This is merely a brief note to record the discovery of fossils of undoubted Silurian age in the “Black Slates with limestone lenticles ” which occur on the shore and in the cliff at Fletching's Cove, near Porthalla, and at Porthluney, near Gorran, in Cornwall.

For many years the most careful search in these beds for fossils has been unsuccessful beyond minute ossicles of crinoids and indeterminable fragments of Orthocerata. I have spent many weeks each year hunting for fossils, often alone, but sometimes in the company of Dr. Barrois, Mr. Teall, Messrs. Vassell, Sherborn, Howard Fox, and others, and beyond finding the well-known Brachiopoda in the quartzites of Gorran and Carne, our search has seemed almost in vain. Some four years ago, however, Mr. Sherborn found in the Black Slates of Fletching's Cove an impression, which he identified as a fragment of Serpulites longissimus, J. de C. Sow., of Ludlow age. This fragment is now in the Museum of Practical Geology. This Spring, in company with Messrs. E. Dixon, of the Geological Survey, and Mr. G. T. Prior, of the British Museum, I paid my usual visit to Cornwall, and was rewarded by finding at Porthluney in these Black Slates a limestone lenticle which contained Orthocerata in quantity. It was only on the 6th June that I showed this to Mr. Sherborn, who at once took it to Mr. G. C. Crick, who recognised two of the fossils therein contained as comparable with Actinoceras baccatum, H. Woodw., and Barrandeoceras holtianum (Blake), together with other fragments also of Upper Silurian age.

At the heart of Africa lies a vast area, so remote, so inaccessible, and hence so little known, that for the explorer it possesses a fascination all its own. The interests of the geologist have perhaps received less recognition than those of his fellow-scientists from the pen of the traveller; and there must be much that he would wish to know lying hidden in these distant regions awaiting discovery and publication. There is thus an encouragement to make known any facts which may throw light upon the geological structure of those parts, however small the contribution may be.

While serving recently with the Anglo-French Boundary Commission (Niger-Chad) we found an outcrop of a fossil-bearing stratum in the region of the Sokoto, having, as shown in the accompanying map, giving its latitude and longitude, a position near the verge of the Great Sahara Desert. On my return, the specimens secured were submitted to the palæontologists of the British Museum, one of whom, Dr. F. A. Bather, has kindly drawn up the description which follows in a separate paper. For me it only remains to give a few particulars of the general and localized formation to supplement his account.

Generally, the country consists of sandy plains, roughly estimated as lying some 500 or 600 feet above sea-level. These plains are traversed by watercourses, which contain running water only for some five or six weeks in the year, the rainfall of 535 mm. lasting during three months. A permanent water-supply is obtained by deep wells, which in some places reach a depth of 400 feet before tapping a constant source.

It is fortunate that Captain Lelean not merely discovered these fossils at Garadimi in Sokoto, but that he had enough sense of their importance to spend some time and trouble in their collection, and that now he has generously presented them to the British Museum. The collection includes four echinoid tests, five natural casts of Mollusca, and a few rock-specimens containing Operculina and other Foraminifera. The Mollusca, so far as their state of preservation admits, have been determined by Mr. R. Bullen Newton as: 3 Lucina cf. gigantea Deshayes, 1 Voluta cf. cithara Lamarck, and 1 undetermined Gastropod. The Echinoidea were partly covered by an impure limestone closely adherent to the test. The portions not so covered were in many places considerably worn, and the calcite was split by cracks, probably due to alternations of temperature, and rendering it very difficult to follow the course of the sutures. The appearance of these and the other specimens shows clearly that they have been lying on the surface of the ground for some time, and, in fact, Captain Lelean informs me that they were not picked out of the solid rock, but from the talus at the foot of the cliff. The notable variations in the matrix of the different specimens are thus accounted for. None the less it will be seen in the sequel that all the specimens are consistent with the ascription of a Middle Eocene age to the mass of limestone from which they were derived. Of the four echinoids, two have been determined as belonging to the genus Plesiolampas and two to the genus Hemiaster.

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.

After many months’ work at the Polyzoa in the British Museum, the author has been driven to the conclusion that the relationships of the Jurassic forms of the ‘genera’ Stomatopora and Proboscina have been misunderstood, and that consequently their present arrangement, as put forward in the British Museum Catalogue, is unsatisfactory.