128 PROCEEDINGS OF PROVINCIAL SOCIETIES. 



This Institution flourished from the very moment of its fonna- 

 tion, and bids fair to become one of the best conducted and most 

 useful establishments of its class. Every support has been aiforded by 

 the higher classes, and the names of the following noblemen and 

 gentlemen appear as patrons : — JMarquis of Westminster ; Lord 

 Bishop of Chester ; Lord Robert Grosvenor ; Sir Thomas Stanley, 

 Bart. ; Sir Stephen Glyn, Bart. ; George Wilbraham, Esq., M. P. 

 John Jervis, Esq. ; Rev. Chancellor Raikes ; Venerable Archdea- 

 con Wrangham, &c. The patronage of the Bishop of Chester, one of 

 its vice-presidents and warmest friends, cannot but be attended with 

 the most beneficial results, as it will no doubt induce the clergy — 

 on whose cordial efforts so much depends — to follow his example, 

 and advocate the progress of useful knowledge, as an important 

 portion of moral machinery for the permanent establishment of 

 reformation and social order. 



Lectures have been gratuitously delivered by the following gen- 

 tlemen : — H. Raikes, Esq., (son of the Rev. H. Raikes, Chancellor 

 of the Diocese), on Astronomy ; H. Moor, M. D., on the recovery of 

 drowned persons ; the Rev. J. S. Stamp, Independent Minister, on 

 bibliograjjhy and the art of printing ; and the Rev. E. Stanley, 

 Rector of Alder ley, on fossil geology. We subjoin the following 

 short abstract of a part of this instructive lecture : — 



"In commenting upon the outspread of education, the lecturer reminded those 

 who might still be found amongst the ranks of objectors to a more general culti- 

 vation of the mind, that as no power could now stay the current, it was 

 the duty of the wise and prudent to turn it into the most efficient channels 

 and superintend its progress. — After alluding to the very gratifying support 

 the Institution had received from the aristocracy, and pointing out the duty 

 of every one to study the Book of Revelation and that of Nature, he referred 

 to the additional gi'atification within the reach of all persons who encouraged 

 the cultivation of any branch in art or science, which he compared to the 

 acquisition of another sense ; illustrating the pleasures derived from such 

 pursuits by reference to the study of ornithology, entomology, and particu- 

 larly geology, each confirming the poet's assertion, that as there were — 



" Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 

 Sermons in stones," 



so as all and each were the works of God, it followed as a corollary that there 

 was " good in every thing." • • • He then entered upon the immedi- 

 ate object of the lecture by asserting, on the authority of those who had 

 devoted the full powers of their enlarged minds towards the subject, the cer- 

 tainty, rather than the probability, that we were now standing on the ruins 

 of a former world : a mass of matter described in the Mosaic records as 

 " without form and void," but moving in its long established orbit, and con- 

 taining within it the shattered remnants of previously -existing races of animals 

 dissimilar to those at present known, and shewing undeniable proof of its 

 surface having been subjected to incessant convulsions and dislocations, and 

 subsequent slow sedimentary deposits and crystallizations which it was the 

 work of indefinite ages to effect. By adducing the awful effects of modern 

 volcanic action, in one or two instances, he pointed out the far more tremen- 

 dous consequences which must have been constantly ensuing, when the crust 

 of the earth was more exposed to the source of igneous action than at pre- 

 sent. He next proceeded to draw a com])arison between the physical ener- 

 gies under the controul of man, and those others which, although within his 

 knowledge, as yet defy his powers of reducing them to practical purposes^ — 



