Sept. 8, 1887] 



NATURE 



447 



us with those now received, since gradual changes in communi- 

 ties, as in individuals, are more patent to casual observers than 

 to those who are always on the watch. 



From some points of view the signs of the times are certainly 

 not encouraging. It should not be forgotten that the manu- 

 facturing prosperity of this district depends to a great extent on 

 the ample supply of a product which is brought to us at some 

 cost from tropical and semi-tropical countries to be re-exported 

 in the shape of manufactured goods. A political convulsion 

 •abroad, and this, unfortunately, is a casualty that may at any 

 time be expected, or even the determination on the part of other 

 nations to starve u> out, however short-sighted such a determina- 

 tion might be, might cut off our supplies and disable us per- 

 manently as we were partially disabled twenty-five years ago. 

 If to this be added the fact that foreign nations are becoming 

 increasingly hostile and exclusive commercially, we cannot feel 

 surprise at the dismal forebodings entertained and the confident 

 predictions of decline uttered by some who claim to know all 

 the facts. I ought to apologize for alluding to so gloomy a 

 subject on the occasion of this to a great extent festive gathering, 

 but then men of science like to look at a question not only from 

 a hopeful but from every point of view. Fortunately on this 

 question they are not called upon to pronounce any opinion one 

 way or the other. 



Should this be the last time that Manchester shall entertain 

 the British Association in the day of its prosperity, I can only 

 \ say with the German poet — 



" Schliesst den Kreis unci leert die Flaschen] 

 Diese Soinmernachte feiernd, 

 Schlimme Zeiten werden kommen. 

 Die wir Auch sodann ertragen." 



Whether in prosperity or adversity I feel sure that this city 

 I will always endeavour to entertain its visitors to the best of its 

 lability. On the present occasion I may with confidence on the 

 I part of the chemical world of Manchester oflfer to the many 

 rfriends from near and far who honour us with their presence at 

 [this meeting a most hearty welcome. 



SECTION C. 



GEOLOGY. 



Opening Address by Henry Woodward, LL.D., F.R.S., 

 V.P.G.S., President of the Section. 



Since I received the friendly intimation from Prof. Bonney 

 your distinguished and able President of last year, that the 

 Council of this Association had done me the honour to select me 

 to occupy the Presidential chair of this Section which he had 

 vacated, I have been greatly exercised as to what subject to 

 choose for the brief address with which it has now become 

 customary to open the session. Not that there is any lack of 

 materials ready to hand for the purpose — on the contrary, the 

 subjects embraced by geology are now so varied and extensive 

 that the effort to focus them in a single mind is ever becoming 

 a more difficult task to accomplish, and demands the literary 

 skill of a Lyell or a Geikie to marshal and arrange them from 

 year to year in a manner suitable for presentation to you at our 

 annual gathering. 



Foremost in interest must necessarily be that which relates to 

 our home affairs, and in this I have been most kindly favoured 

 by Dr. A. Geikie, the Director-General of the Geological Survey 

 of Great Britain, who sends me a brief notice of the progress of 

 the Survey for 1886, taken partly from his Annual Report as 

 Director-General and partly from information supplied by the 

 office through the kindness of Mr. William Topley, our Record- 

 ing Secretary. The following is the statement which I have 

 received : — 



The survey of the solid geology of England and Wales was 

 completed at the end of 1883, and the field stafThas since been 

 occupied in surveying the drift deposits, making at the same 

 time such revisions of the ordinary (solid) geology as may be 

 necessary. In the north and east of England the drift and solid 

 have been surveyed at the same time. The areas examined in 

 the earlier days of the survey, in the south, centre, and west of 

 England, and in Wales, were done for the solid rocks only. 



In order to meet the great need for a general map of England 

 and Wales on a moderate scale, one is being engraved by the 

 Survey on the scale of 4 miles to I inch (i : 253440), and will be 

 issued in fifteen sheets. 



