
Aug. 10, 1871] 

tional information has been obtained regarding the development 
of volcanic action in central Scotland during the Carboniferous 
period. 
The Permian basins of Ayrshire and Thornhill have been 
surveyed and in great part published. Much fresh light has in 
the course of this Survey been thrown on the interesting 
Permian volcanoes of the south-west of Scotland. 
Attention has been continuously given to the superficial 
accumulations. These are now mapped in as great detail as 
the rocks underneath, and plans are being prepared with the 
view to an issue of maps of the surface geology. 
By a recent order of the Director-General, each one-inch 
map is now accompanied at the time of its publication, or as 
soon thereafter as possible, with an explanatory pamphlet, in 
which the form of the ground, geological formations, fossils, 
rocks, faults, and economic minerals, are briefly described, and 
such further information given as seems necessary for the 
proper elucidation of the map. These pamphlets are soldat an 
uniform price of 3¢. Detailed vertical sections are published 
for each coal-field. For the construction of these sections, 
records of boring operations are procured and recorded in the 
register-books of the Survey. Since 1867 more than 312,200 
feet of such borings have in this way been entered in our books. 
Sheets of horizontal sections on a large scale are likewise issued 
to form, with the maps and explanations, a compendium of the 
geological structure of each large district. 
Another feature of the work of the Survey is the collection 
of specimens of the rocks and fossils of each tract of country as 
it is surveyed. Since my previous report to this Section of the 
British Association, we have collected 1,011 specimens of rocks, 
and 7,500 fossils. These are named and exhibited, as far as 
the present accommodation will permit, in the Museum of 
Science and Art at Edinburgh. 
The work of the Geological Survey is carried on, as I have 
said, under the guidance of its Director-General, Sir Roderick 
Murchison, a name which has long been a household word at 
the meetings of the British Association, and one to which I am 
sure you will permit me to make on this occasion more than a 
passing reference. While the Survey advances, as I have 
shown, steadily over the face of the country, unravelling piece 
by piece the complicated details of its geological structure, to 
Sir Roderick belongs the rare merit of having himself led the 
way, by sketching for us, boldly and clearly, the relations of 
the older rocks over more than half of the kingdom. Much 
“must undoubtedly remain for future investigation, but his out- 
line of the grand essential features of Highland geology will 
ever remain asa monument of his powers of close yet rapid 
observation and sagacious inference. At one time I had hoped 
that the Chair of this Section might be filled by him, and that 
we should be permitted to listen anew to his expositions of the 
-rocks of his native country. There is no one among us who 
does not regret the absence of the familiar face and voice of the 
veteran of Siluria. We meet once more on Scottish ground, 
and for the first time we have not here with us the man who 
has laid a deeper, broader impress on Scottish geology than 
any other geologist either of past generations or of this. 
There is, however, on the present occasion, a special cause for 
regret. Only within the last few months he founded a Chair 
of Geology in the University within whose walls we are now 
assembled—the first and only chair of the kind in Scotland. 
It would have been a fitting and grateful duty on the part of 
the University to welcome one of its most distinguished bene- 
factors. Iam well aware, indeed, that this Section-room is no 
place for the obtrusion of personal sentiments; yet I would 
fain be allowed to add in conclusion an expression of my own 
deep regret at the recent illness and consequent absence of one 
to whom, over and above the admiration which we all feel for 
his life-long labours and his personal character, many years of 
friendly intercourse have bound me by the closest ties of 
affection, 
SECTION D. 
BIOLOGY 
OPENING ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, PROFESSOR ALLEN 
THOMSON 
IN now opening the meetings of the Biological Section, it is 
my first duty to express my deep sense of the honour which has 
been conferred on m2 in appointing me to preside over its delibera- 
tions. I trust that my grateful acceptance of the office will not 
appear to be an assumption on my part of more than a partial 
NATURE 

