The exact and exhaustive study of the Quaternary terraces of the Somme, which we owe to Commont, may well serve as a starting point in any consideration of this subject. In its results it is not without its surprises, for we should scarcely expect to find, as we do, that the gravels which form the earliest deposits on each of the three lower terraces all contain the remains of a “warm” fauna; the third or highest of these terraces affording Elephas meridionalis, the first and second E. antiquus and its companion Hippopotamus. Associated with these faunas are flint implements of early types. Pre-Chelléan in the third terrace, typical Chelléan in the second, and Chelléan “evolué” in the first. No signs of a cold climate are to be discovered in any of these gravels until we reach that of the first terrace, where a newer gravel is to be seen invading the older and bringing with it Acheuléan implements and the mammoth.

In order to compare the ammonite sequence in the ibex and jamesoni zones of Pabay, recently described as vitiated by faulting and dykes, with the succession in other areas, it is desirable, first of all, to give full lists of the ammonites collected on the Dorset and Yorkshire coasts by Dr. W. D. Lang and Professor D. M. S. Watson and kindly submitted to the writer for examination.

Perusal of Dr. du Toit's masterly and illuminating paper on Carboniferous Glaciation in South Africa suggested that some notes on the early and gradual development of data relating to glaciation in South Africa, Australia, and Tasmania by the writer might not be out of place.

A consideration of some unexplained physical features of both Devon and Cornwall does not hitherto appear to have been regarded as a line of approach towards various problems of Devono-Cornish geology still awaiting solution. Although the attempt is not yet by any means advanced, the results so far obtained appear of sufficient interest to communicate.

For several years prior to 1914 the writer was engaged in the study of the mineral composition of loose detrital sediments with special reference to the rarer minerals and so-called heavy constituents of sands, the principal object of these investigations being an endeavour to ascertain what conclusions, if any, could be drawn as to the source and past history of the material and their bearing on stratigraphical and palæogeographical problems along the lines laid down by Dr. Thomas in his well-known researches on the New Red Sandstone of south-western England. In those days the subject was still in its infancy, and there were no standard books of reference dealing with it, such as are now abundant: it was necessary to evolve methods and to learn the characteristics of the minerals in grains by experimental investigation and by reference to the comparatively few published descriptions then available. This work was carried out chiefly on the Lower Greensand between the borders of Buckinghamshire and the Wash, but a good deal was also done on the superficial deposits of the neighbourhood of Cambridge and elsewhere, and some of the results obtained on the last-named group were published. The study of the Lower Greensand was, however, still incomplete at the end of 1914. After the war, for reasons unnecessary to detail here, it was not possible to continue the investigation of this particular formation on a more extended scale, as had been originally intended, and the results attained up to 1914 were published in the Geological Magazine.