In presenting a portrait and offering to the readers of the Geological Magazine a brief memoir of Dr. Arthur Smith Woodward, my namesake and successor in the Geological Department of the British Museum (Natural History), I feel that no apology is needed, inasmuch as every lover of our science will be glad to possess a record of one of its leading men whom he may have met already, and known generally, but may wish for a more personal acquaintance, which this sketch is intended to furnish.

Henry Woodward.

Materials for the study of this very distinctive genus have been accumulating for many years, and at last afford a firm basis for certain definite conclusions. Some important matters remain obscure, and the comparison of the Swedish material has been hindered by the dangerous state of the North Sea, but further delay in publication does not seem advisable. Various reasons make it convenient to deal with the species in the order of their geological age, beginning with the oldest, which is the most complete and is taken as the type-species of the genus. The new species are—

A description on modern lines of the Brighton chalk below the (old) zone of Actinocamax quadratus is to be found in Dr. Rowe's “Coast Sections”, pt. i, p. 346. The principal points that he makes are that between Ovingdean Pumping Station and Black Rock the cliffs display below the (old) zone of A. quadratus a thickness of 58 feet of chalk, the whole of which, he assigns to his zone of Marsupites, and further to his Marsupites band as Uintacrinus was not found in it, but he notes that Uintacrinus has been found on the reefs. These points have, as far as I know, stood unchallenged hitherto, but I am unable to reconcile them with my experience.

The subject of this paper is a group of three intrusive masses of igneous rock, possibly laccolitic in their origin, whose outcrops are situated within a radius of a mile from the village of Llanfairfechan, on the north coast of Carnarvonshire.

A short while ago I received from Professor A. Lacroix a copy of a recently published memoir on the laterites of French Guinea, accompanied by the request that I should, if possible, give an account of this work in the Geological Magazine, “puisque c'est là qu'ont paru les articles les plus importants sur cette question.” I have undertaken this task with the greater pleasure because Professor Lacroix was so good as to show me, when I was passing through Paris recently, both his hand-specimens and his microscopic preparations of these rocks, and because the memoir in question seems to me to be one of the most important and thorough pieces of work on laterite published since Max Bauer's account of the laterite of the Seychelles. Although Professor Lacroix' memoir deals professedly with French Guinea only, yet it is probable that many of the conclusions will be found to apply to other regions, and on this account, and because the series in which the memoir appears will probably not be readily accessible to all, I have thought it desirable to expound it at some length.