Mr. John B. Scrivenor, B.A., F.G.S., Geologist to the Federated Malay States, has forwarded to me for determination several pieces of a dark-greyish argillaceous shale, largely charged with particles of mica and valve-impressions of a small phyllopodous Crustacean, which he has discovered in the Native States of the Malay Peninsula.

Numerous specimens (having the general aspect of Estheria) lie on the bed-planes of a bluish, slightly micaceous, noncalcareous shale from the “Shale and Sandstone Series” of the Federated Malay States. The valves lie flatwise in the strata, either singly or in still connected pairs; and are not so much compressed but that they show the concavity of the insides, and the convexity and special features of the outsides. There are many examples of valves in different stages of growth, but a striking similarity of character indicates that all belong to one species. The shell itself is absent, but hollow moulds of one valve and solid casts of the other supply material for defining its character. No other organisms have been recognized in the shale.

During a journey through Russian Armenia in 1893 Mr. H. F. B. Lynch ascended Ararat and collected a number of small specimens from that mountain and other parts of the country. These, after his return, he placed in my hands, requesting me to examine them. At that time he intended to include my report in a book then in preparation, which was completed after a second journey (through the Turkish provinces) in 1898. On this occasion he was accompanied by Mr. Felix Oswald, B.Sc., who studied the geology of the country and collected numerous specimens. Mr. Lynch accordingly decided to omit from his work all geological details, and leave these to be dealt with separately by Mr. Oswald. But some time must still elapse, owing to the pressure of official duties, before he will have completed the work, and as they did not, on the second journey, go near Ararat, I have decided, since the mountain has so much historic interest, to publish my notes, though a little has already appeared on this subject. Herr H. Abich, to whose unwearied labours we are so greatly indebted for information about the geology of Asia Minor, ascended Ararat on July 29, 1845, and Dr. F. Becke has described the microscopic structure of three specimens which he brought down. One is from the summit, another from a parasitic cone, Takjaltu, on the south-east slope, and a third from the same slope of Little Ararat. Mr. Lynch's collection, as will be seen, is a much larger one, so that it gives a more complete idea of the materials of the mountain.

The geological age of these beds has been the subject of much speculation by various geologists. In 1845 Orlebar claimed to have found the Gebel Ahmar Sandstone at No. 3 Station on the Old Post Road to Suez, overlying Miocene beds containing Scutella Zitteli. O. Fraas in 1867 imagined he could trace a gradual passage between the Upper Moqattam and these beds, and concluded, therefore, that they were of marine origin and Lower Oligocene age, as they had undergone the same general earth-movements as the Eocene beds.

The specimen which forms the subject of the present communication is a fragment of a Nautiloid in the collection of Dr. Wheelton Hind, F.G.S., from the Carboniferous Limestone, Kniveton, Derbyshire, that seems to be referable to Gyrtoceras (Meloceras) apicale. This species, instituted by Dr. Foord in 1898, and based upon examples from St. Doulagh's, co. Dublin, Ireland, was characterized as follows:—

The bones of the carapace and plastron from which this species has been determined were discovered in a thin seam of grey sand intercalated in the Mammalian band of the Lower Headon Beds at Hordwell, Hampshire. They were lying scattered over an area of about four feet. The broken edge of the entoplastral and right hyoplastral were sticking out of the cliff face. The sea had carried away the missing portions of these bones and probably those lost of the carapace and plastron.

In a paper “On a Pneumatic Type of Vertebra from the Lower Karroo Rocks of Cape Colony” (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. VII, vol. xiv, November, 1904, pp. 336–344), by Professor H. G. Seeley, F.E.S., the author makes (on p. 341) some interesting remarks on pneumatic foramina in fossil bones which appear sufficiently important to reproduce here:—

“Doubt has of late been current concerning the significance of pneumatic foramina in fossil bones, and is put forward verbally and in print by Professor H. F. Osborn. In an article in the Century Magazine for September, 1904, similar in scope to the lecture given at Cambridge in August to the British Association, he enunciates the same views. Writing of Ornitholestes, Professor Osborn remarks:— ‘Externally its bones are simple and solid-looking, but, as a matter of fact, they are mere shells, the walls being hardly thicker than paper, the entire interior of the bone having been removed by the action of the same marvellous law of adaptation which sculptured the vertebræ of its huge contemporaries. There is no evidence, however, that these hollow bones were filled with air from the lungs, as is the case of the bones of birds.’