De la Beche will derive the greatest advantage, when he turns his 

 attention to these districts, in a large portion of which the boundaries 

 of the different oolitic formations were laid down upon the Ordnance 

 Map by Mr. Lonsdale. 



The enumeration of all these duties and labours— many of them 

 of most difficult execution — still leaves unrecorded, what every work- 

 ing Member of this Society must feel, that in the secession of Mr. 

 Lonsdale we have also lost our wise and friendly adviser on every 

 obscure and difficult point. Who among the active promoters of 

 our science has not derived from him willing and devoted assist- 

 ance ? How often, when balancing difficulties inseparable from our 

 subject, have we not benefited by his sound opinions ! And with 

 what disinterestedness and real kindness were they not offered ! 

 Where is the memoir in our Transactions, or the separate works 

 recently published by our Members, which has not been materially 

 improved by his suggestions ? In short, I am certain I speak the 

 sentiments of all when I say, that, from the moment of his appoint- 

 ment to the day of his retirement, Mr.Lonsdale infused a truly gene- 

 rous and highly philosophic spirit into every act and every proceed- 

 ing with which he M^as connected. No expression, therefore, of our 

 gratitude can be too strong when we record his labours as a 

 geologist, the value we entertain of his official services, and 

 the pang of deep regret we experience in his retirement from this 

 Society. 



For a while the vacancy occasioned by the retirement of Mr. 

 Lonsdale was not filled up; but the value which Avas attached 

 to the office was attested by the fact, that nine candidates 

 claimed our suffrage. The selection of Professor E. Forbes 

 leads me naturally to report to you the principal geological results 

 at which our new Curator has arrived during his recent researches 

 in the Mediterranean seas, as they are distinctly connected with 

 the award of the Wollaston fund during a former year, to assist 

 him in prosecuting his inquiries in the Mediterranean or Red 

 Seas. 



Mr. Forbes observed marine tertiary strata abounding in shells at 

 an elevation of 4000 feet in the Lycian Taurus, and he fixed the age 

 of two distinct tertiary groups in the Greek islands. He also deter- 

 mined that the freshwater deposits of Asia Minor and the Sporades 

 belong to two separate groups, the relations of which with the marine 

 tertiary strata prove that there were two eras of submergence and 

 elevation, in that region, during the Tertiary period. He instituted a 

 careful comparison between the organic remains of these beds and 

 the living inhabitants of the adjacent sea, noticing the conditions 

 under which each are found, and thus learnt that in the newest of 

 these tertiaries (Newer Pliocene), the remains of such species as 

 have ceased to exist in the Mediterranean are, for the most part, 

 at present living in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean ; and hence he very 

 logically infers, that the former conditions of the Newer Pliocene 

 period, which imply a similar and continuous submarine area, were 

 interrupted by that elevation of land which separated the Egean and 



