In ‘The East,’ that wonderful cradle of the human race, towards whose sunrise we turn to find the dawn at once of Civilization and Romance, Nature exhibits herself in all the exuberance of her vitality, both of plant and animal. The summer and the rainy season unite, with no intervening period of spring and autumn. Seasons, like days, spring suddenly into full-blown development. Night is succeeded by day without dawn, and day by night without the lingering; hues of eve.

The above five insect remains, claiming affinity with the modern genus Gryllacris, of the order Orthoptera, retain for the investigator no characters in common, but such as may be afforded by the central portion of the principal disk or internomediate field of the elytron, and by the lesser marginal field. From comparison of these areas in the specimens from the Coal-measures, as regards configuration and venation, a certain similarity of design is observed, and a general correspondence detected. By taking Heer's descriptions and figures as data, this character is seen to be reproduced—less markedly distinct from the type observable in certain species of the modern genus of Burmeister—both in the profile of G. Ungeri and in other fragments preserved to us in the Eocene strata of the Continent. Complete identification of these species must be the reward of future investigators.

The shell for which I propose the above appellation was considered to be Strombus pugilis by Mr. Carrick Moore. The name was misprinted fragilis in his paper in the Journal of the Geological Society, vol. xix. p. 511. In my papers on the Tertiary fossils of Jamaica and the West Indies, the species was recorded under the name Str. pugilis. In ordinary specimens like those usually found in Jamaica, Haiti, and elsewhere, the only well-marked differences that can be noticed between the fossil shell and the recent Strombus pugilis are that in the former the last whorl is usually devoid of the spiniform tubercles, and that the shell is of shorter and broader figure. But some examples, supplied me by my friend Mr. Vendryes, exhibit an unexpected character. They show chevron-shaped bands of colour, about 12–15 on the last whorl. Each band takes the shape of a V, the apex of which occurs near the middle of the whorl, and forms an angle of about 30° pointing backwards or away from the aperture. These bands of colour are about two mm. wide and the spaces between them are about three mm. Numerous specimens of the recent Str. pugilis have passed through my hands, but I have never noticed the slightest approach to such a character. The recent shell is pale red or pink only relieved by an indistinct band of paler tint following the middle of the whorl. A less constant difference may be found in the low rounded lamellar dentition inside the outer lip which is very faint or altogether wanting in Strombus pugilis, but more marked in the fossil.

The elevated Drift deposits near Dublin have been brought under the notice of the Society by other observers. The late Mr. John Kelly has described in our Journal (vol. vi. p. 133) part of the gravels which form the subject of this paper; including the collection at Caldbeck Castle, 1300 feet above the sea. I have already mentioned before the Society (in 1867) the fact of having found marine shells in the Pleistocene gravels near Dublin, at heights of 1000 and 1200 feet above the present sea-level; but I did not wish to offer a paper on the subject until I had collected what might seem sufficient materials for one. These shells are not only in a very fragmentary condition, but also scarce, so that they easily escape notice; and it is necessary to pay several visits, at sufficient intervals, to the few places where the shells are accessible, in order to obtain from thence even a limited collection of detenninable species.

The physical history of the Permian and Triassic rocks of Great Britain has been told by Professor Ramsay, who has pointed out that the beds were deposited in great inland lakes, for the most part salt. Without entering into the consideration of this subject, there seems to be much that requires to be unravelled in regard to the structure of the beds individually, and much that has yet to be explained in regard to the relations and grouping of the rocks.

In the November Number of this Magazine (Vol. X. p. 481) the Rev. O. Fisher has called attention to the formation of the Fleet, Dorsetshire, and puts forward suggestions as to its formation in opposition to the sub-aerial denudation theory of Messrs. Bristow and Whitaker. To me the formations of the Fleet and Chesil Beach seem easily explained, as similar beaches are not uncommon on other parts of the English coast, and also on that of Ireland; but inland behind many of these banks the spaces that were formerly lagoons are now reclaimed land.

I Have the pleasure of congratulating the Society on its prosperous condition after an existence of forty years, during which time it has numbered amongst its members men of the highest distinction in Science, and has been presided over by some of the most illustrious amongst the Cultivators of Geology. In looking over the names of the first officers of the Society in 1833, I am rejoiced to see those of the Provost of Trinity College, Sir E. Griffith, and Professor Apjohn, who are still amongst us; and to myself it could not have been otherwise than a matter of high gratification to have been elected to an office which has been filled by such eminent men as the former Presidents of this Society.

Mr. R. Mallet—whose theory on the source of volcanic heat was noticed in a former number of this Magazine—has followed it up by a second paper, read before the Royal Society in June last, and published in the last number (155) of the Proceedings, upon “The Mechanism of Stromboli,” one of the Lipari Islands, well known for the permanence of its volcanic activity, which seems to have been incessant for the last two thousand years at least. This insular and conical mountain rises more than 3,000 feet above, from a depth of nearly 2,000 feet below, the level of the Mediterranean, and exhibits the usual structure of a volcano, having an old breached crater on one side, from the bottom of which red-hot scoriæ and fragments of lava are thrown up, together with much steam, by explosions occurring at irregular intervals of from two or three to thirty or even occasionally forty minutes.

