LOCAL uplift and local sinking of the earth's surface have been fully demonstrated for past geological epochs. The amounts of these movements have generally been stated with reference to the present sea-level, and for the greater movements the statements of magnitudes are not seriously impaired by the fact that general sea-level itself has been shifting, upwards and downwards, through geological time. Among the causes for general or “eustatic” shifts of sea-level are: appropriate crustal movements whereby the volume of the ocean basin has been changed; delta-building and volcanic eruption on the sea-floor, the displacement of sea-water not being compensated by crustal sinking; volcanic addition of new water to the ocean; subtraction of water which becomes chemically bound during the alteration of rocks; glaciation on land, lowering sea-level by the abstraction of water from the ocean; deglaciation on land, raising sea-level; changes in the earth's centre of gravity and in her speed of rotation.

ON the western side of Cross Fell lies a group of beds consisting of andesitic lavas and ashes, with intercalated beds of shale. The shales are tranquilly bedded, testifying to their having been deposited in quiet water. It has therefore been inferred that the igneous material is volcanic, and was poured out on a sea-floor. The beds were first described by Harkness, later by Goodchild, who gave the name “Milburn Group”, and subsequently by Professors Nicholson and Marr.

Among the enisled high plateaux of Eastern Utah the brilliant isostasy theory had its birth. When these arid mountains first became the subject of special description, about 1880, no such thing as a distinctive desert geology was entertained. Possibility of a definite geographic cycle in land sculpture was one of the modern earth conceptions yet undreamed. Competency of the wind as a general erosive agency was not yet established. Operation of epeirogenic movements was little understood. Omission of such basic considerations necessarily led to curious aberration in interpretation of the phenomena presented by lands of little rain.

WITHIN the last two years a cutting has been made at the south-east corner of Carrock Fell, a few yards north of the village of Mosedale, for the purpose of obtaining road-metal. This has opened an interesting section near the margin of the intrusion. The rocks exposed comprise two varieties of gabbro and enclosed Eycott lava. Of the two types of gabbro, that next the lava is of the quartz-bearing variety, exhibiting the prevailing dark-green tint in the hand specimen, and carries large flakes of biotite. This is succeeded by the same type of gabbro, but in a highly metamorphosed condition, at once evident in the hand specimen, which is lighter in colour, primarily owing to the decomposition of the felspars.

THIS fauna resembles that found by Mantell a hundred years ago in the “Chalk Marl” of the South Downs at Hamsey, near Lewes (see specimens in the Natural History Museum, South Kensington), but the occurrence of such a fauna in the familiar North Downs of Surrey seems hitherto unknown. I think, then, that this find should be recorded, that others may, when possible, see how far the faunal richness is local.

LAST year Mr. J. L. Bosqui gave to the Geological Department of the British Museum part of a fossil shoal of herrings found in a marine deposit of diatoms, now being worked for commercial purposes as “celite” in Santa Barbara Co., California. The species represented has since been named Xyne grex by Professors Jordan and Gilbert, who exclude it from the genus Clupea on account of its thicker enamelled scales, enamelled opercular bones, and strong ventral scutes. The matrix, examined under the microscope, proved to consist so completely of diatoms and other siliceous organisms that it seemed desirable to submit them also to special examination. I was therefore fortunate in enlisting the services of Sir Nicholas Yermoloff, whose extended studies of such organisms make his determination and discussion of these new fossils of particular value. His notes form an interesting supplement to the following short account of the deposit, which was given by Dr. Frank M. Anderson to Professor Jordan (op. cit., p. 14):—