On the 19th of last September there passed away from among us one of the most original and successful of the geologists of the century—Dr. Gustaf Linnarsson, the eminent palaeontologist of the Geological Survey of Sweden. His death was so sudden and so unexpected that his sorrowing friends have as yet hardly recovered from their grief and astonishment at the blow, and are not fully awakened to the magnitude of their loss.

Remains of birds from the “Forest Bed” were known to Mr, Green in 1842 (History of Bacton), and they are mentioned by Mr. A. Bell (Geologists' Assoc. 1871), in his list of “Forest Bed” Vertebrata, as bones of indeterminable species. These appear to be the only published instances in which Avian bones from these deposits are referred to, and hitherto no closer determination has been made. This is not very surprising, for the bird bones which have been found, although in some numbers, are either in a fragmentary condition or else they are not characteristic parts of the skeleton. Portions of vertebræ, scapulæ, coracoids, and limb-bones probably indicate the existence, at that time, of at least half a dozen different forms; but at present only two genera have been identified, and one of these is very doubtful.

In some papers which I have been allowed to print in the GeologicaiMagazine I have drawn the general conclusion that the Mammoth and his companions were finally overwhelmed by a great diluvial catastrophe. This conclusion I have based chiefly on other than stratigraphical evidence. If it be a reasonable conclusion, it ought to admit of being-supported by such evidence, and we are, in fact, bound to meet the purely geological side of the case. Believing that this may be done with the greatest confidence, and with the most complete advantage to the theory, I now propose to examine this evidence, with all deference, and I hope also with all frankness. There is virtually no dispute about the facts. These are familiar, and admitted, and the main contention is about the inferences to be drawn from them.

Since the date of my communication to the Geological Society on the sections at and in the neighbourhood of Twt Hill, I have more than once visited the district, and have spent much time in working over the specimens which I have collected. The exact relation of these conglomerates to the granitoid rock on which they rest is a matter of great importance as bearing on theoretical questions relating to metamorphic changes in stratified rocks— questions at which for the last three or four years I have lost no opportunity of working. I should therefore, in all probability, have recurred to the subject, even if my attention had not been directed to it by my friend Dr. Roberts' communication and criticism of the above paper. In the latter, it may be remembered that we assigned the Twt Hill conglomerate to the granitoid series.

Mr. A. G. Nathorst, whose recent contributions to the Palæobotany of Sweden have been very valuable, has been turning his attention to the impressions found on the surface of schists, especially in Palæozoic rocks, which have been too readily accepted as impressions of plants. They find a place among the Algæ of Schimper's “Traité de Paléontologie Végétale,” and they are employed by Saporta and Marion in their recent work, “L'Evolution du Régne Végétal,” and are treated as Algæ, and employed as data in their account of the evolution of the vegetable kingdom. Mr. Nathorst, so long ago as 1873, called in question the plant origin of many of these markings, and he has recently published in the Transactions of the Royal Swedish Academy (vol. xviii. No. 7, Stockholm, 1881) an exhaustive treatise on the subject, with eleven phototypic plates of impressions which he obtained by the motions of different animals or the trails of plants on soft materials.