DR. BUCKLAND’S ADDRESS. 13 
subdivided itself into two great departments, the living 
and the dead ; the extinct races of anin als which peopled 
the world before the ereation of man, snd'the remains of 
the works of the human race during tke many centuries 
since man had been created. 
The existence of such towns as Bath, Wells, and Taunton, 
in the richest valleys, and the non existence of any towns 
at all upon the tops of Quantock, or Blackdown, or Exmoor, 
depended upon geological causes. The very fact of per- 
sons being present in that room must be traced (if they 
went back to first causes) to a geological cause. Why were 
» the meadows of Bridgwater and the rich marsh lands of 
Somerset so productive of fat cattle and well-fed inhabi- 
tants?—Why was the Vale of Taunton favored so much 
before all other localities in—he might say almost in the 
whole world?—Why that full and perfeet developement 
of the human species both male and female”—Why so 
much peace and plenty? When travelling over Europe in 
1820 with a German Geologist more observant than himself 
of such matters, his companion whenever they came to a 
town where there were more pretty faces than usual, would 
say—“ We are coming to a good geological formation.” — 
And the moment they got into the mountain regions—the 
Alps, for instance—ugliness was the universal characteristie. 
There was as much difference between the inhabitants of the 
rich valleys and the mountaineers as between one ofttheir own 
well-fed beasts and a half starved Irish or Welch bullock. 
An old Scotch proverb said “the stomach was the man” 
it was the condition of the stomach, that from infancy, 
through life, affeeted not only the strength, but the beauty 
of the “human form divine” Now he wished to remark 
that, although our government, following the example of 
America, had but a very few years since, (and after a geolo- 
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