Rev. Mr WhewelPs Address to the Geological Society. 151 



different colour in our geological maps, if they are to represent 

 the present state of our information. 



The interest of this question has induced me to dwell upon 

 it longer than I had intended, and I must on that account be 

 very brief in my notice of many other communications. I 

 may observe that the very nature of several of these indi- 

 cates very remarkably the European character which our geo- 

 logy has assumed, since they have for their object the identi- 

 fication of some members of the recognised series of Eng- 

 land, and of France, or Germany. Thus Mr Murchison and 

 Mr Strickland have attempted to shew, by the evidence of or- 

 ganic fossils, now for the first time adduced on this point, that 

 the red saliferous marls of Gloucester, Worcester, and War- 

 wickshires, with an included bed of sandstone, represent the 

 keuper or marnes irisees of Germany ; and that the underlying 

 sandstone of Ombersly, Bromsgrove, and Warwick is part of 

 the bunter sandsteinor gres bigarre of foreign geologists. They 

 are thus led to conclude that though the muschelkalk, which 

 intervenes between these formations in Germany, is absent in 

 the new red system of England, and of a large part of France, 

 its other members may be identified over the whole of the north 

 of Europe. 



Proceeding from the new red to the oolite system, we have 

 a memoir from Mr Pratt containing an examination of the geo- 

 logical character of the coast of Normandy, which necessarily 

 implies a comparison of this series of rocks with those of Eng- 

 land. The identification is found to be complete, as had already 

 been believed ; but Mr Pratt has made some alteration in the 

 received doctrines on this subject; for instance, the Caen stone, 

 which is usually considered to represent the great oolite, he finds 

 to resemble in its fossils the inferior oolite. 



Ascending still, we have to notice Mr darkens elaborate geo- 

 logical survey of Suffolk, which, of course, refers entirely to the 

 chalk and overlying beds. With regard to the crag of this dis- 

 trict, I may remark that M. Desnoyers, in a communication 

 made to the Geological Society of France, has endeavoured to 

 identify this formation with the Faluns of the Touraine. M. 

 Deshayes had referred the latter to the Miocene, and the crag 

 to the Pliocene formations of Mr Lyell. The point is one of 



