THE nature of the faulting which made the Jordan Valley and separated it from the Mediterranean by the Highlands of Judea has been discussed in a memoir by Professor Bailey Willis, “Dead Sea Problem: Rift Valley or Ramp Valley ? ” Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., xxxix, 1928, 490–542, and by Dr. L. Picard, Geological Researches in the Judean Desert, Jerusalem, 1931, 108 pp., 3 pl., and map.

IN the early days of the Geological Survey of Scotland, the rocks of the Ballantrae Igneous Complex were thought to be of metamorphic origin. Thus in the memoir explanatory of sheet 7, scale 1 inch = 1 mile, published in 1869, it is stated that the chief interest attaching to the altered strata of this district consists in the fact that they exhibit certain arrested stages of metamorphic action. But less than ten years after that date the erroneous character of this opinion was made abundantly clear by Professor Bonney.Equipped with experience gleaned in the Lizard, Bonney quickly recognized in Ayrshire a correspondence in the nature of the phenomena. Excellent descriptions were furnished by him of some of the lavas, serpentines, and gabbros, and their true igneous character emphasized.

IN the January number of this Magazine there appeared a rejoinder by Messrs. Kitchin and Pringle to observations published by myself on their reading of the stratigraphical position of the Hunstanton Red Rock and its relation to the beds above and below. Since the following is intended as an answer to this, it is almost inevitable that it should be written in the first person. For this unavoidable egotism apologies are offered to readers.

W.Q. Kennedy has directed attention to the existence of composite lava flows and has described in detail composite flows from Inverkip on the Firth of Clyde. In a preliminary work on the igneous rocks of Kintyre the writer has described lavas of the same age (Calciferous Sandstone) as the Renfrewshire flows, but separated from them by the Firth of Clyde and the Kilbrannan Sound. The Kintyre Carboniferous lavaswere, of course, once part of the Clyde Plateau to which the Renfrewshire lavas also belong. It is hoped to make a further study of the Kintyre lavas in the field, and a careful look out will be kept for phenomena of the type described by Kennedy. However, on looking over the existing slices of Kintyre Carboniferous lavas in the collection of the Geology Department of the University of Glasgow, a slide was found which is of sufficient interest to merit separate description. The rock from which the slide was cut was collected as a lava specimen only, and nothing noteworthy was noticed at the time. In the lightof Kennedy’s discoveries and conclusions, however, it takes on a special interest.