Provincial Geological Societies. 567 



When we consider the short period which has elapsed since these, 

 the very minutest secrets of our solid strata, have been revealed to us, 

 and by how few inquirers they have been studied, we may well admire 

 the results. At the same time, seeing the great difficulties attending 

 the study of these minute bodies, and the possibility that a certain 

 amount of error may arise from the examination of such of these 

 organisms as are imperfect under very high magnifying powers, I 

 quite coincide with your late President, that we ought not to adopt 

 too rapidly all the conclusions of the microscopists, however we must 

 cordially thank them for the steps they are endeavouring to 

 establish. 



PROVINCIAL GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 



When presiding over this Society ten years ago, I congratulated 

 my associates on the increasing taste for our science by the rapid 

 rise of provincial scientific institutions*. I will not now endeavour 

 to enumerate all these Societies, since through my ignorance I may 

 omit to mention some which are well entitled to notice ; but I will 

 simply advert to two of the most recently established of these bodies, 

 and whose objects are exclusively the same as our own, viz. the Man- 

 chester Geological Society, and the Dudley and Midland Geological 

 Society. 



The first of these, presided over by Lord Francis Egerton, has 

 just published the first volume of its Transactions, which contains 

 much good local geology, from the pens of our deceased member 

 Mr. Bowman and Mr. E. W. Binney, and valuable descriptions of 

 fossils by Capt. T. Brown. I am glad to find that the shells deli- 

 neated for the first time in this volume, and which occur in the 

 lower red marls at Collyhurst near Manchester, are now admitted 

 to be in beds, which are equivalents of the magnesian limestone, an 

 opinion it will be recollected which was expressed when these fossils 

 were first brought to our own halls by Professor Sedgwick and Mr. 

 Phillips t, thus offering a fresh proof that with newly-discovered li- 

 thological conditions, the same formation is often found to be diver- 

 sified with remains unknown to us in the rocks of the same age 

 which preserve their ordinary mineral characters. 



Of the still younger Geological Society of Dudley, I have sincere 

 pleasure in saying, that its first anniversary festival, at which I was 

 requested to deliver an inaugural address, was eminently successful 

 in uniting together the gentlemen of property in the neighbourhood 

 with practical miners and fossil collectors, and there can be no 

 doubt that an establishment so supported, and which is founded on 

 ground so replete witli countless subterranean phaenoniena, must 

 have an honourable and a useful career. I refer you to the excel- 

 lent Report of the Dudley Provisional Committee, a perusal of which, 

 whilst it acquaints you that their nmseuni contains some unique 

 sijccimens and many worthy of a visit, will convince you that it is 



• Geol. Proceedings, vol. i. p. 377. [Phil. Mag., Second Series, vol. xi. 

 p. 378.] 



t See Gcol. Proceedings, vol. ii. j). 392, [Phil. Mag., Third Series, vol. 

 viii. p. 571 •] and Silurian System, p. 50. 



