Geological Society of London. 237 



Mr. "Warington W. Smyth expressed the pleasure he felt in second- 

 ing the motion made by Prof. Prestwich, and said that it was with a 

 mingled feeling of sadness and satisfaction that he had heard the 

 announcement just made from the Chair. As a boy he had heard a 

 lecture on geology given by Sir Charles in a room in Hart Street, 

 Bloomsbury, and it was pleasant to recollect how interesting he made the 

 subject. His uudience might have consisted of twenty persons. Mr. 

 Smyth well remembered "young Lyell," as he used to be called by 

 Admiral Smyth, coming to visit him at his school at Bedford, and 

 challenging the boys to play at football, when he proved himself to be one 

 of the most active among them. He had a vivid recollection of a holiday 

 passed in boating on the Ouse, when Sir Charles Lyell had provided 

 himself with a plummet and string, and set himself to measure the 

 river. He tested its depth, velocity, sediments, etc., and showed the 

 party how, from such data, the volume of water that flowed down the 

 river, and the quantity of sediment that it carried to the sea, might be 

 calculated. Sir Charles was a great collector of facts with a purpose 

 in view. Mr. Smyth concluded by expressing his satisfaction at 

 finding that this Society was uppermost in the mind of his old friend 

 at the close as during the whole course of his well-spent life. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. " On the Occurrence of Phosphates in the Cambrian Rocks." By 

 Henry Hicks, Esq., P.G.S. 



In this paper the author showed from experiments that the Cambrian 

 strata in Wales contain a far greater amount of phosphate and carbonate 

 of lime than had hitherto been supposed. The results published by 

 Dr. Daubeny some years ago, and which have since received the sup- 

 port of some eminent geologists, were proved therefore to be entirely 

 fallacious when taken to represent the whole Cambrian series ; for 

 though some portions show only a trace of these ingredients, there are 

 other beds both interstratified with and underlying these series, which 

 contain them in unusually large proportions. The author, therefore, 

 objects to look upon Dr. Daubeny's experiments as tending in any way 

 to prove that the seas in which these deposits had accumulated con- 

 tained but little animal life, and that we had here approached the 

 borders of the lower limit of organic existence. He contended that 

 the presence of so much phosphate of lime, and also of carbonate of 

 lime, as was now proved by analyses made by Mr. Hudleston, F.C.S., 

 Mr. Hughes, F.C.S., and himself, to be present in series of consider- 

 able thickness in the Longmynd group, Menevian group, and Tremadoc 

 group, proved that animal life did exist in abundance in these early 

 seas, and that even here it must be considered that we were far from 

 the beginning of organic existence. The amount of phosphate of lime 

 in some of the beds was in the proportion of nearly 10 per cent., and 

 of carbonate of lime over 40 per cent. The proportion of phosphate 

 of lime, therefore, is greater than is found in most of what have been 

 considered the richest of recent formations. The amount of P 2 5 was 

 also found to increase in proportion to the richness of the deposit in 

 organic remains. It was found that all animal and vegetable life had 

 contained it from the very earliest time ; but it was apparent that 

 the Crustacea were the chief producers of it in the early seas ; and of 

 the Crustacea, the Trilobites more particularly. It was always found 



