PROCEEDINGS 



THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



Vol. IV. Part IIL 1845. No. 104. 



February 26. 1845. 



John Fowler, Esq. C. E., of Stockton-on-Tees, was elected a 

 Fellow of this Society. 



The following communications were read : — 



1 . On the Miocene Tertiary Strata of Maryland, Virginia, and 

 North and South Carolina. By Charles Lyell, Esq., 

 M.A., F.R.S., &c. 



Between the hilly country of the United States and the Atlantic 

 there intervenes a low and nearly level region, occupied princi- 

 pally by beds of marl, clay, and sand of the cretaceous and tertiary 

 formations. Maclure, in 1817, in his " Geology of the United 

 States," laid down, with no small approach to accuracy, on a coloured 

 map, the general limits of this great plain, and of the granitic dis- 

 trict lying immediately to the westward. He also pointed out, that 

 at the junction of these great geological regions almost all the great 

 rivers descend suddenly by falls or rapids of moderate height, as 

 the Delaware at Trenton, the Schuylkill near Philadelphia, the 

 Potomac near Washington, the James River at Richmond, Virgi- 

 nia, the Savannah at Augusta in Geoi'gia, and many others. At 

 these points, therefore, th^ navigation is stopped, and a great 

 many large cities have sprung up ; so that the line which marks 

 the western boundary of the tertiary, and the eastern of the 

 granitic region, is at the same time one of peculiar geological, 

 geographical, and political interest. 

 VOL. IV. part in. T T 



