20 FIRST ANNUAL MEETING. 
get a much more enduring stone from Normandy and from 
Yorkshire. Aslong as he lived, no Bath stone should be used 
again on the outside of Westminster Abbey. Having descan- 
ted upon other topics the Rev. Dr. entered into a warm re- 
futation of the assertion that the study of geology clashed 
with theology, and said all these geological formations were 
anterior to the creation of man; they were indeed prepara- 
tory to his reception on a surface fitted to sustain him by 
its animal and vegetable productions. The difhiculty of re- 
conciling the earth’s high antiquity with the bible chrono- 
logy has been satisfactorily explained by many writers; but 
by none so well as in a recent small volume entitled “ The 
Earth’s Antiquity,” by the Rev G. Gray.—The style of this 
volume is beautifully poetical, rigidly logical, purely 
classical, and profoundly religious; and would richly 
reward the perusal of every literary and scientific reader 
in Christendom, in these days when the facts of geology 
are unjustly supposed by many not to be in accordance 
with the Mosaic record. He quoted with much solemnity 
the line of Byron—“ the dust we tread upon was once alive” 
—and concluded by asserting that geology led them to see 
in the relics of bye-gone ages the works of an All-wise, 
Omniscient, Omnipresent, All-great, All-powerful God, 
who has “created all things, and for whose pleasure they 
are, and were created.” 
Mr. F. H. Dıckınson, said, that after the very eloquent 
address of the Dean of Westminster, it would hardly 
become him to seek to occupy the time of the meeting at 
any length: but he might be pardoned for calling atten- 
tion to the more strietly archaeological investigations which 
the society proposed to institute. The effect of Dr. 
Buckland’s address, in one part, was to show that the 
studies of archaeology and of natural history were neglected: 
