In his recent Tolume on “Vesuvius,” Professor Phillips has added the weight of his great authority to the popular opinion as to the complete internal fluidity of the globe. It may not, therefore, be out of place to examine very shortly the chief argument which appears to have led him to adopt this view, and to discredit that advocated in my paper in your December number, namely, that “pressure, by raising the temperature of fusion” in the matter immediatelybeneath the exterior crust, probably prevents its liquefaction; inother words, maintains it in a solid state, except where some upheavalof the surface rocks, or the production of some deeply penetrating fissure, has by a sudden reduction of pressure admitted of its local liquefaction.

The presence of Coal-beds in South America has been known for several years, but the only localities on this side between the Amazon and the River Plate where their existence has been actually determined, are in the two extreme southern provinces of Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul, and in the adjoining one of Santa Catherina, and in the neighbouring Republic of Banda Oriental or Uruguay.

The specimens placed in my hands by Mr. N. Plant from Rio Grande do Sul consist of a few specimens of coal and a considerable number of a highly ferruginous shale. The coal contains no recognizable fossils, but they abound in the shale. The substance of the plants is converted into a brittle coal, that possesses no structure, and exhibits the form only of the organism, but the superficial structure and the venation is often so beautifully preserved on the surface of the shale, when the coal is removed, that the nature of the fossils is very clearly exhibited. I have, thus, been able to determine with precision three species, and to recognise more vaguely a number of other forms, which, however, it would be injudicious, until additional material is obtained, to name or describe from the specimens in my possession. All these forms, as far as they can be determined, and certainly the three well-preserved species, belong to Palseozoio genera, species of which occur in the Coal-measures of Britain. We are thus enabled with certainty to refer the Coal-fields of the province of Rio Grande do Sul to the Carboniferous period, although the coal itself has more the aspect of being the product of a Secondary formation.

Allow me to call attention of your readers to an investigation which promises to be of considerable geological importance, and which might be pursued in many places without any difficulty—I mean the determination of the quantity of sediment carried down to the sea by rivers.

The modern method of determining the amount of heat effects in absolute measure is no doubt destined to cast new light on all questions connected with climate, as it has done and is still doing in every department of physics where energy under the form of heat is the phenomenon under consideration.

Recent considerations of health having induced me to spend from five to six months on the continent, I beg to submit tothe readers of the Geological Magazine the result of my notesmade during my journey, which may perhaps prove not entirely uninteresting.

Professor Phillips remarks that “from the Inferior Oolite downwards through the Liassic series Belemnites are almost never absent from the section till we reach the zone of Ammonites Busklandi; only in the upper part of this zone have they been found—at Salford and at Lyme Regis,” But as the unique example—the subject of the present communication—was collected from thezone of Ammonites angulatus, it is the oldest known British Belemnite, and as such claims some attention.

In the former portion of this paper, the Tipper or south-eastern boundary of the Skiddaw Slates, in their main area, had been traced from Troutbeck, on the N.E., as far as the head of Buttermere, onthe S.W. From this point (i.e. the north-western end of Honister Crag), the Skiddaw Slates can be traced for a very short distance across Warnscales Bottom. They are still overlaid by the felspathic trap and succeeding band of slates and breccias, which together compose Fleetwith Pike and the S.E. end of Honister Crag, and the relations between the two formations are the same as in the Gatescarth Valley. When however the pass of Scarf Gap on the south-west of Warnscales is reached, the Skiddaw Slates have disappeared and the base of the Green Slate Series now rests upon a great mass ofiatrusive felstone-porphyry (here almost a true syenite) which forms High Crag and High Stile. Though the Skiddaw Slates are absent here, it is interesting to observe that the stratification of the Green Slate Series can be particularly well made out in this region. The rugged hills to the S.E. of Scarf Gap are occupied by a prolongation of the great slaty band of Honister, but the beds have now to a great extent lost their former character, and have assumed very much the mineral aspect of trap, from which however they are easily distinguished by the fact that the bedding, in spite of a rough but well marked cleavage, is unusually distinct. The strata displayed in a number of magnificently moutonné'd crags and bosses, in which they are seen to undulate repeatedly, forming a series of small but well-preserved anticlinals and synclinals, the dips of which are N.N.W. and S.S.E. at angles of from 25° to 35°. The inclination therefore of these beds is only about half as high as that of the Skiddaw Slates in the Gatescarth Valley.