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system of geological enquiry, and often, when not disinclined to accept a 
conclusion, had to tell us that so far the evidence was not altogether satis- 
factory, and thus often, from having suspended his judgment till better 
evidence was forthcoming, was accused of changing his mind, when he 
acknowledged that at length the missing links in the chain of evidence had 
been found. The same Reviewer allows that Sepawick was a man of 
genius, but, as far as concerned the great controversy between him and 
Murcuison, it was, says the Reviewer, a mere question of priority of 
publication—the man of genius was, as usual, outstripped by the man of 
method. Srpewick, pressed with university business, would not send in 
his part of their joint work. They claim that Murcatson, through know- 
ing his friend’s views, managed to slip his own into the press first—on 
that ground they claim priority of nomenclature. That is not the sort of 
thing I should like to claim for my hero. But we are not going to be 
drawn off on that issue. Murcuison’s work was founded upon egregious 
mistakes, and was wrong in principle, and it is still wrong, even now that 
his supporters have been trying to make the best of a bad job, and altering 
his classification and changing the original names of the rocks, till any one 
who is not familiar with the ground can hardly refer to the old work by 
the light of modern discovery. This is not the time or place to go at length 
into the controversy, but I may be pardoned for alluding to a subject on 
which I feel strongly, and on which I always have spoken, and always will 
speak strongly, until justice has been done. 
Now, where are we in the history of geology? a third of the way on in 
the present century, and yet we find in the country that had perhaps been 
most hammered of any in the world, that the order of superposition and 
grouping of half the geological series had not been settled, and there seems 
no danger at present that any of us will have to weep, like ALEXANDER, 
that we have no worlds left to conquer. Among the questions for the 
stratigraphical geologist we have yet to answer what are our pre-Cambrian 
rocks ?>—Laurentian, Labrador series, Huronian, or sometimes one and 
sometimes the other—sometimes none of these. In our Cambrian, what is 
the most convenient grouping of the varying rock masses and peculiar 
life zones about the Tremadoc and Arenig horizon? Where, in South 
Wales, is the horizon of the Bala and Hirnant limestone? And here we 
get within the reach of excursions from Chester. 
We may ask what is the reason why the May Hill sandstone and the 
silurian limestone are so ill-represented in North Wales? In the Denbigh 
grits and flags, why are the grits chiefly at the bottom, and in the Conis- 
ton flags and grits, chiefly at the top? Can we, in our North Wales hills, 
fix the equivalent horizon of either the Wenlock shale of South Wales or 
the Barminsdale slates of the Lake District? Then we have within excur- 
sion distance means of estimating the amount of unconformity between the 
silurian and next great group above it—the carboniferous. Have we, in 
the basement beds of the mountain limestone, any suggestions of conditions 
similar to those which existed in the Devonian area? What points and 
what lithological character have we in our rocks from the horizon of the 
Yoredale rocks of the north? Until we can answer these questions and 
show the eviden7e in our museum, our work as a local Society is not done. 
B2 
