The rapid exploration of the Kent Coal-field during the last few years has considerably increased our knowledge of the very interesting Upper Carboniferous floras there developed. In a previous paper I described the plants obtained from the Waldershare and Fredville borings, and I hope before long to publish further accounts of the floras derived from several other borings. In the present note I wish to draw attention to the discovery of two fossils in Kent which appear to me to be of exceptional interest.

Previous Authorities.—The most important work dealing with my subject is that by Mr. Thomas Codrington “On the Superficial Deposits of the South of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight”. In this elaborate essay, which includes all the area with which I propose to deal, the author describes the gravel terraces on both sides of the Solent, including the New Forest, showing how they were originally distributed over surfaces gradually sloping downwards on both sides towards the margin of the sea-coast from a height of about 420 feet on either hand. In the author's view, the plateau gravel beds were spread as sheets over sloping surfaces, themselves intersected by river-valleys which were widened and deepened at a subsequent period after the deposition of the beds of gravel, so as to leave abrupt faces and cliffs exposing sections of the strata. The paper, which is illustrated by sections, leaves nothing to be desired for completeness; but in order to account for the deposition of the gravel-beds he propounds a theory which I am unable to accept.

The material described in this paper was handed to me by the Liberian Development Company (to which I acted for some time as technical adviser) and was obtained in the course of prospecting operations prosecuted by that Company at Banja Ta (Montserrado) on the Jiblong and Bor Rivers (tributaries of the Junk River), some thirty miles inland from Monrovia, the chief port of the State of Liberia.

In sinking the caissons for the construction of the bridge over the Blue Nile near Khartum, a considerable number of bones have been found, from time to time, in the alluvial beds, at depths of 60–68 feet below the level of low Nile. These specimens were obtained by Messrs. Hinckley, Stephen, and Le Bailly, and are now deposited in the collection of the Geological Survey of the Sudan at Khartum.

The discovery by Professor Reynolds in the Mendips strata representing the greater portion of the Silurian succession (Rep. Brit. Assoc. Portsmouth, 1911), showing no similarity to the slates of Mortehoe and the neighbourhood, has rendered it more difficult than ever to accept the attribution by Dr. Hicks of the latter rocks to the Silurian period (Q.J.G.S., vol. lii, p.254, 1896); and now an important fact has come to light which appears to afford decisive evidence on this question.

For many years past the Swedish geologists have been directing the attention of the scientific world to the curious phenomenon of the occurrence of submerged forests in certain of their inland lakes. In our own country such evidences of change of level are a familiar sight along our sea-coasts, and, if we bear in mind the extreme instability of the sea-level, their presence is little to be wondered at. In all bodies of water which hare no outlet—and the sea is only the largest of these—the surface-level is determined by the balance between supply and evaporation, and oscillation is inevitable. In the case of freshwater lakes, however, the level is determined within small limits by the overflow, and the occurrence of tree stumps in the position of growth beneath their waters presents therefore a problem of considerable interest.

2. Essexite. (a) Carskeoch type.—A small boss of essexite, of rather basic type, pierces the agglomerate of the Carskeoch vent, near Patna, Ayrshire. Macroscopically it is light grey, compact, and fine-grained. In thin section it shows a plexus of fluxionally-arranged plagioclase laths of the composition Ab An, the interstices being filled with subhedral augite of a nearly colourless variety, and fresh olivine. Here and there minute angular interspaces are occupied with turbid isotropic matter, the form and arrangement of the particles of which suggest the former presence of nepheline. A few broad plates of pale augite and crystals of olivine interrupt the general trachytoid fabric. Ilmenite and biotite occur sparsely, and a little orthoclase may be detected on the margins of the plagioclases, extending irregularly into the interspaces. This rock has a distinct individuality, and resembles neither the essexites of Lochend and Craigleith in the Lothians, nor the Crawfordjohn type described below. It is poor in alkali-felspars and felspathoids, is devoid of purple augite, and has a well-developed trachytoid fabric.