Mr. G. W. Lamplugh and the late Mr. J. F. Walker published a paper in 1903 on a fossiliferous bed at the top of the Lower Greensand, exposed in sand-pits at Shenley Hill, near Leighton Buzzard. The bed in question presented points of considerable lithological interest and was remarkable for its rich brachiopodfauna. Its position above the “silver-sands” of the Lower Greensand and below a capping of dark “shaly clay”, ascribed by those observers to the Lower Gault, led to the conclusion that it belonged to the top part of the Lower Greensand. The discovery of its fossils was considered to throw welcome light on the faunal characters of the latest Lower Cretaceous rocks in England, represented in more southern counties by relatively unfossiliferous sands.

A Point of economic importance, as well as scientific interest, has been brought out by a study of the occurrences of hæmatite in the Furness district of Lancashire and the neighbouring shores of the River Duddon in the Millom district of Cumberland; namely, that the origin and distribution of the ore-bodies, known as “sops”, is due, in large measure, to the physiographical conditions that existed in this area in post-Carboniferous but pre-New Red times. Future explorations for these profitable ore-bodies may be guided by a true appreciation of the conditions of formation, which are discussed, in somewhat scattered form, in the recently published Geological Survey Memoir on the “Hæmatites of West Cumberland, Lancashire, and the Lake District”.

In this Magazine, August, 1919, p. 371, Dr. J. Allan Thomson has an article on the above subject, in which he appears to be expressing the hope that Spirifer cuspidatus may not be taken as the genotype of Spirifer, though he thinks that certain rules of zoological nomenclature drive him to that conclusion.

In 1908 the Productus humerosus beds in the Carboniferous Limestone of Caldon Low, N. Staffs, were tentatively assigned to the Lower Dibunophyllum zone, D1, of Vaughan's classification. The slender evidence for this correlation was set out in my paper on the Midland Area.

Although the process of development of the pygidium in the trilobite has been known since the time of Barrande, its significance does not appear to have been appreciated, and much of the modern speculation on the classification of trilobites is based upon the erroneous idea that those species whose form is most annelidan are most primitive. As a matter of fact, the study of both morphology and ontogeny shows that in this group the large pygidium is primitive and the small one specialized.

It is well known that the chambers of Cephalopod shells are connected by an organ called the siphuncle, which passes through the septa by the septal necks. Many investigators who have studied these shells have made careful observations on the siphuncle, hoping thereby to throw light on its functions. Such workers as Branco, Blake, Zittel, and Owen, among many others, have written on this problem, while more recently an elaborate study of the structure and constitution of the siphuncle has been made by Grandjean, who gives a detailed account of the organs associated with it. Among the many points established by Grandjean's work, not the least interesting is the fact that the siphuncular tube of Ammonites and Belemnites is composed of calcium phosphate, and not, as had previously been stated, of calcium carbonate. But in spite of Grandjean's careful examination of the less obvious characters of the siphuncle, it appears that certain facts, much more easily observed, have hitherto been overlooked.

In recent years the name of Angra Pequena, conferred by Bartholomew Diaz, has been somewhat obscured by the designation Lüderitzbucht, the name given to this port during the German occupation. The latter name still holds, although a compromise, whereby the geographical area should retain the old name and the town be known as Lüderitz, seems desirable.