Among the collections received from the Egyptian Survey for determination is a number of vertebrate remains, chiefly mammalian, from the Wadi-Natrun, whence they were obtained by Captain Lyons, the Director-General of the Survey, and by Messrs. Beadnell and Blanckenhorn, members of his staff. Last year, on my return from Mogara with Mr. T. Barron, I was able to collect for a few hours on the hill called Gart-el-Moluk, from which most of these fossils were obtained, and found a few additional fragments. Finally, Dr. Studer, of the Berne Museum, has very kindly lent me the collection he received from the same locality, and has himself described in some detail.1 I believe, therefore, that a great part of the specimens from this locality are now in my hands. Unfortunately in most cases the remains are in a very fragmentary condition and little can be made of them, but there are a few well-preserved teeth and limb bones which indicate the existence of a fauna of considerable interest, and are sufficient to show that the locality will probably yield good results to a systematic search. At present the collections include remains of a small Hippopotamus, a Hipparion, a small pig-like animal, and various Antelopes. In the present note I propose to give a short account of the more important of these specimens.

For the opportunity to study the interesting Carboniferous Arachnid forming the subject-matter of the following pages, I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., who recently placed in my hands for that purpose a very perfect gutta-percha cast, and a good, though less complete one, in plaster, of the original fossil specimen, which was unfortunately not available for examination in its natural form.

While examining recently a collection of specimens from the flint-gravel of the Haldon Hills in the Museum of the Torquay Natural History Society, I discovered among them four containing casts of plates of Marsupites testudinarius. Moreover, in reply to enquiries, Professor Clayden, of Exeter, informs me that the Albert Memorial Museum there possesses five such plates, and that one was found by Mr. F. J. Collins, of Exeter, about three years ago, so that the fossil appears to be not uncommon in the Haldon flints, and consequently it seems worth while putting the fact of its occurrence on record, with some of the inferences that may be drawn from it.

In recent work on the laws of river-dynamics an important part has been taken by members of the Cotteswold Naturalists' Field Club. Dr. T. S. Ellis, in 1882, announced the suggestive fact that the course of all the eastern tributaries of the Severn between Berkeley and Tewkesbury was directed obliquely up the valley, a discovery which furnished the key to the relative ages of the Severn and the Thames.

Since the dawn of early history the question of the existence of a continent beyond the “pillars of Hercules” has occupied the mind of man. Our very earliest records of this mythical land were derived from a narrative which has been handed down to us by Plato. According to it, Solon is said to have visited Sais in Egypt, and there to have heard from priests of the ancient “Empire of Atlantis” and of its overthrow by a convulsion of Nature. This Atlantis was then spoken of as a vast land lying beyond what we now call the Straits of Gibraltar, and it is supposed to have been inhabited by a mighty race of people. Plato's story has called forth quite a flood of literature, not only in ancient times; even within the last score of years many pamphlets and books have been published dealing with this attractive problem. Some authors have sought to discredit the veracity of Plato's assertions, while several, and among them Humboldt and Sir Daniel Wilson, were of opinion that the tale rests on some historic basis. Others, again, have utilised the original story and connected it with their own ideas of a land-bridge stretching right across the Atlantic from Europe to America.

In this illustrated lecture, the more prominent phases of the geological history of Ireland were pointed out, mainly as an explanation of the existing scenic features of the country. Probably very little remains in Ireland of the old Huronian continent, unless portions of it have appeared again in the cores of Caledonian folds. The stratified, but metamorphosed, Dalradians of the west may be Cambrian, or older; and gneiss is included in the granite of eastern Tyrone, the latter being probably of Caledonian age. The gneiss of the ancient moorland between Omagh and Cookstown is, moreover, very possibly pre-Cambrian. The Silurian sea must have covered all the Irish area ; and the subsequent Caledonian folding, with its axes running north-east and south-west, marked out the first distinct lines of the existing country.