These fossils are especially interesting on account of their having been obtained from a more southerly point than any hitherto recorded. The number of specimens is nine; five of these are referable to the genus Cucullœa, one to Cytherea, one probably to Natica, and two are fragments of Coniferous Wood. With the Cytherea are other small shells which may indicate the presence of Crassatella (?) and Donax (?). Two of the pieces of Cucullœa are entirely free from matrix, while three show in their interiors a fine sandy rock which effervesces when treated with hydrochloric acid. The shells themselves have a calcedonic appearance, but, like the matrix, they effervesce strongly with acid; they are much denuded, having apparently been long exposed to the weather. The matrix within the Cytherea is coarser than that in the Cucullœa, containing, besides fragments of quartz and of a black rock, numerous fragments of shells. The Natica (?) is almost free from matrix, and is much denuded, but in some of the crevices sandy material may be seen very like the matrix of the other shells. All these genera have a wide distribution in time, and are now living, consequently they give but little clue to the age of the rocks in which they were found. Cucullœa is rare at the present day, and the few known species occur in the Mauritius, Nicobar, and China; but as a fossil it is very common and widely distributed.

It will be convenient first to fix a form of notation for the corners of the cube. With the origin within the cube and rectangular co-ordinates parallel to three edges meeting in a corner, the eight corners lie each in one of the eight octants, and may conveniently and symmetrically be represented thus:—

Or, calling any corner A, the corners distant √2 from A (the length of the edge being 1) and taken positively, i.e., contrary to the watch-hand way, as seen from A, are B, C, D (see figures).

So that, passing from corner to corner along an edge, we change both letter and sign, along a face diagonal we change letter but not sign, along a body diagonal we change sign but not letter.

During the “Challenger” Deep-Sea Exploring Expedition a great many peculiar-looking manganese nodules or concretions were dredged from the floor of the ocean at great depths, chiefly in the Red Clay areas of the Pacific, but also in less abundance in the Red Clays of the Atlantic. In the other varieties of Deep-Sea deposits these nodules were much less abundant than in the Red Clays.

In still more recent soundings, both American and British ships have discovered in many regions of the Pacific and Indian Oceans a dark-brown coloured deposit containing a large amount of manganese dioxide, similar in character to the Red Clays from which the “Challenger” procured the largest hauls of manganese nodules. There is then every reason for supposing that manganese deposits and nodules are very widely distributed over the ocean's bed, especially in deep water at great distances from land. It was only occasionally that manganese nodules were present in any abundance in a Globigerina Ooze, and in these exceptional instances there was always much volcanic debris associated with the deposit. In the Blue Muds surrounding continental shores manganese nodules were rarely observed; still, on some rocks and boulders dredged from terrigenous deposits, a coating of manganese dioxide was observed on that portion of the stone which had projected above the surface of the mud.

An easy and yet accurate method of determining carbon and nitrogen in organic substances has long been a desideratum, especially among those engaged in the application of chemistry to biological, hygienic, and agricultural questions. For the determination of nitrogen the method of Dumas, with its numerous modifications, is still the only one applicable in all cases, but the time required for it, and the manipulative dexterity necessary, has prevented its wide application for the above-named purposes. The method of Will and Varrentrap, though less generally applicable, is easier, and, until the publication of Kjeldahl's method, was most frequently used in applied chemistry. Kjeldahl claims for his method the same applicability and as great accuracy as the Will and Varrentrap method, with the added advantage of greater ease in working.

The research which forms the subject of this paper was undertaken in the hope that it might throw some additional light on the numerical relation existing between the bacteria present at various depths in ordinary soils, and in soils which had been used for purposes of interment. It was thought well to combine the chemical with the bacteriological examination for the purpose of determining to what extent the amount of organic matter present in the two classes of soil differed, and in what respect the organic matter of the one was different from that of the other, as well as to ascertain, if possible, to what extent the process of self-purification goes on in soil which has been used for burial.