NOT having had the pleasure of perusing Mr. Waller's paper on sand, I gather from Mr. Gardner's notice of it that it is an attempt to distinguish by the aid of the microscope whether sand has been formed by the action of wind or of surf. Having a number of years ago become possessed with the idea that the form of the materials which make up the soils and subsoils found in any country might lead to a knowledge of the sources from which they had been derived, I had many soils and subsoils from Europe and Australasia looked at, but without being able to detect sufficient difference of shape or form as to lead to any definite result. Having been long familiar with the soils formed out of the boulder clay and drift of the south-east of Scotland, I had hoped to have seen a very marked difference in the form of the particles of sand existing in them from those of the interior of Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland, large portions of the surface coverings of which countries are believed to have been deposited when covered with the sea. This difference exists certainly—that the soils of the boulder clays and drifts contain a far greater portion of fine and rough gravel, and rounder in shape than do those from Australia. Yet, so far as I could observe, the form of the sand was similar. It seems to me that both Messrs. Waller and Gardner are on the wrong track when searching solely for the typical forms of sand in the seashore or from torrents. The amount of sand found on the seashores of the world is large, no doubt, so is that from the rivers. What is that to the quantities contained in the surface coverings of the land? It is from this source the rivers obtain the supply they carry to sea or the shores, and make up the waste by friction. It has long seemed to me probable the sands, fine gravels, and silt formed by the passing of ice over the surface of the rocks would have a distinct form from the surface covering produced by other forces. The gravel or shingle of the rivers has a flatter shape than that of the seabeach when derived from the same rock. If such difference can be discovered in the silts, sands, and gravels derived from glacial action, it may be possible to assign limits to the extent to which ice has effected the present covering of the surface from the broken up strata over which it has passed. Silt, sand, and shingle must all, however, be taken into account, and that from the deposits themselves, not from what has been subjected to littoral, fluviatile, or wind action.