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Since the publication, in the Quarterly Journal of Science for July, 1876, of an article on the Indian Diamond Fields, in which the writer, Captain Burton, does not appear to be aware of what has been done in these Colonies towards adding to our knowledge of the geological history of the diamond, I have been induced to re-write a paper, jointly prepared by the late Professor Alex. M. Thomson, of the Sydney University, and myself, and read before the Royal Society of New South Wales on the 7th December, 1870; and to incorporate with it a series of my own papers (of which the above was merely a summary), which appeared in the ?Sydney Morning Herald? previously to that date. I shall confine my remarks to the mode of occurrence of the diamond in New South Wales, as the late Rev. W. B. Clarke has, in his valuable and interesting Presidential Addresses to the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1870 and 1872, almost exhaustively treated the subject, as far as regards our present knowledge of the diamond all over the world.

1. History.?The genus Cladochonuswas founded by Prof. M'Coy in 1847 (Annals Nat. Hist. vol. xx. p. 227) for certain Australian Pal?ozoic corals with ?some relation to Aulopora,? but differing ?in their curious erect habit, regular, angular mode of branching, slender, equal stem-like tubes, and abruptly dilated terminal cups bent in nearly opposite directions.?Prof. M'Coy also lays stress upon the thickness of the walls in Cladochonus, and the proportionately small calices, and states (loc. cit., and Ibid. 1849, vol. iii. p. 134) that the curious little corals formerly referred by him to Lamouroux's Janiawill fall into this genus, viz. Jania crassa, and Jania bacillaria(Synop. Carb. Limestone Foss. Ireland, 1844, p.197). The Australian species Cladochonus tenuicollisis distinguished by the slenderness of the stolons connecting the calices. In 1851 Messrs. Milne-Edwards and Haime described a genus under the name of Pyrgia(Polyp. Foss. Terr. Pal. p. 310). which has been placed by subsequent writers as a synonym of Cladochnons, and we think with good reason. To their genus they assign the following characters?the corallum is free, pedicellate, with a strong epitheca, very deep calices, and without traces of septal stri?, and they consider that it differs from Auloporain its simple and free habit. Two species were described, Pyrgia Michelini, Ed. and H., and P. Labechei, Ed. and H. The Jani?of M'Coy they reserve their opinion on, but C. tenuicollisof the same authour is referred by them to the young of the genus Syringopora(loc. cit.p. 296). Similar views were expressed by them in their subsequent ?Monograph of the British Fossil Corals? (pt. 3, Corals from the Perm. Form. and Mounatain Limset. p. 164). 1 and they further describe their Pygria Labechei(loc. cit.p. 166).

To the recently published paper by my father, ?Pal?ontology of the Coasts of the Arctic Lands visited by the late British Expedition,? etc., I contributed some notes on the Polyzoa obtained during the progress of the Expedition from the Pal?ozoic rocks of the regions visited. Amongst other forms I referred at some length to Dr. F. Toula's genus Ramipora, and pointed out its affinities to various genera of Pal? Polyzoa, and more particularly to Synocladia, King, in the following words:?? It appears to differ from the first of these? (i.e. from Synocladia) ?in the absence of dichotomization of the stem and primary branches, so far as the remains of it are known to us; secondly, in the bilateral symmetry of the latter; thirdly, in the fact that the cells all open on the same plane on each side the median keel, whereas in Synocladiathe stems and branches are divided longitudinally by several carin?, between which the cell apertures occur. Again in Ramiporaboth aspects of the polyzoarium are carinate, but in Synocladiaonly one. Lastly, in Synocladiathe dissepiments all appear to be regularly celluliferous, but in Ramiporathis does not appear to hold good to the same extent.?

BY far the larger proportion of the Carboniferous fossils described and figured by the late Professor John Phillips, F.R.S., in the second volume of his ?Illustrations of the Geology of Yorkshire,? and published in 1836, are contained in the collection of the late Mr. Gilbertson, of Clitheroe, now deposited in the Geological Department of the British Museum. The early date of publication of this work renders the collection described in it one of the most important, next to those of Sowerby, Ure, Martin, and one or two others, to students not only of British, but equally so of Continental Carboniferous Pal?ontology. Unfortunately the descriptions of Prof. Phillips are so abbreviated and unsatisfactory, and the figures in many instances so mearge, that it is with great difficulty anything like an accurate determination of a species can be made by the aid of them. Under these circumstances the following notes made directly from the type specimens will probably be found of use; it would, however, be far more satisfactory to have the specimens refigured. For convenience sake I shall commence with those composing plate vi., and then take the others composing plate v.

