GEOLOGY Ot THE BRISTOL COALFIELD, 115 



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PART 1 -PHYSICAL CHARACTER. 



EY W. ^Y. STODDAET, F.C S., F.G.S. 



Head at the General Meeting, Deccmler 4.th, 1873. 



The study of Geology is in many respects one of the most 

 intensely interesting of all the branches of natural science. The 

 hills and Tallies, the rocks and ^voods— so varied in their nature, 

 outlines and beauty — excite in almost every mind some wish to 

 find out their origin. The strange forms that are displayed on 

 the side of the rock, or among the stones of the ploughed field, 

 arrest the attention, and lead to the suggestion that they are the 

 remains of corals and shells. Our wonderful clifi's are crowded 

 with the valves and spiral shells of marine mollusca, or the 

 elegant markings of fishes' teeth. 



In many places immense numbers of vertebriB and bones prove 

 by their structure and form that huge saurians once lived and 

 died on those very spots at some remote period. A still closer 

 examination reveals the astonishing fact, that although so similar 

 in form to recent shells, yet they contain no gelatine or any trace 



