The meteor took a direction S. 45° E., and exploded with a loud noise at an altitude of about 20 miles, the cloud remaining several minutes. The inclination to the horizon was probably not less than 30° or more than 60°. The fragments of the meteorite, which have not yet been found, probably fell 20 or 30 miles N.W. of Lebanon.

A Collection of Invertebrate fossils, obtained from various horizons and localities in Egypt and consisting principally of molluscan remains, has been sent home for examination and description by Captain H. G. Lyons, R.E., Director of the Geological Survey of that country.

The oldest specimens represented belong to Upper Cretaceous rocks, and are dealt with in the present communication. They include one species of Gasteropod and eight Lamellibranchs, two of the latter group being regarded as hitherto undescribed forms. It need hardly be stated here that most of our knowledge respecting these groups of Mollusca as represented in Egypt during this period has been ably summarized by Professor Dr. von Zittel, in his elaborate memoir, “Beiträge zur Geologie und Palaeontologie der Libyschen Wiiste und der angrenzenden Gebiete von Aegypten,” published in the Paleaontographica for 1883. For subsequent details we are mainly indebted to the researches of Professor Mayer-Eymar and Prof. Johannes Walther: to the former for his monograph, “Zur Geologie Egyptens,” which includes a list of Cretaceous shells from the neighbourhood of the Great Pyramid; and to the latter for his paper, “L'Apparition de la Craie aux Environs des Pyramides,” containing a list of molluscan species from the same distinct and horizon, though particularly localized as Abu Eoasch, Golea, etc.

A paucity of Gasteropod species is noticeable in the faunistic lists of the Upper Cretaceous period of Egypt, with, however, a large representation of bivalve mollusca. The most abundant forms appear to belong to the genus Ostrea and its allies, a fact also observable in the corresponding faunas of Algeria and Tunis. In all three countries a similar conchological facies is apparent, whilst some species show a marked resemblance to Syrian forms. Certain difficulties have arisen in assigning a satisfactory horizon to the Egyptian species here discussed, though the evidence appears to be in favour of a Turonian age—an opinion somewhat suggested by the palaaontological work of M. Jules Welsch, who has discovered in Algeria, Sphærulites (Sauvagesia) Sharpei, Bayle, a typical Turoniiin shell of Portugal, associated with Ostrea acanihonota, O. Boncheroni, etc. This author, therefore, inclines to the belief that the majority of Algerian species hitherto recognised by Coquand, Peron, and others as of Santonian age, are more probably Turonian. If this be accepted, then the Cretaceous rocks near Cairo (Abu Roasch, etc.), containing similar shells, which have been considered as Senonian by Schweinfurth, Walther, etc., should equally be regarded as Turonian, though apparently the Portuguese mollusc, Sauvagesia Sharpei, has not yet been identified in Egypt.

When I received the invitation to open this discussion my first feeling was of diffidence, for, the interior of the earth being necessarily inaccessible to direct observation, the solution of the problems connected with it has principally been left to mathematical research, and this must remain the final court of appeal. In these circumstances it seemed verging on presumptuousness to address an audience consisting so largely of mathematicians in inauguration of a discussion on the interior of the earth. Second thoughts showed that there was much to he said against this view, for, though mathematics is the court of appeal, it can only decide on the facts placed before it by the sciences of observation, and so the discussion seems profitably prefaced by a statement of the leading facts which have been collected, and those conclusions which are so directly derived from them as to have almost the validity of observation.

The Clarke Head fault megabreccia was produced within a major Late Palaeozoic transcurrent structure (the Minas fault system) which separates the displaced Meguma terrane of southern Nova Scotia from rocks more typical of the Avalon Superterrane. A large clast of anomalously high grade metabasite embedded in the clay matrix of the fault megabreccia displays a fresh granulite facies mineralogy (2-pyroxene + garnet + plagioclase) and mylonitic to ultramylonitic textures induced by anhydrous shearing deep in the roots of the fault zone. Whole rock geochemistry reveals the granulite protolith to have been a continental, within-plate mafic magma transitional between theoleiitic and alkaline. The original geochemical signature has survived strong dynamic recrystallization at granulite grade. Well-preserved REE abundances testify to a lack of metasomatic fractionation during high grade shearing under water-absent conditions. Sm—Nd data indicate that the basic granulite has a TDM age of c. 1 Ga. Isotopic comparisons with adjacent areas reveal similar TDM ages both north and south of the Minas fault system. The high grade clast may be typical of the lower crust in Nova Scotia and is thought to offer a rare window into the deep crust of the Avalon Superterrane in North America.

