No one who has not had personal experience of it can imagine the amount of labour thrown on the editor of a scientific periodical by the variation in the methods used by authors to indicate special kinds of type, and indeed, if the truth must be told, by the mistakes made by many authors as to what kind of type should be used. Quite often it is necessary, before a manuscript goes to the printers, to alter nearly every indication given as to the use of italics, capital headings, and so on, simply because the wrong signs are employed.

When looking through the bibliography referring to the crypto– volcanic phenomena of Swabia we find that it has been quite customary to explain the origin of the “Steinheim Basin” by the well–known facts which have been ascertained in the Ries of Nördlingen. When doing so one important fact has been deliberately ignored, viz, that only the Steinheim basin is actually cryptovolcanic, whereas the Ries of Nördlingen exhibits undeniable proofs of extensive volcanic activity. There are rhyolitic tuffs, weathered– out lava cords and lava slabs, partly absorbed crystalline rocks, et alia. In the case of the Ries of Nördlingen the explanation of the vast caldera and the various geologic abnormalities must obviously be sought in volcanic activity.

There is reason to suppose that a rise and fall of any part of the earth's surface may be due to anticlines travelling through the crust either (a) at the depth at which isostatic compensation becomes effective, which may be likened to the “surface” on which the crust “floats”, or (6) at a less depth, in a layer which becomes molten through the action of radioactivity.

In the case of (a) the cause would seem to be mountain-building in the crust above and the anticlines are outflows of rock-material: the rise and fall may be about equal: there is also some slight reason to suppose that an oscillation, analogous to that occurring when a buoyant object is thrown into water, with the production of a series of waves of diminishing amplitude, has occurred, but it is not yet clear whether such an oscillation is possible.

In the case of (6) the cause of the anticlines is the collapse of a portion of the crust which squeezes out plastic material below: a small rise is followed by a long, slow fall: a rise in one region is accompanied by a fall in an adjacent region : areas may be raised into domes by collapse of surrounding areas, in which case the central area will be a seat of vulcanicity.