No. 1.] NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 11 



differences of the formations on the opposite sides of the At- 

 lantic; and American and British workers in these subjects 

 were little known to each other. The visits of Sir Charles 

 did much to remedy all this. His own mind was filled with 

 those grander aspects of geological phenomena which appear in 

 America. He brought into correspondence with each other those 

 workers in science, whom his intuitive tact perceived to be suited 

 to give mutual aid. In British America, in particular, his agency 

 in this way was very valuable in bringing together the widely- 

 separated cultivators of science, and in linking them with the 

 scientific movement of the mother country. 



Nor were his visits barren of purely scientific results. He 

 may have made few discoveries of new facts, — and he had not 

 time to enter into detailed stratigraphical studies; — but in a 

 thousand instances he cast new light on obscure facts, and 

 gathered into a harmonious union detached fragments of evidence, 

 and suggested new conclusions and interpretations. Of this 

 character were his re-arrangement of the Carboniferous rocks of 

 Nova Scotia and New Brunswick ; and the clear conceptions 

 which he formed of the nature and origin of our Post-pliocene 

 formations, and which are still, I think, in advance of those cur- 

 rently taught on this side of the Atlantic. 



Limited though his time for observation was, he always seized 

 the salient and important points of any formation or locality ; 

 and I have often been struck with the truthfulness and com- 

 pleteness of the sketches which he gave of phenomena with refer- 

 ence to which his opportunities of collecting information were 

 very imperfect. 



In these American researches, the great gifts of the man were 

 brought out in a light somewhat different from that in which 

 they appear in his general works. Tbe main distinction between 

 Sir Charles and most of his contemporaries, was his eminence as 

 a thinker, whether in inductive or deductive reasoning. Like 

 most of the English geologists of his time, he had received less 

 training in the characters of minerals and rocks than that which 

 the more severe schools of science exacted, and his imperfect 

 vision was a great hindrance in field work, and sometimes even 

 a source of personal danger ; but when facts, however complex, 

 were once obtained, they grouped themselves in his mind in 

 their natural relations, with an unfailing certainty, while their 

 connections with all the other parts of his vast stores of know- 



