•i-te Geological Society. 



cultivators of natural science: but to those who have known 

 him in private life, he has left, what is still more precious, the ex- 

 ample of his personal character. It would be difficult to name a 

 man who so well combined the qualities of an English gentleman 

 and a philosopher; or whose life better deserves the eulogium given 

 by the first of our orators to one of our most distinguished public 

 characters ; for it was marked by a constant wish and endeavour to 

 be " useful to mankind*." 



In adverting to the progress which Geological research has made 

 during the past year in this country, I may refer to the Tabular 

 List of our Strata, of which Mr. De la Beche has recently pub- 

 lished a second edition f, for one of the most convenient general 

 views of the present state of our knowledge respecting them. In 

 the following observations I shall adopt the descending order of the 

 Series. 



A complete account of the deposits which appear on the coast of 

 Suffolk, and other parts of the eastern shores of England, especially 

 of that which has been denominated Crag, is still a desideratum 

 of importance in the history of our strata. The publications of Mr. 

 Robberds % and Mr. R. C. Taylor § have given some information 

 of considerable value upon this tract : but a general account of it, 

 combining the local phaenomena with those of analogous deposits 

 in other quarters, is still to be wished for; and from the connexion 

 of the facts which our eastern shores exhibit, with some of the 

 great questions touching the true theory of the diluvial accumula- 

 tions, an acquaintance with them is almost necessary to the removal 

 of some of the numerous difficulties which still attend that subject. 



Mr. Webster has announced a new work upon the Isle of Wight; 

 in which, under the simple form of a guide to that most interesting 

 island, he proposes to illustrate fully its Topography and Geology; 

 particularly the relations of the strata immediately above the chalk. 



The true order of the beds between the chalk and the oolitic 

 series, which has been the subject of much recent inquiry and dis- 

 cussion, appears now to be generally recognized ; and considerable 

 light has been thrown upon that remarkable group, united princi- 

 pally by zoological relations (for, mineralogically, its members are 

 sufficiently distinct), which occurs between the lowest of the beds 

 denominated green-sand, and the oolite of Portland. The suc- 

 cession, though tlie beds are not continuous, has been shown to be 

 uniform throughout England, from Norfolk southwards, — and to be 

 the same in fact with that long since enounced, though with much 

 variation of nomenclature, by Mr. William Smith, in his Geological 

 Maps of the English Counties. 



* Fox's speech on the death of the Duke of Bedford, 1802. 



t " A Tabular and Proportional View of the Superior, Superniedial, and 

 Medial (Tertiary and Secondary) Rocks : 2nd edition, considerably enlarj^ed,'' 

 by H. T. De la Beche, Esq. F.R.S. G.S. &c. London, 1828 ; Ticuttel and Co. 



X "Geoloj^ical and Historical Observations on the Eastern Valleys of Nor- 

 folk," by J. W. Kobbcrds, Jun. Norwich, I82fi. 



§.«' On the Geology of East Norfolk," &c. 8vo. 182/; by R. C. Taylor, 

 F.G.S. 



A full 



