1823.] Proceedings of 



Thy simple ;orM, mark'd down as ]awf\il 



spoil, 

 Like savcge beasts they rooted from thesoll; 

 Incas, Caciques, were butcher'd, — to give 



place 

 To fierce marauders of a foreign race. 

 Those cruel foes upon thy shores had sown 

 A superstition darker than thine own ; 

 Slaves were thy rulers, — Freedom's bliss 



unknown. 

 Despotic tyrants, impotent and vain. 

 Bound thee to Europe with coercion'schain; 

 Lavisb'd thy treasures.with unsparing hand. 

 On bigot monks, — the locusts of </teir land. 

 Tho' Retribution seems to travel slow, 

 M' hen Heaven commands it soon outstrips 



the foe ; 

 And haughty Spain is fated now to feel 

 The fierce re-action of the pointed steel, 

 With which she pierc'd thy children to the 



iieart ; 

 Her patriot sons hurl back the fatal dart. 

 Thou art aveng'd : rejoice, — thy soul 



shall be 

 Henceforth the seat of civil liberty. 

 Ye patriot band ! who zealously have stood 

 'Gainst tyrant power, and purchas'd with 



your blood 



Public Societies. 



531 



The boon of Freedom,— justly may ye 



claim 

 A bright memorial on the roll of Faroe. 

 You to the captives op'd the prison door, 

 And bade the Inquisition be no more. 

 Britons beheld your struggle, and admir'd 

 The sacred ardour which your souls 



inspir'd ; 

 A noble chieftain to your succour sped. 

 From England's shore,— for you he fought, 



and bled. 

 Success and conquest follow'd in his train; 

 A braver heart ne'er battled on the main, — 

 Not his excepted who at Trafalgar 

 Laid down his life — a sacrifice to war. 

 Tho' venal statesmen, and their hireling 



crew. 

 With foul opprobriitmhere his name pursue; 

 Because, — like you, brave sons of Free- 

 dom ! — he 

 Stood foremost in the ranks of Liberty ; 

 Oppos'd Corruption with a dauntless face, 

 Nor truckled down for pension or for 



place : 

 Cherish the hero which old England gave, — 

 For Cochrane is the bravest of the brave. 

 Hendon; May 2o. J, P. 



PROCEEDINGS OF PUBLIC SOCIETIES. 



COUNISH GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



IN page 6G we announced the publi- 

 cation of Vol. II. of "Transactions 

 of the Royal Geological Society of Corn- 

 wall, instituted Uth February, 1814;" 

 but circumstances having at the time 

 j)reventcd our giving some previous 

 account thereof, in our Literary and 

 Critical Proemium, we shall now sup- 

 ply that deficiency. In the preface, 

 the Council of the Society account for 

 so long a period as four years having 

 elapsed .since the first volume of their 

 Transactions appeared, not from any 

 want of communications in the mean 

 time, but from their desire to prefer 

 pajHTs relating to the geology and mi- 

 neralogy of Cornwall, to others, liow- 

 ev«r valuable, having relation to other 

 districts, or especially to theoretical 

 points of the science. 



It rather unfortunately happened, 

 that, at the period when this Society 

 was instituted, two speculative and 

 rival faciious in geology, the Hutto- 

 nians or Plutonists, and the Wcrne- 

 rians or Neptunists, had nearly divided 

 Itetwct'U them every channel of literary 

 lomniunieation with the public, and 

 used utililushingly to assert, that every 

 geological dbserver was now become 

 either a Ilutionian or a Wernerian ; 

 although at the time our ingenioun 



countryman, William Smith, and a 

 numerous class, who like him were 

 engaged in actual and wide-extended 

 investigations of the subficial parts of 

 our country, utterly rejected the 

 dogmas of both these sects, as idle 

 fictions. This state of things could 

 not prove otherwise than hurtful to the 

 progress of useful knowledge on this 

 delightful and important subject. 



The county of Cornwall and St. 

 Michael's Mount, in particular, had, 

 apparently by accident, been selected 

 as the chief areiia for the theoretic 

 combats of these factions ; and hence 

 the source of that deluge of communi- 

 cations, from occasional visitants of 

 Cornwall, as well as from several of its 

 most intluential residents, to which the 

 council seems to us to allude; and of 

 which evidence appears in the large 

 space allotted in the present volume 

 to the materials for theorizing, on an 

 asserted increase of heat, experienced 

 in the mines, accordingly as they are 

 sunk deeper and deeper; and on 

 which controversy we lament to ob- 

 serve the council saying (in page vii.), 

 that the arguments and deductions on 

 each side are "c(|ually le;4itimate;" 

 alUumgh Mr. Moylo (in page 415,) has 

 shown it to be an unavoidable conse- 

 quence of the doctrine of hit oppo- 

 Uint.s, 



