The Tertiary Echinoid fauna from the South-east of Australia is well known from the work of Duncan, Laube, R. Etheridge, jun., and M‘Coy. A collection made by H. P. Woodward, Esq., F.G.S., from the Tertiary beds of Willunga near Adelaide, enables several additions to be made. These are of interest as they considerably strengthen the Cretaceous facies which the fauna owes to the presence of such genera as Holaster and Micraster, and as they throw some additional light upon a genus the stability of which has long been questioned. The collection has been presented to the British Museum (Nat. Hist.) by H. Y. L. Brown, Esq., F.G.S., the Government Geologist for South Australia.

The article by Prof. J. W. Spencer in the last May number of this Magazine brings together many evidences of high continental elevation of North America preceding the Pleistocene or Glacial period. Though Professor Spencer has not proceeded to interpret these observations as revealing in continental elevation the probable cause of the severely cold climate and accumulation of ice-sheets during the Glacial period, I believe that this is a legitimate conclusion, and that it strongly re-enforces the arguments long ago advanced by Lyell and Dana, and recently emphasized anew by Wallace.

The Bunter and Keuper formations of the Trias are very fully developed in the country around Liverpool, and leaving out of consideration the Red Marl, both of these formations seem to be thicker there than anywhere else in Great Britain. The object of this paper is to give a few notes recording the thickness of the Trias, the structure of the various sandstones of which it is composed, and the character of the included pebbles, many of which are of local derivation.

In my last communication, “On the Schists of the Lizard District,” published in this Magazine for April, which was meant as preparatory for the present paper, my object was to show that the rocks known as the “talco-micaceous,” “hornblendic,” and “granulitic” groups were of true igneous origin, also plutonic? and had been formed out of a common, but complex magma, and that all of these groups were made up of rocks differing widely from the types of each of them, which in some instances were seemingly due to differences in the rate of cooling, and to chemical affinity; and yet again in other instances to subsequent mechanical movements and pressure during or after consolidation.

The general question of the rise of older rocks beneath the Cretaceous beds of south-eastern England is now so familiar to geologists that there is no need to discuss it here: it is enough to note that the Secondary beds (beneath the Gault) thin northward, for many miles, from the axis of the Weald. The practical application of our knowledge of the subject is however in its infancy, and our knowledge stops short at the Wealden axis; for we do not know what happens south of it.

Of late years the Cambrian Conglomerates have received a considerable amount of attention, as it has been shown that much information concerning the nature and condition of the Pre-Cambrian rocks can be obtained by the careful examination of the materials composing the conglomerates in different areas. It is evident that rocks similar to the rolled fragments in the Conglomerates must have been present in pre-Cambrian times to yield these fragments, and if in certain areas special rocks occur abundantly or otherwise, the characters of the pre-Cambrian rocks in these areas may be to a great extent determined. The Cambrian Conglomerates in Wales and Shropshire have been very carefully examined by Prof. Hughes, Dr. Callaway, and myself, and the materials collected have been submitted to Prof. Bonney and Mr. T. Davies for microscopical examination.