In 1894 Mr. W. A. Sanford described, in the Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeological Society (vol. xl, 1894, p. 234), the geological circumstances of the discovery of a large fossil reptile. The fossil bones were found by the Eev. Sydenham H. A. Hervey and himself in the Rhætic beds in the parish of Wedmore, in the Vale of Glastonbury; and compared to Megalosaurus in its large size and carnivorous character. The remains were generously presented to the British Museum (Natural History) at South Kensington. I have now to redeem a promise made by Mr. Sanford in his paper that I would name and describe the specimens.

During the past summer, it was my privilege to attend the International Congress of Geologists at St. Petersburg, as an official delegate from the United States, and this gave me an opportunity to see a number of museums and collections in Europe which I had not before visited. I thus had the privilege of inspecting personally many interesting reptilian remains that I had not previously known, and of examining others which were more or less familiar to me from figures and descriptions.

The meeting of the International Geological Congress at St. Petersburg towards the end of August last year was about as successfulinpromoting (he main objects the Congress has in view as any of its predecessors. There was a marked absence of anything like a serious radical programme, and in that sense the meeting may be said to have been progressive. The majority of the papers read were commonplace, the few exceptions being mostly in the domain of petrology. Every geologist who attended the meeting was grateful to the Organizing Committee for getting together such a nice little exhibition of specimens, maps, and models for the occasion. It was full of interest.

Rock-Basins have been getting out of favour of late. The “heckling” which they have suffered from my friend Mr. Marr tempts one to echo Betsy Prig's classic remark about Mrs. Harris. Mr. Brend, however, though “dealing faithfully” with them in the September number of the Geological Magazine, does permit one or two to exist on sufferance, so that I feel minded, were it only as an act of charity to these depreciated securities, to describe two or three examples in the Alps which I think must be true rock-basins.

Moreseat is in the parish of Cruden, in the east of Aberdeenshire. It lies at an elevation of 300 feet above sea-level, and the surface of the ground slopes to the sea at Cruden Bay, distant five miles to the south. On the north the ground rises gradually, reaching the height of 450 feet above sea in Torhendry Ridge, which is strewn with chalk-flintsingreat abundance.

Before the last meeting of the British Association, held in Liverpool, Professor Edward Hull presented a paper upon “Another Possible Cause of the Glacial Epoch.”inthat paper, Professor Hull applied the writer's work on the “Reconstruction of the Antillean Continent,” which brought together evidence of great continental elevation. This elevation and its effects upon the ocean-currents, in diverting them from the West Indian regions, with the consequent reduction of their temperature as they reach the northern latitudes in conjunction with the elevation of the land, were thought by Professor Hull to be sufficient causes for the production of the glacial climate over temperate regions in late geological times. The writer has hitherto never applied his observations on high continental elevation to climatic changes; but in this paper he proposes to extend briefly his researches from the Antillean region to the higher latitudes of America and the North Atlantic regions. Something has also been learned of the date of the great elevation; consequently inferences may be drawn as to climatic changes.