384 Announcements and Inquiries. 



in the scientific sense. These are obviously matters depending 

 entirely on the uniformity of previous experience, and the competence 

 of the individual investigator " (p. 185). Is one to take this as a 

 confession that the zonal work of our palaeontologists is, after all, 

 founded purely or mainly on their personal opinions and on their 

 judgments in the selection of facts to be considered and facts to be 

 ignored ? Surely a more precise method of working is possible. 

 Taking the case of the Shenley Hill Limestone many of its species 

 occur in the Tourtias. By careful study of the wonderful succession 

 of Tourtias — for example, in the Mons district, where their ages 

 can be relatively and in most cases exactly determined (see 

 Professor Cornet's brief summary in Proc. Geol. Assoc, vol. xxxiii, 

 1922) — one can naturally eliminate facies fossils and incidentally 

 a great part of the personal factor in the selection of suitable fossils 

 for zonal purposes. To quote but one example. One may see our 

 Albian " zonal " form Pecten asper becoming the characteristic 

 fossil of the zone of Holaster subglohosus, and, if my memory serves 

 me rightly, a common fossil even in the Senonian further east. 



Are we so insular in Britain that we must practically ignore the 

 life-work of our Belgian colleagues but a few miles across the 

 Channel ? Publication cannot always keep pace with research, 

 but must our references to the faunas of the Tourtias be restricted 

 to work of more than half a century ago, when we have^ at hand 

 such magnificent collections as that contained in the Ecole des 

 Mines at Mons, or such an unrivalled store of information con- 

 cerning them as Professor Cornet of that institution would, I am 

 sure, be only too williag to impart ? 



L. Dudley STAM^^ 



Burma, 



1st June, 1922. 



ANNOUNCEMENTS AND INQUIRIES. 



Mr. Alfred Bell, c/o F. W. Harmer, Esq., M.A., F.G.S., Cringleford, 

 Norwich, being at work upon the British Pliocene and Pleistocene 

 Oysters, would be greatly obliged for any information bearing upon 

 their distribution. It is especially wanted in regard to the forms 

 present in the West of England, in Scotland, and West Ireland ; 

 information of localities, accompanied by specimens, if possible, 

 from shell heaps and raised beaches being of the utmost importance 

 in determiniag the earlier forms of oyster life in our islands in 

 Pleistocene times. 



