TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 153 



phenomenon was brought about, the waters which have now diminished to an ordi- 

 nary small river, rose in great inundations to the height of 100 feet and more above 

 the present stream, and swept over the slopes of the chalk on which the primeval 

 inhabitants were fashioning their rude flint instruments— when, as I would suggest, 

 they might have escaped to the adjacent hills, and saving themselves from the sweep- 

 ing flood, have left no traces of their bones in the silt, sand, or gravel. 



This linking on of geology with human history and the works of primeval art 

 comes legitimately under our consideration, and here we have just as full right to 

 discuss and test this question as my dear friends the geologists, the more so as it 

 was to this connexion between geology and history that Lord Wrottesley has called 

 the attention of the Association in his Presidential Address. 



Then, again, as we descend with the stream of time until we reach historical 

 records, the geographer next endeavours to throw light on the marches of the great 

 generals of antiquity and the sites of ancient cities ; and then truly the geologist, 

 geographer, and ethnologist become united with the antiquary and historian. Taking 

 our recent British example of the discovery of the Uriconium of the Romans at 

 Wroxeter in Shropshire— where is the geographer who has looked at the mounds of 

 earth which till recently covered that ancient city, and is not convinced, that causes 

 arising from the combined destruction by man and natural decay, have produced the 

 mass of overlying matter on the shores of the Severn, which has hidden from our 

 vision one of the famous Roman towns of Britain ? 



As I have delighted in tracing the sites of the battles of our great British chief 

 Caractacus*, and in unravelling the age of those Silurian rocks in which he made 

 the chief defences of his own kingdom, so I can now bring back to my imagination 

 how the legions of Ostorius may have been reinforced from that Uriconium, which 

 has just been disinterred from its earthy covering by the zealous labours of the 

 enlightened antiquary Wright, now a Secretary of this Section. 



In this manner we see, that as our inquiries necessarily stimulate us on the one 

 hand to recede to the very earliest traces of man upon the globe, so, on the other, 

 we are led on into that department of Art and Archaeology which connects the present 

 with the past, and are thus enabled to offer to the consideration of our associates 

 and auditors, subjects of prevailing and universal interest — subjects which will, I 

 doubt not, be handled with redoubled zest, now that we are again happily met 

 together for the third time in this very ancient seat of learning. 



In conclusion. Ladies and Gentlemen, I have now only to congratulate you on the 

 recent rapid extension of geographical science throughout the enlightened classes of 

 our countrymen. Brought up with a profound reverence for the works of God, and 

 a due admiration of the finest efforts of man, those sons of our gracious Sovereign 

 who are of sufficient age to profit by extensive travel, are already proving, that in 

 their spirit of adventure they are true Englishmen. The heir to the crown, after 

 rambles in our Scottish Highlands and travels on the continent, is about to quit this 

 his Alma Mater, and, to the great joy of our colonists, to visit North America, and 

 there rivet still more strongly the link which binds the loyal people of those pro- 

 vinces to the mother country ; whilst Prince Alfred, after cruizing in the Mediter- 

 ranean, is now sailing across the Southern Atlantic to Bahia, not without having 

 ascended on his way to the very summit of the Peak of Teneriffe. The willing co- 

 operation of the last and present President f of the Royal Geographical Society 

 demonstrates that our nobility are as much alive to the vast importance of our 

 subject as the middle classes of the community. On my own part, having laboured 

 zealously in diffusing geographical knowledge among my countrymen, I can truly say 

 that my gratification is now complete in seeing that this Section is second in popu- 

 larity and utility to no branch of the British Association. 



On the Caravan Routes from the Russian Frontier to Khiva, Bokhara 

 Kokhan, and Garkand, with suggestions for opening up a Trade between, 

 Central Asia and India, By T. W. Atkinson. 



* See the Preface to the ' Silurian System.' 



t Earl de Grey and Ripon, and Lord Ashburton. 



