380 Geological Society. 



truly important by the penetrating skill and incomparable collec- 

 tions of Mr. Miller, whose loss we all so much deplore. 



The limits of this address prevent my enlarging upon the fossil 

 wealth of many of these Institutions ; and I have, therefore, con- 

 fined myself to the mention of those with which I am personally 

 acquainted. This scientific emulation is indeed now spread from one 

 end of Great Britain to the other ; Inverness, the chief town of the 

 Highlands of Scotland, having been for some years the seat of the 

 " Northern Institution of Science," which includes in the number 

 of its contributing members the names of Sir George Mackenzie 

 and Sir Thomas Lauder Dick*. 



"The Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham, and 

 Nevvcastle-on-Tyne," though of so modern a date, has, within the 

 brief space of one year, promulgated a mass of useful and practical 

 mineral knowledge, in a quarto volume of Transactions. This work 

 contains eighteen communications connected with geological in- 

 quiry : the greater number of these are explanatory of the structure 

 of Northumberland and Durham, districts which, however great their 

 national importance, have been till now very imperfectly known in 

 their geological details. The accumulated data of the working men 

 of science in the northern coal-fields were so numerous, that they 

 called for some special organ of communication with the public ; 

 and having found one, we are now presented with a surprising mass 

 of underground knowledge, illustrated by sectional drawings and ad- 

 measurements of great accuracy and beauty. I can here do little 

 more than enumerate the valuable memoirs comprised in this volume. 

 Several are from the pen of that eminent colliery viewer, Mr. Buddie ; 

 among which, the synopsis and sections of the Newcastle coal-field, 

 are invaluable mining and statistical documents. His sketch of the 

 undulatory course of a basaltic dyke may serve to explain many pre- 

 vious difficulties, occasioned by the anomalous appearances of this 

 class of rocks ; and his account of the explosion in Jarrow Colliery 

 is of paramount interest to the miner and the philanthropist. Two 

 sections, with full explanatory details by Mr. Nicholas Wood, exhibit 

 the succession of strata along the eastern coast of Northumberland, 

 from the Tyne to the Tweed ; and from the sea at Tynemouth to the 

 new red sandstone plain of Carlisle. Messrs. Witham and Winch, 

 in two separate papers, have completely proved the red sandstone 

 of the Tweed to be a subordinate and inferior member of the car- 

 boniferous limestone, and not the new red sandstone, to which, 

 from mineral characters, it had formerly been assigned. Mr. Hut- 

 ton has made an important addition to the former discoveries of Pro- 

 fessor Sedgwick, and has traced a great and continuous extension 

 of the white and red sandstone, or todtliegende, beneath the mag- 

 nesian limestone, and overlying the coal strata. The volume con- 



* The Northern Institution of Science, &c., owes no small share of its 

 success to the zeal of its able Secretary Mr. J. Anderson, wiiose know- 

 ledge of the structure of the eastern Highlands has proved so advan- 

 tageous to every geologist who has visited that country. 



tains 



