During the last few years a considerable number of Crocodilian remains have been collected from the Middle and Upper Eocene beds of the Fayûm, most of these specimens having been obtained by Mr. H. J. L. Beadnell in the course of his excavations in that locality. This material has recently been examined and determined, and it is found that several new species belonging to the genera Crocodilus and Tomistoma are represented by more or less complete remains. In the present note it is proposed to give a preliminary account of these new forms, which will be fully described and figured in the Catalogue of the Tertiary Vertebrata of the Fayûm now in course of preparation.

In Scandinavia there have been various changes of level during the Glacial period, and some geologists of that country are of opinion that the load of ice which lay upon it affords a probable means of accounting for a depression and submergence of the land such as would lead tothe formation of those elevated beds of Arctic shells which are met with in the interior of that region. But there has been a later movement of quite a different nature, whereby the Baltic seemsto have been converted for a time into a fresh-water lake, and it is to this that I now want to draw attention, as I think the same cause which has been supposed to produce the depression affords a happy means of explaining this curious and later phenomenon also.

My friend Professor Lapworth kindly sent me, for identification, in July last the split portions of two nodules containing examples of the interesting little Crustacean genus Cyclus, from the ‘Pennystone’ Ironstone of the Coal-measures near Dudley, obtained by Miss Ethel M. R. Wood, M.Sc., of the University of Birmingham, and I have obtained permission to publish a note thereon, supplementary to my paper in 1894. In that paper I described, among other species, one which I named Cyclus Johnsoni (op. cit., Pl. XV, Figs. 4–7, pp. 537–538), from the Coal-measures, Coseley, near Dudley, which is identical with Miss Wood's specimens. As one of these latter displays some further details of appendages I have given a figure of it here as tending better to elucidate the structure of this curious genus. (See Woodcut on p. 491.)

A few species of Lamellibranchs were recorded by Messrs. Marr and Koberts from the Trinucleus seticornis Beds of Haverfordwest; and though some new species may now be added to their number with the aid of the numerous specimens collected by Mr. V. M. Turnbull, yet a complete list of the species is at present impossible owing partly to the imperfect condition of many of the fossils and partly to the unsatisfactory state of our knowledge of this class as developed in British Ordovician rocks.

Nice.—Among the mammalian remains enumerated by Risso from the bone breccia of the Castle Catinat at Nice, are bones and teeth of ‘Lagomys’. Remains of the same genus have been more recently mentioned by Rivière, from a palæolithic deposit discovered by him in a small cave, Lympia, inside the town of Nice.

Mentone. — On pl. xvii (“Faune des grottes de Menton”), fig. 10, of Rivière's well-known publication, is represented a left mandibular ramus of a “Lagomys d'assez petite taille,” according to the explanation of the plate. In the dimensions, which are by no means small for a member of the family, as well as in the contours of the ramus, it corresponds with the Prolagus from Corsica; it certainly belongs to the latter genus, and not to the recent Ogotona (Lagomys). The text makes no mention of this rodent as occurring in the caves of Mentone, so that further confirmation seemed desirable. This has now been obtained in the most satisfactory manner, Professor Boule having found Prolagus in the “Grotte du Prince,” near Mentone. In his preliminary notice on the results of the excavations, this rodent is stated to occur together with the rabbit, etc., in strata underlying an Upper Quaternary fauna (Rhinoceros tichorhinus, reindeer, ibex, marmot, etc.), and resting on deposits containing a Lower Quaternary fauna (Elephas antiquus, Rhinoceros Mercki, Hippopotamus).

This important Coal-measure zonal Lamellibranch has already been recorded from the Yorkshire and Nottingham Coalfield (Cadeby and Gedling Colliery respectively), the Lancashire Coal-field (Ardwick, Manchester), the North Staffordshire Coalfield generally, the Forest of Dean and Bristol Coalfields, the South Wales Coalfield; and in all these widely separated districts it is found at the top of that portion of the Coal-measures characterised by the presence of the most valuable seams of coal.

Kuchavelli is twenty-two miles north of Trincomalee on the JV. east coast of Ceylon. Two miles south of Kuchavelli is the mouth of the Salape aru. On the right bank of this river, near the mouth, raised beach, consisting of shelly sandstone, is exposed. The sandstone is often full of marine shells, and there are also thick growths of oysters attached to upstanding masses of rock. The bed is from 6inches to 2 feet in thickness, and is exposed about 1 foot above high-water mark, and stretches down the sloping bank between tide-marks. This is the ordinary raised beach of Ceylon, a deposit usuallyoccurring at or below high-water mark, and now being continually eroded at numerous points on the coast of Ceylon where it is exposed (e.g. Bentota). This deposit will not now be further spoken of.

The Salape aru is really the name of the estuary of several rivers; proceeding up the river inland, the Matti aru is reached, a shallow river with alluvial banks eight or ten feet above the water on either side. Extensive sandbanks are found on one side or the other of the river, alternating on the meanders with places where erosion is in progress. These banks are covered with marine shells, the large flat Placunas being most common. There are also found clayey nodules including marine shells, crabs, and it is said sometimes tortoises and fishes. The crabs are collected for use as medicine, being powdered and mixed with milk or water as a specific for diabetes.

Some marine shells, associated with crab-remains,1 Balani, and small thread-like annelid tubes, from the Post-Pliocene deposits of north-eastern Ceylon, have been entrusted to me for determination by Dr. H. Woodward, F.K.S. They were collected by Mr. A. K. Coomaraswamy, B.Sc, Director of the Mineralogical Survey of Ceylon, and his description of the deposits containing the fossils forms the preface of this communication. Lithologically it is observable that there are two sets of specimens-those that occur in hard, water-worn nodules of clay, and others that were obtained from soft, dark, clayey beds found in situ. The fossils found in the clayey material may perhaps be rather older than those found in the nodules, but as two of the shells are common to each, viz. Placuna placenta and Potamides fluvialilis, it is certain that no great distinction in age is to be recognised.

An examination of the species represented in the collection goes to prove that they belong to the existing fauna of the Indian Ocean, being similar to the life which is found in the creeks and back-watersof that sea, and consequently bearing a littoral or an estuarine facies.

It is interesting to know of the presence of corresponding Post-Tertiary deposits crowded with shells forming the coastal areas of the Madras Presidency of India, particularly at Pondicherry, Cuddalore, Tangore, etc., for the history of which we are mainly indebted to the late Mr. H. F. Blanford (Mem. Geol. Surv. India, 1862, vol. iv, pt. 1, pp. 192,193). So numerous are the mollusca of these beds that they are utilised by the natives for the manufacture of lime.