532 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 



Section C— GEOLOGY. 

 President op the Section.— G. "W. Lamplugh, F.R.S., F.G.S. 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 2. 

 Tlie President delivered the following Address : — 



On British Drifts and the Interglacial Problem! 



If a personal reminiscence be pardonable, let me first recall that twenty-five 

 years ago, at a meeting of this Section in this same room, I ventured, while still a 

 youth, to contribute my mite towards the right understandiug of the Yorkshire 

 drifts. The occasion will always remain memorable to me, for it was my first 

 introduction to a scientific audience, and the encouraging words spoken by 

 Ramsay from this chair impressed themselves upon me and gave me confidence to 

 persevere in the path of investigation. 



Finding myself again in these surroundings, it seems fitting that with fuller 

 experience and less diffidence I should resume the subject by bringing before you 

 some further results of my study of the drifts. But it "is with just a sigh that I 

 recollect how on the former occasion I was able to reach a definite conclusion on a 

 simple problem from direct observation, and had confidence that all problems 

 might be solved by the same method ; whereas now I find confronting me an 

 intractable mass of facts and opinions, of my own and other people, terribly 

 entangled, out of which it seems to grow ever more difficult to extract the true 

 interpretation. 



That the glacial deposits possess some quality peculiarly stimulating to the 

 imagination will, I am sure, be recognised by everyone who has acquaintance 

 with glacialists or with glacial literature. The diversity and strongly localised cha- 

 racters of these deposits, together with their aspect of superficial simplicity, oft'er 

 boundless opportunity to the ingenious interpreter ; and therefore it is not surprising 

 that along with the rapid accumulation of facts relating to bygone glaciation 

 there should have arisen much divergent opinion on questions of interpretation. 

 Nor need we regret this result, since these diflerences of opinion have again and 

 again afforded the stimulus for research that would not otherwise have been 

 undertaken. 



The Interglacial Problem. 



One of the most important points on which there has been, and still is, wide 

 difi'erence of opinion among glacial geologists, both in this country and abroad, 



