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 a paper read before the Geological Society of London, Prof. Hull proposes, as generally applicable to the whole of Great Britain and Ireland, a new classification of the Carboniferous rocks, as follows:

Whilst in Irkutsk I had many opportunities of conversing about the earthquakes which sometimes disturb these Central Asian localities. Not long before my arrival in the town, a sharp shocks had been experienced. The general effect it produced was given to me by Miss Cathleen Campbell, now Mrs. Szlenker, who had been keeping a record of meteorological and other phenomena. The shock took place at 2.55 a.m. on the 4th September. It was at first felt in a direction from east to west, but after 1¾ minutes it changed to N.E. and S.W. The shock, which was severe, caused ornaments on the table to rattle, and a few bottles which were close together knocked each other with so much force that they fell over. There were thirteen of them, and they tumbled in various directions—nine fell on the table, and four were broken on the floor. Watches and clocks were stopped, and screws 1¼ in. long, fastened in the wall to keep a clock straight, were drawn out. Preceding this shock, from observations which I saw, the barometer appears to have been lower than usual.

In all our text-books of Geology, the action of floating Ice is referred to as an agent of great power in producing physical changes. Its two chief forms are those of Coast Ice and Icebergs. Much has been written about the latter of these, but about the former very little. In the Geological Magazine, July, 1876, in an article on Ice and Ice-work in Newfoundland, I endeavoured to show that the greater agent of the two was Coast Ice, a view which has been subsequently strengthened by observations on the Coast of Finland. In this paper I had occasion to refer to the laxity with which the conditions under which Icebergs float have been spoken about. Thus, in Jukes and Geikie's Text-Book of Geology, p. 416, we are told that because “about eight times more ice of an iceberg is below water than above,” therefore “a mass which rises 300 feet above the waves has its bottom 2400 below them.”

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 Chile and adjacent regions of South America, Mr. Darwin, in his “Geological Observations,” has described a great series of Mesozoic rocks, which he calls the “porphyritic formation,” and which shows an interesting resemblance to certain rocks in British Columbia. These I had provisionally designated in my report in connexion with the Geological Survey of Canada for 1875, as the Porphyrite series, without at the time remembering Mr. Darwin's name for the Chilian rocks. Many of Mr. Darwin's descriptions of the rocks of Chile would apply word for word to those of British Columbia, where the formation would also appear to bear a somewhat similar relation to the Cascade or Coast Range, which that of Chile does to the Cordillera.

I have to thank you for your kind letter of the 24th of December, 1875; it affords me great satisfaction to hear that my remarks about the New Hebrides have interested you.