1865.] DAWSON — THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 415 



out from the old university, educated naturalists for the next gene- 

 ration. 



In the Geological Section, Sir Roderick Murchison, the presi- 

 dent, and Sir Charles Lyell, the first on the list of vice-presidents, 

 were the acknowledged heads; Sedgwick, the only other of the 

 great geological leaders, was absent. Murchison is a man of 

 imposing presence and gentlemanly exterior, bland and affable, 

 ever striving to soften the asperities of discussion. Lyell, a man of 

 less majestic aspect, but with a magnificent head, and thoughtful, 

 penetrating countenance, which, now that age is stealing upon 

 him, impresses one all the more with the fact, that his is the greatest 

 and most logical intellect, that has been brought to bear on the 

 earth's history in our day. Murchison is the geologist of the 

 palaeozoic rocks, the most successful system atizer of the older for- 

 mations, which, before his time, were involved in confusion. 

 Lyell is the geologist of the cainozoic, or more recent period of 

 the earth's geological history, the reducer to order of the hetero- 

 geneous and widely scattered tertiary deposits. Murchison, like 

 Phillips, is a conservative geologist, slow to adopt new views, and 

 striving to hold the balance between opposing theories. Lyell is 

 the most progressive, and least conservative of the older geologists, 

 and marches in the van of geological progress with as much alacrity 

 as the youngest votaries of the science. 



In glancing from these names to those that follow them in the 

 lists of the Association, I feel that there is a wide interval. The 

 present state of natural science in England is that of a rapid 

 transition from an era of giants to an era of mediocre men. This 

 has often been the case in the history of science. One generation 

 produces a crop of great men : the next, perhaps, a multitude of 

 useful, but not brilliant or distinguished followers. It is quite 

 apparent that such men as Lyell, Murchison, Sedgwick, Phillips, 

 Owen, and Faraday have no worthy successors in their special 

 departments of science in England. Not that able, hard-working, 

 and successful men are wanting. There are many such ; but it is 

 evident that when the older men die off, their places will be occu- 

 pied by far inferior minds ; many of them mere collectors of facts, 

 others framers of hypotheses which carry them away from truth ; 

 the best only fitted to carry forward creditably the work which 

 men of greater genius have originated. 



One of the most interesting subjects of geological enquiry at 

 present is the question of the antiquity of man ; or, more properly, 



