Geological Address at Manchester, 399 



most connected, with a few allusions only, to metamorphism, 

 certain metalliferous productions, &c. 



"There is, indeed, a peculiar fitness in now dwelling more 

 especially on the ancient rocks, inasmuch as Manchester is sur- 

 rounded by some of them, while, with the exception of certain 

 groups of erratic blocks and drifts, no deposits occur within the 

 reach of short excursions from hence, which are either of secon- 

 dary or tertiary age. 



" Let us then take a retrospective view of the progress which 

 has been made in the classification and delineation of the older 

 rocks since the Association first assembled at York, in 1831. At 

 that time, as every old geologist knows, no attempt had been 

 made to unravel the order or character of the formations which 

 rise from beneath the Old Red Sandstone. In that year Sedg- 

 wick was only beginning to make his first inroads into those 

 mountains of North "Wales, the intricacies of which he finally so 

 well elaborated, while I only brought to that, our earliest assem- 

 bly, the first fruits of observations in Herefordshire, Brecon, Rad- 

 nor and Shropshire, which led me to work out an order that 

 has since been generally adopted. 



'' At that time the terms of Cambrian, Silurian, Devonian and 

 Permian were not dreamt of, but acting on the true Baconian 

 principle, their founders and their coadjutors have, after years of 

 toil and comparison, set up such plain landmarks on geological 

 horizons, that they have been recognized over many a distant 

 land. Compare the best map of England of the year 1831, or 

 that of Greenough, which had advanced somewhat upon the ad- 

 mirable orimnal classification of our father William Smith, and 

 see the striking diff'erence between the then existing knowledge, 

 and our present acquirements. It is not too much to say that 

 when the British Association first met, all the region on both 

 sides of the Welch border, and extending to the Irish channel on 

 the west, was in a state of dire confusion ; while in Devonshire 

 and Cornwall many of these rocks, which from their crystalline 

 nature were classed and mapped as among the most ancient in 

 the kingdom, have since been shown to be of no higher antiquity 

 than the old red sandstone of Herefordshire. 



" As to Scotland, where the ancient rocks abound, though their 

 mineral structure, particularly in those of igneous origin, had ne- 

 cessarily been much developed in the country of Hutton, Play- 

 fair, Hall, Jameson and M'Culloch, yet the true age of most of 



