1872 THE ANNUAL REPORT 321 



and the Carboniferous lies highly unconformably 

 on it. 



I now also know a deal about the great Carbon- 

 iferous Limestone plains of the middle of Ireland, and 

 something of the coal-fields. Ireland must have been 

 somewhat like Finland long ago, before so many of 

 its lakes got turned into peat -mosses. I have also 

 partly realised the Shannon and a lot of other odds and 

 ends in a three-and-a-half weeks' tour among Hull's men. 

 I have seen all the staff but two, and a very nice set 

 of fellows they are. I leave to-morrow night, and get 

 home on Tuesday, I hope. Ever sincerely, 



A. C. RAMSAY. 



One of the periodical tasks of the Director-General 

 is to receive the reports of the field operations, of 

 the indoor work, and of the Museum for the year, and 

 to prepare from them his Annual Report of progress, 

 which is sent to the Department of Science and Art 

 to be presented to Parliament, and published in the 

 annual blue book of the Department. At the end of 

 the year these various returns are prepared by the 

 officers of each branch of the Survey and the curators 

 of the collections in Jermyn Street, Edinburgh, and 

 Dublin, and the first duty of the" chief after the begin- 

 ing of January is to master their contents, to procure 

 additional information or correction where needed, and 

 to work the whole into a narrative of all that has 

 been done during the previous twelve months by the 

 different establishments under his control. Buried in 

 the pages of a blue book, these Annual Reports are 

 much less widely known than the labour spent upon 

 them entitles them to be. It was now Ramsay's turn 

 in the early part of 1873 to compile the yearly state- 



