In March, 1912, a short paragraph in one of the London daily papers made the astonishing announcement that several beds of coal had been discovered on the Folly Farm, Presteign, and that boring would be started immediately. The astonishment was due to the fact that on the Geological Survey maps Presteign is represented as surrounded by Silurian and Old Red Sandstone formations, with no rocks of Carboniferous age nearer than the Clee Hills, 20 miles away in Shropshire. Unless, therefore, the Survey maps were wrong, and some unsuspected outlier of Coal-measures had been discovered, the name of the scene of operations was likely to prove prophetic.

Besides the series of Membraniporellæ last described there are several other Cribrilinidæ which develop a secondary aperture in the same way, and the next four species are instances.

The New Hebrides group of islands was first fully made known to Europe by Captain Cook, who in the year 1774 spent forty-six days among them. Situated in the Southern Pacific, about 1,400 miles N.E. of Sydney, the total number of islands is nearly eighty, the largest of which has a coastline of 200 miles. The islands are mainly of volcanic origin and lie in a direction from S.S.E. to N.N.W. Volcanic action is almost exactly in the direction of the group of islands, and a line drawn from the volcano of Tanna in the south to the volcano of Tinakula in the north, a distance of 600 miles, would pass through the volcanoes of Lopevi, Ambrym, Ureparapara, and the boiling springs of Vanua Levu.

By far the greater part of the volcanic rocks of Malaya consists of fragmental deposits, which at first sight seem to be andesite-tuffs and andesite-breccias, for most of them contain abundant fragments of andesitic lava. However, the majority also contain numerous fragments of quartz, some of which occur as isolated angular grains in the cement, others embedded in a very fine-grained siliceous rock, and sometimes showing rounded outlines and even bays, invaded by the siliceous aggregate. Tuffs which occur in certain localities, e.g. at Kuala Tekal, Tembeling, and Sibah near Kuala Lipis on the Pahang railway, contain the usual fragments of andesite-lava, with numerous fragments of quartz like those just described, and in addition fragments of rhyolite-lava or quartz-porphyry. It is probable that the great majority of the Pahang Volcanic Series of tuffs are formed of an admixture of andesitic, rhyolitic, and sedimentary material.