293 
connection with the very wide field of science included under 
the term Biology. 
I would gladly have embraced the opportunity now afforded 
me of conforming to a custom which has of late become almost 
the rule with presidents of sections—viz., that of bringing under 
your review the more valuable discoveries with which our science 
has been enriched in recent times, were it not that the subjects 
which I might have been disposed to select would require an 
amount of detail in each which would necessarily limit greatly 
their number, and that any attempt to overtake the whole range 
of this wide-spread department of science would be equally pre- 
sumptuous and futile on the part of one whose attention has been 
restricted mainly to one of its divisions. Iam further embarrassed 
in the choice of topics for general remark by the circumstance 
that many of those upon which I might have ventured to address 
you have been most ably treated of by my predecessors, as for 
example, in the sectional addresses of Dr. Acland, Dr. Sharpey, 
Mr. Berkeley, Dr. Humphry, and Dr. Rolleston, as well as in the 
presidential addresses of Dr. Hooker and Prof. Huxley. I must 
content myself therefore with endeavouring to convey to you 
some of the ideas which arise in my mind in looking back from 
the present upon the state of Biological science at the time when, 
forty years since, the meetings of the British Association com- 
menced—a period which I am tempted to particularise from its 
happening to coincide very nearly with that at which I began 
my career as a public teacher in one of the departments of 
biology in this city. In the few remarks which I shall make, 
it will be my object to show the prodigious advance which 
has taken place, not only in the knowledge of our subject asa 
whole, but also in the ascertained relation of its parts to 
each other, and in the place which biological knowledge 
has gained in the estimation of the educated part of the commu- 
nity, and the consequent increase in the freedom with which the 
search after truth is now asserted ia this as in other departments 
of science. And first, in connection with the distribution of the 
various subjects which are included under this section, I may 
remark that the general title under which the whole Section D 
has met since 1866, viz., Biology, seems to be advantageous both 
from its convenience, and as tending to promote the great con: 
solidation of our science, and a juster appreciation of the relation 
of its several parts. It may be that, looking merely to the deri- 
vation of the term, it is strictly more nearly synonymous with 
Physiology in the sense in which that word has been for a long 
time employed, and therefore designating the science of life, 
rather than the description of the living beings in which it is 
manifested. But until a better or more comprehensive term be 
found, we may accept that of Biology under the general definition 
of ‘* the science of life and of living beings,” or as comprehending 
the history of the whole range of organic nature—vegetable as 
well as animal. The propriety of the adoption of such a general 
term is further shown by a glance at the changes which the titles 
and distribution of the subordinate depariments of this section 
have undergone during the period of the existence of the 
Association, 


flistory of the Section 
During the first four years of this period the Section met under 
the combined designation of Zoology and Botany, Physiology and 
Anatomy—words sufficiently clearly indicating the scope of is 
subjects of investigation. In the next ten years a connection with 
Medicine was recognised by the establishment of a sub-section or 
department of Medical Science, in which, however, scientific 
anatomy and physiology formed the most prominent topics, 
though not to the exclusion of more strictly medical and surgical, 
or professional, subjects. During the next decade, or from the 
year 1845 to 1854, we find along with Zoology and Botany a 
sub-section of Physiology, and in several years of the same time 
along with the latter a separate department of Ethnology. In 
the eleven years which extended from 1855 to 1865, the branch of 
Ethnology was associated with Geography in Section F. More re- 
cently, or since the arrangement which was commenced in 1866, the 
section Biology has included, with some slight variation, the whole 
ofits subjects in three departments. Under one of these are brought 
all investigations in Anatomy and Physiology of a general kind, 
thus embracing the whole range of these sciences when without 
special application. A second of these departments has been oc- 
cupied with the extensive subjects of Botany and Zoology ; 
while the third has been devoted to the subject of Anthropology, 
in which all researches having a special reference to the structure 
and functions or life-history of man have been received and dis- 
cussed. Such I understand to be the arrangement under which 
we shall meet on this occasion, At the conclusion of my re- 
