Very few deposits containing organic remains have yielded more beautiful Fossil Crustacea than our London clay formation. In evidence of this, one. has only to turn to the beautiful series of plates which illustrate Professor Bell's Monograph, published by the Palæontographical Society (vol. x. 1857), illustrative of 15 genera and 19 species chiefly from the London area and the Isle of Sheppy.

During the investigations I made on the “Post-Pliocene Gravels of the Severn, Avon, and Evenlode, and their extension over the Cotteswold Hills,” the result of which I embodied in a paper read before the members of the Cotteswold Club in the early part of 1869, and is now published in their “Proceedings,” many of the boulders found by me, on examination by R. Etheridge, Esq., of Jermyn Street, were determined to be syenite and granite from Charnwood.

Little as the Geology of South America has been worked, yet the presence of coal along the coast of Chile has long been known to navigators and others. Of late years this coal has been worked in sundry places—in short, wherever the circumstances seemed most favourable. The strata in which the seams occur, were made the subject of considerable study from a palæontological point of view by D'Orbigny and by Darwin; but not until the last ten or fifteen years have the resources of the country, with regard to this branch of industry, been examined into sufficiently to enable a correct estimate to be made of them. The surveys, which have been the direct result of the interest awakened by the knowledge of the presence of workable seams of lignite in Chile, have been greatly conducive to a more perfect knowledge of the geological structure of the coast; and the consequent accumulation of material for its study has, we believe, brought it within our power, not only to add to the very limited stock of notes on the subject, but also, it is hoped, to give such explanations of some of the more obscure facts connected therewith as were, from the want of reliable data, either overlooked by earlier observers, or only vaguely suggested by them.

I Have been led to think that a description of the drift-beds in the neighbourhood of Llandudno might be interesting to the Section, on account of the discussion which took place on Mr. Morton's paper, as to the description of pebbles contained in the “Boulder-clay.”

The geologist who rambles through the Mountain-limestone district of Yorkshire is sure to have his attention arrested by the numerous “swallow-holes,” or pits, in the rock, into which rills, streams, or even rivers precipitate themselves; and if he can bring his mind to consider the subject sufficiently, without dismissing it at once by a reference to some vague natural force, he will come to perceive the somewhat complex conditions which a complete explanation must satisfy.

Sir,—The Geological Magazine for August, p. 394, contains a report of a paper communicated by the Rev. J. M. Mello to the Geological Society, on the 22nd June, 1870, on the above subject. On the 7th September, 1869, I had the honour to read a paper on the same subject to the Natural Science Section of the Nottingham Literary and Philosophical Society. Hence I beg to claim priority in publication on behalf of the above Society. Apart from this, I, of course, do not complain that Mr. Mello should happen to select a very interesting section like that in Tideswell Dale, no doubt being quite unaware that I had already published an account of the same. The sole, though rather dubious, deduction that the author is reported to have made, is “that the columnar clay-bed may perhaps be a local development of that which forms partings in the limestone near Litton Tunnel.”