Dr. J. R. Sutton has recently read a most important paper to the Royal Society of South Africa on the diurnal variation of level at Kimberley. The paper gave the preliminary results of observations made during the course of three years upon the variation of the level of the ground as recorded by a large horizontal pendulum of a special design made for the author by the Cambridge Instrument Company. It appeared from the results that the movements in the surface of the ground, which set up corresponding movements in the pendulum, were very great. The maximum westerly elongation of the extremity of the pendulum occurred about 5.30 a.m., the maximum easterly about 4.15 p.m., the medium positions a little before 11 a.m. and 9.30 p.m. Geometrically these movements may be represented on the hypothesis that the hemisphere facing the sun bulges out, forming a sort of meniscus to the geosphere. The rise and fall of the surface of the ground which such a supposition would postulate is enormous, and the very magnitude has led Dr. Sutton to hesitate in giving the figures. There can, however, be very little doubt that some rise and fall in the earth's surface is occasioned by the sun's gravitational pull, although the present figures may have to be lessened by taking into consideration other causes which contribute to the disturbance of the pendulum.

Whilst searching through the duplicate drawers in the Manchester Museum I found recently a specimen of Discoidea cylindrica which contained the dental apparatus in a very good state of preservation. The softness of the matrix within the test made it possible to develop and extract the jaws, and thus to detect several new features of interest.

The peculiar garnetiferous rock occurring to the east of Loch Borolan seems to have been first noted by Dr. Callaway in 1883, and is described by Dr. Bonney in an appendix to Dr. Callaway's paper.

Logan, in 1840, noted the occurrence of pebbles of cannel in the roof of a coal-bed in South Wales; also of pebbles of coal in the ‘Pennant’ rock (Proc. Geol. Soc., vol. iii, p. 276). De la Beche refers to coal pebbles in the Monmouth and Glamorganshire Coalfield, and H. K. Jordan to similar forms of coal in the base of the Pennant Series, and to a coal pebble the size of a hen's egg in the roof of the ‘Rock Fawr’ coal-seam near Bridgend (Q.J.G.S., vol. xxxiii, p. 932). In the roof of the ‘Nanaimo’ coal, in Vancouver Island, a coal pebble in a conglomerate was recorded in 1906. Several instances of water-worn lumps of coal have been mentional in the volumes of the second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania as having been found in the semi-bituminous and Pittsburg regions.

When the Budleigh Salterton Pebble-bed is traced northward into Somerset it loses its unconsolidated character and passes into a calcareous conglomerate. The change takes place north of Burlescombe, and is complete at Thone St. Margaret; thence to Combe Florey this division of the New Red Sandstone Series is generally represented by a conglomerate composed of pebbles of limestone, quartz, and grit, more massive in its lower part. For some distance north of Combe Florey the upper beds of the division are faulted out and the lower beds are represented by a loose, rubbly gravel of subangular fragments of Devonian grit in an earthy or sandy matrix. The conglomerate reappears at Vellow, near Stogumber, and is found in several places in the Williton district, whilst in other places it is represented by gravels, sands, and sandstones.

Corundum is one of those rather exceptional rock-formers whose mode of origin is not fully explained, and it is, accordingly, of interest to put on record any new localities for the mineral, together with the features they present. Fragments of it have frequently been found among the old gravels of the Limpopo River, along the Transvaal-Rhodesian and Transvaal-Bechuanaland border, but although the Transvaal Geological Survey has described an occurrence in the Pietersburg district, the source of these fragments for some time remained unknown. However, last year I received from the Rhodesian side of the border, close to Rhodes' Drift on the Limpopo, and north-ward from the well-known Messina copper-mine, some rocks which included large pieces of a type rich in corundum. The area is known to comprise gneissose granulites, consisting of the contact zone and marginal modifications of a granite mass, and the specimens received included large cleavage fragments of felspar and pieces of coarse granite.

The British form recognized under this designation appears to have been first recorded and figured from this country by J. de C. Sowerby (16, pl. lvii, fig. 30), who named it Asaphus or Trinucleus (?). He remarks “that no trace of the position of the eyes remains on the cast, which is also the case with the genus Trinucleus, Murchison”. This form was afterwards allocated by Salter to Phacops (Trimerocephalus) lœvis (Münst.) (13, p. 16, pl. i, figs. 5–7; 14, p. 1, pl. ix, figs. 1–5). Phillips had previously named the same species Calymene lœvis, Münst. (8, p. 129, pl. lv, fig. 250), a determination which both Salter (13, p. 16) and M'Coy (6, p. 404) showed to be at fault. This was complicated by the fact that Münster (7, pl. x, fig. 6; 7a, pl. v, fig. 4) had described two different forms under the same specific name, Trinucleus ? lœvis and Calymene lœvis, the latter of which Salter (13, p. 18) correctly adjudged to be a synonym of Phacops granulatus (Münst.) (Calymene auct.) (7a, pl. v, fig. 3). M'Coy had previously noted the identity of C. lœvis, Münst., with Calymene granulata of the same author, but assigned it to his genus Portlockia (6, p. 404).

Ware, about a mile west of Lyme Regis, is situated on the lower part of the Foxmould Sands of the Upper Greensand, and some distance above the ‘West Cliffs’, which are formed of Lower Lias clay and limestone.