Until Mr. R. B. Newton described certain fossils from Singapore found by the writer and Dr. Hanitsch of the Raffles Library and Museum, very little was known of the geology of this island, which is the nearest of the British Malayan possessions to those parts of the Netherlands Indies that have been so ably described by Verbeek, Fennema, Molengraaf, Wing Easton, Martin, and others. This proximity to the islands of the archipelago renders the study of the geology of Singapore doubly interesting, since here may be expected data that will eventually assist materially in connecting the geology of the Malay Peninsula with that of the Malay Archipelago, and more particularly with that of Borneo. The object of the present paper is to show that the sedimentary beds of Singapore may be referred to one of the series of rocks which enter into the structure of the Federated Malay States.

Amongst the corals collected by the Geological Survey during the past season, and submitted to me for determination, two specimens call for special remark, since they appear at first sight to occur out of their true zonal position. They were found by Mr. Dixon on the Pembrokeshire coast, to the south and south-west of Castle Martin. In each case Mr. Dixon gives the horizon as C2–S1, in the terms of Dr. Vaughan's classification. They are, accordingly, of Lower Visean age.

In 1891, Frank S. Goodwin, Esq., of Bakewell, Derbyshire, presented to the British Museum (Natural History) a pair of antlers of red-deer, with fragments of the calvarium attached, which had been obtained, with other cervine remains, from a tufaceous deposit of comparatively modern date near Bakewell, Derbyshire.

Four volcanic rocks from northern Tunisia and a syntectonic granite from northeastern Algeria were dated by the K—Ar method. The stratigraphic position of the dated rocks is determined mainly by their relationship to biostratigraphically calibrated Miocene tectonism. The K—Ar age of the granite, which is younger than latest Burdigalian and older than Early Tortonian, is 16.8 m.y. (*15.8 m.y. calculated with western decay constants). Rhyodacite at 10.9 (*10.4), rhyolite at 8.8 (*8.3), basalt at 7.3 (*6.9) and adesite at 7.0 (*6.7) m.y. are all apparently younger than Lower Tortonian.

The occurrence of plant-remains in the Silurian and Cambrian rocks is a subject of great interest, but one which has not hitherto been sufficiently investigated. Many supposed plants have been described by Emmons, Hall, Billings, and Dawson, from the older Palæozoic rocks of North America, and little doubt can be entertained of the vegetable nature of some even of the most ancient of these. Many, however, as believed by Professor E. Forbes and Mr. Salter, are certainly referable to the tracks or burrows of marine animals. More recently the Cambrian rocks of Sweden have yielded to the researches of Torell and Linnarsson some remarkable impressions and casts of fossils, which are believed to be of a vegetable nature (Geol. Mag., September, Vol. VI., p. 393, Plates XI., XII., and XIII.). In Britain there is not, as far as I am aware, any instance of the occurrence of plant-remains in deposits of Lower Silurian age, as to the nature of which all authorities are agreed. The Oldhamia of the Cambrian rocks is believed by Mr. Salter to be a plant, but good authorities would place it either amongst the Polyzoa or Hydrozoa. The Cruziana semiplicata of the Lingula Flags has often been assigned to the Fucoids, but it is believed by Mr. Salter to be “the filled-up burrow of a marine worm” (Mem. Gaol. Survey, vol. iii., p. 248). Long ago Professor McCoy described from the Skiddaw slates (lowest Llandeilo) certain fossils which he believed to be fucoids (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. iv., p. 223, and Pal. Foss., pl. i. A). After studying a large number of specimens, however, I have been compelled to come to the conclusion, held by Mr. Salter and Professor Harkness, that these fossils (viz. Palæochorda major, P. minor, and Chondrites acutangulus) are truly referable to the action of marine worms. Within the last few years, however, I have obtained from the Skiddaw Slates several fossils, which certainly do not admit of being explained in this manner, though I would not go so far as to assert that they are unquestionably plants. The age of the deposit in which they occur renders them, at any rate—whatever their true nature may be—of sufficient interest to merit a short description.

In 1928 Dr. P. Tesch published a note on the occurrence of an igneous rock in Dutch Coal-measures (1).1 As this is the first occurrence of an igneous rock in Holland, the present authors have decided to publish a more detailed petrographical description of the rock, together with an attempt to correlate it with similar rocks in Great Britain and Germany.