304 PROCEEDINGS OP PROVINCIAL SOCIETIES. 



chalk out a new path of fame for himself, on his way to that high 

 and honourable eminence, which in the estimation of his own coun- 

 trymen and scientific foreigners, he justly occupied, he called upon 

 the Professor to deliver his address. 



Dr. Buckland then rose, and congratulated the county upon the 

 formation of the society, the talents of whose members would be ex- 

 ercised upon untrodden ground, and whose exertions would be deeply 

 and abundantly rewarded. Dr. Buckland remarked that the walls of 

 Warwick Castle, the walls of the town, and the walls of the cathe- 

 dral, were composed of strata till recently unknown to geologists. 

 Pie saw them twenty years ago, but then he did not know what was 

 their composition ; but still in his travels he had borne in mind 

 the remains of the animals contained in that strata, in the hope 

 that the time might come when the darkness in which those 

 fragments were eclipsed, would be dissipated ; and when he 

 should be able to make some important discovery to the scientific 

 world. It was a matter of gratification to him that within the last 

 two hours that darkness had been dissipated ; and he was now able 

 to say that in Warwick, — under their feet, — and in Guy's-cliff, 

 there were the remains of many extinct species and genera of ani- 

 mals, whose names were as yet unuttered in England. He then 

 held in his hand the scales of lizards that were once basking on the 

 shores of the lakes at Leamington ; and there had been discovered 

 in Leamington itself, the remains of other animals that lived in 

 other times. He ventured to say with as much confidence as if en- 

 dowed with the spirit of prophecy, for he knew from geological in- 

 spection, and from example added to example, that under this town, 

 Leamington, and the surrounding neighbourhood, were the remains 

 of thousands of Elephants, of Rhinoceroses, of Tigers, of Buffaloes, 

 and a variety of other animals which he could enumerate. But, 

 would his hearers say, how did he know that ? He was shewn 

 that morning, at the house of Dr. Lloyd, at Leamington, the leg 

 bone of a large Elk, or species of Red Deer, which he held in his 

 hand, and which was then damp with the clay out of which it was 

 extracted, and in which it had been so long preserved. From a 

 shell which had been discovered in Leamington, also, he was satis- 

 fied that, before the creation of the human race, Leamington was the 

 site of a large and ancient lake, which, like many that were also in 

 the neighbourhood of Rugby, became the receptacle of the dead car- 

 cases of the Elephant, the Lion, and the Hippopotamus, which ani- 

 mals were now only found in warmer climates. He had also the 

 tooth of the under jaw of a young Rhinoceros in his teens, and as a 

 proof that those animals once existed in this kingdom, he might sim- 

 ply say that teeth did not grow without heads. If the workmen at 

 Leamington were to be informed that the remains which they 

 might discover were convertible into beer they would take great 

 care to preserve them. He also saw before him a piece of granite 

 picked up at Leamington, and which he knew came from Cumber- 

 land. He knew well that this was a class of pebbles which were 



