The following notes are devoted to a small series of Crustacea, not directly related to one another, but which have been awaiting a favourable moment for description.

In a paper published some years back on the Tuscan and Ligurian Serpentines Professor Bonney has noticed incidentally the occurrence of glaucophane in the gabbro associated with these rocks at Pegli, a village to the west of Genoa; and later added a rather fuller description towards the end of his paper on “The Glaucophane Eclogite of the Val d'Aoste.” Last year I spent a few days at Pegli for the purpose of examining the rocks at the village and in its neighbourhood, when I found the gabbro in some abundance, in consequence, as I think, of blasting for road-making. The specimens then collected have disclosed on examination a few points of interest which may not, I hope, be deemed a superfluous addition to the accounts already published. Those have been rather numerous.

To appreciate more fully Professor Hull's interesting paper “On the Submerged Terraces and River Valleys bordering the Britisli Isles,” it is necessary to refer to the Transactions of the Victoria Institute,inwhich the paper is illustrated by a map showing the contour-lines and soundings. The author thinks that the steep descent from the surface of the 100-fathom plateau to the abyssal floor of the Atlantic is analogous to an escarpment, instancing the Cotteswold Hills and other examples, and argues from this that the steep descent in question has been due to the forces of subaerial denudation, and has had a terrestrial origin.

Mr. Sydney Ryan, of Darkton, Managing Director of the Ryan Tin Mines, situated on the Embabaan River in West Swaziland, has collected and sent to England a large collection of rock-specimens from the Ingwenya Berg, the dominating feature of the district. He has also provided plans and sections of the district, which are here partly reproduced. The specimens have been presented to the Mineralogical Department of the British Museum, together with a complete catalogue, having reference to the Sections referred to above, and indications of the lithological characters of the 140 specimens. Mr. G. Th. Prior, F.G.S., has kindly aided the writer in the critical examination of the rocks, and is communicating a description of those of economic value to the forthcoming number of the Mineralogical Magazine.

For many years the New Red Sandstone of the Vale of Clwyd was shown upon the maps as resting generally on Carboniferous Limestone, but frequently overlapping it so as to pass on to the surrounding Silurian strata. No faults were indicated, and the structure of the Vale, as represented, suggested that a pre-Triassic syncline here existed, within which a remnant of Carboniferous rocks had been preserved from denudation and which had formed a bay in the Triassic coastline.

By correlating the head and the tail of Professor G. P. Merrill's “Discussion on the use of the terms Rock-weathering, Serpentinization, and Hydrometaraorphism,” I infer a direct invitation to confer with him on the questions raised by me at the Bristol meeting of the British Association.

An exceedingly well-preserved and nearly complete skeleton of the largest species of Dinornis, D. maximus, has recently been mounted and exhibited in the Palæontological Galleries of the British Museum (Natural History). The finding of this fine specimen has been described by its fortunate discoverer, Mr. C. A. Ewen, and to his paper a brief account of the remains themselves was added by Captain Hutton. It appears that the bones were found on shifting

In the nomenclature of fossil Myoxidæ, the generic term Myoxus has hitherto been used in a broad sense, under the assumption that the distinctive characters of the recent genera of the family are not apparent in their Tertiary representatives. It is my purpose to show in the present note that this is not the case, there being in the Middle Miocene, at any rate, two forms of Myoxidæ, one a Muscardinus, the other an Eliomys, which have been mixed up together by several previous writers, under the name Myoxus Sansaniensis.

The name Ammonites euomphalus was given by Sharpe to an imperfect though unique specimen from the Lower Chalk, Man of War Cove, on the coast of Dorset. This example (according to Sharpe) originally belonged to E. H. Bunbury, Esq., but now forms part of the British Museum Collection [No. 50,158].

