During the past year there were only two undoubted earth-quakes in this country. Some may have occurred in Glen Garry, one of our most sensitive regions; but the construction of a new railway through the valley renders it difficult to identify true earthquakes with certainty. The total number of British earth-quakes during the last twelve years thus amounts to 116, of which 46 had epicentres in England and Wales and 70 in Scotland, 42 of the latter number being confined, or almost confined, to Glen Garry.

That the Norwegian fjords were originally river valleys is a statement which scarcely admits of controversy. In their form, outline, and topographical position they are simply prolongations of the valleys which descend into the sea partly submerged; and if the land were still further submerged, as it once was to the extent of 200 metres according to Andr. M. Hansen, the fjords would be prolonged beyond their present inland limits without much variation of form.

At the meeting of the British Association at Newcastle in 1889. I brought out my interpretation of the probable origin of the limestone knolls of Yorkshire.

Readers of this Magazine may remember that early last August there were descriptions in many provincial and even in some London newspapers of an extensive ‘landslip,’ which had occurred on the side of the mountain called Carnedd Dafydd, on the eastern side of the valley of Nant Ffrancon, in North Wales. The impression conveyed was perhaps somewhat exaggerated, and yet the phenomenon was on a scale quite large enough to be of geological importance.

On June 10th, 1898, whilst on an excursion with the Yorkshire Geological and Polytechnic Society, I found three specimens of fish remains in the Millstone Grits at Summit in Lancashire. Subsequently, on several occasions, I again visited the district and succeeded in collecting a large number of fish remains, and on these, together with a few other specimens which had been found in these rocks at rare intervals, I have based the following paper.

Professor J. Joly, in his interesting paper estimating the geological age of the earth from the amount of sodium contained in the sea, mentions in an appendix seven possible errors which may render his estimate a minimum, and seven others which may render it a maximum. Neither among the former errors guarded against in the appendix, nor in the body of the paper, does there appear any reference to the possibility of sea-water being absorbed by the surface rocks of the globe, either by capillary attraction, as maintained by Daubrée, or by means of fissures, as contended by De la Beche.

Writing from the Station Hospital at Ladysmith, Dr. Henry Exton, F.G.S., has communicated his observations on the geology of the country near Ladysmith, in the northern part of Natal, in letters to Professor T. Rupert Jones. A very noticeable geological feature is the prevalence of an igneous rock (intrusive andesitic diabase) on all the hills from Umbulwana, four miles east by south from Ladysmith, to the famed Spion Kop, sixteen miles west from here.

In the “Gallery of Nature,” Milner, p. 388, it is stated that Brighton (then a mere village) in the time of Elizabeth (1558–1603) “stood upon a site where the sea now rolls, and where the chain pier stands.” We might infer from this statement that at Brighton the sea, since the date mentioned, had been elevated over the land. We cannot draw this conclusion, however, with certainty, for the reasons following:—

During the last century the eastern coast of England has been constantly eaten into by the sea; churches, farms, and towers have been repeatedly devoured by the waves. In this district, however, we know that these results have not been caused by a rise in surface-level of the waters; we know that erosion by waves and currents has been the sole cause for these changes. It is absurd, therefore, to assume that Brighton during the last few centuries has alone suffered submergence, while all Britain has elsewhere undergone continual upheaval. Erosion, then, is the more probable explanation of this item, and it should not be held as evidence conflicting with our curve.

In the Geological Magazine for January, 1901 (n.s., Dec. IV, Vol. VIII, pp. 3, 4), Professor Burckhardt describes certain markings in the sandstone matrix of specimens of Hyperodapedon and Rhynchosaurus in the British Museum, from Elgin, Shropshire, and Warwickshire (the last, however, not being, as implied by the legend to the figure, represented in the Museum). He believes that these are hollow imprints “left by Echinoderms of a Euryalid shape, having peripheral arms, either simple or forked,” but he appeals to specialists to decide to which group of Echinoderms they are due. Since these marks are said to be exceedingly numerous, and since Dr. Burckhardt uses them as evidence of contemporaneity, I thought it my duty, as the specialist nearest at hand, to examine these statements without delay.

A wrong impression is given by the question: “Why will Mr. Ackroyd not have the 19 rivers?” (Geol. Mag., November, 1901, p. 505). The data collected by Sir John Murray are admirable additions to our natural knowledge, and they are used in my last article (Geol. Mag., October, 1901, p. 448), but I contend that they are not available for use in the expression—

and I cannot accept either the minor or major limits of time arrived at in this way. Perhaps a few more lines are necessary to further amplify my reasons.

The southern shore of Lake Tanganyika and the country for a distance of 40 miles south of the lake consist of sandstones and conglomerates, dipping north about 10°. These sandstones stretch some little way up the eastern and western shores, and appear to continue away to the south-west. Proceeding further north along the lake shore they get harder, being in places metamorphosed into a pink quartzite.