It is some thirty years ago and about ten years after the mapping of this area by the officers of the Geological Survey that one of the present writers ascended Quinaig at Inchnadamph and saw for the first time the so-called “Pipe-rock” which caps the summit of that mountain. Here one can walk over the exposed surfaces of the quartzite and it is impossible not to observe the curiously spotted or pitted surfaces of the white slabs which, in many places, look like nothing so much as the soles of a labourer's shoe covered with projecting hobnails (see Plate IV, Fig. 1).

In a study of the surface features of our satellite one is immediately struck by the remarkable sharpness and freshness which most of those features exhibit. Further, one is impressed by the fact that evidences of compressive action are in the minority, whereas the moon's crust shows clearly innumerable clefts, rifts, and fractures pointing to an extensional tendency of its outer envelope. This is hardly in accordance with our ideas of the appearance of a sphere which has lost all its heat; everywhere it should show signs of intense contraction, and arcuate mountain ranges should be more frequent than upon the face of the earth.

Mr. J. V. Harrison has entrusted me with the description of some fossil corals which be has recently collected in Trinidad. They include one remarkable coral which at first sight appeared to be Paleozoic, as its branches had a laminar structure resembling specimens of the Devonian Pachypora cervicornis in which the section has cut bands of corallites at different angles. Examination with a lens at once showed that the coral was septate, and that the resemblance to Pachypora was delusive.

At several localities in Japan quartz-basalts are known. El Professor S. Kodzu mentioned the mode of occurrence and chemical properties of the quartz-basalt of Kasayama, Province Nagato (l).

Two rival hypotheses as to the origin of the Echinoidea are prevalent to-day. One of them postulates as the primitive form an organism built of a few large plates arranged in vertical series; the other demands that the earliest types should have been “scaly”, with many small plates which were regular only along the radii. Those who hold the former hypothesis see in the Ordovician Bothriocidaris a close approximation to their ideal; supporters of the latter claim that the Silurian genera Echinocystis and Palaeo1discus represent fairly well the ancestral qualities of the class. So long as Bothriocidaris is regarded as a true Echinoid, the Silurian forms lose much of their claim to be considered truly primitive; the chronological sequence is against them.

In August, 1928, the writer made a study of the freshwater solution caverns of Bermuda, and their relation to the general geology of the islands has been productive of some observations and conclusions. Various kinds of obligations have been incurred in connection with this study; since it is intended that more complete publication will follow none of these obligations will be acknowledged here. The work was carried on by financial support. extended through the Division of Geology of Harvard University.

The genera Endophyllum and Spongophyllum were founded by H. M. Edwards and J. Haime (1851 p. 393 and p. 425),2 upon Devonian Corals from South Devonshire. Their descriptions of these (1851, pp. 394 and 425; 1853, pp. 233 and 242), though clear as far as they go, nevertheless leave room for further details, and their figures (1853, p1. lii, fig. 6; pl. liii, fig. 1; and p1. lvi, figs. 2, 2a–e) unfortunately do not include longitudinal sections of either of their two species of Endophyllum. Later workers on Devonian corals—C. Schlüter (1889, p. 50) and F. Frech (1885, p. 74; 1886, p. 87) have differed widely from the authors in their interpretation of the genera, and therefore a revision of the type-species is desirable.