Marine Lower Lias, with Ammonites bucklandi and other fossils, was recorded in the Wadi Araba by Figari Bey in 1864. No one has since been able to find marine Lias in Egypt, but in 1915 Greco figured a Sinemurian faunule, including an Arnioceras, from the Figari Egyptian collections at Florence, and claimed that Figari's discovery was confirmed. A special search for the locality was made in 1951, without success. The paper reviews the evidence and records Carboniferous rocks and fossils that were found. Some general remarks are also made on the structure and origin of the Wadi Araba.

The only fossiliferous representative of the Jurassic system reported to exist in Fezzan (Libya) is the thin freshwater limestone of Murzuch, which is supposed to be Purbeckian. Professor A. Desio (1938) first attributed this deposit to the Mesozoic and dubiously to the Cretaceous, but Pagni (1938) identified from it the Purbeckian gastropod Valvata helicoides Forbes and the Purbeckian plant Chara jaccardi Heer. On the strength of these determinations Professor Desio (1939, 1942) later stated that the Murzuch Limestone “should perhaps be referred to the lacustrine Upper Jurassic (Purbeckian)”. The gastro-pods, as shown in the figures by Pagni, however, do not resemble the true Valvata helicoides de Loriol ex Forbes MS. (refigured Arkell, 1941, p. 89, figs. 14 a, b, 60, 61, 62). During 1950 I pointed this out to Professor Desio. He kindly allows me to record that he as always doubtful about the age of the Murzuch Limestone and that he now considers it to be much younger, perhaps Pliocene.

Thecal modifications in certain Monograptids are discussed on a basis of restorations which distinguish the theca from the remainder of the “thecal segment” of Törnquist. There seems little support in those bi-form Monograptids examined for the view that the less modified thecae reflect an incomplete development, and in general the new thecal types appear to represent transformations which commonly originate proximally or at least are more highly developed proximally. A possible analogy between this colonial development and metamerism is suggested.

The London Clay exposures on the coasts of Essex and Suffolk are described and their fossils listed. Correlation is made with similar strata in Germany and Denmark, and the significance of all these beds in relation to the Lower Eocene palaeogeography of North-Western Europe is indicated.

Simple arithmetical techniques are set out whereby planimetric data, of the kind used in constructing area-height diagrams, can be made to yield additional quantitative information useful in description and comparison of relief. The most useful is an expression for mean available relief, which takes account of the form as well as of the height of interfluves. It is also shown how the depth of dissection of a datum surface can be mapped and measured.

The interglacial gravel at Swanscombe includes pebbles apparently derived from Shropshire and neighbouring districts; and as some of these occur in the “Plateau Drift” near Oxford, they may have reached the Lower Thames by way of Moreton and Goring Gaps. The earlier of the two boulder clays of Essex and Hertfordshire probably contributed some erratics to the Swanscombe gravels, but the later includes material from North Britain and Scandinavia unknown in the Swanscombe deposits. Therefore the gravels at Swanscombe seem to be intermediate in age between the Lowestoft and Gipping Glaciations of East Anglia, with which the two Essex boulder clays are correlated.

The following note refers to the geological features observed during the recent construction of tunnels under the River Tyne, with special reference to the relationship between the present and pre-Glacial courses of the river and the possibility of a Pleistocene (or later) beach level at 45 feet below O.D.

The paper records the characters of the genus Schizodus as defined by its type-species Axinus obscurus, and shows that King's reconstruction of the hinge-characters of Schizodus truncatus, regarded by him and many subsequent authors as the type-species, was inaccurate. The conclusion is reached that Protoschizodus de Koninck and the forgotten genus Prisconaia Conrad should be regarded as synonyms of Schizodus. A new generic name Eoschizodus is proposed for those smooth Myophoriidae of the Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian which differ from Schizodus in possessing the full number of hinge-teeth for the family, but which lack the conspicuous anterior myophorous buttresses of the Triassic Neoschizodus.