In a paper on the Lias of Ilminster, by my friend Mr. Charles Moore, F.G.S., communicated to the Somerset Natural History Society, and published in their Proceedings (1865–6, vol. xiii. p. 72), I gave a list of the Crustacea submitted to me for examination by Mr. Moore, among which was a species belonging to the genus Penæus, referred by me to P. latipes, Oppel, from the Upper and Middle Lias of Ilminster.

Those who maintain that Till or Boulder-clay has not only originated but accumulated underneath glacier-ice may sometimes have felt puzzled to account for the preservation of beds of more or less incoherent materials below a deposit which they have so many cogent reasons for believing to be a true moraine profonde.

In the last edition of his Great lee Age (1877), Mr. Geikie has noticed at some length my descriptions of the glaciation and superficial deposits of the central region of North America, from Lake Superior to the Kocky Mountains; giving an outline of the facts recorded, and of the explanation of these facts which I have ventured to present as that which appeared to me most probable.

At Broom, in the parish of Hawkchurch, near Axminster, close to the River Axe, in the angle formed by the junction of a tributary brook with it, is a low hill, the summit of which is about 50 feet above the level of the rails of the London and South-Western Railway, which runs at its base. This hill consists of a mass of chert gravel intermingled with ferruginous clay of a yellow colour, and interstratified with seams of sandy clay, without shells or other animal-remains, as far as is at present known. There are a few much-rolled pebbles of quartz; of a hard dark-grey siliceous rock; and of chalk flints, mingled with the chert fragments, many of which are angular or subangular. It has been cut into for ballast for the railway, and about half has been removed in the last fifteen years, exposing a section of from 40 to 50 feet in depth. The bottom of the pit is on a level with the rails, which are a few feet above the river, and about 150 feet above the level of the sea, about six miles distant. The chert gravel was probably derived from the Greensand which caps the hills inclosing the valley.

The Meeting of the British Association at Plymouth has not unnaturally been the means of directing attention to some of the most complex points of Devonshire geology, and of reviving the discussion as to the age and position of the Devonian series in North and South Devon. Mr. Jukes, it will be remembered, died in 1869. Had he lived longer, his energy of purpose would doubtless have led him to carry on the work he had begun, until he could either prove the correctness of his views, or satisfy himself that the generally accepted classification was, after all, the right one. The followers of Jukes seem to confine themselves to those portions only of the district which he had more specially studied—North Somerset, Lynton and Pickwell Down; searching in almost hopeless despair amongst the lower rocks, instead of beginning at the other end of the scale, with the Millstone-grit, and tracing the beds downwards. As a result, the fossiliferous beds of the Upper Devonian have been almost entirely neglected, and their relation to the Carboniferous slates passed over.

Notwithstanding the numerous papers which have lately been written on the subject of glacial deposits, there is one question of fact which does not appear to have been satisfactorily decided. I refer to the formation of Till underneath glaciers, concerning the possibility of which somewhat different statements were put forward by two writers in the February Number of the GeologicalMagazine.

To the student of Cretaceous palæontology there could be suggested, probably, no more puzzling question than that of the determination of the species of the genus Micraster. It seems not unlikely that Professor Forbes was of this opinion when, in 1850, he reduced to varieties of a single species—that of Micraster cor-anguinum—no fewer than seventeen previously supposed species, or subspecies, of the genus. It is true that, out of compunction, perhaps, for such wholesale slaughter, he forthwith established one new species, the Mieraster cor-bovis, and pointed out the probable existence of another —“a small Micraster with a very elevated extremity from the Chalk of Lyme.” This, however, seems scarcely to make up for the absorption or obliteration of all but one of the previously described species. And, seeing that several of these so-called varieties of Micraster cor-anguinum are recognized as species by many continental palæontologists, it becomes an interesting subject for inquiry whether our English Chalk does not contain more than one species in addition to the recognized Micraster cor-anguinum, and cor-bovis?

A few weeks ago a flint implement was found in the gravel-pit at Barnwell, near Cambridge, by the workmen, from whom I bought it. It is a very fine specimen of the hache type, its greatest length being 6¾ins., its greatest breadth 3⅝ins., and thickness 2⅛. It corresponds closely with specimens in the Woodwardian Museum, from Thetford, in Suffolk, and from Amiens. It agrees almost exactly in size and outline with an implement of the “River-drift type,” figured by Dr. John Evans in his beautiful work on the “Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain”; from Biddenham, Bedford (fig. 414, p. 481); also with one from Redhill, Thetford (fig. 427, ½ nat. size, p. 496, op. cit.).

