670 



Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



Coalfield, where a series of unproductive measures come in between 

 the Lower and Upper Coal Measures. The axis of the folds runs 

 east-north-eastward, and their amplitude and length diminish in 

 proceeding from north-west to south-east. Inter-Carboniferous 

 folds also occur in the North Wales and North Staffordshire fields. 



3. 'Bajocian and Contiguous Deposits in the Northern Cottes- 

 wolds : the Main Hill-Mass.' By S. S. Buckman, Esq., F.G.S. 



After giving comparative sections at Cleeve, Leckhampton Hill, 

 and Birdlip, to show the disappearance of three horizons at the 

 second locality and five more at the third, the author interprets 

 the absence of the beds as due to ' pene-contemporaneous erosion ' 

 brought about by the elevation of rocks, due to small earth- 

 movements along a main south-west to north-east axis and sub- 

 sidiary axes north-west to south-east. In the Northern Cotteswolds 

 the beds which come in at Cleeve disappear, while there is a 

 development of the Harford Sands, the Tilestone, and the Snowshill 

 Clay above the Lower Trigonia-Grit. A series of detailed sections 

 along the main hill-mass is given. On tracing the rocks from west 

 to east across the Northern Cotteswolds, the whole of the Inferior 

 Oolite disappears, except quite the upper portion which rests directly 

 on Upper Lias, and the Upper Lias itself undergoes denudation ; 

 eastward the latter thickens again, and basal beds of Inferior Oolite 

 reappear. Thus the axis of an important anticline is along the 

 Vale of Moreton. The general result of the observations does 

 not confirm Prof. Hull's view that these members of the Jurassic 

 are thinning and disappearing eastward. The observed phenomena 

 were really brought about by contemporaneous erosions ; whereof 

 the principal one occurred before the deposition of the Upper 

 Trigonia-Giit. A revised map of Bajocian denudation is given, 

 and it is shown that, owing to anticlinal axes along the Yales of 

 Bourton and Moreton, pene-contemporaneous erosion must have 

 had considerable influence in determining the position of these 

 valleys. Such erosion is likely to have taken place along similar 

 lines at different times, and therefore may be connected with folds 

 in Palaeozoic rocks and may have a bearing on the thickness of 

 rocks overlying the Coal Measures. A table of the dates of the 

 chief erosions in Jurassic times is appended to the paper. 



LXVIII. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 

 To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine. 

 Gentlemen, — 



IN a paper of mine printed by you in the July number of your 

 Journal for last year (ser. 5, vol. 1. p. 173, 1900) I have some- 

 what severely criticised the data upon which certain writers have 

 based their deduction of the normal curve of errors. In particular 

 I have drawn attention to the absurdity of Mr. Merriman, in his 

 Text-book of Least Squares, citing certain data which could only be 