In the July Number of the GeologicalMagazine, I described certain new species of bivalve Mollusca from the Carboniferous series of Scotland. These will now be found on Plate XII., accompanied by three other well-marked forms from the same formation, and which appear to me to be undescribed. In Messrs. Young and Armstrong's Catalogue of the Carboniferous Fossils of the West of Scotland is recorded a new species of Pteronites, under the specific name of P. fluctuosus(Etheridge, MS.), a shell so named by my father, but never yet described. P. fluctuosusis specifically remarkable for its small size, and the absence of ribs on the anterior side.

The correspondence in the life of the Wenlock rocks of Great Britain and those probably occupying a similar horizon in New South Wales is a very marked one. At present, I wish more particularly to draw attention to the occurrence of the genus Turrilepasand Annelid jaws in the Bowning Beds of New South Wales. This series of rocks has been enthusiastically investigated by Mr. John Mitchell, who, in his capacity of Teacher of the Public School of that place for some years, had an excellent opportunity of working out the fauna of the series in question. His researches are detailed in two papers, ?Notes on the Geology of Bowning,? and ?The Geological Sequence of the Bowning Beds.? Both the plates of Turrilepasand the small Annelid jaws are found in the Lower Trilobite bed of this series, and are chiefly from the typical locality of Bowning Creek.

Obs.?As distinguished from Serpulites, the term Serpulais here made to include those tubes which were attached, or in all probability attached by some portion of their surface to other objects, and in which there is an absence of the thickened margins, and the posterior bifurcating shelly tubes of the former. The name can only be used in an approximate sense, for it is quite within the bounds of possibility that any of the species here referred to Serpulamay be shown to have other affinities. Already two out of the limited number of British Carboniferous species have been so indicated. The fine rigid siliceous rods formerly called Serpula parallela, M'Coy, are now known to be the anchoring fibres of a sponge allied to Hijalonema, whilst it is more than probable that Serpula hexicarinata, M'Coy, is the corallum of a species of Heterophyllia.

Sp. char.?Tube small, sinistral, narrow, increasing but little in size towards the aperture, very narrow and fine towards the apex; volutions not in the same plane, somewhat raised, with a sunken apex, rather deeply umbilicated on the attached side; section circular. Surface marked with faint, regular, equidistant, transverse ridges, which are more marked along the union of the whorls (or ?suture?) than on the periphery or back of the last volution.

In 1845 Dr. Dawson recorded the discovery, by himself, of Spirorbison fossil plants from the Carboniferous sandstones of Tatmagouche, Nova Scotia.

The study of the Pal?ozoic Tubicolar Annelides has not received that amount of attention which the importance of the Order, either from a geological or zoological point of view, appears to demand. True it is that many interesting and instructive papers and memoirs have from time to time appeared, containing descriptions of species, and occasionally of genera; but, so far as I know, at any rate in this country, no connected account of either Silurian, Devonian, or Carboniferous Tubicolar Annelida has appeared.

The Lamellibranchiataof the Scotch Carboniferous beds appear to agree on the whole tolerably well with those of the series as developed further south, notwithstanding we here and there meet with well-marked varieties, and occasionally new species. These are not so numerous as might have been expected when we take into consideration the very different physical conditions which must have existed during the deposition of the series in the two areas.

Amongst a small collection of fossils lately forwarded to the writer for identification, by Dr. Rankin, of Carluke, from the Carboniferous beds of that neighbourhood, are some remains of Polyzoa, peculiar from the combination of characters presented by them, such as have hitherto been considered characteristic of separate genera. In Fenestella, Miller, as restricted by King, each interstice or stem of the frond is provided on one side only with two or more rows of cell-apertures, separated by a median keel. In Polypora, McCoy, on the contrary, the interstices or dissepiments are not carinated, and the former are always provided with numerous rows of cell-apertures, generally arranged more or less in quincunx, the dissepiments as in Fenestella, being non-celluliferous. In the specimens under consideration a combination of some of the above characters takes place, forming a connecting link between the two genera Fenestellaand Polypora. An examination of the accompanying drawings will at once show that the fossils there represented cannot be referred to either of the above, but they, certainly appear to be the type of a new genus, which it is proposed to call Carinella. Only one species is at present known, which might with advantage be termed C. cellulifera.