i853 DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND ART CREATED 207 



tention of his colleague Selwyn, which, as we have 

 seen (pp. 172, 192), was also his own original im- 

 pression, that the Cambrian rocks of Anglesey are 

 underlain by a far more ancient series of schists. He 

 now published his belief that these schists are the 

 metamorphosed equivalents of the Barmouth and 

 Harlech grits, and the Llanberis and Penrhyn sand- 

 stones and slates an opinion which he maintained 

 to the last. The paper is interesting as the earliest 

 account of the successive groups in the older Palaeozoic 

 rocks of North Wales, as finally worked out by the 

 Geological Survey. 



Among the incidents of the summer of 1853 the 

 most notable in Ramsay's life was the birth of a 

 daughter on the 3rd June at Beaumaris. It grati- 

 fied him to think that in Wales, which had almost 

 become his adopted country, and which, by the ties 

 of marriage, had now grown doubly dear to him, his 

 child should have been born. 



An important departmental change this year 

 affected the Geological Survey. Once again it was 

 transferred to a new set of masters. The exchange 

 arose in this wise. One of the consequences of the 

 Great Exhibition was the impulse given to the recog- 

 nition of the importance of Science in national pro- 

 gress. In 1853 a comprehensive scheme was carried 

 out by Lord Aberdeen's Government, whereby a 

 ' Department of Science and Art ' was established 

 under the charge of the Board of Trade, of which 

 the President at that time was Mr. Cardwell. The 

 control of the Geological Survey, the Museum of 

 Practical Geology, and the School of Mines was trans- 

 ferred from the office of Woods to this new depart- 

 ment. Three years later, that is in 1856, another 



