490 



NATURE 



[September 19, 1895 



Mafhematies and Physics. 



•Prof. Carey Foster — Electrical Standards (and un- 

 expended balance in hand) 



*Mr. G. J- S)'mons — Photographs of Meteorolo- 

 gical Phenomena... 



*Lord Rayleigh — Mathematical Tables (unexpended 

 balance) 



"Mr. G. T. SjTTions — Seisniological Observations... 

 Dr. E. Atkin.son — Abstracts of Physical I'.ii>ers ... 



*Rev. R. Harley — Calculation of Certain Integrals 

 (renewed) . 



*Prof. S. P. Thompson — Uniformity of Size of 

 Pages of Transactions, A:c. (renewed) 



*Sir G. G. Stokes— Solar Radiation 



Chemistry. 

 *Sir H. E. Roscoe— Wave-length Tables of the 



Spectra of the Elements 



*Dr. T. E. Thorpe — Action of Light upon Dyed 



Colours ... 

 *Prof. J. E. Reynolds — Electrolytic Quantitative 



Analysis (renewed) 



Prof. R. Warrington — The Carbohydrates of 



Barley Straw 

 Prof. R. >reldola — Report of the Discussion on 

 the Relation of Agriculture to Science 



Geology. 



•Prof. E. Hull— Erratic Blocks 



*Prof. T. Wiltshire — Palicozoic Phyllopoda 



* Mr. J. Home — Shell-bearing Dc|xisits at Clava, iSic. 



*Ut. R. H. Traquair — Eurypterids of the Penlland 



Hills ... 



*Prof. T. G. Bonney — Investigation of a Coral 



Reef by Boring and Sounding (renewed) 

 *Prof. A. H. Green — Examination of the Locality 

 where the Cetiosaurus in the Oxford Museum 

 was found (;f20 renewed) 

 Sir John Evans — Pal.xolithic Deposits at Hoxur... 

 Sir W. II. p'lower — Fauna of .Singapore Caves ... 

 T. F. Jamieson — Age and Relation of Rocks nor 

 Moreseat, Aberdeen 



Zoology. 

 *Dr. P. L. Sclater — Table at the Zoological 



Station, Naples ... 

 *Mr. G. C. Bourne — Table at the- Biological 



Laboratory, Plymouth (^5 renewed) ... 

 •Prof. W. A. Herdman — Zoology, Botany, and 

 Geology of the Iri.sh Sea (partly renewed) ... 

 *Dr. P. L. Sclater — Zool<5gy of the Sandwich Islands 



Dr. P. L. Sclater— African I..ake Fauna 



Prof. W. A. Herdman — Oysters under normal and 



abnormal enWronment 



Geography. 

 •.Mr. F. G. Ravenstein — Climatology of Tropical 



.\frica 



Aftihaiiiial .9i7W/ic. 

 *Prof. A. B. W Kennedy — Calibration and com- 

 jKiri.sonof mea.suringin.strumcnts(/^25 renewed) 

 Mr. W. H. Preece — Introduction of the B.A. 



Small Screw Gauge 



Anthropology', 

 •Prof. E. B. Tylor— North-Western Tribes of 



Canada (;^76 151. renewed) 

 •Dr. U. Munro — Lake Village at Glastonbury 



'Z^5 renewed) 

 •Sir J. Evans — Exploration of a Kitchen-midden at 



Hiistings (unexix-nded balance) 

 *.Mr. E. W. Brabrook — Ethnographical Survey 



(/^20 renewed) 

 •Sir DouglxH Galton— Mental and Physical Con- 

 dition of Children 



Physiology. 

 •Prof. J. G. McKendrick — Physiological Applica- 

 tion! of the Phonograph 



Corresponding Soeieties. 

 •prof. R. Mctdola — For preparing Rc|)ort 



• Reappointed. 



NO. 135 I, VOL. 52] 



40 o o 



PRESIDENTS' ADDRESSES (continued). 

 SECTION C. 



C.EOIOCV. 



Underground in Suffolk and its Borders. 

