470 REPORT — 1901. 



and in petrology, but attention is being directed to the physiographic 

 features of the district worked by the Society, or to that branch of inquiry 

 ■which is nowadays known as geomorphology. In working out the history 

 of the local topographic forms the geologist and the geographer join 

 hands, and a grand field is opened up for just that kind of Avork which 

 many members may take up with great advantage. On the fascinating 

 subject of river development, for instance, I may point to recent papers 

 by Mr. Buckman, read to the Cottswold Field Club, and by Mr. Paul to 

 the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society. Each local Society 

 might well work out the history of the rivers in its own province, seeking 

 to explain the whims of each stream, why it flows in this direction rather 

 than in that, how it has flowed in the past, and how it may possibly flow 

 in the future. Mr. Cowper Reed's recent Sedgwick Essay on the Rivers 

 of East Yorkshire may be taken as an e.xample of what may be done in 

 this respect. In the modern view of river development, largely due to 

 American geologists, the stream is regarded as working its way down- 

 wards, cutting its channel deeper and deeper, until it eventually reaches 

 what Major Powell has called its ' base-level.' Then ceasing to work in 

 this way, it meanders sluggishly over its plain, until an uplift is effected 

 by some earth-movement, when a period of rejuvenescence sets in, and a 

 new cycle of erosive activity is initiated. In a somewhat similar manner 

 it may happen that a local Society, which in its youth was vigorous as a 

 mountain stream, gradually finds its energy on the wane, and may at 

 length reach a base-level of existence, when it flows placidly along, like 

 the river in its lower reaches, very beautiful, and no doubt useful in its 

 way, yet decidedly sluggish. But these annual meetings ought to act as 

 elevatory agencies, restoring strength and revivifying the working powers. 

 Let us hope, at any rate, that our present Conference may represent one 

 of these periodical uplifts, and may be the means of starting some local 

 Society \ipon a fresh career of healthy activity. 



I ask you to pardon me for having trespassed upon your time by these 

 prefatory remarks, and we shall pass now to the solid business which 

 Dr. Garson has to bring before us. It appears that a circular was 

 addressed on August 14 to the various Societies explaining that this 

 meeting was to be held, and that a communication would be received 

 from Mr. Read, the Keeper of British Antiquities in the British Museum, 

 respecting an Index Map of Pi'ehistoric Remains, but I fear he has not 

 been able to attend the meeting. Secondly, there is a communication to 

 be received from the Rev. J. O. Bevan, with a resolution to the effect 

 that the Committees of the Corresponding Societies be invited to lay 

 before their members the necessity of carrying on a systematic survey of 

 their counties or districts m respect to ethnography, ethnology, meteorology, 

 ornithology, &c. I am happy to say that Mr. Bevan is with us, and perhaps 

 he will favour us with his communication. 



Dr. Vaughan Cornish : On the matter of order, before proceeding 

 to a fresh subject for the consideration of this Conference, I for one 

 should like to know what has been done with reference to the communi- 

 cations brought before us last year, in which we were asked to do certain 

 things which we were told would be of advantage to science. I should 

 like to hear some report of the result of our efl"orts, and if it is not too late 

 I should rather like to know what was the result of the communications 

 and work which we did in the previous year ; and I think some of us 



