The D'Arcy Exploration Company's boring, put down in 1938-39 near Aislaby, Eskdale, passed through three Permian evaporite beds. A petrological account of the rocks of the lower evaporite bed has been given in an earlier communication (Stewart, 1949). The present paper deals with the petrography of the middle evaporite bed.

In the explanation of sheet 65 of the Geological Survey of Scotland an outcrop of aegirine-granulites was described from Glen Lui, 1¼ miles SSE. of Derry Lodge. Brief descriptions of some of the rocks were given and it was suggested that they might be metamorphosed igneous rocks having distinct affinities with the borolanites of Assynt. Such a correlation, it was felt, would be of importance in assessing the age of metamorphism in the Central Highlands. Harker (1932) made the further suggestion that these rocks might originally have been a tuff which had subsequently become metamorphosed.

During an analysis by X-ray diffraction techniques of some fine-grained leucite-lamproites from the west Kimberley area of Western Australia the author became interested in the rntile in these rocks. Although rutile had been repeatedly observed under the microscope (1, 2), its presence could not be confirmed using X-ray diffraction methods. At the author's request, Professor R. T. Prider supplied a small amount of the mineral which had been identified as rutile. A study of this mineral showed it to be a new mineral similar to rutile in its optical properties.

Chamosite is a commonly occurring hydrous ferrous silicate frequently found in close association with chalybite in marine mudstone deposits, the composition of different beds ranging from almost pure chamosite to pure chalybite. In oolitic ironstones chamosite is found both in the ooliths themselves and also in the groundmass. It occurs as a constituent in shales, as a cementing mineral in sandstones, and is occasionally found in lateritic and other deposits. Mineralogically it is usually regarded as a chlorite, or akin to the chlorites, but evidence has been accumulating which tends to show that some varieties may not be chlorites at all, but are probably closely related to the kaolin group of minerals (Brindley, 1949).

A white soapy mineral which could not easily be identified in the hand-specimen was collected from a vein in the serpentine rock at Kennack Cove, Lizard, in April 1949. From a preliminary optical examination the mineral was thought to be saponite, and therefore of interest to clay mineralogists. Chemical analysis, X-ray, thermal, and optical investigations were carried out at the Building Research Station.

The literature of meteoritics contains little information about the unusual Breece meteorite. This iron appears to be mentioned only in museum accession reports and catalogues of meteorite collections, and the sole information supplied by these references consists of the approximate date of find (1921), the approximate weight (50 to 51 kg.), the approximate place of discovery, near Breece, McKinley County, New Mexico, in latitude 35° 18' N., longitude 108° 18' W., and the classification (Ore). At the time of the discovery the hamlet of Breece was the centre of a small lumbering industry, since moved SW. and SE. into more heavily forested areas, and today it has few inhabitants. The find consisted of a single well-preserved mass which was purchased in its entirety from an unnamed source by the Field Museum of Chicago approximately ten years after the iron was discovered.

Two new occurrences of the rare manganese mineral jacobsite (MnFe2O4) have come to light in the course of mineragraphic studies carried out as part of the research programme of the Mineragraphic Section of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. The jacobsite occurs as a constituent of small bodies of high-grade manganese ore at Weabonga, near Danglemah, and at the Mount Sally mine, about 6 miles west of Danglemah, both in the Tamworth district of New South Wales.

The writer has recently been engaged in the investigation of a 'Lewisian' inlier within the Moine series of Glen Dessarry, at the head of Loch Arkaig, Inverness-shire. The inlier is largely composed of a series of hornblendic and felspathic gneisses but includes small lenses of marble and calc-silicate rocks. All these are to be reported later in two separate communications. There are in addition, however, some steeply inclined and impersistent ribs of mica-schist, granulite, and diopside-epidote-rocks, which will only be incidentally mentioned in those accounts in so far as they bear upon certain specific problems. In themsclves they are apparently of little petrographic interest except for the occurrence of an unusual copper-bearing recta-sediment. This it seems convenient to record in a separate note.