During my excavations in the marshes of Sirabé (Vakinankaratra District, Central Madagascar), my assistant, Mr. A. Robert, came upon a small fragment of a right upper jaw of a mammal, containing the two anterior true molars, which presented the well-known pattern of the Old-World Cercopithecidæ. The presence of true monkeys, as contemporaries of the Æpyornis, in very recent deposits, appeared to be such an extraordinary fact that I anxiously looked forward for further and more conclusive evidence. This fortunately has since been forthcoming, by the subsequent discovery of more complete remains. Two of the most important pieces, viz. the anterior part of a skull, broken off behind the nasals and the molar series, and a left mandibular ramus, are here figured and briefly described.

The discovery by Keilhau in 1827 of Carboniferous fossils in Spitzbergen first called attention to the geological interest of this archipelago. The collections subsequently made by Robert during the voyage of the “Recherche” in 1838, by Loven in 1837, by Drasche in 1872, and by the series of Swedish expeditions under Baron A. E. von Nordenskiöld between 1858 and 1873, proved the occurrence of beds belonging to the Archean, Lower Palæozoic, Devonian, Carboniferous, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Miocene systems. The fossils collected by these explorers are now in the museums of Christiania, Paris, Stockholm, and Vienna; but up till the present the only collections in London are a few specimens of Devonian fish obtained by exchange, and of Carboniferous Brachiopods collected by Mr. Lamont. It was, therefore, part of the work of Sir Martin Conway's expedition to obtain a series of fossils to represent as fully as possible all the successive faunas and floras of this far northern archipelago. Previous work on the geology of Spitzbergen had, moreover, been carried out on the coast, and it was Sir Martin Conway's main object to explore the interior. These two considerations lessened the thoroughness of the geological study of the country and the extent of the collections, for we had to travel long distances to reach rocks of different systems, and transport of heavy geological specimens from the interior was difficult. Nevertheless, considerable collections were made, which, besides serving to represent the Spitzbergen fossils, will probably aid in the more exact correlation of the horizons from which they come, and throw light on the migrations of the faunas.

The specimen which forms the subject of the present notice belongs to the genus which is termed by some authors Trachyteuthis, and by others Coccoteuthis. Both names were originally given to the internal shell of a Sepia-like Cephalopod; the former to examples from the Lithographic Stone (Lower Kimeridgian) of Bavaria, and the latter to a specimen from the Kimeridge Clay of Dorset. They are regarded as synonymous, but some authors use one and some the other.

It is just a score of years since the unstalked crinoid Uintacrinus was discovered, almost simultaneously, in the Niobrara Chalk of Kansas and the Lower Senonian of Westphalia. The American specimens were described by Grinnell and Meek, while the single European specimen was exhaustively discussed by Schlueter. Of recent years further specimens, in a better state of preservation, have been found in Kansas, and a slab purchased by the British Museum enabled me to make a more detailed study, the results of which were published in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society (vol. 1893, pp. 974–1004, pls. liv–lvi, April, 1896). But as to the occurrence of Uintacrinus in Europe, our knowledge at the beginning of 1896 remained as in 1876; not even from Reckling-hausen, the original Westphalian locality, had another fragment been obtained. It may therefore be a surprise to many to learn that Uintacrinus is one of the commonest fossils of the Marsupites zone, not only in the Marlstone of Westphalia, but in the Chalk of our own island, and probably at the same horizon in a good many other countries.

The most important addition to the fossil flora of the Bajo de Velis (which locality I visited from Dec., 1894, to March, 1895) is the discovery of Rhipidopsis gingkoides, Schmalh., and R. densinervis, Fstm., each represented by well-preserved leaves and numerous fruits. Both species are met with in the Damudas of India—R. densinervis in the Rániganj (Kámthi group), R. gingkoides in the Barákar (Duranga Coalfield), the latter together with Cyclopitys dichotoma, Fstm. (this curious type was detected by my friend and colleague, Dr. Bodenbender, in the Sierra de Los Llanos, in the south of the province of La Rioja).

Among the so-called Glacial beds, none fills a larger place in geological literature than the Chalky Clay of Eastern England. I prefer to call it the Chalky Clay, as Searles Wood named it, rather than the Chalky Boulder-clay, because boulders in the true sense of the word, such as characterize the genuine Boulder-clays of North Britain, are infrequent in it. The term Chalky applied to this clay depends on the fact that it is more or less crowded with chalk rubble and chalk fragments of various sizes, and that it has also incorporated in it a considerable quantity of chalk dust, whence its colour and superficial appearance. These peculiarities, which mark it over a wide area from Yorkshire to Finchley, and from Southwold to Warwickshire, are, nevertheless, a secondary, and not a primary, feature of the clay, and have disguised and confused the problem of its explanation.