In a collection of Cretaceous fossils from Sinai obtained by Mr. T. Barron, F.G.S., which has been entrusted to me for determination by the Geological Survey of Egypt, I found several specimens of Linthia oblonga, a form of Echinoid which appears to have escaped the attention of modern writers on the palæontology of the Sinai Peninsula. In tracing the history of this species it is ascertained that d'Orbigny first figured and described it under the genus periaster during the year 1856 in the Pal. Française Terr. Crétacés Échinodermes, pl. 900, pp. 275, 276, where it is referred to as having been collected by M. Lefébvre at Mount Garèbe, near Suez, from rocks regarded as of Turonian age, in association with Radiolites.

During the last fifteen years slight earthquakes have occurred in Cornwall on eight occasions, the dates being Oct. 7, 1889; Mar. 26, 1891; May 16 and 17, 1892; Jan. 26, 1896; and Mar. 29, April 1 and 2, 1898. The Pembroke earthquakes of Aug. 18, 1892 (0.24 and 1.40 a.m.), and Nov. 2, 1893, and the Hereford earthquake of Dec. 17, 1896, were also felt in the county. Local earth-shakes, probably connected with mining operations, occur occasionally, as on June 4 and 10, 1902. Under the same heading should perhaps be included the shock of Aug. 27, 1895, near Blisland, which I was led to class as seismic on account of its very elongated, though small, disturbed area.

In 1851 Captain (now Sir) Richard Strachey communicated to the Geological Society of London a paper ”On the Geology of Part of the Himalaya Mountains and Tibet,” based upon the observations which he had made during the years 1848 and 1849. The Palæozoic and Secondary fossils therein mentioned were described in 1865 by J. W. Salter and H. F. Blanford respectively in a work of which the title-page reads as follows: “Palæontology of Niti in the Northern Himalaya: being descriptions and figures of the Palæozoic and Secondary Fossils collected by Colonel Richard Strachey, R.E. Descriptions by J. W. Salter, F.G.S., A.L.S., and H. F. Blanford, A.R.S.M., F.G.S. Reprinted with slight corrections for private circulation from Colonel Strachey's forthcoming work on the Physical Geography of the Northern Himalaya. Calcutta: O. T. Cutter, Military Orphan Press. March, 1865.”

The group of beds which I propose to identify and correlate with those known in France, Germany, and Belgium by the name of ‘Gedinnien,’ forming the lowest member of the Devonian system, extends in its full development from the Lizard peninsula in the west to Gorran and St. Austell on the east, and thence to near Newquay on the north. The upper beds, at least, may be traced through Fowey and Looe along the coast, and across the Start peninsula as far as Babbacombe, south of Dartmouth in Devonshire. They are referred to by Ussher as ‘Dartmouth Slates.’ They exist also on the north of the Devonian basin, and are mentioned by Etheridge as underlying the Lower Devonian.

Many ingenious methods and materials have been used for the making of geological models, to show the internal structure and outcrop of a stratified sequence, to furnish maps and lines of section, and to indicate the direction and effects of faults.

Such materials and methods as those of Mr. Sopwith, while most instructive and interesting, are powerless to deal with problems of curved strata, and no material has yet been found by which satisfactory stratigraphical models can be made of folded districts. Such a material must have several properties: —

1. It must be easily made into large plastic sheets of even thickness and of distinguishable colour.

2. It must bend readily and adapt itself sweetly to any surface to which it may be applied.

3. Successive layers must adhere together fairly quickly and quite firmly.

4. The material should set into a rigid but not brittle mass in the end, and yet not be too hard, so that it can be carved readily, or if necessary moulded into any required shape.

5. It would be an advantage if it was cheap.

Casting about for such a substance I have found one which satisfies a good many of these requirements. Not only does it allow of the building up of models out of definite stratigraphical elements in exact imitation of the natural geological structure, but it may possibly be of use in solving certain obscure structural problems. It is also likely to be of considerable use to teachers and students, as models can be built up by or before a class, and it may even have some applications outside geology itself.

The number of earthquakes originating within the area of the British Islands during the three years 1901–1903 is 37, of which 9 occurred in England, 20 in Scotland, and 8 in Wales. In the 15 years 1889–1903 the total number recorded is 152, 39 in England, 90 in Scotland, and 23 in Wales. So far as I know, not a single undoubted earthquake lias originated in Ireland during this period; but four earthquakes (the Pembroke earthquakes of 1892 and 1893, the Hereford earthquake of 1896, and the Carnarvon earthquake of 1903) were felt in many of the eastern counties.

Sedgwick and Murchison, the Rev. D. Williams, and Dr. Holl, taking the Plymouth limestones as a middle division, placed them below the rocks to the south and above those to the north. The prevalent southerly dips of schistosity were regarded as ample evidence of a downward succession proceeding northward.

