Among the many fossil remains of fishes obtained from the rich Liassic deposits near Lyme Regis, species of the genera Dapedius, Æchmodus, Semionotus, and Pholidophorus are most frequently found in a good state of preservation. These Lepidoid genera are chiefly Liassic, two of the more long-bodied froms, Pholidophorus and Semionotus, having species which occur in the Purbeck (Phol. ornatus) and the Chalk Strata (Sem. Bergeri). Lepidotus, another Lepidoid, ranges from the Lias through the intermediate Oolite and Wealden strata into the Chalk, and according to Sir P. Egerton, “the genus Lepidotus has the most extensive geographical range of any genus of fossil fish.’ With the exception of Lepidotus, Prof. Owen classes the above genera under the Dapedoid family of the order Lepidogamoidei, the genus Dapedius (D. politus) first noticed by the late Sir H. De la Beche forming the type of the family. All the genera were arranged by Sir P. Egerton under the Lepidoid family of the order Ganoidei, and Mons. Pictet placed them in his second family of Rhombiferous Ganoids—the Lepidosteidœ, and under the second tribe of that family—the homocercal Lepidosteidœ, (Lepidoides Homocerques, Ag.), Which he further subdivided into sections, some of which included the above-mentioned genera—viz.

A Little time back there appeared in the Magazine, some short papers on the subject of faults, and on the nature of the conditions and the forces through which these important structural features may-have been produced. The points I would now bring to notice are more elementary; they refer to the evidence for faults; hence involving the principal data upon which the higher discussion of the phenomena must be based, and the same data very argely affect our attempted restoration and history of bygone phases of the earth's surface. Faults and flexures in stratified rocks are the leading features through which we interpret the disturbances that have affected the earth's crust; and any looseness in determining their existence, form and amount, must vitiate many of our inferences. No one but an experimental field geologist can appreciate the difficulty of such determinations, and understand how faults are particularly liable to elude observation. This circumstance accounts for, but does not justify, the arbitrary use of faults in interpreting sections. To call in question the evidence upon such a familiar subject implies, of course, dissatisfaction at the manner in which it is handled in practice. This I at once admit, and will proceed to explain. The criticism I have to make is no more than might oceur to one who had never left his study; but I would state that with me it has had a most practical origin: in the progress of the work of the Geological Survey of India, several great boundary faults have been proposed in connection with our main rock-series, and in some cases published descriptions have been already given; but both on the score of the in-sufficiency of the evidence brought forward, and after personal examination in the field, I am unable to admit that some of the features in question can, without very implicit qualifications, be brought within the received definitions of a fault.

For a considerable time I have taken much interest in the question of the origin of the narrow and deep valleys in the Carboni-ferous Limestone district of Derbyshire, and have carefully recorded whatever seemed to explain their formation. So far I have never met with more striking facts than those to be seen in Deep Dale, about three miles in a direct line E.S.E. from Buxton. I estimate the depth of the valley at about 100 feet, and its width at from 100 to 200 yards. At a distance of about a mile from the Bakewell road there is a cavern, which is especially conspicuous on the east side. Its entrance is about 6 feet high, 20 feet broad, and 40 feet above the bottom of the valley. It extends nearly horizontally for about 30 yards, and then descends to a lower level, where I did not further examine it. On looking from the entrance to the opposite side of the dale I was surprised to see what appears to be a continuation of the same cavern. The entrance on that side is at about 80 feet above the valley, and is so much blocked up with detritus that one can only examine it for a space of 10 yards. Taking, however, all the facts into consideration, it appears to me that at a very remote period a subterranean stream flowed continuously along these two caverns, from west to east. There is abundance of suitable gather ground on the west side which even now has no well-marked surface drainage, and from which much of the water probably escapes by a subterranean course, ending in the large spring in the main valley, by the road-side below Kingsterndale.

In the former notes “On the growth of soil,” I omitted to speak of the labours of the ants—these workers, although such pigmys in this country, and, therefore, compared with the earth-worms, less capable, individually, of work, are so numerous and energetic, that in the special places to which they resort, their yearly work is much more conspicuous than the annual worm-work; but the animals operate in different places, for while the earth-worm luxuriates in rich highly-cultivated land, the hill-building-ant loves a dry, sandy or peaty soil. In the spring the ants may be observed beginning their work, and from that time they carry on their operations all through the summer, to the late autumn, or early winter. On a moor they raise hillocks scattered promiscuously about over the ground, getting closer and closer together as the colonies increase. But where the ants are most useful is in places where crags and large stones are mixed up with patches of sandy peat. In such a locality they will always build on a rock, the foundation of their habitation being at its junction with the soil. These ants seldom raise their structures as high as the moorland ants, but they make up in extent for absence in height, and by this means the rocks are gradually covered with soil and vegetation; for, on account of the season of the year at which they build, the growth of the plants keeps pace with the formation of the ant-soil, and protects it in a great measure from “Meteoric abrasion.” During the winter, however, the shape of the ant-hills is somewhat modified, but the matted roots of the plants preserve the major part of the soil which will thus remain, forming an envelope for the rock.

Among a great number of specimens of Crinoidea from the Mountain Limestone collected by me during several years past, there are many parts of columns which shew an enlargement of the diameter or bulging similar to that described by Miller as representing “the remedial effect of calcareous secretion in repairing an injury of the joints of the stem,” and some few portions have occurred having the appearance of a small column rising from the centre of a larger one as shewn in Woodcut fig. 1.

I Have long thought that the vallies of the Onny and the Teme, both above and below Ludlow, had once formed an estuary, and that the promontory on which the town stands had been thrown up by some convulsion blocking up the valley, and turning tha part above the town into a lake, which (by faults or otherwise) eventually caused an opening for the Teme between the Castle and Whitcliffe.

The collection of Mr. Baker, at Woodbridge, contains a tooth from the Suffolk Bone-bed, indicating a Mastodon of the section Trilophodon. The tooth appears to be the upper penultimate molar of the left side. Its chief peculiarities are its great breadth, approaching M. (Trilophodon) tapir oides; the shortness of the ridges, the cingulum well marked in parts; the absence of a posterior and presence of an anterior talon. It apparently belongs to Falconer's section, “Colliculi obtusi—valliculasque transversæ.” From a number of measurements and examinations of specimens of M. angustidens in the British Museum, of M. Borsoni and tapiroides in Paris (which I have to thank M. Lartet for very kindly showing to me), and M. Borsoni at Le Puy in the Haute Loire, I consider that this tooth, comes nearest to the corresponding tooth of the huge Pliocene Mastodon Borsoni, though the cingulum and talon (very variable parts of the tooth) are unusually marked in Mr. Baker's specimen.