This granite forms an isolated mass, rising into two eminences a few miles south of Louisburg, called Corvock Brack (1287 feet) and Knockaskeheen (1288 feet). It is a greyish granite—generally fine-grained—consisting of quartz, two felspars,—one orthoclase, the other triclinic, probably oligoclase—and dark green mica. In some places there are patches in which the felspar assumes the appearance of “graphic granite.” Numerous boulders of this granite are strewn over the district to the north-west, and on the south side of Knockaskeheen; the rock is traversed by regular joints ranging N. 10 W., along which it splits off into nearly vertical walls. The position of the granite is shown on Griffith's Geological Map of Ireland, and it is surrounded by schistose beds, generally metamorphosed, and probably of Lower Silurian age. The granite itself is of older date than the Upper Llandovery beds, which lie to the southward.

Having been connected with, mining works in this district, the writer offers the following particulars in reference to its seams of Coal, and resources for supply of fuel.

The beautiful little fish, from the North Staffordshire ‘Deep Mine Ironstone,” named by Prof. Huxley Cycloptychius car-bonarius, has hitherto never been figured, and only a brief description of it was published in 1865 by Prof. Young, of Glasgow. Cursory allusion has been made to its teeth by Messrs. Hancock and Atthey, and to its scales by Mr. T. P. Barkas.

Many of those interested in geology are by time generally forbidden, and perhaps by inclination equally restricted from the investigation of details on a holiday trip. Nor need this be regretted, for the greatest pleasure in science is not always to be gained by the examination of details, but rather in the contemplation of results derived from such an examination.

The Valley of the Thames, with its numerous tributaries, like nearly all our English river-courses, contains more or less extensive deposits of Brick-earth and gravel, which were accumulated at a period long antecedent to that when the streams had cut their higher channels down to the depth at which they at present flow.

In 1830 Pander proposed the genus Porambonites for a remarkable group of Lower Silurian Brachiopoda, which abound in the neighbourhood of St. Petersburg, in Esthonia, and other parts of Russia; as well as in rocks of a similar geological age in Great Britain, Portugal, and other countries.

In the seventh volume of the Geological Magazine I gave a description, accompanied by illustrations, of all the Brachiopoda then known to me from the Tertiary formations of Italy. I would now offer some notes and figures relative to those that occur in Belgium.

Polyzoary forming a flattened expansion of unknown but apparently considerable size. Branches almost perfectly straight, bifurcating at intervals of from one quarter of an inch to one inch, nearly parallel, united by straight transverse dissepiments, sub-angular or obtusely carinated, and closely striated on the non-cefiuliferous side. About four branches in the space of three lines; measured across the frond. Dissepiments about equalling the branches in diameter, usually placed at intervale of from one line to one-tenth of an inch apart. Fenestrules oblong, rectangular, nearly equal, from one line to one-tenth of an inch in length by two-thirds of a line in width; nine fenestrules in one inch measured vertically, twelve in the same space toeasured diagonally. The fenestrules of contiguous rows nearly, but not quite, at the same level. Celluliferous face unknown.

Zone of Scaphites æqualis.—Beneath the Yellow Chalk of West Dorset and South Somerset occurs a very constant bed of yellow calcareous paste, with glauconitic grains, and containing at the base numerous small minute pebbles of quartz, the whole being so well cemented together as to be used at Pennys Toller, near Bea-minster, as a rough building stone. In 1865 I collected from this zone a large number of fossils, most of which I found to occur in the Cambridgeshire “ Chloritic marl,” Chardstock, Buckram, and Pennys Toller being perhaps the most fossiliferous localities. At the base occurs a well-marked horizon of Ammonites Rhothomagensis.

It will be remembered that, in the Geological Magazine for 1873, Vol. X. p. 2, Pl I. Figs. 1, 2, I described a fossil Butterfly from the Stonesfield Slate under the name of Palæontina oolitica; the type was in the possession of Mr. E. Charles worth, who subsequently discovered that the twin impression had been obtained by Mr. J. W. Judd, F.G.S., who presented it to the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street.

Dithyrocaris ovalis. W. and E. (Pl. V. Fig. 1), Mems. Geol. Survey, Expl. Sheet 23, Scotland, 1873, p. 100.

This species most nearly resembles D. Colei in outline, but is little more than half its size, and is quite destitute of the strong median and lateral ridges which mark Portlock's species.

This granite of Ballyknockan belongs to the great mass of the South-east of Ireland, which extends from Booterstown, near Dublin, to Poulmounty in Co. Carlow.