The Staddon grits and other Lower Devonian rocks were thus placed above the Middle Devonian, and the slates in which I have at various times since 1892 found Upper Devonian fossils (between Menbeniot and St. Budeaux) were relegated to a position below the Middle Devonian.

At the present time we are only fully acquainted with the geology and palæontology of one division of the great Carboniferous Series developed in Devon and the adjacent counties, the Lower Culm Measures. This division, while representing only a small fraction of thickness of the Culm Measures as a whole, is of special interest both lithologically and palæontologically, as was shown by Messrs. Hinde & Fox in an admirable paper published in 1895. Above the limestones and cherts of the Lower Culm Measures lie the great thickness of sandstones and shales which constitute the Upper of the twofold primary division of these rocks instituted by Sedgwick & Murchison in 1840. The Upper Culm Measures occupy an area of more than 1,000 square miles, and are of Upper Carboniferous age.

With the exception of the researches of the late Townshend Hall, and more recently of Mr. Ussher, comparatively little has been added to our knowledge of these beds since the days of Sedgwick & Murchison, and of De la Beche. An inquiry with regard to the palæontology, and more especially the palæobotany, of these rocks has, however, been in progress for some time past, with the result that sufficient material has been gathered for a contribution to the fossil flora of the Upper Carboniferous rocks of Devon, which, it is hoped will be published shortly by one of us. While examining the sandstones and shales of this series, other discoveries have been made, incidental to the work of collection of plant-remains.

During a visit to the South of Sweden in the Summer of 1902 I noticed the frequent occurrence in granite of pegmatite veins showing a succession of small but very regular foldings, which, however, did not affect the parent rock. In sett quarries where these folded veins existed the rift of the rock was perfectly regular on each side of the pegmatite, proving conclusively to my mind that the contortion of the veins took place prior to the consolidation of the main mass. The granite of this district occupies a wide area, and possesses a very uniform mineralogical constitution, although it varies much in texture between a rather coarse-grained granitite and a fine-grained, compact, gneissose rock possessing well-marked foliation. The pegmatite veins are fairly numerous, but are generally rather insignificant in width, occasionally thinning out to mere streaks not more than a few inches in thickness.

In the Summer of 1902 I commenced an exploration of the chalk-pits on the eastern border of the Lincolnshire Wolds, starting at Louth and working northward. Mr. W. Hill had previously visited this locality, and had proved the existence of the zone of Holaster planus at Boswell, three miles north-west of Louth, and also at Kirmington, much farther north. Mr. Jukes - Browne suggested to me that I should try and obtain fossils from the intermediate pits, and thus extend the work commenced by Mr. Hill. As the result of visits to about thirty pits, ranging from near Louth to Barrow-on-Humber, I have obtained further evidence of the zone of Holnster planus, and also some indications of the zone of Mieraster enrtestudinarium.

During the past two years the Sedgwick Club has been at work on the glacial deposits in the neighbourhood of Cambridge, with special reference to the boulders contained therein. As usual, the great majority of the boulders are of local origin, but far-travelled rocks are fairly abundant, and several hundred specimens which appeared likely to be of interest have been collected. By the kindness of Professor T. McKenny Hughes, F.R.S., about fifty of the more promising types have been sliced.

The fine cliff of Stevn's Klint on the Danish coast is seldom mentioned in English geological writings. As it presents a clean section several miles long of the uppermost Danish Chalk, and is easily visited in a day's excursion from Copenhagen, a short sketch may have some interest for readers of this Magazine. It has none of the astonishing scenery displayed by the coasts of Möen and Rügen; the land is level and bare, the cliff is not broken and not wooded: yet it possesses a prettiness of its own.

The average composition of the igneous rocks is a point of considerable interest in its relation to the problem of their differentiation, and several attempts have been made to solve it by the collation of analyses. Thus, Mr. Clarke estimated the American rocks to average 59.77 per cent. of silica (which may be taken as representative), and Mr. Harker came to very similar conclusions as regards the British rocks, obtaining 58.46 as his figure. The process followed was to add up the results of all the obtainable analyses and take their mean. If each class of rock analysed occupied the same average amount of space—if, for example, the basic intrusions were approximately equal in bulk to the acid ones—such a process would give results of considerable value. As it is, however, very little consideration will show that unless due weight is attached to the relative abundance of the different classes, the results will be very far removed from the truth. Even in Britain, where the development of igneous rocks is comparatively insignificant compared to the sedimentary ones, there are quite enough exposures of the different types to demonstrate this fact. If a geologically coloured map be examined, and the nature of the various patches of igneous rock be enquired into, the immense preponderance of granite becomes obvious, even though the basaltic lavas make a great show on account of their horizontal extension. In fact, the Dartmoor granite mass, if it be assumed to extend to a depth of only one mile, would probably suffice to weigh down the scale against all the other non-granitic igneous rocks combined.

