852 REPORT— 1898. 



Section C— GEOLOGY. 

 Peesident of the Section — W. H. Hudleston, M.A., F.E.S. 



THURSDAY, SEPTE3IBEE. 8. 



The President delivered the following Address : — 



Introductory. — About this time last year British geologists were scattered over 

 no inconsiderable portion of the noithern hemisphere, partly in consequence of 

 the International Geological Congress at St. Petersburg, and partly owing to the 

 meeting of tlie British Association at Toronto. From the shores of the Pacific at 

 Vancouver on the one hand, to the highlands of Armenia on the other, there were 

 parties engaged in the investigation of some of the grandest physical features of 

 the earth's surface. 



The geologists in Canada were especially favoured in the matter of excursions. 

 Everything on the American continent is so big that a considerable amount of 

 locomotion is required to enable visitors to realise the more prominent facts. If 

 there is no great variety of formation in Canada, yet the Alpha and Omega of the 

 geological scale are there most fully represented, from the great Laurentian com- 

 plex at the base to the amazing evidences of glacial action, in a country where 

 it is possible to travel for a whole day without once quitting a glaciated surface. 

 But Piussia presented equal attractions, and in Finland almost identical conditions 

 were observed — viz. glacial deposits on Archaean rocks. The great central plain of 

 Russia, too, with its ample Mesozoic deposits often abounding in fossils, ofl'ered 

 attractions which to some may have been stronger than the mineral riches of the 

 Urals or the striking scenery of the Caucasus. 



It seems almost incredible, even in this age of extraordinary locomotion, that 

 scenes so wide apart were visited by British geologists last autumn. This year we 

 are more domestic in our arrangements, and Section C finds its tent pitched once 

 more on the classic banks of the Bristol Avon, and in that part of England which 

 has no small claim to be regarded as the cradle of English geology. But we may 

 go a step further. For if the strata observed by William Smith during the six 

 years' cutting of the Somersetshire coal-canal imprinted their lessons on liis recep- 

 tive mind, it is also equally true that Devonshire, Cornwall, and AVest Somerset 

 first attracted the attention of the ' Ordnance Geological Survey.' And thus it 

 comes to pass that the region which lies between the Bristol Channel and the 

 English Channel claims the respect of geologists in all parts of the world, not only 

 as the birthplace of stratigraphical palaeontology, but also as the original home of 

 systematic geological survey. 



The city of Bristol lies on the confines of this region, where it shades off north- , 

 westwards into the Palaeozoics of Wales and north-eastwards into the Mesozoics | 

 of the Midland Counties. There are probably few districts which display an equal 

 amount of variety witliin a limited circumference. The development of the various I 

 formations was excellently portrayed by Dr. Wright, when he occupied this chair I 



