552 Geological Society '. Anniversary Address, IS^2. 



do justice to one of our own countrymen, Mr. Austen, the value 

 of whose researches in Devonshire you have had previous oppor- 

 tunities of estimating. I have recently seen a MS. table prepared 

 some time since by this able geologist, but the use of Avhich he 

 has liberally granted to Mr. Morris, who is preparing that general 

 synoptical view of British organic remains, the publication of which 

 you have resolved to encourage*. 



In remote countries, the palaeozoic classification of Silurian, De- 

 vonian, and Carboniferous tj'^pes has been extended, by my com- 

 panions and myself, from Russia in Europe into Asia, and, may I 

 add, that an inspection of some fossils of the far-distant Altai leads 

 me to conclude that the examination of that chain will afford the 

 same results ? Though our own naturalists have not yet penetrated 

 to Pekin, the Russian Major of Engineers, Kovanko, has acquainted 

 us with the existence of an extensive coal-field not far from that 

 metropolis t; and if time and the wear and tear of life permit, I 

 despair not of planting the Silurian standard on the wall of China, 

 \y^ approaching it through the country of our old allies. 



Again, Southern Africa and the South Seas have aff'orded their 

 quota of Silurian fossils, but above all other foreign countries. North 

 America appears to be rich in rocks of the same age. Of this fact 

 indeed the Geological Society received the clearest evidence in the 

 excellent section of Mr. James Hall, and the fine suite of organic 

 remains which accompanied it J. We have thus the most convincing 

 proofs that the primaeval aeras were distinguished by a wide if not 

 universal spread of the same genera and species of animals. 



We have yet to analyze the enormous tracts of Australia over which 

 British influence extends, before we can be said to have gathered to- 

 gether all the palaeozoic data which are essential to a sound general 

 classification. The travels of Cunningham, Mitchell, Grey, and others 

 of our countrymen, permit us however to conclude that the ancient 

 strata of these regions may eventually be worked into a classification 

 approaching to our own. In that singular country, in which so large 

 a portion of the existing terrestrial and marine fauna dififer so essen- 

 tially from those of every other region, it is curious to detect in 

 the rocks many fossil Corallines and Mollusks§ closely analogous 

 to the Silurian species of the British Isles, thus adding another 



* See previous account of the Award of the Wollaston Fund, p. 544. 



t Journal des Mines de Russie, 1838, p. 191. 



X Geological Proceedings, vol. iii. p. 410. [Phil. Mag., Third Series, vol. 

 xix. p. 530.] I was very much struck with the clear, unpretending, and 

 workmanlike manner in which Mr. J. Hall had the kindness to communi- 

 cate his views to myself, respecting the Silurian and other ]3aL-eozoic rocks 

 of the United States, in the letter which was read to the Society ; and I 

 am glad to find that this able geologist has been of great service to Mr. 

 Lyell in his present tour in America. Mr. J. Hall has since forwarded to 

 me his memoir, entitled 'Notes on the Geology of the Western States.' 

 — Silliman's Journal, vol. xlii. p. 51. 



§ See Mitchell's Expedition into the interior of Eastern Australia, vol. i. 

 chap. 1; vol. ii. chap. 15. 



