The GeologicalMagazine is fortunate in having received within its pages many contributions relative to the discovery of Fossil Insect-remains, both in this country and abroad.

Genus Palæontina, Butler (fossil). Frontwing ovate triangular; costal nervure much swollen at base; subcostal four-branched, the first two branches emitted about half-way between discoidal cell and apex; the third emitted abnormally just beyond the cell, and therefore springing from beneath the nervure; the fourth emitted in a still more unusual manner from the third; so that the third and fourth branches might be described as springing together from a footstalk emitted from beneath the subcostal; discocellular and discoidal nervures precisely as in Caligo; median branches nearer together than in Caligo; submedian nervure following the same direction as the median nervures, but even more distinctly inarched, so that the internal area is considerably widened: hindwing and body wanting. Type Palæontina oolitica.

Fifteen years ago scarcely any attention had been paid to the subject of the earliest evidences of human antiquity in Western Europe.

The following remarks were written for the Settle Caves Exploration Committee in the spring of 1871. They were subsequently submitted to the British Association in 1872, and are, with additions embodying the result of the latest explorations, offered to the scientific public. First, I propose briefly to describe the beds with which we have become acquainted in the course of the explorations, their apparent range and superposition. Secondly, I will endeavour to show to what natural causes they probably owe their origin.

The district known as Cannock Chase is, at the present moment, the scene of a series of extensive mining operations which, if even moderately successful, will open up a very considerable area of valuable coal-seams, computed at not less than 200,000,000 tons, and push outwards a distance of upwards of five miles the northern apex of the South Staffordshire Coal-field. This apex, as is well known, now rests on Brereton, where the Coal-measures are thrown down on the east by a fault of considerable range and influence, and on the west they are overlapped unconformably by Bunter conglomerates. From this point the conglomerates are continued in a broad unbroken tract, over the Chase to within about four miles of the town of Stafford, up to which point the mining investigations, to which I have alluded, will be extended.

The rocks usually called metamorphic may be conveniently divided into two great groups—Silacids and Silo-carbacids, depending on the nature of their respective acid constituent. The first comprises syenites, gneisses, and ordinary crystalline schists— all essentially composed of mineral silicates. The second includes ophites, urkalks, and some others, which, in addition to siliceous minerals, contain more or less mineral carbonates.