Remains of Shrews have long been known to occur in the Norfolk ‘Forest Bed’, and have been discovered in several British Pleistocene deposits. Hitherto they have been referred to one or other of the three species at present inhabiting this country, but having had occasion lately to examine nearly all the available material, comprising representative series of specimens from each of the known horizons, I find that it is not until we reach the latest Pleistocene deposits that we meet with, remains of species indistinguishable, with the material before us, from the living British forms.

With the question of conformity or unconformity between the Lower Tertiary and Upper Cretaceous, there is associated a problem of great economic importance to New Zealand. The subject involves something more than a mere academic discussion. If conformity exists, then we have only one coal-bearing formation; but if unconformity, then we have two. I believe that both the stratigraphical and palæontological evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of the latter.

The tubes formed of fish-debris, found throughout the Chalk of England, described by Mantell (1822) as Murœna(?) lewesiensis, referred by L. Agassiz (1844) to Dercetis elongatus, and placed among Annelida Tubicola as Terebella lewesiensis by William Davies (1879), are here described with more precise detail and retained in the position assigned to them by Davies. A diagnosis is provided and a holotype selected.

A specimen from the Gault, of similar nature but larger, is made the type of a new species, ‘Terebella’ lutensis (Fig. 6).

Similar tubes from the Cenomanian, built of Conifer debris and Echinoderm debris, are described, and the question whether these differences of composition indicate a difference of species is discussed, but left open for the evidence of further material. Such tubes may for the present be known as ‘Terebella’ cf. lewesiensis (Figs. 7, 8).

Tubes without extraneous building material and with a cancellar ornament are also found in the Cretaceous rocks of England, and some were referred to Terebella lewesiensis by Davies. All those from the Chalk are here separated as ‘Terebella’ cancellata, n.sp. (Figs. 3–5).

Two tubes made of mud bricks are discussed. One, apparently of Lower Cenomanian age, is referred to the rather doubtful genus Keckia (Fig. 1). The other, from the Gault, is referred to Granularia (Fig. 2). Both these genera are held to be of Annelid origin.

In the year 1866 Hicks and Salter recorded the occurrence of certain rocks in the neighbourhood of St. David's which they regarded as Tremadoc deposits. The beds appeared to them to rest conformably on the Lingula Flags, but when the rocks were compared with those of the Tremadoc area striking lithological differences were noticed. Accompanying the report was a list of fossils collected from the beds, and the fauna was so wholly unlike that of the North Wales deposits that the authors were led to conclude that the dissimilarity was due to the conditions under which the strata were deposited.

1. The term laterite is used in two ways, namely, stratigraphically as the name of a geological formation, and petrographically as the name of a tropical superficial rock. This discussion relates only to the use of the term as a rock name.

2. Laterite (or rather some varieties of it) is formed by a process, the modus operandi of which is not discussed here, by which certain rocks undergo superficial decomposition, with the removal in solution of combined silica, lime, magnesia, soda, and potash, and with the residual accumulation, assisted, no doubt, by capillary action, metasomatic replacement, and segregative changes of a hydrated mixture of oxides of iron, aluminium, and titanium, with, more rarely, manganese. These oxides and hydroxides of iron, aluminium, titanium, and manganese are designated the lateritic constituents.

3. This residual rock is true laterite, and the presence of any considerable proportion (> x10 per cent) of non-lateritic constituents requires expression in the mime, as it always indicates want of completion in the process of lateritization. True laterite contains, then, 90 to 100 per cent of lateritic constituents.