africa lying to the west and south of Lake Nyasa various ancient peneplains have long been known (in (9)), but there has hitherto been available but little evidence whereby their relations to each other and to other more distant peneplains could be established. West and north-west of the lake, for example, there is the “4,000—foot” plateau, out of which rises the 7,000–8,000 ft. plateau of the Nyika and neighbouring highlands (see Fig. 1; also physical map in in (9)); and south of the lake, in Southern Nyasaland, the Kirk Mountains plateau (5,000 feet) overlooks the Shire Rift Valley from the west, whereas on the eastern side the eastward tilted Shire Highlands plateau is surmounted by the Zomba plateau (6,000 feet) and the Mlanje plateau (7,000 feet); the summit levels of the Mlanje Mountains, at 9,000–10,000 feet, probably indicate another ancient surface.

The diminutive lamellibranch Anthraconaitta calcifera (Hind) was described by Hind in 1899, and the specimens were from a limestone at the bottom of the Newcastle-under-Lyme Beds, the middle division of the Upper Coal Measures of North Staffordshire. Similar shells occur at the base of the Coed-yr-allt Beds, the middle division of the Upper Coal Measures of Denbighshire (Gibson, 1901)and further specimens have since been noted (Wedd, 1928). A critical study has recently been made of specimens of A. calcifera from the type locality in North Staffordshire (Dix and Trueman 1931).

The list of fossils described in this paper and their stratigraphical distribution is shown in the Table on p. 122.

The Kainella and Leiostegium zones of the Quebrada del Toro are the equivalent of the Late Ozarkian of Western North America.

The fauna of the arenaceous-calcareous beds of the marine-glacial deposits of the Saladillo group is not characteristic enough to enable an exact determination of the age. Nevertheless, from the stratigraphical position of these beds, they could be considered as indicating Upper Beekmantown age.

The lower part of the Parcha group, with the single determinable fossil Basilicoides taurinus gen. et sp. nov. has been provisionally referred to the Llandeilian.

The faunule of the Asaphellus zone of the Quebrada de Chalala shows affinities with part of the Tremadocian of England, the Tomkolian of South Chosen, and the upper zones of the “ Ceratopygeregion ” of Scandinavia.

The stratigraphical relationship between the Kainella and Leiostegium zones of the pre-Puna and the Asaphellus zone of Purmamarca is not known.

The region of Trelease Mill and Polkernogo, west of St. Keverne, forms one of the type outcrops of the Old Lizard Head Series north of the main Lizard gabbro. This small rather poorly exposed tract is distinguished not only because it has yielded the only recorded cordierite-bearing rocks among the Lizard schists but more particularly on account of the occurrence of the rarer rock types carrying anthophyllite together with abundant cordierite.

In the southern belt of the Ballantrae serpentine, stretching south-west from Millenderdale, there occur many exposures of altered and more or less recrystallized dolerite and gabbro. Some of these rocks have afforded considerable difficulty to previous observers and they have been variously interpreted. Thus Dr. G. W. Tyrrell, in an interesting paper published twenty-five years ago (Trans. Geol. Soc. Glas., xiii, 283), regarded some of the rocks on Littleton Hill as “relics of an older mass of dolerite or gabbro” that had “become enveloped by the later serpentine”. But this expression of opinion does not appear to have been founded upon conviction, since quite recently Tyrrell states (Proc. Geol. Assoc, xliv, 59) “contact metamorphism presumably by the enveloping serpentine seems to have been developed in rocks on Littleton Hill which may originally have been spilites and diabase porphyrites”. At the time of writing a previous paper (GEOL. MAG., LXIX, 1932, 107) I hadalready inferred that the metamorphic rocks seen on Littleton Hill must have been derived from dolerites and gabbros, but the nature of their association with the serpentine was then merely a matter of surmise. In continuing field work in the province, therefore, I keptin mind the requirement to determine, if possible, the true geological relationships of these rocks, and to that end I have re-investigated carefully the whole southern outcrop of the serpentine and its accompanying metamorphic masses. A short account of the results of the field and laboratory work is given below. Firstly, however, I take leave to acknowledge the very helpful character of Mr. A. G. Macgregor's researches on felspar clouding, “a characteristic effect that is often produced in the fresh plagioclase felspars of igneous rocks by thermal metamorphism” (see Min. Mag., xxii, 524).

