In 1916 the writer published a list of the vertebrates of which remains had been obtained from the Pleistocene cave and fissure deposits of Malta. Early this year (1919) a few rather fragmentary remains were forwarded by Mr. G. Despott to the British Museum (Nat. Hist.) for identification. These are from the Ghar Dalam Cavern, from which a number of specimens have already been obtained. As some of the specimens lately received add to our knowledge of the fauna in question, it may be worth while to record the following notes.

THE following account is based on the six specimens recorded by Dr. W. D Lang in his paper on “The Ibex-zone at Charmouth, and its relation to the Zones near it” After mentioning the occurrence, in the top of the zone, of an apparently new Polymorphitid, Dr. Lang added the following footnote: “A striking form, 3 to 4 inches in diameter, with numerous, very thin costæ. Two specimens were found (not in place) in the winter, 1915–16, by Lieut. Dan Haggard, who presented them to the British Museum. The author found parts of three specimens in place in the Pyritic Marls in June, 1916. A sixth specimen, the best preserved of all, has been in the British Museum many years, and is labelled ‘Said to be from Lyme Regis’.”

In this Magazine, August, 1919, p. 371, Dr. J. Allan Thomson has an article on the above subject, in which he appears to be expressing the hope that Spirifer cuspidatus may not be taken as the genotype of Spirifer, though he thinks that certain rules of zoological nomenclature drive him to that conclusion.

At the end of a valuable paper on the superficial deposits to the north and north-west of London, Mr. Barrow puts forward certain views as to the origin of escarpments and transverse rivers in the Chiltern Hills and the Weald which can hardly be allowed to pass unchallenged by those interested in the progress of geomorphology, for unless there is more evidence in their favour than has yet been produced these views are not progressive, but distinctly reactionary. To sum up the position in his own words (op. cit., p. 47): “Long after the cessation of all the bending movements which produced the present structure of the Thames Valley, there was a fall of sea-level or a rise of the sea-bottom that brought the beds within reach of marine erosion.

THE country round Bournemouth consists of a wedge-shaped plateau, lying between the River Stour and the sea, and ranging roughly from 100 to 200 feet above sea-level. Of the numerous valleys which intersect it, those that join the Stour present as a rule no special features, but most of those running down to the sea are of exceptional character and are known as chines—a term which does not admit of very accurate definition, but is generally applied only to valleys of more than usual steepness.

THE interesting rock-type hornblendite occurs at the Vavasour Mine, though it has only a very small development. It covers an area of about 600 square feet and is cut by two of the apatitemica veins, which are so numerous at this locality. The rock was incorrectly marked amphibolite on the map in Guide Book 3, International Geological Congress, xii, 1913, facing p. 112.

One internal cast of the pedicle-valve of a species of Athyris seems indistinguishable from A. subtilita Hall which occurs in the Carboniferous of Belgium, and has recently been recorded from Eastern Yunnan. The general shape and narrow median sulcus, the concentric sublamellose growth-ridges, and small, parallel dental plates, are well seen in our specimen.

THERE are two hills named Castle-an-Dinas in West Cornwall, one near Penzance and the one on which the Wolfram Mine is situated, which lies about 2 miles east of St. Columb Major and about 4 miles to the north of the St. Austell granite mass.

The purposes of this short paper are to place on record and to bring to the notice of geologists a deposit of sands and gravels containing numerous marine shells which is exposed on the Durham coast north of Easington. Marine shells (Littorina, Cyprina, etc.) have been collected before from sands and gravels lying above sealevel on this coast, but the deposits containing them have usually been removed in the course of quarrying operations, and no collecion of shells has been preserved in any museum; it is therefore of interest that a deposit has lately been observed which can be examined at any time by geologists, and from which specimens of shells can easily be obtained. It is also of importance that the exact mode of origin of these particular deposits should be determined.

THE speeds of the currents employed in the elutriation process in sorting diversely sized material bear no relation whatever to the speeds of the currents, which are competent to transport the same material. The elutriation process in no way imitates the natural processes whereby sediments are transported, sorted, and deposited. The determination of competent velocities in relation to size of material transported is quite a distinct investigation, and one which still calls for much study in spite of the time and attention given to it by numerous workers.

IN the Geological Magazine for February, 1919, J. W. Jackson and W. E. Alkins described the occurrence of a quartzose conglomerate at Caldon Low, Staffordshire. In August one of us (F. B.) pointed out some previous references to this outcrop. The curious and ambiguous reply by Messrs. Jackson and Alkins

1. Lateritization has been found to affect a variety of rocks in Sierra Leone, including norite, granitic rocks, and detrital deposits.

2. The norite of Sierra Leone is not deeply lateritized except in highly jointed areas or in certain bands readily susceptible to the alteration. It yields a gibbsitic laterite. A core of unaltered norite is enclosed in a light-coloured halo (“zone of leaching” of Professor Lacroix), which passes gradually into a red-brown laterite (“zone of concretion”). The transition from core to laterite is a rapid one. The minerals of the norite are attacked in the following order: felspar, diallage, hypersthene, magnetite (titanomagnetite).

3. Norite containing only a small quantity of disseminated magnetite is less readily lateritized than norite containing a moderate amount. Where, however, the norite includes an unusually high proportion, as in the streaks of magnetite, lateritization proceeds very slowly.

