185 



of a geologist, how patient he should be, how unshackled by preconceptions his 

 mind, what little weight he shoiild attach to negative evidence. The time may 

 come when the terms "Azoic," "Hvpozoic," as applied to sedimentary rocks 

 shall have been banished from the geological vocabulary, when we shall have 

 ceased to look on our orders of strata, and theories about the range of organic 

 life, as stereotyped for ever and applicable to every country of the globe : we may 

 even discover that the Eozoon Canadcnse had companions of a higher grade in the 

 Laurentian. oceans, had predecessors in still eai'lier waters, 



I have treated this question somewhat fully, because it concerns us very 

 much, for in our field-days we often vitit "VTenlock rocks, I do not mean to say 

 that we may expect to find ichthyolites at Woolhope, for there the exposure of 

 the Shale is so slight that the chances are decidedly against us ; but for the 

 honour ot the club let us make good use of our eyes and hammers whenever we 

 meet with this or any other underlying rock ; and when some years hence Sir R. 

 Murchison pulhshes his fifth edition of "SUuria," as every geologist earnestly 

 hopes he may live to do, he may acknowledge that he has at last abandoned his 

 theory about vertebiate life by reason of the discoveries that have rewaided the 

 zeal and patience of the AVoolhope Field Club. 



I have nothing more to say about Woolhope^ except to recommend all who 

 have not been there to visit the district as soon as possible, and as they gaze 

 from Backbury, Seager, Warcle, or Fownhope-hill they will appreciate the 

 force aud scientific accuracy of the words of our great modern poet : — 

 There rolls the deep where grew the tree ; 

 O earth, what changes hast thou seen ! 

 There, where the long street roars, hath been 

 The stillness of the central sea. 



There are certainly no " long streets roaring " at TVoolhope, but amid all the 

 accessories of terrestrial inland life, hundreds of ftet above and many miles away 

 from the salt sea, lie the exuvise of marine moUusca and reef -building polyps, 

 silent but sure witnesses of the truths of our science, proofs of the glorious 

 handiwork of Creative Power. 



