At the Meeting of the British Association in 1886, a facetted and striated pebble from the Salt Range, Punjab, was exhibited and described, by A. B. Wynne, F.G.S. Another and larger one was presented by Dr. W. T. Blanford, F.R.S.

During the discussion that ensued, the question was considered whether the stones had received their shapes from the action of windblown sand. Having made a special study of sand-carving in a favourable region, the writer became interested in the subject, and with a view to compare the Punjab stones with the sand-facetted rockfragments so common in various parts of America, wrote to Dr. Blanford in order to obtain specimens of the stones in question. By the kindness of Dr. Blanford and Mr. Wynne, plaster casts of both the specimens described by them have been sent to me.

A Very important discovery was made independently by Mr. Davison, and somewhat earlier by Mr. T. Mellard Reade, when they demonstrated that, on the hypothesis of the earth having cooled as a solid body, there is within it a certain level, which is called by Mr. Davison the “ surface of zero-strain,” and for which Mr. Reade has adopted the term “ level of no strain.” At this level compression ceases, and for a certain distance beneath it extension, or stretching of the layers of the globe, takes the place of compression.

On De La Beche's Geological Survey Map of Cornwall are three colours representing the associated rocks at, and on each side of the Manacle Point. The Point itself and for a considerable distance south of it is represented as a greenstone. Partially encased in the greenstone and to the south of it is gabbro, which forms the main mass of this rock in the Lizard district. On the north side of the greenstone which forms the extreme south wall of Porthonstock Cove is hornblende-schist, which with some serpentine and other rocks terminates against the killas, or slates near Porthalla.

Several observers with seeming good reason have drawn attention to the fact that the greenstone as represented on the map is made to cover much too large an area to the south, and that any one walking from this direction, or the reverse, finds gabbro where the former rock was expected to occur.