The paucity of animal remains in the Coal-measures of Somerset has been recognized for many years. More recently Dr. H. Bolton has described fossils from various horizons in the coalfield, but his records relate chiefly to insects and marine fossils, while non-marine Lamellibranchs appear to be unusually rare at most horizons. A number of species of non-marine Lamellibranchs have been recorded by various authors, but in view of the wide interpretation formerly given to the various species, many of these records cannot be used for zonal purposes.

Place two or three fingers of the left hand in a fixed position and lay the right hand by the side of the tip of the fingers in such a position that the former makes an angle of some 20° to 30° with the fingers. Then turn the right hand clockwise, there will appear a series of arcuate folds around the tip of the fingers as well as some échelon folds between the left and the right hand. The greater the angle through which the right hand is twisted, the more predominant will the folds become. In this way we can produce the cranium and the limb of the system but not always the crown, which only begins to appear when the entire palm of the right hand is placed flat on the paper and twisted through a larger angle.

The Carnic Alps, the summit-ridge of which is the frontier between Austria and Italy, are famous for their Palaeozoic formations, which contain large and beautiful faunas of Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Upper Carboniferous, and Permian age. The Carnic Alps form a very important part of the whole Alpine region, because they display clear evidence of Palaeozoic orogenesis; for example, the Taconic orogenesis between Ordovician and Silurian (which is of relatively little importance), and some phases of the Variscan orogenesis (between Devonian and Upper Carboniferous, and between the limestone of Trogkofel, which is equivalent to the stage of Artinsk, and the Lower Permian).

(1) When the diameter of the umbilicus of an ammonite is plotted against the diameter of the whole shell, or the whorl-thickness plotted against the whorl-height, the curves obtained are very commonly straight lines for the greater part of their courses.

(2) If, as is usually the case, these lines do not pass through the origin, the formula for the ammonite spiral is of the form r + c = eβθ and not r = eβθ.

(3) If the straight lines do not pass through the origin, it is useless to express one dimension as a percentage of the other and compare these percentages in different shells.

(4) There is no way of foreseeing, before the measurements are made, whether the dimensions of a species will plot accurately on a single curve or whether they will show a considerable amount of scatter. If, however, they do fall accurately on a single curve, this fact is an argument for the validity of the species, and the curve is a useful aid in the identification of other specimens.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, when the district was mapped by the Geological Survey, the acid rocks (rhyolites) near Antrim town at Tardree Cottage, Scolboa, and Sandy Braes were regarded as older than both basalt sets, the lower and the upper basalts of Co. Antrim (1).

At several localities in Japan quartz-basalts are known. El Professor S. Kodzu mentioned the mode of occurrence and chemical properties of the quartz-basalt of Kasayama, Province Nagato (l).

Lastly a reference must be made to the nu-delta structures which characterize the contact zone between the continent of Eastern Asia and the floor of the Pacific. in the Sakhalin-Yezo-Kuriles system we find, by experiment, that the northern part of the system was pressed towards the continent to a greater extent than the southern part of it. This is a consequence to be naturally expected. In the Kuriles we find a succession of fractures which prove, beyond any doubt, that the region to the west of those lines effected a southerly or south-westerly horizontal shear against the Pacific. Such a movement not being parallel to the continental border, would necessarily arouse a lateral compression between the continent and the ocean base. Now since the southern terminus of the triangular area covered by the system lies against the Inshan zone which behaved as a strengthening rib on the part of the continental mass against lateral pressure, it would be extremely difficult for the southern apex of the triangular area to shift westward. On the other hand the northern part of the area does not encounter such extraordinary resistance. Consequently the whole area suffers a counter-clockwise twisting movement with the result that the nu-delta system was generated. In this way we are able to understand how the Sakhalin-Yezo-Kuriles system was produced through a southward movement of Eastern Asia.

Two rival hypotheses as to the origin of the Echinoidea are prevalent to-day. One of them postulates as the primitive form an organism built of a few large plates arranged in vertical series; the other demands that the earliest types should have been “scaly”, with many small plates which were regular only along the radii. Those who hold the former hypothesis see in the Ordovician Bothriocidaris a close approximation to their ideal; supporters of the latter claim that the Silurian genera Echinocystis and Palaeo1discus represent fairly well the ancestral qualities of the class. So long as Bothriocidaris is regarded as a true Echinoid, the Silurian forms lose much of their claim to be considered truly primitive; the chronological sequence is against them.

Reticuloceras Reticulatum is the typical goniatite in the topmost beds of the Sabden Shales of Lancashire. This form is known from the Exeter district (Collins and Crick, Q.J.G.S., vol. lxvii, 1911, p. 393), but apparently the only recorded occurrence of this form in North Devon is by Wheelton Hind, who, in the report of a lecture on the correlation of the rocks in North Devon with other areas, is stated to have said, “Glyphioceras reticulatum has been obtained by Mr. Inkermann Rogers” (Proc. Geol. Ass., vol. xxi, part viii, p. 463). In the summer of 1928, Mr. Rogers was good enough to take the writer over the ground at Ilsey Beach, Lower Yelland, where he had obtained the specimen in question. The beds on this beach contain Goniatites spiralis and other goniatites, but not R. reticulatum. Inquiries at the British Museum (Natural History) elicited the information that no R. reticulatum from Devon was in the Hind Collection. As the specimen cannot be traced, confirmation is impossible. Its identity with R. reticulatum, however, is manifestly erroneous, owing to its association with G. spiralis, and with the lamellibranch, Posidonomya becheri, forms which do not survive to the top of the Bowland Shales of Lancashire.