Geological Society. 525 



years Mr. Bright undertook the special care and superintendence 

 of this machine. The results of this register were peculiarly valuable 

 in establishing the diurnal variation of the tides. When a machine 

 of much superior construction was, after the lapse of three years, 

 erected at the Hotwells, the original gauge at Haui Green became 

 useless, and was removed. The new gauge is under Mr. Bunt's im- 

 mediate care in operation as it Mas in construction, and his unre- 

 mitting observations have already been rewarded by experimental 

 proof of a very important general law, so recently announced, that 

 it is possible I may be the first to give the intelligence to many of 

 those who hear me, viz. that the variations of atmospheric pressure, 

 as indicated by the barometer, exert a regular and very considerable 

 influence on the height of high water in the Avon ; an increase of 

 atmospheric pressure, by which the mercury was raised one inch, 

 producing a depression of fourteen inches in the height of the 

 water. 



In his death our Society has to lament the loss of, I believe, the 

 only father, who, during many years, has, together with two sons, 

 been among the number of its most zealous and efficient members. 

 To one of these sons. Dr. Richard Bright, we owe an early paper in 

 our Transactions, on the Geology of his father's neighbourhood. He 

 has travelled in the less-frequented parts of Europe, and published 

 records of his journeys both in Iceland* and Hungary ; the medical 

 profession also acknowledge their obligation to him for several im- 

 portant works. 



Mr. John Gibson was a native of Yorkshire, engaged in large 

 chemical works at Stratford-le-Bowin Essex, to whom we are indebted 

 for our first knowledge of the existence of fossil remains of extinct ani- 

 mals in the cave at Kirkdale. Being on a visit to his friends near 

 Helnisley in 1821, his attention was attracted by some bones he 

 found thrown upon the road, together with stones from an oolite 

 quarry adjacent to the church at Kirkdale. He at once perceived 

 that they were not, as the quarry-men supposed, the bones of cattle 

 that had perished by some murrain and been cast into a chasm of the 

 rock, but that they were derived from animals no longer existing 

 in the country. These bones were in quantity sufficient, not only 

 to supply tlie cabinets of gentlemen in the neighbourhood, but also 

 to enable Mr. Gibson to bring a collection of tliem to London, 

 tlierewitii furnishing aji extensive cabinet of his own, and distribu- 

 ting liberally his duplicates to several public nmseunis in London, 

 including tiie British Museum, the Museums of the College of Sur- 

 geons and that of the (ieological Society, of which Society he im- 

 nu'd lately became a member. 



Mr. (jil)son's attention being thus awakened to the consideration 

 of (organic remains, lie soon (iiscov(Ted tliat, at Stratford-ie-Bow, he 

 wa.s living in a land once iniiabited 'by paciiydermata tliat were 

 contemporaneous with the ancient inhabitants of the cave of Kirk- 



• He accompanied Sir George M'Kenzie, and contributed to his work on 

 Iceland. 



