Professor Sir Edgeworth David was born in 1858 at St. Fagan's Rectory, near Cardiff, and was educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford, becoming head of the school and captain of the football and boat clubs. In 1876 he was elected to the Senior Classical Scholarship at New College, Oxford, and graduated in 1880, having won further distinctions in classics and in athletics. He had included in his studies a course of geology under Professor Prestwich, and had commenced in South Wales his life-long research upon the problems of glaciation. His geological studies were continued in London under Professor Judd, at the Royal School of Mines, and in 1882 he was appointed to the Geological Survey of New South Wales, under the late Mr. C. S. Wilkinson. On his arrival in Sydney in November of that year he made an investigation of the very fossiliferous Silurian beds of Yass, and shortly afterwards commenced the study of the rich tin-bearing deep-leads and alluvium of New England, completing a large quarto memoir thereon in 1887. His duties led him to visit many pirts of the State, but attention was now devoted chiefly to the Survey of the Hunter River Coalfield, which has occupied much of his time ever since; indeed, part only of his researches thereon has yet appeared. This investigation has been of immense value both economically and scientifically. The western portion, or Maitland coalfield, the extension of which was discovered during his survey, has proved the most important coalfield in Australasia.

The question whether N. China was under the grip of Polar severity towards the close of the Tertiary or the beginning of the Pleistocene time, and whether there was sufficient precipitation to allow the existence of large glaciers even if the temperature had become for a time arctic, has, on account of its important bearing on the problem of the cause of glaciation, aroused from time to time forcible but conflicting arguments. As cumulative evidence tends to show the wide prevalence of desert conditions all over N. China throughout recent geological times, geologists seem to have generally agreed, and naturally so, to provide a negative answer to the second part of the question. But as to the first part, it remains so far completely shrouded in doubt. In matter of this kind nobody would expect to wrest out truth by mere theoretical contention. Any relevant fact, therefore, deserves to be placed on record.

In the course of collecting in the Ballycastle coalfield, the species described in this note were obtained. Details of the associated fauna will be found in the forthcoming memoir of the Geological Survey of Ireland relating to the district. It is only necessary to, mention here that the beds from which the present material comes are, in the memoir, referred to a D2 horizon.

The terms “ kame ” and “ esker ” have been applied in England to various mounds and ridges of sand and gravel. For some, such as those in South-east Essex either name is inappropriate, since they are not glacial deposits but are tide-formed banks of shelly sand. Most of the described English kames and eskers are clearly related to glacial formations, and their distribution and structure throw light on the later stages of British glaciation.