659 
a state of great advancement through the labours of Owen, Brown, 
Stokes, and other naturalists, has been cultivated with much zeal in 
one department by Mr. Bowerbank. Having formerly shown that 
the flints and cherts of the cretaceous system were originally com- 
posed (at least in great part) of sponges, he has lately pointed out, 
that the fossil bodies in question did not differ as he had supposed 
from the horny sponges of commerce, having recently discovered 
siliceous spicula in the latter. After a detailed and laborious exa- 
mination of moss-agates and jaspers from Oberstein, Sicily, and 
Hindostan, he sees in them all the proofs, more or less distinct, of 
tubular fibres—of what he believes to be gemmules—and the exist- 
ence of vascular structure, and hence he infers, that sponges have 
had a still greater share than he originally supposed in the produc- 
tion of the solid strata. In the Egyptian jaspers Mr. Bowerbank 
detects between the layers composing a specimen hundreds of 
foraminifere, often difficult to distinguish from species known in 
the ealeaire grossier of Paris. Though as geologists and mineralo- 
gists we may be startled by the announcement of signs of former 
life in the geodes of Oberstein, because they are certainly, like our 
trap nodules of Scotland, inclosed in rocks of plutonic origin, I am 
quite prepared to admit, with Mr. Bowerbank, that in many jaspers, 
at all events, the mieroscope should develope former types of life. 
When we consider the short period which has elapsed since these, 
the very minutest secrets of our solid strata, have been revealed to us, 
and by how few inquirers they have been studied, we may well admire 
the results. At the same time, seeing the great difficulties attending 
the study of these minute bodies, and the possibility that a certain 
amount of error may arise from the examination of such of these 
organisms as are imperfect under very high magnifying powers, I 
quite coincide with your late President, that we ought not to adopt 
too rapidly all the conclusions of the microscopists, however we must 
cordially thank them for the steps they are endeavouring to 
establish. , 
PROVINCIAL GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 
When presiding over this Society ten years ago, I congratulated 
my associates on the increasing taste for our science by the rapid 
rise of provincial scientific institutions*. ._ I will not now endeavour 
to enumerate all these Societies, since through my ignorance I may ~ 
omit to mention some which are well entitled to notice; but I will 
simply advert to two of the most recently established of these bodies, 
and whose objects are exclusively the same as our own, viz. the Man- 
chester Geological Society, and the Dudley and Midland Geologieal 
Society. 
The first of these, presided over by Lord Francis Egerton, has 
just published the first volume of its Transactions, which contains 
much good local geology, from the pens of our deceased member 
Mr. Bowman and Mr. E. W. Binney, and valuable descriptions of 
* Geol. Proceedings, vol. i. p. 377. 
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