On the 30th July last year I observed that a deposit of Websterite, subsulphate of alumina, had been cut into, in excavating for the new system of drainage in the Montpelier Road opposite the south end of Vernon Terrace. It occurs at a depthof 16 feet from the surface of the road, beneath a ferruginous deposit of varying depth, which overlies the chalk on the summit of the hill, consisting of ochreous clay with occasional flint-breccia and masses of hæmatite iron ore in some instances mammillated and associated with crystals of selenite. The iron ore is occasionally friable and of a cindery appearance, containing in its cavities angular pieces of chalk and occasional groups of crystals of selenite. The deposit of Websterite is about three feet wide at its junction with the overlying ferruginous mass, narrowing as it descends, apparently occupying a fissure in the chalk, which has at some time been filled with clay, or has been formed by some decomposing action on the chalk, the chalk intruding occasionally into the vein of Websterite. The mineral varies much in colour and appearance, consisting in some places of a soft white powder, which, I am informed by Sir W. C. Trevelyan, hehas observed in specimens at Newhaven, and which he has ascertained by the microscope to consist entirely of minute transparent crystals, the nature of which he believes has not yet been investigated; sometimes in masses of various size presenting the appearance of meerschaum, compact and structureless, or somewhat botryoidal in form, occasionally presenting a concentric structure, and rarely and only in a certain portion of the deposit exhibiting spherical concretions with a radiating structure. Specimens of these various forms I have presented to the British Museum. A mass of yellow clay with imbeddedchalk flints divides the summit of the vein of Websterite, and near the clay the mineral assumes the character of allophane, having a yellow ivory-like appearance, towards the chalk forming the wall of the vein of Websterite. The wall of the vein is marked by a dark line caused by the association of a soft black substance, oxide of manganese, with the Websterite.

It may seem superfluous to describe any part of such a well-known district as the Isle of Wight; but although its geology has been so well investigated, still the Post-Pliocene deposits of the island have perhaps received less attention than any others. The origin of its valleys, moreover, has not, so far as I am aware, been carefully studied; and as it may throw light on the date of formation of the Solent and Spithead, I venture to send a few notes made on a recent examination of the valley of the Yar, in the hope they may prove interesting, even if not original.

In bringing the last of a long series of papers on the Surface Drifts of the Lake District of Cumberland and Westmoreland to a close, Mr. Mackintosh sums up the general results at which he has arrived. All will agree with the first of his conclusions, “that land-ice may have planed, smoothed, polished, and striated rock surfaces, and pushed loose débris forward….” But I cannot see his reason for adding, “to the nearest protected situations,” for one would expect to find a terminal moraine at the open entrance of a valley, on a plain, or even on what can be proved to have been a true sea-bottom.

The Second Edition of Prof. Morris's “Catalogue of British Fossils” appeared in 1854, and in the same year was published Dr. Chr. G. Ehrenberg's “Mikrogeologie,” containing the figures of numerous Foraminifera found by that eminent German mioroscopist, in specimens of Chalk from Gravesend, Kent. A preliminary notice, indeed, of these had been given in the Transactions of the Berlin Academy of Sciences for 1838 (1839), pp. 92, 133–135, 146, pl. iv., fig. IV.; and some of the species were quoted in the “Catalogue;” but a more matured consideration was subsequently given them; and, together with many others from other sources, recent and fossil, they were most carefully figured and enumerated in the abovementioned magnificent work on Microzoa. In its fine folio plates, so richly illustrating the Foraminiferal faunæ of many localities, and of many geological horizons, the artistic work is of high order in the zoologist's eyes; it is faithfully correct as to form, aspect, ornamentation, colour, and all details, modified, however, by the specimens being mostly seen as transparent objects, with the thickness of the walls rather too much pronounced at the edges; the objects, too, are some-what in perspective. It being difficult to combine transparency and perspective in a drawing, especially with the attending minutiæ of pores, tubercles, ridges, internal septa, septal apertures, and other characteristics of Forminifera, the result is that the task of recognizing the real zoological place of the figured forms is difficult, or imposible, except to those who have long studied similar hosts of microzoa, similarly mounted in Canada-balsam. Having had such advantages, we feel called on to add to the list of British fossils, with our own nomenclature, the Cretaceous Foraminifera of Gravesend, figured by Ehrenberg.

Perhaps no question in English Pliocene geology has caused so much inquiry as the exact relation of the Red and Norwich Crags. The latter term I prefer as more palæontologically correct than the older one of “Mammaliferous,” and it is now becoming generally used. In the year 1865 I divided the Norwich Crag into two divisions, an Upper and a Lower, and endeavoured to show that the latter was the true Fluvio-marine Crag, the former being distinguished by its purely marine character, and also by its containing a larger per-centage of Northern shells. This Upper Crag was subsequently termed the “Chillesford Crag” by Mr. Searles Wood, and by this name it is usually known. In my paper above mentioned my purpose was to show that this Upper or “Chillesford Crag” connected the latest of the older crags with the lower Drift-beds. The Fluvio-marine beds were formed along the floor of an estuary, but the Upper Crag was deposited along the sea-bottom, when the same area had been depressed. As a consequence, this Crag had a wider and more extensive geographical development. I was unaware at this time that Mr. Searles Wood was working at the same subject; and I subsequently found that he, with his usual indefatigability, had arrived at a similar conclusion respecting the Upper bed of Norwich Crag.