] ADDRESS. XXXIll 
“4 
Fg 
sections, which for beauty of execution and exactness of detail are unrivalled, 
I would specially direct your attention to this new volume, as affording the 
clearest evidence that geology is now strictly brought within the pale of the 
7 
y 
% 
_ fixed sciences. In it are found graphic descriptions of the strata in the South- 
West of England and South Wales, whose breadth and length are accurately 
_ measured, whose mineral changes are chemically analysed, and whose im- 
_ bedded remains are compared and determined by competent palzontologists. 
" 
_ The very statistics of the science are thus laid open, theory is made rigorously 
to depend on facts, and the processes and produce of foreign mines are com- 
_ pared with those of Britain. 
4 
When we know how intimately the Director-General of this Survey and 
his associates have been connected with the meetings of the British Associa- 
tion, and how they have freely discussed with us many parts of their re- 
_ searches—when we recollect that the geologist of Yorkshire, our invaluable 
2 
Assistant General Secretary, around whom all our arrangements since our 
_ origin have turned, and to whom so much of our success is due, occupies 
his fitting place among these worthies—that Edward Forbes, who passed as 
it were from this Association to the A®gean, is the paleontologist of this 
Survey ; and again when we reflect, that if this Association had not repaired 
to Glasgow, and there discovered the merits of the delineation of the Isle of 
Arran by Mr. Ramsay, that young geologist would never have become a 
valuable contributor to the volume under consideration—it is obvious from 
these statements alone, that the annual visits of our body to different parts 
of the Empire, by bringing together kindred spirits, and by testing the natural 
capacity of individuals, do most effectually advance science and benefit the 
British community. 
Whilst considering these labours of the Government geologists, I shall now 
specially speak of those of Professor E. Forbes, because he here makes him- 
self doubly welcome, by bringing to us as it were upon the spot the living 
specimens of submarine creatures, which through the praiseworthy en- 
thusiasm of Mr. M¢Andrew, one of our members, who fitted out a yacht 
for natural-history researches, have been dredged up this summer by these 
naturalists from the southern coast, between the Land’s End and South- 
ampton: Asa favourite yachting port like Southampton may, it is hoped, 
afford imitators, I point out with pleasure the liberal example of Mr. M¢An- 
drew, who although not professing to describe the specimens he collects, has 
now, as on former occasions, placed them in the hands of the members best 
_ qualified to do them justice, and is thus a substantial promoter of science. 
The memoir, then, of Edward Forbes in the Government Geological Sur- 
vey to which I now allude, is, in truth, an extension of his views re- 
_ specting the causes of the present distribution of plants and animals in the 
British Isles, made known at the last meeting of the British Association. As 
this author has not only shown the application of these ideas to the re- 
searches of the British Geological Survey, but also to the distribution of 
_ animals and plants over the whole earth, it is evident that these views, in 
_ great part original, will introduce a new class of inquiries into natural history, 
which will link it on more closely than ever to geology and geography. In 
short, this paper may be viewed as the first attempt to explain the causes 
of the zoological and botanical features of any region anciently in connexion. 
Among the new points which it contains, I will now only mention, that it 
_very ingeniously (and I trust satisfactorily) explains the origin of the pecu- 
liar features of the botany of Britain—the theory of the origin of Alpine 
Floras distributed far apart—the peculiarity of the zoology of Ireland as 
- compared with that of England—the presence of the same species of marine 
