In reprinting this article some slight chages and corrections have been made, but it remains substantially the same, perhaps with trifling improvements. [Any notable addition is included in brackets of this kind.]

The Hill of Beath, which lies 3 miles to the north-east of Dunfermline, Fife, is an isolated hill with steep, but rounded, contours, and rises fully 250 feet above the surrounding plateau. Whilst the hill itself consists of dark grey tuff, the rocks forming the plateau belong to the Coal-measures of the Carboniferous Limestone series. The latter are thrown into gentle anticlines and synclines, the dip on the limbs of the folds usually lying between 10 and 15 degrees. The outcrop of the tuff has the form of an ellipse, the long axis of which trends east and west and measures nearly 1,000 yards, whilst the breadth of the ellipse is rather more than 500 yards. The distribution of the outcrops of the Carboniferous rocks around the hill and the evidence from the coal workings show that the tuff is not interbedded with the sediments, but that it breaks through them somewhat like an intrusive rock. Sir Archibald Geikie recognized that the Hill of Beath was a volcanic neck, and this view has been confirmed by recent mining operations in a conclusive manner.

The second volume of the Catalogue of Cretaceous Bryozoa in the British Museum, of which the manuscript has been completed, contains the description of various new Cretaceous species. Such, a catalogue inevitably takes some months in passing through the press, during which it might happen that the species were anticipated by description elsewhere. To avoid the risk of reduplication of the names it is most convenient to publish the diagnoses. Fuller accounts of the species, with illustrations, will be given in the Catalogue.

Although small examples of Ammonites are fairly common in the Chalk Rock (Turonian) of this country, large examples are decidedly rare. The only species of Ammonites as yet recorded from this bed are Prionocyclus neptuni, Geinitz, sp., and Pachydiscus peramplus, Mantell, sp. The former species is always of a small size and is not at all common, but small examples of the latter species, averaging 1½ inches in diameter, are often found, and one large example measuring 8 inches across has been recorded by Mr. H. Woods.

A re-examination of the type-specimens of Phacops Weaveri, Salter, in the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street, was recently rendered necessary in connection with my palæontological work on the Tortworth Silurian area, the results of which have been published in the November number of the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, 1908 (vol. lxiv, pp. 512–545), in a joint paper by Professor S. H. Reynolds and myself. A question had arisen in the course of our work as to the occurrence of this species above the Llandovery Beds, for Salter had stated that some of his figured specimens of pygidia (Mon. Brit. Trilob., pl. iii, figs. 2, 3) came from doubtful Ludlow rocks at Horse-shoe Farm, Tortworth. The species had, however, been founded by him previously on specimens from socalled ‘Caradoc’ [= Llandovery] rocks from Long's Quarry, Tortworth, and an outline figure of the pygidium, apparently a restoration based on the three specimens in Jermyn Street (Nos. 19220, 19221, 19222), had then been given. Subsequently a head-shield from the same quarry was figured in his monograph (pl. iii, fig. 1). It is clear that Salter based the species mainly on the pygidial characters, for the head-shield is dismissed with a few inadequate remarks, its resemblance to Ph. caudatus being considered to be very close. The original description given by Salter in 1849 runs as follows:—“P. laevis, capite quam in P. caudato, nisi lobis glabellae tumidioribus;—caudâ triangulari, ferè aequilatera, convexa, apice acuto haud mucronato, axi 13–16 annulate, costis lateralibus 10–12, simplicibus, vix curvatis, ad marginem aequalem angustum abruptè terminatis.” In the diagrammatic figure of the pygidium which accompanied this description only 12 or 13 rings are indicated on the axis and 10 or 11 ribs on the lateral lobes, which might incline us to think that an immature individual was chosen for the figure, since Salter in his remarks on the species says (op. cit.) that “young specimens have not the full number of ribs”, but no mention that this is the case is found in the explanation of the plate. In Salter's subsequent work (Mon. Brit. Trilob., p. 58) the tail is described as “broad-triangular, wider than long; the sides a little convex; the apex short-mucronate; the axis narrow, conical, ribbed by about sixteen rings; the sides very convex with nine to ten arched simple ribs scarcely at all interlined; the margin [= border] narrow, smooth”. The italics in this quotation are mine, as the number of ribs is fewer than that given in his earlier definition of the species. It may here be remarked that Salter in his monograph reproduces verbatim the definition of the species published in the decades, with the addition of the word trigono with reference to the head before the word nisi, and with the insertion of the epithet multicostata after the word œquilatera in the description of the pygidium.

The series of beds containing graptolites in New Zealand occur in the Whakamarama district, which is situated in almost the extreme north-west of the South Island. They consist of intercalated bands of quartzite and carbonaceous argillites, with a north and south strike and dipping at a low angle to the west. As a result of the natural erosion of the land surface taking place more rapidly in the slaty layers than in the harder quartzites, the ridges and stream valleys exhibit a noticeable parallelism, those streams which enter the sea on the western coast usually taking a very sharp bend to the west, and with a somewhat gorgy channel to the sea. The valleys are for the most part densely clothed with forest trees, while the ridges of quartzite are barren, with the exception of a stunted growth of manuka (Leptospermum scoparium and L. ericoides), and in places a covering of peat to a depth of a few inches.

Mr. Osmond Fisher, in an article in the January number of this Magazine, entitled “Convection Currents in the Earth's Interior”, speaks of my views in a way that may give a false conception of what they are on the subject of overthrusts. He appears (inadvertently, no doubt) to credit me with a disbelief in the thrust-planes occurring in the North-West Highlands. I may say at once that I am one of those who admire the way in which a band of enthusiastic geologists have worked out the structure of this most difficult tract of country, and thoroughly believe in the correctness of their conclusions. The principal object of my little paper in the November number of this Magazine (1908) was to caution geologists not to push their new-born views too far in trying to account for structural difficulties by overthrusts. It must be remembered that the Moine thrust-plane has been proved to no more than 10 miles overlap, but may, of course, be much more. Incidentally, I thought the paper likely to elicit a correspondence helping the interpretation of the phenomena of overthrusts.