During the ten years since the publication of the second edition of these tables many new minerals have been described. About fifty of these are included in the third edition of Part II,  which was published in 1933, while nearly seventy are of more recent date. The author has attempted to include in supplementary tables in this printing all the new minerals which seem to be well established and adequately described as to their optical properties. Unfortunately it has not been feasible to incorporate them in the main tables, but this is probably not a very serious difficulty since the minerals in question are all very rare.

It is hoped that the use of colored paper for the table (III) classifying minerals on the basis of their color (and pleochroism) in thin section will make it easy to find the various tables quickly and conveniently

In the preparation of this printing the author has benefited by the assistance and encouragement of his wife, Florence S. Winchell.

Ob die vom praktizierenden Stratigraphen angewendeten Methoden richtig sind, entscheidet sich nicht etwa anhand der oft theoretischen Überlegungen von Kommissionen, sondern mit dem Erfolg seiner Arbeit, nämlich der Richtigkeit seiner stratigraphischen Ergebnisse. Richtlinien zu stratigraphischen Verfahrensweisen können deshalb auch nicht mehr sein als Hilfe und Empfehlung für den stratigraphisch arbeitenden Geologen. Sie sollen durch ihre Anwendung zur Vermeidung formaler Fehler sowie zur Stabilität stratigraphischer Kategorien beitragen. <...>

New geochronological data [zircon U ⁄Pb, titanite fission-track (TFT) and apatite fission-track (AFT) dating and apatite (U-Th-Sm)/He thermochronology] and thermal history modelling yield constraints on the development of the granitoid basement of the Kuznetsk-Alatau Mountains, southern Siberia. The final stages of magmatism in the Kuznetsk-Alatau palaeo-island-arc are Late Cambrian, and collision of the arc with Siberia occurred in the Early Ordovician. The basement was exhumed by the Early Devonian. Continuous Devonian–Early Triassic sedimenta-

tion filled the adjoining Kuznetsk and Minusa basins and buried (and re-heated) the Kuznetsk-Alatau basement. After initial Pangaea break-up and Siberian flood-basalt magmatism, the basement reached TFT and AFT retention-temperatures in the Middle Triassic and Early Cretaceous, respectively, during denudation-induced cooling.

Map measurements of the world’s coastline length have yielded a figure of 500,000 km. However, when all of the very real and intricate coastal crenulations are considered, the actual length is probably closer to 1,000,000 km. Added to this is the fact that 40% of the 6,000,000,000 people presently inhabiting the earth live within 100 km of a coastline. From these observations, it can be seen that coasts are a very major geo-morphic and social feature on the face of the planet. And for this reason, scholars in a multitude of disciplines have long been studying the many facets of the zone where the land meets the sea.