Students of Palæozoic fishes are indebted to Professor A. von Koenen, of Gottingen, for two interesting memoirs on the fragmentary fish-remains of the North German Devonian formations. Owing to their incomplete character, however, the Professor is only able to suggest a provisional interpretation of most of the specimens, and the determination of their true nature must be left for future discoveries.

The Tertiary shells referred to in this paper constitute a portionof the Egyptian collection of fossils sent to the British Museumfor description by Capt. H. G. Lyons, E.E., F.G.S., Director of theGeological Survey of Egypt.

There has recently been presented1 to the British Museum collection an Ammonite from the Gault of Folkestone that seems to be worthy of a short note. It is represented in the accompanying figures. At first sight it appears to be a new species. The shell is nearly complete and exceedingly well preserved; there has evidently been another half whorl to the specimen (see Fig. a), but this, which apparently constituted the body-chamber, has been broken away, leaving at the anterior end of the specimen the surface of the last septum.

On April 30th, 1897, the Trustees of the British Museum purchased from Dr. F. Krantz, of Bonn, seven specimens labelled “Agelacrinus, n.sp., Unter Devon, Condroz, Frankreich.” But the Condroz is a district in Belgium, south of Namur and yiege, between the rivers Meuse and Ourthe; the species do not belong to Agelacrinus or any known genus; and the matrix clearly is that of the well-known “Psammites du Condroz,” which are Upper, not Lower, Devonian. The species, however, is new, and would have been described by me many months ago had it not been necessary to compare it with other species as rare as they were obscure.

In the present state of Natural Science, there are too many obstacles in the path of the original investigator. That this is the case in the study of Botany, we may well believe, as authorities of that science have frequently placed the fact on record. It is certainly true that everyone who does original work in systematic Zoology, either among the living or extinct forms, meets many difficulties at the start in endeavouring to ascertain what others have done before him. The literature of the subject is often discouraging from its extent, and especially from its uncertainty. If the work in hand requires the comparison of type-specimens, the difficulties greatly increase, and often prevent definite conclusions. The type will frequently be found the most important element in the problem, far more so than the literature, however extensive. This is more especially true among the extinct vertebrates, with which the present communication mainly deals.

The majority of fossiliferous beds in the Cambrian are of anargillaceous nature, and limestones are comparatively rare, but weneed not here enter into a discussion as to the causes of their rarity.When, however, we come to the Ordovician, we find calcareous bedsmuch developed, and since we find in them, as well as in the slatesand shales, these blind genera, and as far as we know not lessabundantly, it appears as if the physical conditions of sedimentationhad but little to do with the existence and perpetuation of theseforms.

The shore of the Menai Straits on the Carnarvonshire side, nearthe Suspension Bridge, is composed, as is well known, ofsandstones and shales belonging to the Carboniferous Series. Abouta quarter of a mile west of the bridge, however, some fissile, reddishand greenish shales appear on the foreshore, dipping at higherangles than usual. This might easily be ascribed to local disturbance, as a large fault is not far off, though the shale differs somewhat from that which is common in the Carboniferous rocks of the district, a fact which was noticed by Mr. G. H. Morton, who went with me along this part of the section.

My attention has been drawn to a recent notice' by Mr. Colesof a quartzite at Martley. Since this area is included withinthe district of the Malvern and Abberley Hills, which I have beenengaged in studying for more than two years, a brief descriptionof the relations of the rocks, as determined by myself in Januaryof the present year, may not be out of place. The small patch of interesting rocks here is likely to become covered up as cultivation progresses; indeed, the exposure is evidently much less extensive than it was when Phillips described it in his memoir on the Malvern and Abberley Hills. Mr. Coles has, moreover, I think, hardly done justice to the remarkable section exposed here.

Although the ice of many glaciers, more especially thosewhich move over massive impervious rocks, is clean andalmost free from rock fragments, in many cases towards the bottomof the glacier, boulders, pebbles, and even masses of clay, mud, or sand abound. The rock-masses have evidently been derived from The floor over which the glaciers move, for the fragments become more numerous as we descend in the ice, the upper portion of the glacier being often quite free from foreign matter.