Corres-pondence — J. Allan Tliomson. 47 



has received considerable attention in recent years, largely owing to 

 the persistent advocacy of Professor Patrick Geddes. The recent 

 establishment of a Regional Survey Association for the Liverpool 

 district, initiated by Professor P. M. Roxby, and the progress already 

 made in connexion with the survey of the peninsula of Wirral — - 

 the first piece of work undertaken by that Association — is well 

 known, and the object of the first communication was to suggest 

 that the geological section of such a survey was one that might 

 well be taken in hand by a local Geological Society and worked 

 systematically by the Society as a body in accordance with a care- 

 fully planned scheme of investigation and record. A list of problems 

 for investigation and record was submitted and elaborated, 

 including: Coast erosion and changes, reclamation of land from the 

 sea, records or indications of changes of relative level of land and 

 sea in geologically recent times, natural drainage systems, existing 

 stone-quarries and brickfields, and distribution of other commercially 

 valuable mineral substances, nature and character of the soil and 

 subsoil, etc. 



The second communication served as a practical illustration of 

 the nature of the investigations which might be undertaken, and 

 embodied much useful and interesting information concerning marl 

 and the extensive marling of the land in Cheshire in past days. 



Following the reading of the papers. Professor Roxby gave an 

 account of the work which has already been done in Wirral, and 

 exhibited a series of maps on which the information thus far collected 

 has been expressed ; after which Professor Boswell, who has been 

 appointed director of the geological and physiographical section 

 of the survey, dealt more particularly with some of the investigations 

 which awaited attention, among which a survey of the soil was one 

 of the most important and pressing. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



BRACHIOPOD NOMENCLATURE: SPIRIFER AND SYRINGOTHYRIS. 



Sir, — In my paper on the above subject in the August number 

 of the Geological Magazine, pp. 371-4, the dates of publication of 

 the genus Spirifer by Sowerby were left in doubt. Mr. C. Davies 

 Sherborn has kindly informed me that the paper read to the Linnean 

 Society was published in Trans. Linn. Soc, vol. xii, pt. ii, p. 515, 

 in September or October, 1819 (see Trans. Geol. Soc, vol. v, p. 633, 

 under List of Donations). Min. Conch., vol. ii. No. 21, was published 

 in February, 1816 (see Bull. Soc. Vaudoise, 1855). The genus 

 Spirifer was therefore first published in 1816, with sole species 

 Spirifer cuspidatus, and my argument holds good. 



With regard to Ichthyosaurus, however, it appears that Flower 

 and Lydekker did not go fully into the matter, for it was proposed 



