TKANSACTIONS OF SKCXIOH C. 677 



South Wales, Cornwall, and the west of Ireland, whose fossils, If they ever 

 existed, have been entirely ohliterated ' by the changes which their matrix has 

 undergone, and whose very stratification has been lost by metamorphic action. 

 In such investigations some of our ablest geologists have now been for long occu- 

 pied with the best possible results, and Bonney, Callaway, Cole, Davies, Geikie, 

 Hicks, Hull, Judd, Lapworth, Peach, Sorby, Teall, and many others have been 

 labouring most zealously on these most ancient sediments, barren though they be, 

 of life forms and often destitute of bedding. 



It is refreshing, however, to find Professor Judd at times abandoning volcanoes 

 and turning his attention most successfully to lizard-hunting with Professor Huxley 

 , in the Elgin sandstones or studying the micro-organisms in the cores from the 

 Richmond boring or the valley of the Nile ; to see Dr. Hicks leaving his patron 

 St. David far behind and digging for bones in the prre-Glacial caves at St. 

 Asaph. Professor Lapworth, too, we see avoiding Cape Wrath and discoursing 

 on the beauties of Canadian Graptolites and the Cambrian rocks at Nuneaton. 



Thus there is still a bond of union connecting stratigraphical geology and 

 palaeontology and a common ground of interest whereon all geologists may meet. 

 It should then be our endeavour not to dissociate ourselves or our interest from 

 any subject of geological inquiry, but to maintain the union between all branches 

 of our science and with all workers in whatever held they may labour, adopting 

 for our motto the ancient maxim, ' Vis unita fortior est,.'' 



Especially should we adhere to the study of palaeontology, seeing that it is 

 indissolubly connected with one of the earliest chapters in the history of our science. 

 Indeed, through the evidence afforded by organic remains, William Smith (better 

 known by the title given to him by Professor Sedgwick, ' the father of English 

 geology ') was led to those remarkable generalisations as to the identification of 

 strata by means of their contained fossils, which have exercised so great an 

 influence over our own science during the past ninety years, and are still the 

 guiding principle on which our classification of the sedimentary rocks is based. 

 What Wollaston has done for mineralogy and crystallography, William Smith 

 initiated for stratigraphical geology ; and we cannot overlook our obligation to 

 Smith whilst we reverence the work of his distinguished contemporary, Wollaston. 



Palaeontology, or the study of ancient life forms, stands somewhat in relation 

 to geology as the science of archaeology does to history, or as zoology and botany 

 to physical geography. But, whereas the investigator of recent living forms deals 

 with entire organisms and can study both their morphological and their physio- 

 logical history as well as their geographical range, the palaeontologist has too 

 often to deal with imperfect remains, many of which have no exact modern 

 representative, and has, in consequence, to look for and seize upon minute 

 characters for his guidance, which the worker on recent forms would probably 

 neglect as too trivial for even specific diagnosis. 



The palaeontologist, if he would succeed, must in fact be a trained zoologist or 

 botanist, as the case may be, and an accomplished geologist also ; such combination 

 of qualities like those possessed by the earlier race of ' naturalists ' are less fre- 

 quently to be met with at the present day. They represent amongst us the same 

 class of men as the ' general practitioner ' does in medicine ; they are the all-round 

 good scientific men, but not ' specialists.' 



Biology, or the study of living things, has now become so vast a field that 

 everyone is compelled to take up some special subject, and in striving to master 

 it he makes his reputation as an authority on this or that group of organisms. 



There is much to be said in favour of such a method of working, but I hold 

 that everyone who so elects to spend his life must first of all pass through a 

 thorough grounding in general biology, and should on no account take up special 

 work until he has mastered thoroughly the general principles of scientific classi- 

 fication and the various types of organised beings, otherwise he will be for ever 



' Traces of fossils are said to have been met with in Donegal, and I have just 

 received evidence of Trilobites in the Upper Green Llanberis slates at Penrhyn, hitherto 

 considered unfossiliferous I 