A few of the survey memoirs relate to large areas, and give 

 complete descriptions of the formations therein exposed, but 

 most of the memoirs are explanations of special sheets of the 

 map. A series of monographs is now in preparation giving full 

 descriptions of special formations. Mr. Whitaker has charge of 

 that on the Lower Tertiaries ; Mr. H. B. Woodward and Mr. 

 C. Fox- Strang ways are preparing the Jurassic memoir, the 

 former taking the rocks south of the Flumber, and the latter 

 those of Yorkshire ; Mr. Jukes-Browne is writing the Cre- 

 taceous monograph ; and Mr. Clement Reid that on the Pliocene 

 beds. 



In Scotland some advance has been made in mapping the 

 important and complicated area of the north-west Ilijjhlands. 

 The surveyors there were chiefly engaged between Loch Stack 

 and Ullapool, subsequently completing the area about Durness 

 and Eriboll. The other parts of Scotland now being surveyed 

 are the north-eastern and western side of the Grampians, all 

 south of the latter having been already completed. 



Ireland is entirely sui-veyed with the exception of a small area 

 in Donegal, which will probably be completed this year. This 

 district is of interest from its resemblance to the north-west 

 Highlands, and from the problems which it presents as to the 

 origin of the crystalline schists. The recent discovery of organic 

 remains amongst the Donegal schists adds additional interest to 

 this inquiry. 



The publications of the Survey during the past year are as 

 follows : England and Wales, six sheets of the map, two sheets 

 of horizontal sections, three of vertical sections, and six memoirs ; 

 Scotland, three maps and one memoir ; Ireland, two maps and 

 six memoirs. 



The next matter which has arisen since our last meeting 

 relates to our colonies, and comes to us in the shape of a 

 message from the retiring President of the Association, Sir 

 William Dawson, who has embodied his ideas in a letter to the 

 President of the Royal Society (Prof Stokes), copies of which 

 have been sent also to all the learned Societies. To the former 

 I am indebted for a copy accompanied by a favourable report 

 thereon from the Royal Society of Canada. 



As the object of this communication is one in which I am sure 

 we, as Englishmen, must all feel a hearty sympathy, appealing 

 as it does to our patriotism in its widest sense, as well as to our 

 devotion for and interest in the science of geology, I feel I shall 

 not need to apologize for introducing it to your notice here. 



We are invited by it to enrol ourselves, as geologists, in a 

 Federal Union, composed of all our brethren at home, in our 

 colonies, and in all the dependencies of the British Crown. Nor 

 are we to stop here, for when this has been satisfactorily 

 accomplished it is suggested that we should invite our English- 

 speaking cousins of the great United States, with whom we are 

 already in such close alliance upon so many objects of common 

 scientific interest, to join our Geological Confederation, and, 

 having thus obtained an overwhelming majority, we are to pro- 

 ceed — without armies or vessels of war — to extend our peaceful 

 conquest over every country on the habitable globe, urging and 

 persuading those countries which have not established geological 

 surveys to do so forthwith, and inviting those which have surveys 

 of their own to join our British Association Geological Union. 

 And when all has been accomplished in this direction our 

 exertions as a confederacy may well be extended to secure the 

 mapping of all those outlying regions of the earth's surface at 

 present imperfectly known or still geologically unexplored. 



Suggestions such as these could hardly come at a more fitting 

 and appropriate moment, for are we not now on the eve of the 

 completion of the geological surveys of the British Islands? if 

 such a task can ever be said to be completed which has occupied 

 the attentive study of so many able geologists during the last 

 eighty years or more, and from the very nature of the case must 

 always require additional research and revision. 



India, Africa, and our colonies may all hope for future assist- 

 ance from the many geological students now being trained in 

 our schools and colleges, who may not be required in the near 

 future for home surveys, and must needs go further afield to win 

 their title of admission to the ancient and honourable order of 

 " Knights of the Hammer." 



This idea of scientific federation was referred to by Prof. 

 Huxley in his Presidential Address to the Royal Society in 1885, 

 and subsequently by the present President (Prof. G. G. Stokes) 

 in November last. 



If we would devise a scheme by which, we might from time to 