 QpEN'iNG Address by W. Whitaicer, B.A., F.R.S., F.G.S. 



When the British Association revisits a town it is not unusual 

 for the Sectional Presidents to refer to the addresses of their 

 local predecessors, and to allude to the advance of their science 

 since the former meeting. I have at all events tried to follow 

 this course, with the sad result of having to chronicle a falling 

 back rather than an advance in our methods of procedure ; for 

 at the meeting of 1S51 all the Sectional Presidents had the 

 wisdom not to give an address, and of all the inventions of later 

 years I look upon the presidential address as i>erliaps the w\)rsl. 



Had I the courage of my opinion I should not now trouble 

 you ; but an official life of over thirty-eight years has led me to 

 do what I am told to do, and to supjiress my own ideas of what 

 is right. -Vfler all it is the fault of the Sections themselves that 

 they should suffer the evil of addresses. They could ilisestablish 

 the institution without difficulty. 



On these occasions it is not usual to allude to the personal 

 losses our science has hail in the past year ; but there are limes 

 when the lack of a fiimiliar presence can hardly be passed over, 

 and since we last met we have lost one of our most constant 

 friends, who had served us long and well, and had been our 

 Secretary for a far longer time than any other holder of that 

 office. When we were at Oxford last siunmer none of us could 

 have thought that it was our last meeting with William Topley. 



I do not now mean to say anything on the oriyin or on the clas- 

 sification of the various divisions of the Cr.ig and of the Drift that 

 occur so plentifully around us, and form the staple interest of Ivast 

 Anglian geology. These subjects, which are the more interest- 

 ing from being controversial, I leave to my liroilicr-hammerers, 

 and without claiming the credit of magnanimity in so doing, 

 having said what I had to say on them in sundry Geological 

 Survey Memoirs. The object of this address is to carry you 

 below the surface, and to point out how much our knowledge of 

 the geology of the county in which we meet has been advanced 

 by workers in another field, by engineers and others in their 

 search for water. As far as possible allusion will be made only 

 to work in Sufiblk ; but we must occasionally invade the neigh- 

 bouring counties. 



This kind of evidence has chielly accumulated since the meet- 

 ing of the .Association at Ipswich, in 1851; for of the 476 Suffolk 

 wells of which an account, with some geologic information, has 

 been published, only sixty-eight were noticed before thai year, 

 all but two of these being in a single paper. The notes on all 

 these wells are now to be found in twelve (icological Survey 

 Memoirs that refer to the county. Number alone, however, is 

 not the only point, and m,iny of the later records are niarkcil by 

 a precision and a iletail rarely approached in lire older ones. It 

 should be slated that in the above and in the following numbers 

 strict accuracy is not ])rofessed, nor is it material. .\ slight error 

 in the number of the wells, one way or the other, wmuI<I make 

 practically no ilift'erence to the general conclusions. 



Now let us .see how these records afl'ect our knowledge of the 

 various geologic formations, beginning with the newest and 

 working downward. 



The Drift. 



Under this head, as a matter of convenience for the present 

 purpose, we will include everything above the Chilkslurd Clay. 

 There is no need for refinement of classification, and the thin 

 beds th.1t come in between that Clay and the Drift in some parts 

 do not affect the evidence we have to deal with. 



.•\s a matter of fact it is only from wells that we can tell the 

 thickness of the Drift over most of the great plateau that this 

 formation chiefly forms ; open sections^through a great thickness 

 of Drift, to its base, are rare, except on the coast. 



There is often some doubt in chissifying the beds, the ilivision 

 between Drift and Cmg being sometimes hard to make in 

 sections of wells and borings ; but from an examination of the 

 records of these .Suffolk sec(i(ms that pass through any part of 

 the Drift Series (as defined above) we find that no less than 173 

 show a thickness <if 50 feet and upward, whilst of these .34 prove 

 no less than too feel of Drift, many reaching to much more. Of 

 the two that are said to show a thickness of over 200 feet .ind 

 Ihc one other said to be mrjre than 300 feet deep in Drift, we 