Many geologists have recognized that valleys, which have once been occupied by large glaciers, exhibit peculiarities which can only be ascribed to glacial erosion modify in g the earlier water-worn form of the land-surface. Indeed, anyone who allows ice-action to be locally a factor of importance in erosion, must expect that the resulting topographical forms will differ in some measure from those proper to water-erosion. Not only does ice,invirtue of its physical properties, obey different laws as regards pressure and flow, but, what is of equal importance, it fills the whole valley instead of following certain narrow channels. We may hope that, just as Gilbert and others have worked out the principles of watererosion, so the much more difficult problem of ice-erosion may some day be reduced to analysis. An attempt in this direction has been made by McGee in a paper on “Glacial Canons,” which, however, I cite here rather for its brief summary of the observed characteristics of glaciated valleys.

In the abstract of a paper by Mr. Thomas H. Holland, read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Bristol, 1898, printed in the January number of this Magazine, on “The Comparative Actions of Subaërial and Submarine Agents in Rock Decomposition,” the author brings up again a question which the present writer has often had occasion to face, and has vainly tried to solve in a manner entirely satisfactory even to himself.

The question as to the origin of mammals is not new, but one of a series of similar nature and difficulty. The origin of Birds, of Eeptiles, of Amphibians, and of Fishes really precede it, and offer less difficulties in solution. The answer to each,inmy opinion, belongs to the future, and how far it may profitably be sought in the present limited state of our knowledge is a fair question in itself.

In a paper published in this MagazineinMarch, 1895, Dr. J. W.Gregory, incidentally discussing the exact age of the base of the Gault Clay, wrote:“Hoplites interruptus seems restrictedin[Eastern] England to the Folkestone area and the Eed Chalk.” Although some of his conclusions on that point were modified later, the general statement quoted above, with the qualification indicated by the bracketed word ‘Eastern,’ does not seem to have been challenged. Having myself found H. interrnplus at the base of the Gault at several places in Eastern England, I have been led to look up previous records, with the result that I am convinced that the zone of H. interruptus is represented in the lowest beds of the Gault Clay over a large part of that area.

Some years ago I received a fossil preserved in pyrites from the Gaskohle at Nyřan. No details could be seen under the microscope, and I was not sure if it were a Limulus or a seed. At an exhibition by Architects held last year at Prague I saw a specimen of a similar fossil with two of its appendages preserved, and I was fortunate enough to acquire the same for our Museum. I then reexamined all my material previously collected, and found appendages in other specimens also.

The spine is 40 mm. in length, by 5 mm. in width at the junction _L of the inserted and exserted portions; from this point the spine gradually narrows to a moderately fine point at the apex. The posterior margin is nearly straight, the anterior one gently curved, the curve being more marked distally. The lateral surfaces meet in front at a moderately acute angle, the spine being much laterally compressed. The posterior surface is concave, and each margin is armed with the usual well-marked recurved denticles. The sides of the exserted portion are ornamented with a longitudinal series of ganoine-coated, tuberculated ridges.

On the 24th of June, 1885, a paper by me, entitled “Observations on some imperfectly known Madreporaria from the Cretaceous Formation of England,” was read at a meeting of the Geological Society which, encountering an adverse report from the referee, was with the consent of the Council, withdrawn by me, and published verbatim in the Geological Magazine of the same year (Dec. III, Vol. II, pp. 541–563, PI. XIV), 1885. The present communication is a continuation as well as a correction of the former one, which has become necessary from the acquisition of additional material.

The discovery of a coalfield in 1890 at Dover, in a boring at the foot of Shakespeare Cliff, has been already brought before the British Association by the author at Cardiff in 1892, and is so well known that it is unnecessary to enter into details other than the following. The Carboniferous shales and sandstones contain twelve seams of coal, amounting to a total thickness of 23 feet 5 inches. These occur at a depth of 1,100 feet 6 inches below Ordnance datum, and have been penetrated to a depth of 1,064 feet 6 inches, or 2,177 feet 6 inches from the surface. They are identical, as I have shown elsewhere, with the rich and valuable coalfields of Somersetshire on the west, and of France and Belgium on the east

The marine Miocene shells from Egypt referred to in this paper form part of the collection of Egyptian fossils sent to the British Museum for determination by Captain H. G. Lyons, R.E., F.G.S., Director-General of the Geological Survey of Egypt.