450 Notices of Memoirs — British Association — 



museum migbt be built by the University, amply capable of 

 containing its future collections ; and lastly, that I might bring 

 together a class of students who would listen to my teaching, 

 support me by their sympathy, and help me by the labour of their 

 hands." 



We, visiting the scene of his labours more than thirty years after 

 he wrote these words, witness the realisation of Sedgwick's hopes. 

 The collection is not only worthy of the University, but has become 

 Dne of the finest in the kingdom. It is housed in this magnificent 

 memorial to the name of Sedgwick, on the completion of which 

 I offer for myself, and I trust I may do so on behalf of this Section, 

 also, hearty congratulations to the Woodwardian Professor and his 

 staff. Finally, I may remind you that at this moment the Director- 

 ship of the Geological Survey and the Presidential Chair of the 

 Geological Society ai-e held by Cambridge men ; that the sister 

 University has not disdained to borrow from the same source ; and 

 lastly, that it is upon Cambridge chiefly that we have learned to 

 depend for recruiting the ranks of the Geological Survey, as proofs 

 that Cambridge has maintained her place among the foremost of the 

 British schools of geology. 



Though he had taken a leading part at former meetings of the 

 Association, Sedgwick's advanced age in 1862 necessitated rest, and 

 this Section was deprived to a great extent of the charm of his 

 presence. It benefited, however, in the fact that the Presidential 

 Chair was occupied by one of his most distinguished pupils. Jukes 

 was one of those men the extent of whose knowledge is not readily 

 fathomed. It has been my experience, and probably that of many 

 others in this room, to find that some conclusion, formed after 

 prolonged labour and perhaps fondly imagined to be new, has been 

 arrived at years before by one of the old geologists. Such will 

 be the experience of the man who follows Jukes' footsteps. Turning 

 to his Address given to this Section in 1862, we find much of what 

 is now written about earth-movement and earth-sculpture forestalled 

 by him, with this difference, however, that whereas the custom is 

 growing of using a phraseology which may sometimes be useful, but 

 is generally far from euphonious, and not always intelligible, he 

 states his arguments in plain, forcible English. 



It may raise a smile to find that Jukes tliought it necessary in 

 1862 to combat the view that deep and narrow vallej's had originated 

 as fissures in the crust of the earth, and that the Straits of Dover 

 must have been formed in this way, because the strata correspond on 

 its two sides. But we shall do well to remember that the smile will 

 be at the public opinion of that day, and not at Jukes himself In no 

 branch of geology have our views changed more than in the 

 recognition of the potency of the agents of denudation. In 1862 it 

 was necessary to present preliminary arguments and to draw 

 inferences which in 1904 may be taken as granted. 



The evidences of the prodigious movements to which strata have 

 been subjected, and of the extent to which denudation has ensued, 

 cannot fail to strike the most superficial observer. Both mountain 



