68 Geological Society. 



cavities in its neighbourhood, some of them submarine; that Castro- 

 giovanni is situate over one of these j that the Pleiocene strata have 

 closed the cavity and rendered it water-tight, except on the side of 

 Etna ; from whose lofty flanks and cloud-capped crater the caverns 

 beneath are regularly supplied by fissures with rain-water and melted 

 snow. Let the author grant me so much, — 1 ask no more. The 

 hydrostatic paradox has tripped up the hills of the geological one, 

 and I behold my Pleiocene beds mounted at once on a pedestal three 

 thousand feet high, and capable of still further proa otion. 



If the explanation here offered meets the case of Castrogiovanni, it 

 will equally account for the height of the tertiary beds in different 

 parts of the Val di Noto, and for similar phenomena in every country 

 which is or has been formerly the site of volcanic eruptions. 



To the appearances on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, described by 

 Captain Bayheld, 1 have already adverted. 



My Predecessor directed your attention last year to the existence 

 in the Morea of four or five distinct Ranges of ancient Sea cliffs, 

 marked at different levels in the limestone escarpments by lithodo- 

 nious perforations, lines of littoral and sea-worn caverns, and other 

 striking proofs of former tidal action. Similar Terraces have been ob- 

 served in Sicily, in Chili, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and various other 

 places. At Uddevalla in Sweden, are ancient Beaches with shells of 

 living species, two hundred feet above the level of the Baltic, a height 

 strikingly disproportionate to the very moderate Rise ascertained to 

 have taken place in other parts of the Scandinavian coast : many ex- 

 amples of similar phenomena have been found in Great Britain. It 

 would be rash to offer a solution of these phenomena in the gross. 

 Every individual case deserves separate examination. All I undertake 

 at present is to put a new key into the hands of the decipherer. 



It was my intention on commencing this address to have discussed 

 at some lengrh the theory of M. Elie de Beaumont, but there is not 

 time now to do it justice. He belongs to that class of authors whose 

 opinions, right or wrong, always instruct me. There is no part of his 

 theory which does not evince thought and diligence, a habit of cor- 

 rect observation and an enlarged mind. In some respects I differ 

 from him, and it will not be difficult to infer from what I have already 

 said, wherein the difference consists. Should these observations 

 engage his notice, 1 would beg him to consider whether the distur- 

 bances in the Alps and elsewhere have not been generalized rather 

 more than they will bear, whether the tilts and upliftings may not 

 have taken place bit by bit at various epochs, and whether, if the se- 

 cular Refrigeration of the Globe cannot be established, and Central Heat 

 be an Ignis fat uus, his attention may not be usefully directed to more 

 partial but better authenticated sources of disturbance and elevation. 



Allow me, in conclusion, to say a few words upon a subject in con- 

 nexion with which my name has of late been brought forward much 

 more prominently than I could have desired; — I mean Diluvial Action. 



Some fourteen years ago I advanced an opinion, founded alto» 

 gether upon physical and geological considerations, that the entire 

 earth had, at an unknown period, (as far as that word implies any 



