ON THE LINGULA-FLAGS OF SOUTH WALES. 281 



we have presented to our minds a new line of therapeutical inquiry run- 

 ning somewhat parallel with that line of inquiry so prominent amongst our 

 learned and more exact brethren of the Chemical Section, which they follow 

 under the term " the law of substitution." I would ask, — Is there not a 

 physiological law to be worked out similar in character ? and might we not by 

 looking into it become more sure and determinate in our knowledge and 

 application of medicinal remedies ? "What if, after having learned the exact 

 action on the economy of the organic bases, we followed the chemist, and 

 by taking the compounds moulded on those bases, we learned their true phy- 

 siological vahies '? Surely, if we did this, long though the labour should be, 

 we might in time venture to lay down. 



" This osier cage of ours 

 With baleful weeds and precious juiced flowers" — 



and without forgetting the words of that wise friar, whom we of physic still 

 so blindly follow, 



" Oh rnickle is the powerful grace, that lies 

 In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities," 



might begin to approach to that accuracy of knowledge, the absence of which 

 makes us so weak and the charlatan so presumptuous ; the possession of 

 which makes the other physical philosophers so proof against presumption 

 and so proudly certain in their stupendous knowledge. 



In conclusion, were I a youth, just entering one of the best professions, I 

 should be glad to devote my first years simply and solely to the branch of 

 therapeutical research which I have here so faintly sketched out. As it is, 

 I can but feel fortunate in that, supported by the fostering care of this Asso- 

 ciation, I have been enabled to do even so much as turn the first sod in this 

 great and novel field of labour, — I mean the investigation, physiologically, of 

 the organic chemical compounds on a plan that aims at least at a principle in 

 science, however obscurely it may have been propounded. To say I shall be 

 happy to do more, and again to lay what I may have done before this Section, 

 is to say the least I can in return for the kind consideration I have received 

 at your hands. 



Report on further Researches in the Lingula-flags of South Wales. 

 By Henry Hicks. With some Notes on the Sections and Fossils, 

 by J. W. Salter, F.G.S., A.L.S. 



The district to which the following Eeport refers, and for the examination of 

 which a grant was made at the Meeting of the British Association last year, 

 is in the N.W. of Pembrokeshire, and in the immediate neighbourhood of 

 the city of St. David's. The principal section occurs to the S. and S.E. of 

 St. David's, along the north coast of St. Bride's Bay. It is, moreover, 

 bounded by two well-marked faults, which run up in a JsT.-westerly direc- 

 tion, and which serve rather to isolate it. One only of these faults is marked 

 on the Survey Map, that forming its eastern boundary, and which may be 

 seen running up almost immediately behind the now well-known creek of 

 Porth-y-rhaw, and which cuts off the upper and principal part of the Middle 

 Lingula-flags, leaving only a few hundred feet to rest conformably upon the 

 Lower Lingula-flags. The western fault occurs directly to the south of 

 St. David's, at a place called Nun's Well, and just at the spot where the 

 Conglomerate and lowest Cambrian beds are exposed on the coast line, so 



