We offer warmest congratulations to two dear and valued friends connected with the Geological Magazine since its commencement, both having been constant contributors, and Professor Rupert Jones in addition one of the Editors during the first year of the journal's existence.

The specimens described below were sent to me for examination by Professor Schwarz from the Albany Museum, Grahamstown; they were collected from a thin seam of shale in the Grahamstown district in the Witteberg Series. This series, so named from the Wittebergen in the south of the Karroo, consists of a group of shales, sandstones, and quartzites, which are placed at the summit of the Cape Series below the plant-bearing and glacial beds of the Lower Karroo system. The Witteberg Series have afforded a very few fossils; these include imperfectly preserved fragments of Lepidodendroid plants and an abundance of the fossil known as Spirophyton, referred by some authors to the vegetable kingdom and by others regarded as probably inorganic.

Professor seward has called my attention to Figs. 5 and 6 on Plate XXVIII, which accompanies his notes on Fossil Plants from Cape Colony. These fragmentary impressions of organic remains have been compared by him with similar doubtful plant-remains figured by Dr. David White from the Coal-measures of Brazil (see Commissao dos Estudos das Minas de Carvão de Pedra do Brasil, Estampa x and xi. Final Report by J. C. White, Rio de Janeiro, 1908, p. 589.) Dr. White had already doubted the vegetable nature of the specimens from Brazil, which doubt is shared by Professor Seward, but the latter expresses himself more definitely against the plant-nature of Figs. 5 and 6, Pl. XXVIII, from the Witteberg Series of Cape Colony. He has, in fact, suggested that they “represent part of a body-segment of a Eurypterid.” In this opinion I cordially agree. I also wish to add a word about the specimens figured under the name of Hastimima by Dr. David White from the Coal-measures of Brazil.

It will be remembered that two years ago, in 1907, I pointed out the occurrence of important planes of overthrust at the base of the Dolomite Mountain-massive of Langkofl and Plattkofl in South Tyrol, which explained its apparent ‘reef-like’ form, and its curious position above Wengen lavas in some places and Muschelkalk at others. I showed that at Langkofl the Upper Werfen Strata and Muschelkalk form a shear-slice above which the Schlern Dolomite rocks of the Langkofl Mountain have been overthrust, and below which the Wengen lavas and tuffs of the Ciampinoi meadowland are present; also that the planes above and below this shear-slice are crush-planes of extremely low inclination.

While pioneering for an excursion of the Cotteswold Naturalists' Ḟield Club at Aberedw in the Wye Valley, between Builth Wells and Hay, certain very interesting physiographic features, obviously connected with Glacial action, were observed which appear worthy of record.

Since the exhibition of the diamond in a dolerite at York and Mexico by Professor Edgeworth David, great interest has been aroused in the Copeton occurrence. Specimens of the rock and concentrates washed from it were forwarded by the prospector, Mr. Pike, to several gentlemen who had expressed their desire to examine them, and amongst others to Professor Miers. It was my privilege, whilst at Oxford, to examine these specimens, and the results of this examination were conveyed in a letter to Mr. Pike. As he has published part of its contents in the Australian Mining Standard, it is desirable to place before British readers a more connected account, and at the same time to give an outline of the not very easily accessible Australian literature.

Mr. J. Hays Hammond in his paper, “Gold-mining in the Transvaal, South Africa,” read at the Richmond meeting of the American Institute of Mining Engineers in February, 1901, referring to this Old Granite, states: “There are at places intrusions from this enveloping granitic mass into the younger formations.”

The occurrence of a pre-Glacial marine terrace and raised beach along the coast of the south of Ireland was described by Messrs. Wright & Muff in 1904, and its development in the eastern part of co. Waterford was the subject of two short papers by the author in 1907 in this Magazine. Messrs. Wright & Muff (op. cit.) observed the same raised beach only in the south-eastern portion of co. Wexford, so that its recognition this summer by the author further north along the east coast of Ireland deserves recording, for it has been traced for several miles to the north and south of Courtown Harbour, and its height, characters, and relations to the overlying deposits show that it is a continuation of the same feature. The first locality to be mentioned is about 3 miles to the south of the village of Courtown, where relics of it are preserved between Roney Point and Salt Rock; it is still more distinct as a rock-terrace a little further north at Pollshone Head and Breanoge Head, but in the bays between these points the conditions are not favourable for its exposure, as there are no rocky cliffs, only extensive sand-dunes stretching along the shore. From Courtown Harbour northwards for about 2 miles to Duffcarrig Rocks sand-dunes are similarly developed, forming a nearly continuous line of ridges rising to heights of over 50 feet. Thick drift deposits occur behind them, but no pre-Glacial cliff or platform is exposed. At Duffcarrig Rocks solid rock again appears forming the headland, and we can recognize remnants of the rock-cut shelf in a much eroded and fissured condition.

The Lower Severn Valley has been classic ground to students of river-development ever since Professor W. M. Davis visited and applied those principles of river-development which he had found so illuminating in his own country. Recorded in print, and developed by Mr. S. S. Buckman and others, these views have met with much support, and certainly have the advantage of explaining many otherwise unintelligible phenomena.

It frequently happens that micas exhibit small basal cleavage rifts of roughly circular shape, and these may be so numerous as to render opaque or feebly translucent a plate which would be otherwise quite transparent. The so-called silver-amber mica of the mica trade, a variety of phlogopite which is highly prized for its low conductivity, apparently owes its silvery sheen to the presence of these cleavage rifts, which overlap each other to a considerable extent, and reflect the light copiously. The presence of these basal cleavage rifts in silvery phlogopite is rendered quite obvious when a plate is examined under the microscope in ordinary light, by the interference rings seen round the borders of the rifts. Such a plate of silvery phlogopite exhibits a peculiar phenomenon in consequence of the presence of these rifts.