For several years I have been engaged in investigating the Dinosaurs of North America, where these extinct reptiles were very abundant during the whole of Mesozoic time. The results of my study have been published from time to time, and I have already had the honour of presenting some of these to the British Association. In carrying out this investigation so as to include the whole group of Dinosaurs, wherever found, and bringing all under one system of classification, it has been necessary for me to study the remains discovered in Europe, and I have made several visits to this country for that purpose.

For the convenience of students a first essay is here made to tabulate the European species of Etoblattina, the genus of Cockroaches most numerously represented in Carboniferous times, both in Europe and America. All the species described up to the present time are introduced, together with a new British species, a description of which is added. It will be seen that Deichmüller's var. Stelzneri (regarded by him as a form of E. flabellata) and Geinitz's var. dyadica (regarded by him as another form of the same) are considered distinct species; and that E. Rollei, Deichm., is not included, this last being more probably a Gerablattina. E. Peachii, Woodw., is also omitted, as the tegmina are undeveloped and therefore present no features which could admit it into the table. On the other hand, Blattina intermedia, Gold., formerly described by me as a Gerablattina, has had new light thrown upon it by Kliver, showing it to be an Etoblattina, and it is accordingly introduced here.

I Have received from my friend Mr. W. F. Smeeth a paper entiled “A Perlitic Pitchstone from the Tweed River, New South Wales, with remarks on the so-called Perlitic Structure in Quartz,” published by the Royal Society of New South Wales. While thanking him for his courtesy in making me acquainted with his views, I desire at the same time to express my sense of the kindly way in which he has criticized, though often adversely, certain statements already published by me. It may be of interest to give to the readers of the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE an abstract of the excellent piece of work which Mr. Smeeth has done, as well as to draw attention to the points in which he has compelled me to agree with him and to remark on those on which there is still some difference of opinion between us.

In looking at the map of the Great Lake region, you have all noticed the backward bending thumb of Michigan projecting into the icy waters of Lake Superior; yet but few of you, perhaps, have realized that extending along that thumb there runs a band or ring of native copper. It does not, like most gold or silver bands, extend around the finger, but along it—from the base of the hand to the end of the thumb—this central band lies embedded in the flesh binding all together. Shall we now dissect it, laying bare its flesh, muscle, and bone, and try to explain its marvellous organization ?

The sixteenth of May last was a disastrous date for Southwold and the neighbourhood, for, owing to the prevalence of northerly winds on this and the two previous days, culminating in a moderate gale, the tides rose to an abnormal height, and this, combined with a rough sea, made fearful inroads upon the soft, sandy cliff and the shingle on the foreshore, washing away a large piece of land and creating a new cove at the northern boundary of the little town. The effect would have been worse but for the existence of a clay-footing and promontory at the extreme point, and two immense concrete blocks constructed a few years ago to act as a break water and give protection to this part of the cliff. These latter proved of temporary service, but became so shattered and disintegrated that they must be replaced, or a sea-wall built, to resist further inroads at the next high-flowing tide. Similar erosion has occurred on the face of Easton Bavents cliff and at Covehithe, and it is feared that the loss of land at those places will render Southwold all the more assailable in future. Upon two occasions during the winter of 1894–5 (December and January) the tide rose to even greater height, and inundated large tracts of salt-marsh around Southwold, making two ruptures in the railway embankment and stopping the trains for a few days, but as there happened fortunately to be no wind at the time the damage done to the sea-front was confined to the sweeping of the shingle further south, with comparatively little damage to the cliffs of Southwold. It became necessary, however, to remove all the boats and capstans from the beach and pull them up the cliff or drag them inland; and this had again to be done on the 15th and 16th May.

The close resemblance between the Molluscan fauna of the Coralline Crag and that of the Mediterranean at the present day has long been known and is universally recognized. It has been customary, however, to take the whole list of shells from this deposit, for the purpose of comparison, without reference to the greater or less abundance of the different species; but in discussing the affinities of the fauna from this, or indeed from any other horizon of the East Anglian Crags, it may be misleading to attach as much importance to the presence of a shell, of which only one or at the most a very few specimens have been discovered during so many years, as to the occurrence of forms which are found in such countless profusion as sometimes to compose a large proportion of the whole number of the shells present. Out of about 440 species of Mollusca from the Coralline Crag given by Mr. Wood in his well-known Monograph (excluding varieties), nearly 90 are said to be represented by unique specimens only, while more than 100 others have very rarely been met with. It is true that some of these rarer forms may be only locally rare, although it is worthy of notice that, with few exceptions, the species which are common in the Diestien beds of Belgium, believed to be approximately contemporaneous with the Coralline Crag, are also common in that deposit. On the whole, without ignoring altogether the existence of the rarer forms, it seems that a consideration of the general facies of the fauna of each of the different horizons of the Crag, and of its characteristic fossils, is more important and is likely to give more reliable results than an analysis of all the species of each bed, irrespective of the greater or less frequency with which they have been found.

In 1891 Professor A. H. Green wrote an interesting notice of two books, both of extreme value to the petrological student, viz. Cole's Aids in Practical Geology and Hatch's Introduction to the Study of Petrology. In the course of his review the Professor remarks: “In dealing with the foliated rocks, the author touches on the debated point of the ‘true schists.’ We are pretty well used to this phrase, and have waited long in the hopes of being told what constitutes a ‘true schist,’ but our patience has not yet met with the reward it merits. The author is of opinion that ‘the alleged distinction between schist-like rocks and schists of pre-Cambrian age requires great delicacy of definition.’ This is delicately put, and will command the assent of most geologists” (Nature, vol. xliv, p. 26).