Journal of Proceedinf/s. xvii 



to attempt anything in the way of discussion. Many geologists had left, 

 but he saw they had with them Sir Antonio Brady. He was afraid, how- 

 ever, that it was too late for any real discussion. 



Mr. Walker, in replying, said he wished to mention one or two facts 



which had not yet come under their notice. The reference to the 



Geologists' Association in connection with the Essex Club was very 



satisfactory to him ; he was an early member of the Association, and was 



always glad to bear testimony to the work which it had done, especially 



as it was one of the oldest of the London amateur Natural History 



Societies — older even than the Quekett Club, for which precedence had 



been claimed. None of them who met for out-door work in Natural 



History could be ignorant of the great work of propagandism which was 



carried on by the Geologists' Association. He was exceedingly glad of the 



muster that day, because in these days the interdependence of the sciences 



had gained such a recognition that no man could safely restrict his 



enquiries to one branch. Therefore it was desirable that the faunists 



and others who were not geologists should become so as soon as possible. 



And as their excursions took them some twenty or thirty miles out of town 



at a time, it was economy of time and opportunity to observe in more 



than one department of Natural Science. In the field that day they could 



pursue Entomology, and they could find many interesting plants, as well 



as study Geology. He apologised for the curtailment of the programme, 



and stated that he had been down there twice rehearsing the excursion. 



He had been all over the fields at Little Thurrock, and had found there 



about twelve feet of false-bedded sands, the most beautiful example of 



that phenomenon near London ; he thought that it beat even that at 



Finchley. There they saw stereotyped in permanent form what was 



going on in the Thames to-day — shallow- water deposits pitched down at 



a low angle, and then denuded subsequently. They would have a very 



good chance at Grays of noticing how the Thames once flowed in a valley 



parallel to that in which it now flows. The false-bedded sands and the 



elephant beds lay in an inland trough, a good half-mile from the Thames, 



and the southern rim of that trough was just before you got to the present 



bed of the Thames. There were the two cuttings side by side— two 



troughs cut into the chalk. This accounts for the remains in the old 



trough — the deposit of elephants and so on. The Thames had a way of 



changing its course, and if we had not embanked it in these latter days it 



would very soon have shown us that it did so. But we had now 



imprisoned it and made it a canal. He did not Imow, he said, v/hat they 



had done to deserve a second lecture ; he would conclude by thanking 



them, and by saying that his reward had been the sincere interest with 



which every member had entered into an examination of the phenomena 



before them. They did not come out for a pic-nic, but to enrich their 



minds. The man who learned his Geology simply from books was a very 



poor thing, as they knew ; but the man who came out to study in the 



field, as they had done, made acquisitions which could be gained in no 



c 



