On a visit to Devonshire, in August, 1879, I was conducted, by my friend, Mr. John Edward Lee, F.G.S., of Torquay, to a recently discovered locality at Lower Dunscombe, near Chudleigh, in which large Goniatites occur in considerable numbers in a bed of red limestone. On the slope of a chain of hills, not far from one of the farm-houses belonging to Lord Clifford, there is a ruined quarry, in which a vertical face of limestone is exposed.

I have read with much interest Mr. Reid's paper on the Glacial Deposits of Cromer. It is a valuable contribution towards the elucidation of a difficult subject. I cannot, however, think that at present the mode of accumulation of glacial deposits is finally settled. The old people, among whom I count myself, used to consider these heterogeneous mixtures to have been dropped from floating-ice, or to have gone down, ice and all, to the bottom of the sea, when so much of the ice had been thawed that the mineral matter exceeded one-twentieth of the whole bulk. Now, however, many of the younger geologists, and especially those connected with the Survey, attribute much more importance to the action of great glaciers or ice-sheets, enveloping not only whole countries, but also filling up and advancing over what are at present sea-beds.

For the purposes of a memoir, about to be published by H.M. Geological Survey of England, on the Geology of parts of Norfolk, I have been for some time past engaged in a critical examination and revision of such lists of the so-called “Pre-Glacial Forest Bed” Vertebrata, as have appeared from time to time in various publications. And it is intended to publish the results of this work in detail, when figures of the more important specimens will be given, together with particulars of the reasons for the alterations and additions which it is deemed necessary to make. It seemed desirable, however, as some time must elapse before the entire work can be accomplished, to publish, as occasion serves, short notes of some of the changes about to be made; and it is hoped that these notes will not be without interest to the readers of this Magazine.

Loch Maree runs roughly parallel with the strike of the beds of the Pre-Cambrian rocks, consequently there is no great thickness of these rocks exposed along its shores, and we do not find the same variability in their character, as in the area previously described. Along the S.W. shores the gneisses described in Notes 4 and 5 are most frequently met with, especially towards the western end; but about the Loch Maree Hotel, and eastward of this point, the gneisses described in Notes 7 and 8 are the prevailing types.

From what we know about the cooling of the earth and its geological structure, it would seem very probable that the principal features which we now see upon the surface of our planet, as, for instance, the continents and ocean-beds, received their forms in very early times, being, in fact, more or less a primary result of contraction. Since the formation of these impressions, contractions have continued to take place, and secondary results have come about, the character of which would appear in a great measure to be dependent upon the primary results by which they were preceded. Amongst the secondary results I would point to the position occupied by many volcanos.

In 1845 Dr. Dawson recorded the discovery, by himself, of Spirorbis on fossil plants from the Carboniferous sandstones of Tatmagouche, Nova Scotia.