﻿Geological Society of London. 183 



Mr. Hulke replied:— I cannot doubt, Sir, that the award of this Medal will afford 

 Prof. Marsh the highest satisfaction. His services to Palaeontology have just been 

 so fully enumerated by yourself as not to leave me anything to add in his behalf; 

 they are so numerous and so important as to mark an epoch in this line of research. 

 The present recognition of the value of his labours will doubtless prove an incentive 

 to fresh work. 



The President then proceeded to read his Anniversary Address, in which he re- 

 ferred to the fact that the strict uniformitarianism of former days is giving way to a 

 school which insists upon the recognition of a scientific cosmogony, and attempts the 

 explanation of the gradual evolution of the globe. He noticed the characters of the 

 great curves of the surface produced by the earliest contractions of the globe in 

 cooling, and especially discussed the effect of the forces to which the curving, folding, 

 reversing, and upheaval of rocks are due, in the production of heat below the surface 

 of the earth, and the manifestations of this interior heat in vulcanicity and meta- 

 morphism. He also referred to the rate of formation of deposits, the necessary 

 extension of geological time, the conditions of denudation, the extent and cosmical 

 relations of the atmosphere of our earth, and the effects upon geological phenomena 

 of a probably higher and more abundant atmosphere in past ages. Stratigraphical 

 geology, he remarked, has become synthetic ; and instead of seeking for sharp breaks 

 between formations, characterized by universal destructions of existing and creations 

 of new forms, geologists now seek for evidence of the continuity of geological pheno- 

 mena, the so-called "passage-beds" being recognized as not geological anomalies, 

 but links in the chain of evidence regarding the variety of the synchronous changes 

 on the surface of the earth, and of the irregularity and localization of the grand 

 movements of its crust. These statements were illustrated by reference to various 

 formations in different parts of the earth. The President also briefly discussed the 

 modern doctrine of the origin of organic forms by descent with modification. The 

 Address was prefaced by some obituary notices of Fellows and Foreign Members 

 deceased during the past year, including Prof. Ehrenberg, Baron von Waltershausen, 

 Prof. Brongniart, Mr. E. Billings, Dr. H. C. Barlow, Dr. H. Credner, Mr. T. G. 

 Wyndham, and Mr. David Forbes. 



The Ballot for the Council and Officers was taken, and the following were duly 

 elected for the ensuing year: — Prexident : Prof. P. Martin Duncan, M.B., F.R.S. 

 rice- Presidents: Sir P. de M. Grey-Egerton, Bart., M.P., F.E..S.; R. Etheridge, 

 Esq., F.R.S. ; John Evans, Esq., F.R.S; Prof. J. Prestwich, M.A., F.R.S. 

 Secretaries: J. W. Hulke, Esq., F.R.S.; Rev. T. Wiltshire, M.A. Foreign 

 Secretary: Warington W. Smyth, Esq., M.A., F.R.S. Treasurer: J. Gwya 

 Jeffreys, LL.D., F.R.S. Council: H. Bauerman, Esq.; Rev. T. G. Bonney, M.A.; 

 W. Carruthers, Esq., F.R.S; Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins, M.A., F.R.S.; Prof. P. 

 Martin Duncan, M.B., F.R.S.; Sir P. de M. Grey-Egerton, Bart., M.P., F.R.S.; 

 R. Etheridge, Esq., F.R.S.; John Evans, Esq., F.R.S.; Henry Hicks, Esq.; W. 

 H. Hudleston, Esq., M.A.; J. W. Hulke, Esq., F.R.S.; J. Gwyn Jeffreys, LL.D., 

 F.R.S.; Prof J. W. Judd; Prof. T. McKenny Hughes, M.A.; Prof. J. Morris; 

 Prof J. Prestwich, M.A., F.R.S.; R. H. Scott, Esq., M.A., F.R.S.; Earl of 

 Selkirk, F.R.S.; Samuel Sharp, Esq., F.S.A.; Warington W. Smyth, Esq., M.A., 

 F.R.S.; Admiral T. A. B. Spratt, C.B., F.R.S.; Rev. T. Wiltshire, M.A., F.L.S.; 

 Henry Woodward, Esq., F.R.S. 



III.— February 21st, 1877.— Prof. P. Martin Duncan, M.B., F.R.S., President, 

 in the Chair. — The following communications were read : — 



1 . "On Possible Displacements of the Earth's Axis of Figure produced by Elevations 

 and Depressions of her Surface." By the Rev. J. F. Twisden, M.A., Professor of 

 Mathematics in the Staff College. Communicated by John Evans, Esq. , F.R.S., F.G.S. 



The object of this paper is to discuss the question of the possibility of a displacement 

 of the earth's axis of figui-e under the conditions indicated in a question (suggesting 

 the possibility of a displacement of the axis of figure from the axis of rotation 

 amounting to Yb'^ or 20°) put to mathematicians in a passage of the Anniversary 

 Address, delivered to the Geological Society, by its President, J. Evans, Esq., on the 

 18th February, 1876. The treatment of the question is kinematical; the forces by 

 which the elevations and depressions might be effected do not come under discussion. 

 In determining numerically the amount of the deviation from the formulas investigated, 



