532 Meeting of the British Association. [ Oct., 
owing to the ghastly effect the light of the burning magnesium 
produced on their complexions. At the second soirée this fault 
was obviated in an ingenious way, by the addition of a little nitrate 
of strontia to the metallic powder, the result being to communicate 
a warm roseate hue to the light, and entirely to remove the unpleasant 
effect previously noticed. 
W..G; 
GroLocy. (Section C.) 
Though in this Section there were, perhaps, scarcely so many 
as usual of those commonly regarded as the leaders of geological 
opinion, a considerable number of eminent and diligent geologists 
were in attendance, and took an active part in the proceedings. 
In his maugural address, the President of the Association 
stated that most geologists of the present day, instead of holding 
that the breaks or chasms in the geological record represent sudden 
changes in the formation of the earth’s crust, adopt the alternatives 
that they arise from dislocations occasioned since the original depo- 
sition of strata, or from gradual shifting of the areas of submergence ; 
that the advance of science has more or less filled up the gaps 
supposed to exist between the characteristics of the extinct and the 
new species ; and that the apparent difficulty of admitting unlimited 
modification of species would seem to have arisen from the com- 
parison of the extreme ends of the scale, where the intermediate 
links or some of them were wanting. 
In these statements the President struck the key-note of the 
proceedings of the Geological Section during the following week. 
Never, probably, did the authors of papers, or those who took part 
in the discussions which they elicited, appeal so little to convul- 
sion, cataclysm, or catastrophe. Professor Ramsay, in the address 
with which, as its President, he opened the Section, echoed back 
the sentiments which his Chief expressed on the previous evening. 
Having described the contortions of mountain chains and, in fact, 
the disturbance of strata generally, especially those which occur in 
North Wales, Scotland, the Alps, and Cumberland, he remarked, 
“ Respecting the agencies to which these changes are due, one 
opinion is that we now live in a world, as nearly as can be in a 
finished state, which has to suffer no more catastrophes; another, 
that we are now remaining in a temporary state after a succession of 
spasms, but that they may recur again at some period a long way 
before us; or, again, that the state of tranquillity we now enjoy has 
been the seeming order in all time, as far as geologists can trace back 
the action of the processes which have brought us to the present 
condition of the world. These are the three leading opinions, and 
my own inclines to the last.” Having discussed the connection of 
