1893. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 89 
shore, was often three or four feet in thickness, in one place it measured 
five feet. With therise of the tide many of these masses of spongy 
and cavernous, gravel-laden ice were detached, often in blocks of 
sufficient size to support and carry away the largest stones in the 
river-bank. So the ice-age is not quite over, and many erratics may 
have again started on their travels during the recent frost. 

In the Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc. Edinburgh, vol. xi., p. 215, Mr. James 
Bennie gives a valuable list of the fossils found in the raised sea 
bottom at Fillyside Bank, near Leith; a deposit described by Hugh 
Miller so long ago as 1854. The most interesting result of a closer 
examination is, perhaps, that the change of level does not seem to 
coincide with any climatic change, like that indicated by the Arctic 
shells in the raised sea-beds of the Clyde district. The whole of the 
mollusca from Fillyside, determined by Mr. Andrew Scott, are still 
living in the neighbourhood; and the same is the case with the 
associated flowering plants identified by Mr. Clement Reid. 
Mr. R. ETHERIDGE, JUN., is engaged on a monograph of the 
Permo-Carboniferous Invertebrata of New South Wales, and the 
second part, relating to the Echinodermata, Annelida and Crustacea, 
has just reached this country. In their general aspect the fossils are 
much like those from corresponding beds in Europe; at the same 
time, slight differences are perceptible, which have necessitated the 
erection of new genera and subgenera, and indicate that the separa- 
tion of a marine Australian province had already begun. The 
characteristic, however, that first strikes the eye with regard to this 
fauna is the large size of the individuals ; especially is this noticeable 
with regard to the crinoids. We are glad to learn that Mr. Etheridge 
is not only completing the present monograph, but is extending his 
researches to the Silurian Invertebrata of New South Wales, and to 
the Paleontology of Queensland and New Guinea. 
Tue Devonian rocks have furnished fields for many geological 
battles. Peace, however, reigned for some years in the North Devon 
area, until Dr. Hicks, in 1890, renewed the attack on the presumed 
orderly succession of rocks, found fossils in the Morte Slates, and 
claimed them to be no part of the Devonian system. The fossils 
discovered at that time were too obscure for specific identification, 
but he announces (Geological Magazine for January) that the Morte 
Slates ‘‘are now proved by their contained fossils to be of Silurian 
age.” We have yet to wait the particular description of these fossils, 
but, in the meantime, Dr. Hicks gives examples of Folds and Faults 
in the Devonian rocks at and near Ilfracombe, and these disturbances 
(in his opinion) necessitate a different interpretation of the succession 
of strata from that generally adopted. Instead of being one con- 
