476 Reviews—Prof. A. C. Ramsay's Address, 
Ramsay, LL.D., F.R.S., V.P.G.S., has entirely ignored his character 
as “the Chief of many Sections,” and has devoted his Address simply 
to his favourite study—geology. His text is “On the Recurrence 
of Certain Phenomena in Geological Time,” and may be considered 
as a strictly Uniformitarian discourse. As the “Times” and every 
other paper has given it more or less in full, we need not attempt 
a task quite beyond our space here. The subjects chosen to illustrate 
the proposition were “ Metamorphism;” ‘“ Volcanos ;” « Mountain 
Chains ;” “ Salt and Salt-Lakes ;” “ Fresh-water” —“ Lakes and Estu- 
aries; ‘Glacial Phenomena.” We can only find space for the 
Conciuston, which We give in Prof. Ramsay’s own words :-— 
“In opening this address, I began with the subject of the oldest 
metamorphic rocks that I have seen—the Laurentian strata. It is 
evident to every person who thinks on the subject that their depo- 
sition took place far from the beginning of recognized geological time. 
For there must have been older rocks by the degradation of which 
they were formed. And if, as some American geologists affirm, 
there are on that continent metamorphic rocks of more ancient dates 
than the Laurentian strata, there must have been rocks more ancient 
still to afford materials for the deposition of these pre-Laurentian 
strata. 
Starting with the Laurentian rocks, I have shown that the phe- 
nomena of metamorphism of strata have been continued from that 
date all through the later formations, or groups of formations down 
to and including part of the Eocene strata in some parts of the world. 
In like manner I have shown that ordinary volcanic rocks have 
been ejected in Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Jurassic, Cretaceo- 
oolitic, Cretaceous, Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene times, and from 
all that I have seen or read of these ancient volcanos, I have no 
reason to believe that volcanic forces played a more important part 
in any period of geological time than they do in this our modern 
epoch. 
So, also, mountain-chains existed before the deposition of the 
Silurian rocks, others of later date before the Old Red Sandstone 
strata were formed, and the chain of the Ural before the deposition 
of the Permian beds. The last great upheaval of the Alleghany 
Mountains took place between the close of the formation of the 
Carboniferous strata of that region and the deposition of the New 
Red Sandstone. 
According to Darwin, after various oscillations of level, the Cor- 
dillera underwent its chief upheaval after the Cretaceous epoch, and 
all geologists know that the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Carpathians, 
the Himalayas, and other mountain-chains (which I have named) 
underwent what seems to have been their chief great upheaval after 
the deposition of the Eocene strata, while some of them were again 
lifted up several thousands of feet after the close of the Miocene 
epoch. 
The deposition of salts from aqueous solutions in inland lakes and 
lagoons appears to have taken place through all time—through Silu- 
rian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, 
Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene epochs—and it is going on now. 
