Most collections of fossil plants include specimens of tree-trunks or branches in which the bark is preserved in great perfection, while no trace of the structure of the trunk within the bark remains. Striking examples of this type of fossilization, in which the bark is preserved in exquisite detail while the space within the bark is wholly filled with fine siliceous sediments showing no trace of the original plant structure, occur frequently among the various species of Sigillaria and Lepidodendron. The fossilized armour-like outer cortex of Lepidodendron fails to retain any remnant of the inner woody material about as often as the various molluscan species of Spirifer fail to preserve their delicate internal spires. We know from the silicified specimens which have been found that the greater part of the trunk in Lepidodendron is occupied by a soft middle cortex which is very readily disposed of by micro-organisms. The relatively small cylinder of secondary wood which is found in most species which have attained to a large growth was itself rather susceptible to decay, the tracheids being relatively thin-walled, with the medullary cells very large and the rays voluminous. Innumerable examples of the entire failure of the woody tissue of these Lycopods to survive the processes which left the outer cortex admirably preserved occur in the fine-grained sandstones of Pottsville age in Orange County, Indiana.

Micropholis Stowi was described by Huxley in 1859 from a small and very incompletely preserved skull found by G. W. Stow at Rhenosterberg (north-west of New Bethesda), District Graaf Reinet, Cape Colony. Subsequently R. Owen described another specimen as Petrophryne granulata. In his description he suggested that it might prove to be identical with Huxley's type. The British Museum now contains these two type-specimens and three other examples of the form, all except Huxley's type being from the Procolophon zone of Donnybrook, Upper Zwartkei, District Queenstown.

The species Eugeniacrinites stramlergensis was described by me in 1912 (pp. 161, 167, pi. iii, fig. 2) on the evidence of a single specimen (A). Examination of a better specimen (B), subsequently acquired, and believed to be of the same species, has convinced me that, though the species appears to belong to the family Eugeniacrinidæ, Zittel, still it belongs to none of the known genera. This new genus, it is true, resembles Apsidocrinus in the union of its interradial processes, which, form a kind of vault above the patinal cavity (Jaekel, 1907, p. 304; Remeš, 1912, pp. 163, 168), but it differs from that genus in the form of the interradial processes, and especially in the size and shape of the radial facets.

In the early days of geological investigation it was generally supposed that the soft parts of animals and their more delicate structures could not be found in a fossil state, but modern discoveries have entirely revolutionized our ideas as to what is capable of fossilization.

The Cretaceous formation of Bahia, first brought prominently to notice by the discoveries of Allport in 1859, has been in great part examined and described by the late Professor Hartt, by Dr. O. A. Derby, by Dr. B,. Rathbun, and by Dr. J. C. Branner. Some additional observations made by the present writer were published in the Geological Society's Journal of May, 1907, to accompany Dr. A. Smith Woodward's paper on the Vertebrate Fossils of the formation.

In his article on septarian structure in the March number of the GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE Dr. A. Morley Davies seems to call for further light upon the subject, hence the following is offered. The writer became convinced of the fallacy of the current teaching concerning the formation of concretions with cracked interiors and of septaria more than thirty years ago, and has so taught in his classes ever since. In 1902 he published a paper on “Concretions and their Geological Effects”, which presented facts which virtually demonstrate that the cracking is due to the expansion of the exterior rather than by a contraction of the interior, as Dr. Davies has also concluded.

In the early part of 1910 I noticed some bones projecting from a cliff near the foot of Kamloops Lake, B.C. The cliff is composed of silt, and belongs to the formation known as the White Silts. These belong to the Quaternary period, having been laid down during the retreat of the great glacier. They stand in very steep banks, which is partly due to the small rainfall, only 7 inches, in this district. Little streams of water from melting snow, collecting in a hollow on the flat behind, had been for three years or so gradually cutting a fissure, and it was in the side of this fissure that these bones appeared. Some cutting down of the face of the cliff to bank up the trail exposed them more, and at the end of the year a road was made up it and we took them out. The silt is very definitely laminated. There are also a few seams of fine pebbles through it.