Several nearly complete skeletons of the primitive teleostean fish Portheus molossus are now known from the Chalk of Kansas; but none is better preserved than a remarkable trunk, nearly 12 feet in total length, lately obtained for the British Museum by Mr. Charles H. Sternberg. The specimen is shown, of about of the natural size, in the accompanying Plate XVIII, where it is seen mounted with the head of another fish of the same proportions. All the bones remain embedded in the matrix exactly as they were found, and there is no restoration beyond slight repairs.

The discussion on the origin of the Himalayas, started by Sir T. H. Holland's review of Colonel Burrard's memoir, appears to have been led, by the concluding sentence of that review, into an unprofitable channel; for alike in the review and in the succeeding articles by Mr. Fisher and Colonel Burrard it seems to have been accepted that only two theories are applicable, firstly, Mr. Fisher's discussion of the theory of the disturbed tract contained in chapter x of the first and chapter xiii of the second edition of his Physics of the Earth's Crust, and, secondly, that developed by Colonel Burrard. Further, it is assumed that the former is dependent on the hypothesis of a fluid earth and the latter such as should follow from the hypothesis of a solid, highly heated, and cooling globe: the connexion, in either case, being so close that the acceptance of one or other hypothesis, of the constitution of the earth, necessitates the acceptance of one and the rejection of the other of the theories of the origin of the Himalayas.

At various places, such as the north side of Garabal Hill, the two Garabal burns (loc. iv and v, Fig. 1), and elsewhere, remarkably coarse rocks are found. A good section showing an apparent passage from tonalite to a coarse hornblendite is exposed at loc. v (Fig. 1). The rock in the bed of the burn is the normal tonalite, which appears to pass gradually to diorite. A closer examination of the unweathered rocks, however, shows that the passage is only apparent, and that the tonalite is clearly intrusive into the diorite with sharp junctions. The diorite near the junction is a rock of porphyritic aspect, containing large crystals of zoned diopside, abundant green hornblende and felspar, while the amount of quartz is small. A good deal of biotite is present, so that the rock might be described as a pyroxenemica-diorite. Within a few feet the rock becomes coarser in texture, and the felspathic content diminishes, while there is a corresponding increase in the amount of amphibole. The latter is the green hornblende common to the diorites, and is occasionally replaced by mosaics of secondary actinolite.

Solenopora.—The discovery of this genus in the Lower Carboniferous rocks of Westmorland is of considerable interest, as its occurrence here gives us some insight into the history of its wanderings between the time when we last recorded it in the Gotlandian rocks of the Baltic area and its subsequent reappearance in the Lower Oolite of Gloucestershire. Whether it lived in the Baltic area during the Devonian and Carboniferous periods is, however, still unknown. The fact of its occurrence in the Caradoc, Carboniferous, and Jurassic rocks of the British Isles would appear to point to its existence not far off during the intervening periods.

At the meeting of the British Association held at Birmingham last September, Professor W. J. Sollas, F.R.S., read a paper in which the Sub-crag flints I have discovered were rejected as not being of human workmanship. Professor Sollas mainly based his arguments upon certain flints found upon the seashore at Selsey Bill, Sussex, many of which have been collected by Mr. E. Heron Allen of that place. In August of this year I paid a visit to Selsey and, owing to the kindness of Mr. Heron Allen, was enabled to carefully examine his collection of flints and the exact places on the shore from which they were derived.

In the March Number of this Magazine Mr. Cowper Reed recorded the interesting discovery of a series of fossils which points to a Bartonian horizon for the Hengistbury ironstone. Upon reading this paper I was reminded of some chocolate-coloured clays with Foraminifera which I had collected from a seam between the ironstone bands at Hengistbury Head in August, 1895. The washings from these clays afforded abundant tests of arenaceous forms; and since, so far as I am aware, no Foraminifera have yet been recorded from this locality, it may be of some interest to publish the results of an examination of the material collected.