The genus Protoceras, described by the writer in 1891, from the Miocene of South Dakota, is now known to include some of the most interesting extinct mammals yet discovered. It likewise represents a distinct family, and thus deserves careful investigation and description. Before this discovery, no horned artiodactyles were known to have lived during Miocene time, and Protoceras is thus the earliest one described.

It is well known to all students of the history of geology that, although the date of publication of William Smith's “Map of the Strata of England and Wales” was the year 1815, yet even before the commencement of the present century the “Father of English Geology” had not only established the principle that strata can be identified by their organic remains, but had actually applied that important principle in the construction of a number of geological sections and maps. Conclusive documentary evidence of the truth of this statement is fortunately in the possession of the Geological Society.

A Paper on the diamantiferous rock of Kimberley by Sir J. B. Stone, M.P., Miss Raisin, and myself, was published in this MAGAZINE in 1895. Since then the first-named has received from friends in South Africa another parcel of specimens, obtained, at a greater depth than heretofore, in the De Beers mine. These specimens, twenty in number, he kindly entrusted to me for description.

Few will deny that whatever comes from the pen of Sir Henry Howorth is always interesting and original, whether the reader agrees with it or otherwise. This is especially the case when he has a theory to build up or to overturn, and in the latter case he not only tries to knock over his antagonist, but he discharges at him volleys of brilliant verbiage with the view to his utter annihilation.