The soil of the Roman country, so interesting to the archæologist for the splendid remains it has yielded of the Roman age, is no less rich in relics which shed light on the history of primitive man. Although researches of this kind began here only ten years ago, the results obtained up to this date have been highly satisfactory. These anthropological investigations have been executed with great care by many independent investigators, among whom may be mentioned Ponzi, Ceselli, Bleicher, De Verneuil, and also the author of this communication, who have collected a great many specimens, and accumulated numerous observations relative to primitive Man.

Of all geological questions, perhaps that of the Antiquity of Man is the most popular. Nor is it one on which geologists have been rash or hasty in advancing new ideas; quite the reverse: they have lagged behind the evidence. In the “Principles of Geology,” one of the most instructive chapters is that in which the author treats of the progress of Geology. Therein Sir Charles Lyell has shown how the science had been retarded for three hundred years by men's reluctance to admit such a simple and obvious matter as the marine origin of stratified rocks, owing to a fixed idea that the world had come into being a short time since in much the same state as it appears to-day. Yet the illustrious author of the “Principles of Geology” let pass for thirty years the evidence that Man was contemporaneous with the extinct Pleistocene mammalia.

If it be an established rule, in coal-mining districts, that the hade of a fault is to the downthrow, it is an equally undeniable fact, that the surfaces of bedded slates, as a rule, exhibit only faults which hade to the upthrow. In suggesting a possible explanation of this phenomenon, I shall allude to the latter as reversed, and the former as direct faults.

The Geological Panorama, Plate XIV., prepared by M. R. D. M. Verbeek, is in further illustration of his Memoir “On the Geology of Central Sumatra,” in the Geol. Mag. 1875, New Series, Dec. II. Vol. II. (No. 136), pp. 477–486; and it gives a view, from north to south, of a most interesting part of the Highlands of Padang, namely the Oembilien Coal-field.

The topic of this paper is suggested by a somewhat extended practical study of the fossils of North America. A comparison of these forms with our European faunas will, I think, throw some light upon migration, and upon the correlation of strata.

When we consider the growth of geological knowledge in our own country, we soon learn how very detailed must be the character of all new work compared with that performed by the great pioneers in the science. Much that has now to be done may be called the microscopic work, labour that is often uninteresting and dry, except to the individual himself, but which nevertheless is most useful and necessary.

In the course of an examination of the district around Chudleigh during the year 1875, I was led to consider that there is a passage from the Devonian Limestone into the Culm-measures, and that all the appearances which have been accepted as indicating unconformability may be easily accounted for by a fault with a considerable hade.

In my former note I adduced the reasons which make me confident that the conglomerates of the south of the Isle of Man, which have been hitherto classed as Devonian, are not Devonian, but are later than the Carboniferous Period. I will now turn to the problem of what they really are. It is a well-known fact that in the Isle of Man the Secondary and Tertiary rocks are wholly absent. This is the view of all those who have examined the island, and is in fact perfectly palpable. The series of older rocks terminates with the upper layers of the Carboniferous Limestone; above this there are nothing but deposits of Quaternary Age. The red conglomerate to which I have referred contains no trace of any Secondary or Tertiary fossils, nor is there the smallest ground for believing that it belongs to either of those series. Does it then belong to the Quaternary beds? This conclusion is inevitable, and, as we shall see, is an exceedingly interesting one.

On Wednesday, the 22nd of September, I left Ekaterinburg for Tumen, where I hoped to catch a steamer going to Tomsk. For a short distance after starting, the road was bounded by tall firs. Beyond these came a few hill-like mounds covered with large grey weather-worn boulders, the appearances of which were not unlike those of some ancient terminal moraines. These boulders were the only ones which I saw during the whole of my journey across Siberia. From their similarity to the rock of the country which here and there cropped up through its covering of peat and grass, I think they must have been of local origin; but whether this origin was in any way connected with the action of ice, through not having made any close examination I am unable to form any conclusion.

In Mr. J. E. Dakyns's article, August number, p. 349, line 4, insert “seen” before “above.”