Rmews — Geological Society's Journal. 261 



plates contained therein ; and this, together with the tables of the 

 published Monographs, and their sequence, accompanying the 

 volume, will save the subscribers all trouble in future as to the plan 

 of binding these somewhat complicated fasciculi. Stibscribers also 

 can now get the parts of Monographs issued to them in separate 

 covers. 



II. QUAKTEKLY JoURNAL OF THE GEOLOGICAL SoCIETT OF LONDON. 



Vol. XXII. Part II. May, 1866. 



IHE Anniversary Address of the Ex-President, W. J. Hamilton, 

 Esq., F.E.S., and a paper on the Conditions of the Deposition. 

 >f Coal, by Dr. J. W. Dawson, E.E.S., F.G.S., of Montreal, occupy 

 he greater part of this Number of the Geological Society's Journal. 

 The Annual Eeport contains mattei> bespeaking the very pros- 

 perous condition of the Society. Sixty-six new Fellows were elected 

 during the year 1865, amongst whom we notice many Civil and 

 Mining Engineers. The well-being of the Society is also indicated 

 by the satisfactory state of its finances ; the income of the past year 

 being stated to have exceeded the expenditure by £268, and the 

 funded property to be £4560, while the long list of Donors shows 

 that the Society is not wanting in supporters. 



The President's Address consists chiefly of abstracts and notices 

 of the most important geological works published during the last 

 year, and forms a very useful summary of the progress of geology. 

 iMr. Hamilton reviews the progress of the Government Geological 

 surveys — of the United Kingdom, of Canada, and of India. He 

 lotices the recent publications of the Palseontographical Society ; 

 he discussion on the structure of Eozoon, the arguments on which, 

 ire, " almost against Ms own convictions," in favour of the views of 

 Drs. Carpenter, Dawson, and Sterry Hunt. He gives a long account 

 of the third part of M. Barrande's ''Defense des Colonies," and an 

 interesting notice of Mr. Campbell's " Erost and Fire." 



Mr. Hamilton suggests that it would be a deserving task for any 

 •geologist to get a sufficient number of sections from all parts of the 

 world and endeavour to fill up the breaks in the succession of the 

 sedimentary rocks, for they are only local, and " we should then see 

 by what almost insensible gradations the crust of the earth has been 

 successively formed, and what were the conditions of life, in some 

 places, and their partial extinction in others." He also suggests 

 the inquiry to be made — '•' whether the plastic condition of the earth 

 to which its oblate spheroidal form has been attributed, be not owing 

 to an aqueous rather than to an igneous origin," and " whether the 

 solidification of the earth began at the circumference, after its for- 

 mation, as is assumed by the advocates of the central-heat theory, or 

 whether the formation of the earth may not have commenced with a 

 central nucleus consisting of an aqueous paste gradually increasing 

 in size, as matter was deposited around it, from the circumambient 

 fluids and gases which fllled the solar space before solid matter was 



