PREFACE. watt 
required revision. Each of them had been written by myself in a slovenly and hasty manner; 
and must at least be united and copied out again before they could be printed. Most 
willingly therefore all my papers, and all my sections greatly improved by the graceful touch of 
Salter's pen, and all his own beautiful sections and sketches, were placed without reserve in 
the hands of Mr Warburton. But what took place after this surrender of the papers? Mr 
Warburton commenced his task of Reduction and very soon became involved in difficulties 
(as I learned from notes of enquiry sent by himself) obviously arising out of his want of 
knowledge of the physical structure of North Wales; and I entreated him to send me the 
proof-sheets, that I might be sure he understood the drift and meaning of the papers he 
held in charge. But he refused me the sight of any single proof-sheet, though I applied to 
him again and again, with increased energy after his repeated denials. 
At length the Reduction was printed in the Proceedings of the Geological Society; and 
afterwards in the first volume of the Quarterly Journal. The sections were so much obscured 
by a complicated notation, which I never well understood, and by the minuteness of the 
scale of their Reduction, that I was never able completely to comprehend any one of them. 
All our new Sections on the east side of the Berwyns were so mutilated as to be quite 
worthless: and instead of reproducing any of the elaborate and accurate work we had traced 
upon the map of the Government Survey, he first produced the Reduction of a worthless 
map, which was drawn upon no scale, but had been sketched by a provincial artist to 
illustrate a private lecture. A second map, in illustration of my papers, which appeared soon 
afterwards in the first volume of the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, was 
practically very little better than the former; and it was so overcrowded by ill-understood 
details as to be almost worthless. I did however hope that my original Papers, and the 
Sections jointly made by Salter and myself would be, in the end, returned, agreeably to the 
President's promise. But it was a vain hope—The greatest number of our Papers and Sections 
were never returned at all; and the few pages of manuscript text which did come back 
to me were all in the same state of mutilation, which made them absolutely useless for 
any purpose of verification. 
It is no easy matter to explain an overbearing treatment such as I have described: 
but I believe Mr Warburton undertook his task for the express purpose of bringing my 
Papers into harmony with Murchison’s scheme of covering all the older recks of North and 
South Wales with Silurian colours. For in his Reductions he again and again contrived to 
change my language, and make me write in a new Silurian tongue. Was this fair and honest 
dealing with me? 
I do not venture to affirm that Sir R. I. Murchison was a party to this unwarrantable 
dealing of Mr Warburton; but he unquestionably was ready to turn it to his own profit. 
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