Among the so-called Glacial beds, none fills a larger place in geological literature than the Chalky Clay of Eastern England. I prefer to call it the Chalky Clay, as Searles Wood named it, rather than the Chalky Boulder-clay, because boulders in the true sense of the word, such as characterize the genuine Boulder-clays of North Britain, are infrequent in it. The term Chalky applied to this clay depends on the fact that it is more or less crowded with chalk rubble and chalk fragments of various sizes, and that it has also incorporated in it a considerable quantity of chalk dust, whence its colour and superficial appearance. These peculiarities, which mark it over a wide area from Yorkshire to Finchley, and from Southwold to Warwickshire, are, nevertheless, a secondary, and not a primary, feature of the clay, and have disguised and confused the problem of its explanation.

The close resemblance between the Molluscan fauna of the Coralline Crag and that of the Mediterranean at the present day has long been known and is universally recognized. It has been customary, however, to take the whole list of shells from this deposit, for the purpose of comparison, without reference to the greater or less abundance of the different species; but in discussing the affinities of the fauna from this, or indeed from any other horizon of the East Anglian Crags, it may be misleading to attach as much importance to the presence of a shell, of which only one or at the most a very few specimens have been discovered during so many years, as to the occurrence of forms which are found in such countless profusion as sometimes to compose a large proportion of the whole number of the shells present. Out of about 440 species of Mollusca from the Coralline Crag given by Mr. Wood in his well-known Monograph (excluding varieties), nearly 90 are said to be represented by unique specimens only, while more than 100 others have very rarely been met with. It is true that some of these rarer forms may be only locally rare, although it is worthy of notice that, with few exceptions, the species which are common in the Diestien beds of Belgium, believed to be approximately contemporaneous with the Coralline Crag, are also common in that deposit. On the whole, without ignoring altogether the existence of the rarer forms, it seems that a consideration of the general facies of the fauna of each of the different horizons of the Crag, and of its characteristic fossils, is more important and is likely to give more reliable results than an analysis of all the species of each bed, irrespective of the greater or less frequency with which they have been found.

The fossils of the Upper Greensand of Warminster have long been known to collectors and geologists on account of their number, variety, and excellent state of preservation; but little information has ever been published regarding the beds which yield them. Collections of the fossils are to be seen in most of the museums of the country, and the fauna represented by these collections has often been regarded as the typical fauna of the English Upper Greensand. This, however, is a mistake, for where fully developed, as in Wiltshire, the Upper Greensand includes two faunas which differ considerably from one another—(1) that of the malmstone and micaceous sand (Devizes Beds), (2) that of the greensands and chert beds (Warminster Beds). The complete succession of the Gault and Greensand Beds near Warminster is as follows:—

Some three years ago, when travelling in Devonshire, I had the opportunity of visiting some places on Dartmoor, and of collecting on the border of the Dartmoor Granite some specimens of rocks, which on closer examination seemed to be of general interest. Although I have not finished the examination of these, yet I have made some remarkable observations, which I should like to describe to the readers of this Magazine.

In the Transactions of the Edinburgh Geological Society (vol. v, p. 316) will be found a notice of a section at Lochrim Burn, a quarter of a mile south of Corrie, where is exposed a bed of red sandy shale containing marine fossils. The catalogue contains fifteen species (certified by Mr. John Young, LL.D.), and every one of these is common in the Carboniferous Limestone series of the West of Scotland. This bed is overlain by another bed containing abundant plant-remains, of which a list of seven species is given. The Rev. D. Landsborough, of Kilmarnock, found here another, viz. Carpolithes sulcatus, L. and H. (“Fossil Flora,” pl. ccxx), which Mr. Kidston considers to be characteristic of the Calciferous Sandstone series. It seems to me, however, that the evidence is rather in favour of these beds belonging to the Limestone series. Then, as already noted, there are the fireclays, of which I have observed several distinct beds along the Corrie shore. There is also a bed of fireclay in the old quarry behind Corrie Hotel (within 100 feet of the Productus giganteus limestone); this overlies a bed of fine white sandstone. Fireclays also occur in the gap between the northern and the great eastern cliff.

In June, 1895, Mr. G. H. Morton, F.G.S., of Liverpool, submitted to me three specimens of Crinoidea, registered No. 681 in his collection. One of these specimens was a stem-fragment, impossible to determine; but the other two appeared of such interest that Mr. Morton very kindly allowed me to make a detailed study of them. The results, though not so complete as might be wished, are now submitted to geologists and zoologists, in order that the former may look out for further specimens, and the latter give us the benefit of their opinion.

The damage done to the land at the north end of Southwold by the “moderate gale” of May, 1895, has been described by Mr. J. Spiller. One result of this damage was the opening up of an interesting geological section along the base of the low cliffs, a short account of which I brought before the last meeting of the British Association at Ipswich.

In the following paper I propose to give an account of some observations upon the structure and succession of the rocks of the Southern Highlands. By the term Southern Highlands I mean that part of the Scottish Highlands lying immediately to the north-west of the great line of fault separating the older rocks of the former area from the younger Old Red Sandstone series of the low grounds.

