Amongst the vertebrate remains which I found in the marshes of Sirabé (Central Madagascar), a large Rodent is represented by two right ossa innominata, one of which (B.M. M 7085) is fairly complete, only the free portion of the pars dorsalis of the ischium being broken off.

According to Etheridge (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxvi, 1870, pp. 174–192) the Magnesian Conglomerate at Bristol is of the same age as the German Muschelkalk, but Moore (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxxvii, 1881, pp. 67–82) was of opinion that it was Rhætic. Since that time no special paper on the subject has been published, but now the present writer has been able to find some new evidence.

In October, 1907, the Rev. J. Magens Mello, F.G.S., kindly took me to the Lower Keuper section on the bank of the Avon at Guy's Cliff, near Warwick. These sections are very instructive in a special sense.

The Possibility of obtaining, under certain conditions, flowing wells from these sandstones has been brought to my notice by the discovery that in the neighbourhood of El Dêr, on the east side of the depression, flowing water is obtainable from comparatively shallow wells sunk on the crest of the anticlinal fold, which runs north and south through that district, through the red shales to the underlying surface-water sandstone (see section). I am unable to speak positively of the original depth of the ancient wells in this district, but when one of those to the north of El Dêr was taken in hand, cleaned out and cased. flowing water was met with at a depth of 65 metres, below which untouched ground was struck. The flow increased on drilling a few metres into the sandstone rock below, and the bore has now given a fairly steady discharge of about 40 gallons per minute for over twelve months.

The course of rivers cannot be properly understood if regarded as objects complete in themselves. In reality, a river is only a part of a system of channels serving to drain the whole of the area over which it extends, the breadth as well as the length. Of this system the tributaries are an essential part. So, too, valleys and combes which still exist but no longer serve for streams, and others altogether effaced, have, in former times, been included in the system. I hold to my belief, recorded nearly twenty-six years ago, that only by taking into account the influence of tributary streams can river-windings be explained, and that the subject is important as “bearing on the formation of warths and the maintenance of navigation, channels.”

Of all the animuls of the Stormberg Beds the Theriodonts are the most interesting, as they bear strong resemblances to mammals. Dr. Broom, of Stellenbosch, says they have practically solved the problem of the origin of mammals. Of these Theriodonts only two are said to have come from Basutoland, both of small size, viz. Galesaurus and Tritylodon. They are only known from their skulls. I have not been able to discover whether they came from Molteno Red Beds or Cave Sandstone, but I imagine most likely from the first. Tritylodon has a small and decidedly mammalian-like skull, and is said to have been found at Thaba Tsuen, a mountain 16 miles south-west of Morija. It was brought to England by Dr. Exton, Curator of the Bloemfontein Museum, and described by Sir Richard Owen at a meeting of the Geological Society in 1884. Dr. Broom, who has recently discussed the affinities of the skull, inclines to the view that it is a mammal.