The origin of Man remains an unsolved problem. In spite of very keen and anxious researches, extending over many years, we are still without a real clue to the difficulty. Whence and how and when he came we do not know, and we had better say so.

From time to time I have received from correspondents suggestions that the method of determining the geological age of the Earth by the rate of solvent denudation of sodium might be open to considerable error if the allowance made in my paper (Trans. R.D.S., ser. ii, vol. vii), for sodium chloride carried from the sea by winds and washed from the atmosphere by rain, was seriously at fault. These suggestions arise from incomplete study of the quantities involved. Had more space been given in my paper to this question, the hasty criticisms I have had to contend with, doubtless, would be less often advanced. The whole matter is capable of the simplest arithmetical statement, and the limit of error arising from this source easily defined. Recently one gentleman has written at considerable length on the matter in the pages of the Chemical News. I have replied to Mr. Ackroyd in that journal. But the definition of the limit of error referred to, and the consideration of some other points raised in the discussion, are more in place in a geological than in a chemical journal. I would therefore seek for space in the Geological Magazine wherein to repeat in part what I have said in the Chemical News, adding some matters more especially suited to geological readers.

In the “Annual Report of the Geological Commission” published at Cape Town in 1895, Dr. Corstorphine refers at pp. 16–19 to the extent and features of the Enon Conglomerate, and to the occurrence of fossil Estheriæ in some of its strata. His two assistant geologists, Messrs. A. W. Rogers and E. H. L. Schwartz, in their “Reports on the Southern Districts between Breede River and George” and “On Oudtshoorn,” at pp. 73, 76–79, describe in detail the position and characters of the Enon Conglomerate and its ‘Estheria shale.’

In a notice on “Fossil Camels in Europe,” inserted in the periodical Natur und Haus (1901, ix, 5, p. 179), it is stated that amongst the fossils from Samos in the Stuttgart Museum there occurs, under a wrong name, the well-preserved skull of a Camel, and likewise “a near relative of the Indian Nylgau, Portax pictus.”

There are two specimens of this species in the Woodwardian Museum, both of which were named and labelled by Salter. The smaller and more perfect one, a 987 (Fletcher Collection), is first mentioned, and is stated to have come from the Lower Ludlow of Dudley. The larger specimen is from the same horizon of Green Quarry, Leintwardine, and shows only a portion of the upper surface.

During the past year there were only two undoubted earth-quakes in this country. Some may have occurred in Glen Garry, one of our most sensitive regions; but the construction of a new railway through the valley renders it difficult to identify true earthquakes with certainty. The total number of British earth-quakes during the last twelve years thus amounts to 116, of which 46 had epicentres in England and Wales and 70 in Scotland, 42 of the latter number being confined, or almost confined, to Glen Garry.

The southern shore of Lake Tanganyika and the country for a distance of 40 miles south of the lake consist of sandstones and conglomerates, dipping north about 10°. These sandstones stretch some little way up the eastern and western shores, and appear to continue away to the south-west. Proceeding further north along the lake shore they get harder, being in places metamorphosed into a pink quartzite.