558 Geological Society : Aiiniversary Address, 1 842. 



he may be able to refer these beds to their proper Silurian equiva- 

 lent. If I were allowed to judge from the experience of one visit 

 to a part of the country described by Mr. Sharpe, in which I 

 found Orthoceratites in mountains marked by him as "Winder- 

 mere Rocks," and also from his own showing, that these rocks are 

 included between types of the higher portions of the Upper and 

 Lower Silurian strata, such intermediate formation must be on the 

 parallel of the Wenlock strata, which in many parts of the Silurian 

 region, as well as in the North of England — (i. e. wherever the 

 subdividing limestone and fossils are suppressed) can only be recog- 

 nized under the general term of lower members of the " Upper Silu- 

 rian Rocks." As Mr. Sharpe proposes to revisit the country, and 

 to extend his researches from Westmoreland into Lancashire and 

 Furness, he will have ample opportunity of confirming or rejecting 

 my surmise. In regard to that portion of the memoir which points 

 out the existence of many faults and anticlinal lines, I am not pre- 

 pared to say to what extent they accord with the previous obser- 

 vations of the great geologist of the lake country, Professor Sedg- 

 wick, or of his precursor, Jonathan Otley. 



I would now speak of a work which has recently appeared, entitled 

 ' The Old Red Sandstone, or New Walks in an Old Field.' From 

 a pretty accurate acquaintance with the tracts from which Mr. Miller 

 has taken his title, I can assure you that the walks of this author 

 had been little trodden, and that his claims to originality are very 

 just. It is impossible to peruse his pages without delight in tracing 

 how the strong mind of Mr. Miller has enabled him to rise step by 

 step from the stone quarry of his, and 1 may add my own, native 

 county Ross-shire, to a place in literature and science which few 

 reach, even with all the support derived from an expensive education ; 

 or without admiring the ability with which this unassisted observer 

 first succeeded in putting together the dislocated fragments of the 

 very singular fish, called Pterichthys by Agassiz, long before that 

 creature \vas first understood. Look again to the clear and ge- 

 neral view which this author takes of the greatest of Scottish de- 

 posits, and how well he conveys to unpractised readers a true idea 

 of its position, importance, and divisions, and you will agree with 

 me that in Mr. Hugh Miller we have to hail the accession to geo- 

 logical writers of a man highly qualified to advance the science. 

 Few persons, and too often least of all those who are, if I may so 

 speak, professed geologists, succeed in imparting to others, who have 

 not studied the science, a clear conception of their views. In this 

 respect the character of Mr. Miller's work is admirable, for it por- 

 trays the means by which the author acquired his knowledge, and, 

 from its persuasive manner, is worth, to a beginner, a thousand di- 

 dactic treatises. 



I hoped before now to have seen in print the very valuable me- 

 moir prepared by Dr. Malcolmson long ago, on the divisions and 

 development of the Old Red Sandstone in the North of Scotland. 

 This delay has been caused solely by the desire that the descrip- 

 tion of the various fishes which he has pointed out as character- 



