sarj) JUtesa of the 



(Read May 13th, 1897. ) 



"H EARLY six months have elapsed since I read my last 

 anniversary address, which had to be deferred 

 I" from the usual spring to the winter meeting. 

 During this short interval I am glad that I 

 have not the melancholy duty of recording the 

 removal of a member by death. 



I propose to commence my address with a 

 review of the physical and biological pheno- 

 mena of the sea, from the shore to the abyssal 

 depths a subject which has much interested me when preparing 

 materials for a volume on "The Shells of Dorset," which I hope to 

 bring out before the end of the year, as a companion to my two other 

 volumes, " The Birds and the Flora of Dorset " and then to continue 

 with a few remarks upon the climates of past ages evidenced by 

 plants. The records of the fauna of the sea, unlike those 9f 

 terrestrial surfaces, show considerable changes in their forms of life, 

 and the frequent introduction of new species which, although 

 approaching each other, never meet. During long periods of time 

 not marked by any sweeping change, such as when the liassic beds 

 were being laid down, many species apparently lived unmodified 

 from first to last. If any differences occur they may be attributable 

 to the close proximity of currents at different temperatures, each of 

 them characterised by special forms of life, some of which so 

 widely differ as to present quite a different facies, showing that 



