The history of the Zambesian territories now known as “Rhodesia” is extremely meagre. Of the country prior to the advent of the Matabele in 1838, little is known, except from the few records, chiefly Portuguese, that have been preserved. It should be mentioned, however, that an interesting link between the Sofala and the Zimbabwi ruins near Victoria exists in certain gold tacks or rivets, possibly used in the manufacture of gold ornaments, which have been found in both these places, while we believe that at intervals along a route to the coast, ruins of towers have been found, that in all probability have been used as stations on the way.

Among the fishes of the Lower Lias of Lyme Regis, Dorsetshire, described by Egerton from imperfect evidence, is the genus Osteorachis, with the single species, O. macrocephalus. The original description and figure are so unsatisfactory that nothing beyond the name of the fish is quoted even in Zittel's “Handbuch” (vol. iii, p. 230), while this bears an appended query; and the author's definition of the genus is certainly much too vague to admit of any precise determination of its systematic relationships. Under these circumstances it is of interest to return to a consideration of the fish in the light of more recently discovered specimens, which seem to the present writer to comprise not only examples of the trunk but also, at least, one satisfactory head.

The remains of fishes discovered in the Cambridge Greensand are all very fragmentary, and have not hitherto been subjected to the detailed comparison with other Cretaceous Ichthyolites which their interesting stratigraphical position renders desirable. Many specimens, however, are capable of at least generic determination, while many others are sufficiently characteristic fragments for the definition of the species. The present writer has thus been much interested during the past few years in studying collections of these fossils, and the following notes embody some of the results in reference to the ganoid fishes. The British Museum (Natural History) having recently acquired the collection made from the Cambridge Greensand by Mr. Thomas Jesson, F.G.S., nearly all the known species are now represented here; but the writer has also availed himself of the privilege of making use of the fine series in the Woodwardian Museum, Cambridge, and the Philosophical Society's Museum, York, thanks to the kindness of Professor McKenny Hughes, Mr. Henry Woods, and Mr. H. M. Platnauer. Mr. James Carter, M.R.C.S., has also kindly lent some Pycnodont jaws from his private collection

In a memoir which was read before the Geological Society of London in 1870, and which was published in the Proceedings of that Society and in the Malta papers, Dr. A. A. Caruana makes mention of a portion of a rib and of a lower jaw of a mammal which were obtained from the Globigerina Limestone at El Kbajer, near Kolla el Baida, in the island of Gozo; and after referring to the fact that no Carnivora had, up to that date, been found in the Maltese Islands, he described the El Kbajer fossils as being “a portion of the lower jaw of a Hyæna with several teeth in situ.”

In the new edition of his “Great Ice Age,” Professor James Geikie devotes a good deal of space to the inter-Glacial peats found in Scotland. Perhaps, as the plants from nearly all these deposits have passed through my hands, I may be allowed to venture on a criticism, though I have only had the opportunity of examining two of the localities in the field.

I Have already answered this question in the affirmative in my papers on “Metamorphism in the Malvern Hills,” though I am aware that the assertion has been contested. Nevertheless, the possibility that diorite and quartzite may have a common origin was suggested by Prof. Zirkel as far back as 1876; and in 1892 Mr. W. S. Bayley, of the Geological Survey of Minnesota, distinctly affirmed that a certain quartzite was nothing more or less than “a completely altered gabbro.” My conclusion, therefore, is not without support, and, though it has been strongly attacked, it refuses to succumb. I trust I shall be allowed in the present paper to reply to one or two of the objections to it. My remarks refer only to the Malvern area.

In the latter part of 1893 Mr. Albert Wallis, of Brigstock, in Northamptonshire, incidentally told me that he had found some well-known land shells in the Lincolnshire Oolite at Brigstock. The section from which these shells came I knew quite well, and Mr. Wallis was well acquainted with recent shells, so it seemed important to ascertain in what manner they found their way into the Oolitic Beds. Having talked the matter over with my friend Mr. Lionel E. Adams (Treasurer of the Conchological Society of Great Britain), we decided to go over to Brigstock, and examine the section and the shells, and arrive, if possible, at some explanation of their peculiar position. Accordingly, on June 16 of last year, we met Mr. Wallis there for the purpose indicated.

Between Dover and Folkestone there are certain deposits of ferruginous sandstone or sandy ironstone, well known to geologists, and somewhat doubtfully referred to some portion of the crag. They may be the equivalents of the Lenham Beds, which are assumed to be the lower part of the Coralline crag, and which have been correlated with the Diestian Beds of Belgium. This view is entertained by Prof. Prestwich, Mr. Clement Reid, and others, and is based upon palæontological evidence (chiefly from Lenham, near Maidstone), from which locality Mr. Reid procured casts of the following fossils:

The church-tower of Eccles-by-the-Sea, on the coast of Norfolk, once buried in the moving sand-dunes, has been rendered classical by Lyell through his description of it in his “Principles.” Such a monument should surely not be allowed to pass away without an obituary notice.

Quite recently, Mr. B. B. Woodward, F.G.S., of the British Museum (Natural History), called my attention, for the first time, to the fact that the name Plutonia, which I adopted for a genus of Trilobites in 1868, had previously been used by Stabile (Atti. Soc. Ital. Sci. Nat. vii, p. 121, 1864) for a genus of Mollusca. As Stabile's generic term has therefore a priority of four years it is necessary that I should rename the Trilobite, and it has been suggested to me by Mr. Belinfante, B.Sc., Assist. Sec. Geol. Soc., that Plutonides would be the most suitable term and the one least likely to lead to confusion. In the Report of the British Association for 1868, p. 69, where the genus is first mentioned, after describing the beds in which it occurs I refer to it as follows: “The new genus, for which the author proposes the name Plutonia, is only known to occur in these beds. This remarkable fossil is of very large size, equalling, indeed, in this respect Paradoxides Davidis. It is, perhaps, also more nearly allied to the genus Paradoxides than to any other known, but its peculiar character of being covered all over with very strong tubercles, associated with an unusual position for the eye suture, and straight, very long thoracic pleuræ, is sufficient to stamp it a new and distinct genus.”.