In the most extended view, the Channel Islands may be regarded as fragments and relics of the Eastern or European coast of the Atlantic, reckoning from the North Cape to Cape St. Vincent, and including the Western shores of Scotland and Ireland, and the promontories of Pembrokeshire and Cornwall. They are excellent illustrations, says Professor Ansted, “of those spurs and tongues of porphyritic rock, of which almost all the promontories of the Atlantic coast of Europe consist.” Very small and insignificant specks indeed they seem in such a length of coast, stretching from lat. 37° to 72°, or upwards of 2000 miles; but there is a charm in such wide horizons, and it is a very allowable indulgence so to connect the little with the great, and to consider the position of such little specks in relation to the geography of Europe; one might almost as well say, of the world at large.

The overland route to Russia viâ Konigsberg or Warsaw—now accomplished with comparative ease—reveals some instructive facts connected with one of the most recent yet extreme of climatal changes which has contributed to mould and fashion so large a portion of the surface geology of Northern Europe. I refer to the “Great Ice Age,” or “Glacial Period,” when a frozen sea probably covered the extensive plains now known as Russian Poland.

The question of the geological age of the earth has been of late very prominently before the minds both of geologists and physicists. There is no occasion to take up time by giving a sketch of the late history of the discussion. I beg leave simply to point out some considerations which seem to lessen considerably the weight of the physical objections to the great extent of geological time. Let us observe before proceeding further that we do not wish to avoid wholesome restriction of geological time. It seems to me that it adds greatly to the interest of geological investigation to know that we have not a wilderness of possibility before us as to the length of time and the consequent deliberateness of geological operations.

1. Dentalium ingens, de Koninck, and D. ornatum, de Kon. (Descrip. Animaux Foss., pp. 317 and 318, t. 22, f. 2 and 3).— The first of these species has been often recorded from Scotch Carboniferous rocks, but, so far as I am aware, the second is new not only to Scotland, but in British Carboniferous rocks generally. Specimens were forwarded to Prof. L. G. de Koninck, M.D., who was kind enough to confirm my determination. Our specimens of both the above species show the growth striæ of the shell to have been waved, like the septa of some Orthoceratites, consequently I presume the anterior apertures would be similar. In Prof. de Koninck's figures the striæ are oblique, and the anterior aperture is described as oblique. D. ingens is from the shale above the Skateraw Limestone (L. Carb. Limestone Group) at East Barns, near Dunbar, and D. ornatum from shale above the Roscobie Limestone at Roscobie.

1. Arbusculites argentea, P. Murray (Edinb. N. Phil. Journ. 1831, vol. xi. p. 147).—Under the title, “Account of the Arbusculites argentea, from the Carboniferous Limestone of Inverteil, near to Kirkcaldy, in Fifeshire,” a curious paper was published in 1831, by Dr. P. Murray, of Scarborough. The organisms are described as “very delicate vermiform bodies, in fragments of different lengths, shining with metallic lustre, neither articulated nor cellular, and resembling broken bits of silver wire.” The author adds, “It would appear to have been an attached Mollusc, dichotomous at first, but afterwards sending out lateral branches, moderately tapering, and with very distant and obscure (if any) articulations, grooved longitudinally, and composed of a bright silvery cortical case, and a solid axis of carbonate of lime. … It differs decidedly from the Crinoidal animals, which are regularly articulated; and varies nearly in the same degree from the Corallines, etc., by not displaying the cellular structure characteristic of that family.” Dr. Murray ultimately places this fossil amongst the Corallines, selecting for it a provisional resting-place in the third order of the first class of Lamouroux.

During a recent residence in Portugal I paid a visit in Feb. 1877, to Coimbra, and while standing on the tower of the University, whence a magnificent view of the surrounding country can be obtained, I was much struck by the immense accumulation of sand deposited over a wide area on both banks of the river Mondego, by whose margin the city stands. A considerable, though, comparatively speaking, a small quantity was of recent date, and was evidently brought down by the heavy rains in the months of November and December of the previous year, which had produced destructive floods throughout the country, and had here greatly threatened the low-lying parts of the town. I was informed that every year a large quantity of new sand is spread out over the valley; but the shortness of my stay here precluded any attempt to estimate the yearly additions to the fluviatile stratum.

A valuable paper by T. Davidson, Esq., F.R.S., appeared in the Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club for 1877, “On the species of Brachiopoda that occur in the Inferior Oolite at Bradford Abbas and its vicinity.” Since then, during a recent visit to this locality, I have added a few species to this list, including two which have not been discovered in England before. I propose to give a short account of these species, and also a table showing the relative distribution of the Brachiopoda in the Inferior Oolite and Fuller's Earth deposits at Cheltenham and France, compared with this district.

It is with great pleasure that I add a few remarks to Mr. Lamplugh's paper. His observations are, I think, highly important, and will, I anticipate, be found to do great credit to the intelligence and powers of observation of a very young and entirely self-taught naturalist.

Recent operations in connexion with the Dundee Harbour works have been the means of opening up a very interesting section of superficial deposits.