180 MevieiDS — Transactions of the Cumberland Association. 



out to some extent in other English counties, might well be adopted 

 in all, where more than one local society exists ; for it is a great 

 advantage to have registered in one yearly volume all the important 

 work done in various branches of Natural History. The Cumberland. 

 Association embraces societies at Whitehaven, Keswick, "Workington, 

 Maryport, Longtown, Carlisle, Ambleside. Silloth, Brampton, Penrith, 

 and Windermere : and the Presidents of these local societies are 

 Yice-Presidents of the Association. Botany, Zoology, Geology, 

 Mineralogy, and Archaeology are well represented in the present 

 volume. 



The contributions to Geology include a paper on the " Water 

 Supply in the Carlisle Basin," by T. V. Holmes. He concludes that 

 it would be impossible to mention any part of the British Isles, of 

 similar extent, in which the geological construction of the district 

 more decidedly favours water supply, by means of deep artesian 

 wells, than does that of the Carlisle Basin. 



An account of the " Graptolites of the Skiddaw Slates " is given 

 by Mr. J. Postlethwaite ; he furnishes lists of species and of localities. 

 Of about 250 British species, forty have been found in the Skiddaw 

 Slates. 



Mr. J. F. Ciosthwaite discourses about " The German Miners at 

 Keswick," who settled in the parish in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 

 Probably the most interesting paper is the biography of " Professor 

 Eobert Harkness, F.E.S., F.G.S.," by Mr. J. G. Goodchild. The life 

 and labours of this eminent geologist are intimately connected with 

 the Lake District ; for although" he held the post of Professor of 

 Geology at Cork for five-and-twenty years, his earliest geological 

 work was done in Lancashire, Cumberland, and Dumfriesshire ; and 

 he returned again and again to study the rocks of the Sol way Basin 

 and of the mountainous region of the Lake country. His papers, 

 many of them published in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological 

 Society, are well known to geologists ; and Mr. Goodchild, who has 

 had excellent opportunities of studying in the same field, observes 

 in reference to the labours of Prof. Harkness in Edenside : " Here 

 and there the Geological Survey has been led to differ from the 

 author in matters of minor detail ; but in the main, the points of 

 agreement are so numerous as to form matter for surprise to every 

 one that realizes the full extent of the difficulties that Harkness 

 dealt with and overcame single-handed so many years ago." 



Space forbids our entering into further particulars of the work of 

 Prof. Harkness, but we cannot refrain from drawing attention to a 

 passage in a letter from J. B. Jukes, who remarks (1862), " I believe 

 the Lower Old Ked to be uppermost Silurian, and the uppermost 

 Old Eed to be lowermost Carboniferous." Other interesting letters 

 from Sedgwick, Murchison, and Lyell are inserted in this Biography. 

 In one of Sedgwick's (1865), he says, "I proved many a long year 

 since that the fossils of the Magnesian Limestone group were 

 essentially Palajozoic. But physically the group seemed part of the 

 New Bed. So the matter stood. I suggested no change of correla- 

 tion. So a year afterwards Phillips proposed (at the Geological 



