For more than a quarter of a century the Tertiary geology of Burma has been the subject of investigation from the point of view of the petroleum resources of the country. A vast amount of detailed information must be stored up in the private files of the various oil companies operating in Burma, and it is a source of continual regret to the geologist that at least some of this information—much of which has great scientific but little commercial value—cannot be made public. Although there exists Dr. Noetling's important but misleading monograph on the supposed “Miocene Fauna of Burma”, published in the Palæontographia Indica, 1901, it is only within the last decade that the Tertiary stratigraphy has been seriously considered from a palæontological standpoint, and for this progress the officers of the Geological Survey of India are almost entirely responsible. In this direction immensely valuable results have already been obtained, though the study is scarcely more than in its infancy.

Barrettia, the most abnormal of the Rudistæ, and among the strangest of all the mollusca, was first found in Jamaica by Lucas Barrett, F.G.S., in the year 1861. The specimens were ably described by S. P. Woodward, F.G.S., in 1862. The original specimens, now in the British Museum of Natural History, consist of polished transverse and longitudinal sections of the upper part of the shell, the latter showing the junction of the upper and lower valves, and a cross section of the young shell near the apex of the lower valve. They were called Barrettia monilifera in honour of the discoverer. The locality where they were found was on the banks of the Back River, a tributary of the Rio Grande, about 15 miles from the coast in Portland Parish in the north-east of the island. The rock is described as a hard, grey limestone which occurs in bands of a few inches to a yard in thickness, subordinate to many hundreds of feet of shale which graduate up into other grey shales of the Eocene, followed by white limestones of Miocene age.

Are-examination of the trachytoid phonolite of Traprain Law was undertaken on the suggestion of Mr. E. B. Bailey, in order to determine the characteristics and mode of occurrence of the nepheline contained in it. The slides examined were those of the Geological Survey collection and nine new ones specially cut from material recently obtained. During the course of the examination sodalite and olivine were detected in the rock. These minerals have not been mentioned in previous accounts of the petrography of Traprain Law, and sodalite seems to have been described in only one other rock from the British Isles (14).

On glancing over back numbers of the GeologicalMagazine after eight months' residence abroad, I have been much interested to find a paper by Mr. C. Edmonds on the Carboniferous Limestone of West Cumberland.