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journey backwards from the present time into the dim vista of the 

 past — so that I may the more readily bring to your knowledge the 

 changes which have occurred within the limited area of which I 

 shall have to speak. 



When the general observer, without a knowledge of geological 

 science, looks around in our beautiful district upon what he might 

 consider our everlasting hills, how impossible is it for him to realize 

 the different conditions they may have presented, though only in 

 the yesterday of geological time. To a few of these it is my 

 purpose to call your attention this evening. 



The drift beds and their enclosed remains are deposited in the 

 basin of Bath, or that part which is occupied by the lower levels of 

 the city and the adjoining valleys running out of and connected 

 therewith. As these are in great part surrounded by older rocks, 

 it may be desirable in the first place to offer a few observations 

 upon them, more especially as the former are to a considerable 

 extent derived from the rocks forming the edge of the basin within 

 which they lie. 



The old city of Bath from the earliest historic times to within 

 the last century, was situated within the basin, though it has in 

 later times been extending itself in every direction along the 

 escarpments of the hills. 



There are few districts in which within a small radius more 

 geological variety is presented than around Bath. Beginning with 

 the oldest beds which are present, we find the carboniferous 

 limestone at Grammar Rocks, under Lansdown, and at Wick, not 

 far beyond. The lower coal measures rest upon these at Golden 

 Valley, Newton and Twerton, and the whole series in the Radstock 

 basin to the south. 



In a paper on the " Abnormal Conditions of the Secondary 

 Strata within the Somersetshire Coal Basin," I have shewn that 

 great convulsions brought up and distorted the thousands of feet of 

 these older rocks prior to the deposition of those which follow, 

 ■which are nearly horizontal, and rest on the upturned edges of 

 those below. Evidence of this is shewn not further off than the 

 Twerton Colliery, where the coal measures are dipping at a very 

 Steep angle from the direction of Bath. The older carboniferous 



