Anniversary Address. 141 



rials, might receive more than a passing notice ; the geology of the 

 district still requires to be treated with the aid of organic remains ; 

 and in palseontology, so essential to complete the natural history 

 of the district, the ground is to a great extent unbroken. One 

 attempt has this year been made to supply a want ; a fossil flora 

 appears for the first time in ' The Natural History of the Eastern 

 Borders/ Drawn up from rather scanty materials, the list is 

 necessarily imperfect ; and from what I have this season noticed 

 in Berwickshire, I feel sure that it will yield other interesting 

 and new floral forms. As more abundant materials have been 

 collected for the fossil fauna, it may be hoped that the forms in 

 this division will ere long be more successfully chronicled and 

 desci-ibed. 



But even if the whole field had been explored, there would 

 still remain verge enough for every earnest-minded observer. 

 Each generation has its own points of sight from which it views 

 objects, and its own method of grouping them ; and hence con- 

 tinued observation leads to new truths, even in a frequently 

 trodden path. Nature is inexhaustible, and we can never reach 

 to the uttermost "height of her great argument;" but the 

 labours of the past place us on a vantage-ground, since the more 

 we know of the works and wonders of nature, the better able 

 will we be to pierce her deeper mysteries. " The hght,'* says 

 the immortal Milton, " which we have gained, was given us, not 

 to be ever staring on, but by it to discover onward things more 

 remote from our knowledge.'' 



B.N.C, — VOL. HI. N^ IV. 