In a paper entitled “Observations on Belemnites,” which was communicated to the Geological Society of London in April, 1823, J. S. Miller defined the genus Belemnites thus: —“A cephalopodous? molluscous animal provided with a fibrous spathose conical shell, divided by transverse concave septa into separate cells or chambers connected by a siphuncle; and inserted into a laminar, solid, fibrous, spathose, subconical or fusiform body extending beyond it, and forming a protecting sheath.” In May of the same year Mr. Miller contributed to the same Society another paper in which he instituted the genus Actinocamax for “spathose bodies which resemble the belemnitic guard in general appearance, but are distinguished from it by presenting, instead of the terminal cavity intended for the reception of the chambered shell, a protruding and convex base.”

Last year, while the Port Elizabeth Brick and Tile Company were quarrying a clayey rock at Despatch, near Uitenhage, a number of bones were discovered in the rock. Though the discovery created some little interest, no one seems to have appreciated the scientific value of the find, and large numbers of the bones were made into bricks. A few fragments of vertebræ and ribs have been collected by the Port Elizabeth Museum, and recently an attempt has been made to rescue some more of the bones that still remain in the rock. So far a number of very imperfect fragments of vertebræ—cervical, dorsal, and caudal—a fairly good femur, an imperfect scapula, portions of many ribs, and an ungual phalanx, have been discovered. The examination of these remain leaves no doubt that the skeleton is that of an Opisthoeælian Dinosaur of moderate size.

The valley of the Tochi River is an outlying corner of the British Empire in India forming a portion of Waziristan, the boundary of which was delineated in 1894–5 by an Anglo-Afghan Commission from the Afghan provinces of Khost on the north and Birmul on the west. Mr. F. H. Smith, of the Geological Survey of India, accompanied this Commission as geologist, and his observations “On the Geology of the Tochi Valley” were published in 1895 in the “Records of the Geological Survey of India” (vol. xxxviii, pt. 3, pp. 106–110, pl. iii). On p. 109 he says:—“The range of hills between Idak and Mirán Shah is formed by an anticlinal ridge which approximately strikes north and south, and which is composed of these lower eocene beds. In the core of the anticlinal a considerable thickness of massive dark grey limestone is exposed, in which I could find no fossil remains; the age of this limestone is therefore doubtful, and there is no evidence of any kind to show whether it belongs to the lowest tertiary or upper mesozoic age.”

It appears to be a common belief that there are two Old Red Sandstones in Scotland, and only two, which are referred to respectively as the Upper and the Lower. It is generally recognised that neither of these can be paralleled with any one of the subdivisions of the Devonian Rocks, properly so-called; though the fact that the Scottish rocks in question occupy a stratigraphical position somewhere between the top of the Silurian Rocks and the base of the Carboniferous System places their Devonian age beyond the possibility of a doubt. The Upper Old Red is considered by most persons to graduate upwards into the Carboniferous Rocks, which, by the way, is by no means universally the case. It is also stated, with equal confidence, and with as little regard to the facts, that the Lower Old Red Sandstone graduates downward into the Silurian Rocks, which it certainly does not, as will be shown more fully in another part of this paper. Furthermore, it is still commonly believed that bands yielding Silurian graptolites alternate with the base of the Lower Old Red Sandstone, and that Lower Carboniferous fossils occur in bands of rock interstratified with true Upper Old Red Sandstone. Both of these ideas are well known to have been due to errors of observation; yet the statements in question, having found their way into the papers set by examiners, seem destined to die a hard death, and therefore need to be contradicted.

The occurrence of small quantities of chert and opal, usually in or near exposures of crystalline limestone, but very often in fragments or boulders not quite in sitû, is not unusual in Ceylon. For some time the origin of these siliceous rocks remained obscure; observations made within the present year (1903), however, enable me to give a more detailed account of their mode of occurrence. I have had the advantage of my colleague Mr. James Parsons' company in examining many of the exposures, and have been able to discuss with him the problems raised.

Lying unconformably upon the well-known Liassic beds of Black Ven, the cliff which overhangs the sea-shore between Lyme Regis and Charmouth, occur beds of Cretaceous age, representing the Gault and Upper Greensand of other localities. The lower beds consist of loams, dark and almost black where the clay predominates over the sand, and lighter where the sand is present in larger quantities. Above these loams are yellow sands containing indurated nodules called ‘Cowstones,’ which, with the ‘Foxmould’ sands above them, have been considered to represent the zone of Schlœnbachia rostrata (Sowerby). The dark loams below them represent, therefore, the zone of Hoplites interruptus (Bruguière).