Professor James Hall's discovery, in 1864, of his remarkable genus Trematonotus, in the Niagara rocks of North America, formed an interesting and valuable addition to his researches in conchological science.

The special features of this shell consist in its Bellerophontoid appearance, coupled with the presence of a single row of isolated perforations on the central part of the dorsal surface. It was somewhat erroneously regarded by its author as a sub-genus of Leveillia (Porcellia), though its unique characters would mark it as a distinct form, and probably more intimately related to the well-known Haliotis of our modern seas than to any other known shell.

In the Devonian sandstones and grits of Torbay abundant quartz veins are occasionally developed, indicating a moderate amount of heat. Neither the quartz-grains nor occasional fragments of felspar are to any extent affected.

At Dartmouth, on the raised-beach platform, quartz is largely developed together with a little felspar and chlorite, indicating sufficient heat to form or re-form these minerals. At Slapton Sands the grits are about the same as in Torbay: felspar granules remain angular and intact.

Between Beesands village and Tinsey Head the quartz-grains occasionally show signs of incipient solution, as also do the tourmalines. In one slide (No. 5) the approach of schistosity seems to be heralded by minute roughly parallel cracks cemented by iron ores and a pale-green mica. Minute crystals of pyrites, some rectangular, are formed in the rock. At the Start, in rare cases, grains or remnants of grains of original granitic quartz can be detected in the schist. Tourmaline is partially dissolved with recrystallization.

When writing my paper “On the Igneous Rocks of the South of the Isle of Man,” I was led to compare a Manx melaphyre, from Scarlet Point, with a rock described by Prof. E. Hull as a melaphyre, occurring at Ballytrasna, near Limerick, and belonging to the “Upper Trap-band,” a little below the basal shales of the Coal-measures. Through the kindness of Prof. Hull, a chip of the rock was sent to me by the Irish Geological Survey. The specimen was black and basaltic-looking. I did not obtain satisfactory sections of it in time for my paper, but have since had excellent ones made. On examining them I was immediately struck by the resemblance of the rock to the augitite of Paschkapole, between Velmin and Boreslau, in Bohemia, with a section of which I compared it. Professor Hull describes the rock of Ballytrasna as containing “numerous large crystals and groups of banded felspar”; but I failed to find a single felspar in four sections, nor did I observe any in Allport's section, No. 1902, from the same locality, which agrees with my sections.

Since the advent, in 1840, of Sir Win. Logan's paper “On the Characters of the Beds of Clay immediately below the Coal Seams of South Wales,” underclays have generally been regarded as representing the soils on which grew the vegetation now forming the coal. I am not aware, however, that any definite and detailed hypothesis has been put forward to account for their origin. The superior interest attaching to the question of the origin of coal has apparently overshadowed the less important underclay, and it has been left to fit itself in with any particular hypothesis of the former which happened to be in favour. At the same time, two general views of its origin have been suggested which do not, however, go into any detail as to the exact manner in which it has been brought about.

While engaged in the examination of the superficial deposits of the Maltese Islands, I have often met with rounded pebbles and angular fragments of a black, crystalline limestone, either lying on the rock surfaces, or embedded in the Quaternary formations.

The late Professor Leith Adams drew attention to the same fact as long ago as 1867, and in a paper which was published in the Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. he expressed an opinion that the fragments which he had seen lying on the surfaces of the sides and summits of the Gozitan Hills, belonged to a formation that was of a much later age than any of the rocks that are now to be found in situ in the islands.

Dr. John Murray, too, notes in his brochure on the Maltese Islands the occurrence of similar fragments in the neighbourhood of Marsa Scirocco, and he further adds that no evidences of the rock having been found in situ in the islands had hitherto been recorded. The remarks of these gentlemen led me to consider the matter attentively, and I have, during the last year, been carrying on investigations with the object of discovering the origin of the black marble, the result of which has been to show that it is but a variety of the Lower Coralline Limestone, the basement bed of the Maltese series, and that it occurs extensively in situ in that formation.

Several years ago Mr. W. H. Hudleston, Prof. J. F. Blake and myself obtained large quantities of Waldheimia (Zeilleria) Hudlestoni, Walker, from the quarry on the Suffield Heights near Scarborough. I had separated several specimens which appeared to differ from the typical form; on rearranging my collection, I carefully examined them, and found that they were covered with fine strise and also had the characteristic form of the genus TerebratuUna.

The bed in which they occur is described by Hudleston and Blake, Q.J.G.S. vol. xxxiii. p. 331. This quarry has been long noted for the quantity of small sponges, Spongia floriceps, Spongia corallina, etc., which it contains. It is to be noticed that Quenstedt “die Brachiopoden,” p. 224, states that this brachiopod appears to prefer exclusively a spongy layer as its dwelling place.

During a stay of nearly six weeks, made last July and August, at the Lizard, Cornwall, I had ample opportunity of correcting former, and making some fresh observations.

With regard to the first of these, and to some of the strictures recently passed on them, I found that I had little or nothing to regret as to what I had already written on the subject, with the exception of the “felsitic-like-rock” at Housel Cove, which I should now rather regard as a mass segregated, or separated out of the common magma, common magma, than as an altered portion of the hornblende-schist as I then described it—my object at the time being to show that it was not a dyke; a view I am still convinced of. I now pass on to recent observations.