(4) Recent Æolian Sands.—On the south shore the sand has made or is making some encroachments on the land, in others on the sea. The ‘live’ sand-dunes are principally to be found at Tuckerstown, but there are some movements at Elbow (or Middleton) Bay and at Warwick Long Bay. The shell-sand is mostly made up of the broken shells of various marine species, some few being entire, with which are mingled the broken tubes of serpulæ, fragments of nullipores and corallines, and the red shells of a Vermetus, viz. Teganodus (Siliquaria) ruber, Schum. This latter is so plentiful as to give a distinctly red appearance to the sand of some beaches.

It may be taken that the general tendency of the evolution of surface ornament (and therefore of the radioles) in the Holectypoida was a dual one. The largo tubercles become gradually restricted to the adoral surface, and often reduced in number, while the actual density of the tuberculation increases. This increase is attained, either by a simple multiplication of the normal vertical series, as in Discoïdea (this being sometimes associated with the transformation of granules to tubercles at the ambitus), or by a more uniform distribution of those series over the area of the plates, and the frequent substitution of two tubercles in the place of one, as in Conulus. Both these types of change lead away from the primitive, ‘Regular’ condition of tuberculation, and trend towards the Clypeastroid and Cassidulid arrangement.

Few natural mineral products have aroused more general interest or been more provocative of discussion amongst geologists than that superficial rock-formation so typical of the tropics known as laterite. This material excites interest not only because of its chemical composition, but also on account of its wide distribution. It has been recorded, for instance, from tropical South America (e.g. the Guianas and Brazil), Central Africa (e.g. Guinea and East Africa), the Seychelles, India, the Malay Peninsula, the East Indies, and Western Australia. Many papers have been published dealing with its distribution, composition, and also its origin, to explain which many hypotheses have been invented.

1. The raised beach near Porth Clais consists of shingle and large wave-worn boulders resting on a rock-platform, and overlain by angular head or rubble of local rocks.

2. Glacial drift (Boulder-clay) overlies the head at the western end of the section, and towards the east has ploughed into the raised beach and rests on the solid rock. Some of the boulders of the raised beach and a small piece of the rock-platform are definitely striated under the Glacial drift.

3. The raised beach is pre-Glacial in the sense that it underlies the Glacial deposit.

4. The raised beach contains non-local boulders which may have been transported by drifting shore-ice.

That curious fossil organism, long known as the ‘Dragon-tree’, has been a puzzle to palæobotanists for almost three-quarters of a century. Bandied about among various monocotyledonous genera, then thought to be possibly related to the Cycads, and finally given a non-committal name that was without implication of kinship, though placed among the Cycads, it has at last, through the admirable research of Dr. M. C. Stopes, been definitely allocated among the Conifers, and even among the higher members of that group. Dr. Stopes is certainly to be congratulated for having worked out its affinities in such a conclusive and convincing manner. It is to be regretted, however, that the scientific name she has finally adopted for the ‘Dragon-tree’ is not the one that is likely to meet the requirements of nomenclatorial permanency. The nomenclature of systematic palæobotany does not differ essentially from that of livmg plants, and must abide by the same rules.

Why should the ‘Dragon-tree’ have a name at all? Assuredly one of ‘nomenclatorial permanency’ is impossible for it, for the thing is not a recognizable species. Dr. Knowlton's note on the ‘Dragon-tree’ (ante) is an illustration of the application of the strict laws of nomenclature regardless of common sense. The object of my paper (Geol. Mag., Dec. V, Vol. VIII, pp. 55–9, 1911) was to show that the plant for some time called Benstedtia is not a genus in the true sense of the word at all, as it is merely a bit of the woody trunk of One of the higher Conifers. So much Dr. Knowlton accepts—and then discusses its name in the same fashion as is used for true species.