56 te Proceedings of the British Association. 
by the hand of man. In many parts of the new continent the 
rivers present these terraces; they may be observed near the St. 
Lawrence, the Mississippi, = in- many other places; and had 
the rivers of the Old World been examined before their banks 
became cultivated, in all probability they would, in many cases, 
have displayed similar terraces. Dr R. adverted to the theory 
which explains the formation of these terraces by the bursting of 
the barriers of lakes through which the river had passed. He 
conceived that in afew cases, the phenomena might be so ex- 
plained, but that in general we must have recourse for the solu- 
tion of the problem to an upheaving of the ie te that at a com- 
paratively recent period. In these terraces, but few organic re- 
mains had been discovered, which he accounted for by the pau- 
city of the limestone rocks from which mollusca could obtain 
matter for the formation of shells; the long cold winter, too, 
might have had its influence. He had, however, found in the 
lower terraces, Uniones and Anodontes’ resembling those now 
existing in the river. Some bones had been discovered, but they 
seemed to be recent, probably belonging to the spermaceti whale. 
In the different terraces there is a difference in the quality of the 
soil, there being most alluvium on the lowest terraces. The 
middle terraces, being so nearly horizontal, are well fitted for roads. 
and are used deorditigty. At Fredericktoni where welle# es 
been sunk, the vegetable soil was three itches deep, after wh 
14 feet of sand was gone through, when water was reached, fe 
tained by a bed of clay, underlaid by a slate rock. The terrace 
were composed wholly of detrital matter, the upper ones being 
coarser, and often having boulder stones, some of which were 15 
feet in diameter, and seemingly derived from parent rocks to the 
N. w., inferred from scratches on the ground, coinciding with 
the major axes of the boulders. The rocks in the neighborhood 
of the river, are slates, with some limestone, the whole disturbed 
by sienite. 
Prof. Johnston submitted an aecount of the first part of his 
Report on Chemical Geology. He referred to the combination 
of science requisite to promote geology. It had drawm upon 
the labor of the zoologist, the comparative anatomist, the bo- 
tanist, the historian, the natural philosopher, and had now called 
in ‘the assistance of the chemist. Prof. J. referred to what had 
been done = the late Sir Humphry Davy, and the late Dr. 
* 
de 