4. The granitic rocks of the Protectorate are frequently lateritized to a depth of 15 feet, and sometimes even to 30 feet. Nevertheless laterite is only slightly developed in the inselberg mountain districts of the northern part of the country. Lateritization of granitic rocks proceeds as follows: the rocks decompose into a white kaolinitic product, which passes into.brown lateritic clay (“zone of leaching”); this lateritic clay then develops into laterite (“zone of concretion”). There is a progressive change from the unaltered rock to the laterite crust, the granitic rocks in this respect presenting a marked contrast to the basic rocks.

5. Lateritization affects detrital deposits also, particularly the Pleistocene sands and clays of the coastal plain. The phenomenon is most pronounced in the felspathic sands and diminishes in the more argillaceous beds until it is practically non-existent in pure clay. The typical lateritite is a red-brown scoriaceous rock, moderately hard, and in the hand specimen coarsely porous. It forms a crust about 10 feet thick at the top of the Pleistocene beds. This lateritite is indistinguishable from the laterite derived from other rocks.

6. The scoriaceous laterite (lateritite) was produced by the growth and ultimate coalescence of numerous small ferruginous concretions, followed by the removal of the soft material between the concretions.

7. The laterite formed from detrital deposits passes locally into lateritic iron-ore by increase in the percentage of iron oxide. Such iron-ores are well developed along the inner margin of the coastal plain encircling the colony, and occur principally in the neighbourhood of Devil Hole, near Waterloo. They were derived originally from the titanomagnetite which enters largely into the composition of the norite, and they are consequently very rich in titanium.

8. Lateritization is frequently an important factor in the production of caves and subterranean channels, owing to the ease with which the unconsolidated material is removed from beneath the thick hard crust of laterite.

WITH the exception of the Catalogue of Fossil Cephalopoda by Foord in the British Museum (Natural History) and the same author's monograph Carboniferous Cephalopoda of Ireland, the bibliography of this family as represented in Carboniferous time is scattered through many volumes and publications. Not one of the publications makes any attempt to define the precise horizon in the Carboniferous Series at which any one of the species occurs, or indicates its persistence in geological time.

Among the enisled high plateaux of Eastern Utah the brilliant isostasy theory had its birth. When these arid mountains first became the subject of special description, about 1880, no such thing as a distinctive desert geology was entertained. Possibility of a definite geographic cycle in land sculpture was one of the modern earth conceptions yet undreamed. Competency of the wind as a general erosive agency was not yet established. Operation of epeirogenic movements was little understood. Omission of such basic considerations necessarily led to curious aberration in interpretation of the phenomena presented by lands of little rain.

In 1908 the Productus humerosus beds in the Carboniferous Limestone of Caldon Low, N. Staffs, were tentatively assigned to the Lower Dibunophyllum zone, D1, of Vaughan's classification. The slender evidence for this correlation was set out in my paper on the Midland Area.

1. A sample of modern Fenland silt containing 8·98 per cent of carbonate was found on minaralogical examination to include dolomite as well as aragonite in its mineral assemblage.

2. The dolomite is present in fresh angular crystal grains which suggest a secondary and recent origin of the mineral. It has possibly been deposited from sea-water which periodically covers the foreshore of the Fenland border of the Wash.

3. The general mineral composition of the silt resembles closely that of certain geologically recent deposits of Cambridgeshire, and points to the boulder-clay left by the North Sea glacier as the chief source of the material of which the silt is composed. The silt has mainly been deposited by sea-currents which carry southwards the eroded glacial deposits of the South Yorkshire and North Licoln-shire coasts.

4. An attempt is made to interpret the results of a chemical analysis of the silt in the light of its mineralogical composition, chiefly with regard to carbonate, potash, and phosphate. Muscovite, is found to be the main source of potash, and apatite of phosphate in the silt.

THE Geological Department of Glasgow University has recently received from Dr. W. R. Smellie and Mr. J. V. Harrison some fossils collected by them which throw further light on the age of the limestones of the Persian arc at the north-western end of Luristan, about 100 miles north-east of Baghdad. The locality, Gilan, is on a tributary of the Diala, about 30 miles south-east of Kasr-i-Shirin, a well-known station on the main road from Baghdad to Teheran. The geology of this part of the Persian frontier has been investigated by J. de Morgan (Miss. Sci. Perse, vol. iii, pt. i, Étud. Géol., 1905, pp. 71–112), who has given a geological map (ibid., pl. xix) of an area about 60 miles south-east of Gilan. De Morgan has identified there a folded series of Cretaceous and Eocene limestones, with lacustrine and gypsiferous Miocene beds. The locality at which the fossils were collected by Messrs. Smellie and Harrison is in line with the strike of the rocks in the area of de Morgan's map.

THE well-known and highly sensitive tests afforded by ferricyanide, ferrocyanide, and thiocyanate solutions for the detection of iron may be adapted, at the cost of a little trouble, to the microchemical investigation of certain rocks in thin section, as can also the equally well-known fusion test for manganese. The following methods have proved useful in special circumstances of the nature indicated in each case.

Description.—This specimen is characterized by a subrectangular whorl-section with depressed venter, which is peculiar to Fontannes's group of “Phylloceras” tortisulcatum. The greatest thickness of the whorls is near the umbilical margin, but the sides are almost parallel and the ventral area is evenly convex, not flattened. The ratio of height to thickness is about 7: 6, as compared with 4: 3 in Sowerbyceras tortisulcatum, according to Pompeckj, and with 8: 7 at most in S. protortisulcatum Pompeckj sp. The umbilicus is comparatively large and deep; its walls are rounded and not abrupt. There are about four constrictions to the whorl, beginning as conspicuous grooves with a forward bend at the umbilicus, but becoming less distinct on the lateral area. After bending back again they become once more pronounced, passing across the periphery with a sinus that is concave forwards.