Two valuable pamphlets on Jurassic Ammonites have lately appeared. One of these is entitled “Cephalopodes nouveaux ou peu connus des Étages jurassiques de Normandie, par Louis Brasil.” This author, who has paid very considerable and successful attention to the Jurassic rocks in the neighbourhood of Caen, describes and figures (there are four plates) nineteen new species of Ammonites belonging to fourteen genera, viz.: Lytoceras, Phylloceras, Catulloceras, Zurcheria, Dorsetensia, Bajocia, Pæcilomorphus, Hammatoceras, Erycites, Oppelia, Cadomoceras, Strigoceras, Cosmoceras, Œcotyphius. Of these genera one is new, namely, Bajocia, founded on an unique specimen; and it must be confessed that the example is sufficiently distinct in every way to warrant this treatment. Although the author does not say so, it is evident the genus belongs to the subfamily Sonniniæ and M. Brasil practically admits as much when he states that it is very near to Dorsetensia. He further says that he considers it to be a branch from Haplopleuroceras, whose representatives have lost not only the two rows of spines, but even the keel and the furrows. We find ourselves unable to agree with this opinion, because the periphery is rounded and flattened; in our experience the keel and furrows do not disappear without leaving some trace of their former existence on the configuration of the periphery. We agree with the author that Bajocia is near to Dorsetensia, and we are inclined to think it is a late-surviving example of the stock whence Dorsetensia originated, and a “cousin” of Zurcheria.

Owing to the absence from England of any marine fossils of Triassic age—except the few obscure shells described by Mr. R. B. Newton—the Lias yields the first English representatives of the Neozoic Echinoidea. The fauna is not rich in species, and as a rule the specimens are small; but it is of interest, as its members are primitive in character, and as they foreshadow many of the main lines of evolution followed by the rich Echinoid faunas of the Oolites. Some months ago Mr. Beeby Thompson showed me some specimens from the Upper Lias of Northamptonshire, which form an interesting addition to the primitive types of Liassic Echinoidea; they belong to a new genus, which is the simplest known form of the Diadematinæ, and occupies the same relation to the remaining members of that subfamily that Eodiadema occupies to the Orthopsinæ.

The following notes refer to the fossils found by me, during the last two years, in the Tertiary strata of Burrard Inlet, British Columbia, and to the enclosing rocks themselves. These fossils were derived from beds outcropping within four miles of the city of Vancouver. The strata consist of sandstones, mudstones, shales, and thin, irregular beds of lignite, of which last-named material a typical analysis by me gave—fixed carbon, 36.10; volatile combustible matter, 41.25; ash, 15 40; and hygroscopic water, 7.25 per cent. These lignite beds usually are only about an inch in thickness, but sometimes they run into pockets a foot or more in depth. There has been a considerable amount of money spent in putting down boreholes in this district in search of workable coal-seams, but, so far, without success; and the opinion of the writer is that no workable coal beds exist there, unless they occur in the Cretaceous beds, which are the coal-bearing deposits of Western North America, and probably underlie these strata. Early in 1894 I found the bed from which my earlier specimens were obtained. The lower part of this contains aquatic plants; above these are palm-leaves; and, again, above these salix, populus, and juglans (willows, poplars, and hickory). In the highest part of the deposit are palms and a few other leaves. The whole bed varies from four to eighteen inches in depth, and is underlain by a few inches of black shales, which contain many leaves that are for the most part very difficult to distinguish. This shale thins out in a few yards, and it would seem that the fossil bed runs out at the same point where the shale vanishes. I think that probably there existed, at the time when these fossils were deposited, a cove at this point, where the water was slack. The second bed which I worked in produces fewer fossils, but the veining is much more distinct. This deposit was only found in May, 1895. Where it was first opened the total thickness did not exceed one inch, which contained leaves of angiosperms, underlain by about one inch yielding fern-leaves. Underneath it was a bed of black shale two inches thick. Where it is now worked the upper part is at least six inches thick. It is curious to note in this deposit how at one end the hickory prevails; in the middle, poplars and willows; and at the other end, poplars alone: which would seem to point to the fact that these leaves were not carried any distance, but lie where they fell from trees overhanging the bank.

In the course of some traverses of the central region of Anglesey recently made, preparatory to mapping it out in detail, I observed a few facts which, in spite of the evident complexity of the structures, can, I think, be safely described before completion of the map, and are of some interest in connection with other recent researches in gneissose areas.

Besides his numerous papers intended for experts in geological science, Professor Bonney is to be congratulated on the lengthening list of his more popular writings on the subject. A general notice of his recently-published volume on “Ice-Work” has already appeared in these pages. The present writer desires, with all respect, to add a few notes on some points in which Scottish readers are more particularly interested.

In Mallet's great “Catalogue of Recorded Earthquakes,” the name of Comrie first appears under the date September 2, 1789, and, from that time until the present day, the village has been widely known as a centre of earthquake shocks and sounds. For many years past, however, they have become more and more rare: the shocks, when they have occurred, have been exceedingly slight, and the disturbed areas correspondingly small. Several persons living but a few miles from Comrie inform me that they have never felt a shock; and those who reside in the village itself often speak of “hearing” the earthquakes, as if the vibrations did not generally exceed that limiting degree when they are perceptible only to the ear.