There are two facts which are closely connected with the present I condition of the Alps—(1) that the rainfall on the Alpine slopes on the Italian side of the watershed, as a rule, is heavier than that on the other side, and (2) that the valleys also are steeper. It is indeed true that the distance from the watershed of the Central Pennines to the lakes on either side, north or south, is not very different, but the level of those on the latter is some 700 feet below that of those on the northern. This difference of level is especially marked in the upper part of the valleys, places correspondingly situated being always lower on the southern than on the northern face; for instance, Zermatt is rather above Macugnaga, but as the crow flies it is more than double the distance from the watershed.

Study of profiles, perpendicular to the fold-axes, shows that the folding is disharmonic. Nearly every s−surface is one of décollement. In some exposures the quartzites are reduplicated by superposed recumbent-folds without infolds of other material. The contacts are tectonic and not stratigraphic. Incipient boudinage is frequent, and nearly all surfaces show well-developed b−lineation.

It is shown that “Hutton's Unconformity” on the Isle of Arran has been misinterpreted. The assumed plane of unconformity is in reality the plane separating the Dalradian schists from the upper-most zone of schists impregnated with and cemented by calcareous material. The true plane of unconformity is situated some 4 feet above this plane.

1. The brown Boulder-clay corresponds with the brown Clay of the Eastern counties, and is oldest.

2. Then the hill gravel, the blue Boulder-clay, and perhaps the shell bed of March corresponds to the contorted drift.

3. As elevation progressed, the Fenlands would become one great fiord, ramifying at the Cambridge end up the southern valleys in the Chalk. First the coarse gravels of low levels were formed, and finally, during a long period—for the flints are wonderfully worn—the fine gravel of the plains. After which the country was elevated, and the sea denuded the superficial beds and retired. This corresponds to the Upper Boulder-clay and coarse gravel of the Norfolk section.

4. Now rivers cut their channels, and there commenced luxuriant vegetable growth, which corresponds with the excavation of the Mundesley river and the Mundesley peat.

5. Then a depression, during which was formed the Buttery-clay the Fens. This corresponds with the Upper Sands and Gravel of Mundesley.

6. And, finally, comes the second peat and the present state of nature.

I believe this succession is true for a far larger area than the Fenlands, perhaps for all Great Britain.

In northern Euboea, central eastern Greece, an up to 3 km-thick polygenetic melange (Pagondas complex) is structurally interleaved between a Triassic–Jurassic carbonate platform (Pelagonian Zone) and an overriding harzburgitic ophiolite. The melange mainly comprises late Triassic shallow-water limestone and calciturbidites, radiolarites, Triassic–Jurassic tholeiites, alkaline basalts and minor andesites. The units concerned range from kilometre-sized thrust sheets, and detached blocks, to broken formation and structureless, or bedded matrix-supported conglomerates (diamictite). The melange includes remnants of Neotethyan oceanic lithosphere, overlain by radiolarites, hemipelagic carbonates and distal calciturbidites derived from a Mesozoic carbonate platform. Tholeiites were erupted at a Triassic–Jurassic spreading axis, whilst within-plate-type alkali basalts are interpreted mainly as seamounts. Kilometre-scale detached blocks of shallow-water coralline limestone are identified as collapsed atolls, formed within an ocean and/or along the rifted continental margin. Volcaniclastic sediments are locally interbedded with radiolarite, and reflect post-volcanic erosion of the ocean floor. Intra-oceanic convergence began, apparently in late early Jurassic time, giving rise to the Euboea ophiolite above an inferred westwards-dipping subduction zone. The Pagondas Complex then developed as an accretionary prism. The subduction trench later collided with the Pelagonian passive margin, driving the hot Euobea ophiolite over the accretionary complex, to produce amphibolites and greenschists of the metamorphic sole. Trench–margin collision then drove the entire supra-subduction zone complex, apparently eastwards, downflexing the Pelagonian carbonate platform to form a foredeep in which late Jurassic (Kimmeridgian–Tithonian) radiolarian sediments accumulated. During emplacement, the accretionary complex was disrupted and partly resedimented as debris flows, turbiditic volcaniclastic sandstone and shale in a foredeep, or foreland basin setting.

A plea is made for the wider use of concise descriptive phrases instead of rock-names of the conventional type, which are usually uninformative. The writer's case is discussed in relation to the so-called “mugearites”.

The name of Geikie has become as familar to present-day geologists as those of Murchison, of Sedgwick, or of Lyell were to our immediate prodecessors.

Notices and portraits of his elder brother, Sir Arehibald Geikie, K.C.B., the President of the Royal Society, have already appeared in the Geological Magazine (see Vol. for 1890, Pl. II, pp. 49–51, and 1907, Pl. I, pp. 1–2); it is high time to present that of the younger brother, Professor James Geikie, who occupies the leading place in our science and in geography in Edinburgh and itys University, and is known every where also by his published works, especially by his contributions to Glacial Geology.

Ichthyosaur remains found in late Triassic shallow marine limestones in Quebrada Doña Inés Chica (latitude 26° 07′ S; longitude 69° 20′ W), northern Chile, are the oldest known ichthyosaur fossils from Central and South America. The previous oldest South American ichthyosaur was recorded in Hettangian rocks, also from northern Chile. The fossils comprise five worn teeth, one paddle bone and one scapula or humerus fragment, all collected from a single bed at the same locality. Although the material has not been identified to a generic or specific level, its presence alone broadens the knowledge of the distribution and habitat of Triassic ichthyosaurs. Late Triassic ammonites and brachiopods in the same stratum provide the age control.