The correspondence in the life of the Wenlock rocks of Great Britain and those probably occupying a similar horizon in New South Wales is a very marked one. At present, I wish more particularly to draw attention to the occurrence of the genus Turrilepas and Annelid jaws in the Bowning Beds of New South Wales. This series of rocks has been enthusiastically investigated by Mr. John Mitchell, who, in his capacity of Teacher of the Public School of that place for some years, had an excellent opportunity of working out the fauna of the series in question. His researches are detailed in two papers, “Notes on the Geology of Bowning,” and “The Geological Sequence of the Bowning Beds.” Both the plates of Turrilepas and the small Annelid jaws are found in the Lower Trilobite bed of this series, and are chiefly from the typical locality of Bowning Creek.

I Wish to take the opportunity of recording the occurrence of the above-named Graptolites in the Skiddaw Slates of the Lake District, as they seem of exceptional interest.

The application by Dr. Johnston-Lavis of the theory of the secular straining of the Earth, with which my name and Mr. Davison's is connected, to an explanation of the deeper phenomena of volcanic action, is ingenious and suggestive. It will, therefore, I trust, be of some use if I am allowed to discuss and criticize the principles and propositions that appear to me to be necessarily involved in the views put forth by Dr. Johnston-Lavis. Before doing this, I feel it incumbent upon me to point out that Mr. O. Fisher's position with regard to the question seems to have been misunderstood. So far from occupying an antagonistic position, he has done much to mathematically develop the theory; and it is only when we come to its practical application to the explanation of geological phenomena, that he, myself and Mr. Davison differ.

Since the excellent and interesting series of papers on the history and description of these celebrated volcanoes by Professor Judd, which appeared in the Geological Magazine for 1875, there is, as far as I know, no connected record of their condition. The islands, though affording such excellent opportunities for the study of volcanic action, are but rarely visited by geologists; but having had the opportunity of examining them myself in the autumn of last year as a member of the party arranged by Dr. Johnston-Lavis under the auspices of the Geologists' Association, I thought it would be well, whilst recording my own observations, to prefix a brief account of the volcanoes since the above-mentioned date. The information, on which the following brief sketch is based, has been derived partly from a series of papers by Prof. Mercalli, on notes derived by correspondence with Sig. Pincone, the former manager of the lately existing Chemical Works at Vulcano, who now resides at Lipari, and partly from papers in various periodicals to which I will refer as occasion requires.

North-west Carnarvonshire.—There are here two or three separate areas which, at all events historically, must be considered more or less independently, viz. the district between Bangor and Carnarvon, the Llyn Padarn and Moel Tryfaen range, and the Lleyn Peninsula. Except in reference to the last of these, it is certain that the belief in Precambrian rocks in Carnarvonshire began with Prof. Hughes. This author, indeed, quotes Prof. Sedgwick as recognizing such rocks here, but the passages he quotes have a very different meaning in the original. The slates near Bangor and Carnarvon, which Sedgwick says are amongst the oldest of North Wales, are those which occur “along the shores of the Menai Straits from Bangor to Carnarvon,” which he describes as “dark earthy-coloured slates which, were we to judge only by mineral structure, might easily be confounded with Upper Silurian rocks,” and these are “cut through by a great intrusive rib of syenitic porphyry of a different epoch, which ranges nearly with the beds.”

Of “those precious specimens called ‘types’ which must be appealed to through all time to determine the species to which a name was originally given,”Bristol Museum contains one hundred and eighty six distinct fossil forms. With the exception of a single Coal-measure plant, these are all the remains of animals, ranging in the zoological scale from the Reptiiia to the Actinozoa, and stratigraphically from the Silurian to the Cretaceous epochs.