Brief Notices. 229 



America, with special reference to the fishes of Iowa, as the author 

 deals generally with the subject and gives a full list of the Devonian 

 fishes of North America. Some of the species are grouped, according 

 to Cope, in the class Agnatha, a lower grade than fishes proper ; 

 and these include the Asterolepis, Bothriolepis, and Cephalaspis, but 

 none of them are recorded from Iowa. The local genera include 

 ConcJiodus, Binichthys, Biptcrus, Seteracanthus, Onychodm, Ptychodus, 

 Rhynchodus, and Synthetodus. The work is accompanied by thirteen 

 plates of fossils and three palseogeographic maps. 



Scottish ' Eenie ' Coal. — Under this title Mr. C. T. Clough and 

 Mr. James Kirkpatrick describe a variety of coal which on certain 

 surfaces shows circular sti'uctures bearing a resemblance to ' een ' 

 (eyes). These structures, though common, are seldom so well 

 developed as to attract attention. The authors, however, state that 

 "A few months ago some unusually good specimens were found in 

 Gateside colliery, Cambuslang, and these certainly are merely 

 superficial structures, closely allied probably to conchoidal fractures, 

 Avhich are found on certain joint-planes. They must, however, 

 have been formed by some natural action, perhaps by pressure acting 

 specially on certain points, along planes which were probably also 

 produced by pressure at some far distant period ; and, since that 

 period, thin films of spar of various kinds — calcite, a ferriferous 

 carbonate, quartz, iron pyrites, and more rarely galena — have been 

 deposited along many of the joint-planes, and have often taken the 

 foi'm of the ' een ' with which they are in contact. Such spathic 

 'een' are, however, by no means always present". (Paper read 

 before the Mining Institute of Scotland, Trans. Inst. Mining 

 Engineers, 1909, xsxvii.) 



The Royal School of Mines. — Mr. F. W. Rudler, I.S.O., F.G.S., 

 presided at the thirty-sixth annual dinner of the old students of 

 the School, which took place at the Hotel Cecil on April 30. In 

 the course of his reply to the toast of " The Royal School of Mines ", 

 the Chairman remarked on the official ups and downs which the 

 School has undergone, observing that " at last it has settled down 

 under the shelter of the Imperial College of Science and Technology, 

 but with its individuality, its name, and its associateship unimpaired". 

 These words are reported in the Mining Journal for April 3, but in 

 an article in the same journal on " Mining Education in the British 

 Empire", we find remarks on "the threatened extinction of the 

 diploma (A.R.S.M.). This, if it eventuates, will certainly be nothing 

 less than a calamity. An A.R.S.M. has a market value . 

 and it is a distinct injustice to demand that students, who go 

 through a course at what is to all intents and purposes the Royal 

 School of Mines, should in future go abroad with the mystic and 

 unknown symbol A.I.C.S.T. after their names". AVe trust that 

 this is a false alarm. 



Red Granite of the Tkansvaal. — In his Anniversary Address 

 to the Geological Society of South Africa, 1909 (Proc. Gcol. Soc. 

 S. Africa for 1909, pp. xxi-xxx), Mr. H. Kynaston chose as his 

 subject " The Red Granite of the Transvaal Bushvcld and its Relation 



