CHAP, i.] INTRODUCTION. 5 



During about eighteen months he studied with the 

 utmost care the conditions of the ^Egean and its 

 shores, and conducted upwards of one hundred 

 dredging operations at depths varying from 1 to 130 

 fathoms. In 1843 he communicated to the Cork 

 meeting of the British Association an elaborate report 

 on the Mollusca and Radiata of the JEgean Sea, and 

 on their distribution considered as bearing on Geology. 1 

 Three years later, in 1846, he published in the first 

 volume of the ' Memoirs of the Geological Survey of 

 Great Britain,' a most valuable memoir upon the. 

 Connection between the existing Eauna and Flora of 

 the British Isles, and the geological Changes which 

 have affected their Area, especially during the Epoch 

 of the Northern Drift. 2 In the year 1859 appeared 

 the Natural History of the European Seas by the late 

 Professor Edward Forbes, edited and continued by 

 Robert Godwin Austen. 3 In the first hundred pages 

 of this little book, Forbes gives a general outline of 

 some of the more important of his views with regard 



1 Eeport on the Mollusca and Radiata of the ./Egean Sea, and on 

 their Distribution, considered as bearing on Geology. By Edward 

 Forbes, F.L.S., M.W.S., Professor of Botany in King's College, London. 

 (Report of the Thirteenth Meeting of the British Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science ; held at Cork in August 1843. London, 1844.) 



2 On the Connection between the Distribution of the existing Fauna 

 and Flora of the British Isles and the geological Changes which have 

 affected their Area, especially during the Epoch of the Northern Drift. 

 By Edward Forbes, F.R.S., L.S., G.S., Professor of Botany at King's 

 College, London; Palaeontologist to the Geological Survey of the 

 United Kingdom. (Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, 

 vol. i. London, 1846.) 



3 The Natural History of the European Seas, by the late Professor 

 Edward Forbes, F.R.S., &c. Edited and continued by Robert Godwin 

 Austen, F.R.S. London, 1859. 



