THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE 



TO OUR GEOLOGICAL FRIENDS AND SUPPORTERS. 



The year, now so rapidly passing away, witnesses the completion 

 of our Seventh Volume, and it is with no small degree of pleasure 

 that we again record our annual thanks to those kind friends whose 

 names have so often adorned these pages as our Contributors, and 

 indeed, but for whose generous aid, we never should have reached 

 our Seventy-eighth Monthly Number. 



Happily for us, notwithstanding the terrible war going on so near 

 at hand, — in which, alas 1 two of the greatest European nations, 

 foremost in Arts and Sciences, are still engaged, — we have continued 

 to enjoy the blessings of peace and to pursue uninterruptedly our 

 scientific work. 



It is, however, much to be feared, that both in France and in 

 Germany, there will be, for a time at least, a considerable scientific 

 dearth. Such being the case, it is earnestly to be hoped that the 

 Geologists of other countries will, under their more favoured cir- 

 cumstances, endeavour to increase the quota of next year's work 

 by greater activity, and by enlisting recruits to supply the losses 

 sustained abroad. 



Already we see new bands of Geologists subjugating hitherto 

 unexplored regions to their peaceful sway, and realizing, in some 

 instances at least, substantial rewards. 



Thus British North America ofi'ers, not only Eozoon Canadense, 

 but fresh fields of Coal and Gold to those who will go forth and 

 win them. 



The Cape Colony and Natal, though not very rich in either Coal- 

 er Gold-, have lately added the attraction of Diamond-fields, which 

 seem likely to yield a fair reward to the explorer. 



Australia — in addition to her metalliferous and Coaly treasures — 

 has, during the past year, contributed a living representative, in its 

 Queensland "Mud-fish," of the Old Devonian Crossopterygian 

 Ganoids, with rhomboidal scales, found so abundantly at Dura Den, 

 in Fifeshire. 



The great Pacific railroad has opened up the geology of vast 

 regions in the United States heretofore unknown, affording much 