The object of this article is to bring up to date the known history of the earth's crust in the south-east Levant.

One of the first authors to note the Ardross fauna was the Rev. T. Brown (1861, pp. 394–5), who “detected small scales of some species of Palaeoniscus, and a good specimen of an Amblypterus, which seemed to be the A. striatus. There were teeth and scales also of a Holoptychius; and their resemblance to the figure of the H. portlocki … seemed to be complete”.

The fauna was summarized by Peach (1902, pp. 357–375), who, in addition to two plants, four arthropods, five brachiopods, and six lamellibranchs, gave the following list of fishes:—

In 1909 I wrote a letter to the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE (p. 431) objecting to a statement in a review of the late Sir John Harrison's Goldfields of British Guiana that only products of weathering containing free aluminium hydroxide in hot moist climates should be considered as laterite. This letter led to contributions from the late J. W. Evans, T. Crook, and Sir John Harrison. It is particularly interesting now to read again J. W. Evans's remarks. In the volume for 1910, pp. 189, 190, he said hehad intimate acquaintance with the material to which the name laterite was first given in the area in which it was typically developed. On p. 190 he said that laterite varies, but one feature remains constant, the small amount of combined silica in proportion to the alumina present and that “it is in this respect that laterites differ from clays, which also occur as tropical decomposition products and are sometimes incorrectly described as laterites ”. On p. 381 of the same volume J. W. Evans wrote: “I admit that he (Buchanan) did not know its true chemical composition, but in spite of that it must be accepted as the type of what we ought to call laterite.”

The structure of the Jurassic area of north-east Leicestershire has been discussed by several writers, and markedly different opinions have been held. In the present paper fresh informationabout the variation of the Jurassic beds is brought forward to show the true position and orientation of the fold axes active in Jurassic times, and the history of the fold is discussed in more detail than has previously been attempted.

In a paper published in 1929 on “The Basal Complex of Jamaica, with Special Reference to the Kingston District” (Matley, 1929, 440–92) I gave an account of the nature and structural relationships of a complex of rocks consisting partly of plutonic rocks (granodiorite and serpentines) and partly of metamorphosed igneous and sedimentary rocks, now chiefly in the condition of amphibolites, hornblende- and chlorite-schists, quartz-sericiteschists, and marbles. The paper, which contained an important Appendix by F. Higham on the petrography, presented the results of many months' arduous work in the field, including the detailed mapping of the Kingston District, for which a good contoured map as available on the scale of 2½ inches to the mile. The geology of the area is so difficult that, in my opinion, the only way of arriving at sound conclusions is by adequate field-mapping.

If the term “laterite” is restricted to apply only to hydrates of iron, aluminium, or in special cases manganese, formed by katamorphic processes, then obviously a great deal of what we commonly term “laterite” is incorrectly named. I am assuming that laterite is the end or apical product of a process of rock degradation which may stop short at the formation of the hydrated silicates—clays or lithomarges—or continue right on to hydrate according to chemical and physical environment and nature of the parent rock. Harrison’s studies of deposits in British Guiana show that lithomarge and bauxite are associated with each other in all possible proportions, with or without the hydrates of iron (which does not appear to pass through a secondary hydrated silicate or “kaolin” stage), and free silica, which on one occasion has been recorded in the form of tridymite. These substances are mixed in all degrees, and can only be distinguished by laboratory tests. The point which decides whether one of such rocks should be classed as a laterite or a lithomarge seems to be quite arbitrary, unless it is agreed that a laterite should contain an excess of hydrates over hydrated silicates.